What's on your minds?:
Schroth, Raymond A.
centralization of land in the hands of a few huge conglomer- ates. They argue that underlying the "crisis" is the govern- F ARMING hasn't been a way of life for most Americans mental...
...plan resembles price supports to farmers, only here the incenremoving tax subsidies on capital gains which encourage in- tive goes to shippers who must find markets for farmers' vestments in farming equipment and land expansion...
...program seem uncertain at home and unrealistic abroad...
...Farmers and farm workers ously decreasing government subsidies...
...Kin . calls for fewer farmers, more efficient farms, and production ship with nature lies at the root of the rooftop gardens, that matches, not exceeds, demand...
...The bishops suggest that government could: is not certain...
...In complex conundrum: government policies coupled with farmaddition, several bills in Congress look promising...
...That's bad most the largest producers...
...Will such policies foster a centralized business model or preserve the image fade...
...longer ann institution...
...goods, benefiting them indirectly...
...Commonweal: 548...
...subsidy program for corn, wheat, and soybeans that would • Close tax incentives for non-farmers seeking tax shel- work like current subsidies for cotton and rice...
...This ment follow rather then exceed the actual decline in value...
...primarily a businessman, and the rest of us who don't...
...That means limiting the use of farm losses to reduce taxes sell products at world prices - about half U.S...
...centralization of land in the hands of a few huge conglomerates...
...Currently, taxpayers are not just another category of business entrepreneurs and underwrite federal subsidies to farmers...
...Perhaps not as long as there are two kinds small- and medium-size farms and the farm culture associated of people in this country: those who think a farmer is with them...
...This proposal addresses the Fortunately, the Tax Reform Bill does include several gen- international market dilemma...
...Shippers would ters...
...Should country people, honest, hard-working, neighborly...
...All this could be accom- green-thumb public plots, and herbs on window sills...
...of the American farmer...
...NevertheHarkin (D-Iowa) and Representative Richard A.Gephardt less, two questions - apparently, but not inevitably represent(D-Missouri), is consonant with the goals of the bishops in two ing conflicting interests - must be squarely faced...
...payments tend to increase in proportion to acreage, benefiting and cuts in production mean reducing farm acreage...
...unacknowledged premise: if government policy created to- Neither the inevitable modernization of the family farm day's plight for the medium-sized farmer, it also created the - air-conditioned cabs on combines and stretching par . opportunity seized by agribusiness...
...And while the bill calls for production fully thwarting the practice of some producers who divide limits of less than 35 percent for any single commodity, large parcels of land into smaller units to collect multiple curbing to a degree reduced acreage, the effects of such a subsidies...
...small-town, community lifestyle that produces good How then should government policies be redirected...
...prices - with on non-farm income...
...Utilize mandatory production controls to reduce Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas) has proposed an export surpluses, thereby increasing prices and income to farmers...
...claiming the necessity of mandatory production controls...
...Whether these costs would cancel each other out annual sales...
...They argue that underlying the "crisis" is the govern- F ARMING hasn't been a way of life for most Americans mental blunder of protectionism which has shielded farmers for many years, but its place in the national psyche from the rigors of a free-market economy and undermined remains strong...
...The image is one must pose for Americans, changes in government subsidies of independence, sweatful toil over one's own land, could effect corporation-owned as well as family-owned struggles against locusts, flood, and drought within a farms...
...Catholic bishops, writing in the food and agriculture section of their draft pastoral letter on the economy (chap- surpluses, raise prices and farmer income, while simultaneter 5), reject the business model...
...But the problems with the bill are obvious: • Limit income support payments to those farmers with prices, if driven up, would be uncompetitive on the world genuine need...
...Could it undo both...
...The How can our import/export policies cultivate continued agbill's purpose is to cut production, and thereby reduce ricultural self-sufficiency for nations abroad...
...Most farmers are now eligible, and present market which is one reason behind present federal subsidies...
...news for one-third of the nation's family farmers already on • Place a ceiling on payments to any one producer, care- the brink of bankruptcy...
...And plished by a self-regulating market economy without govern- even though the Sunday drive through the country is no ment controls...
...The U.S...
...losses from passive investments, more realistic depreciation Perhaps only a combination of strategies will solve this rates, and taxing capital gains at the standard income rate...
...What kind respects: the central priority of saving the family farm, and of farmers and farm culture are we willing to support at home...
...making capital depreciation on equip- the federal government paying shippers the difference...
...It does not address the taxeral proposals which also apply to farming, such as reducing payers' burden or the specific plight of family farmers...
...Farming, that sends city slickers to the corner kiosk to buy Mother they say, is a business just like any other, and this situation Earth News, or to the department store for overalls...
...under this bill, conhired laborers," they say as they urge federal policymakers to sumers would bear a 3-5 percent price increase at the grocery give priority to family farmers with less than $200,000 in store instead...
...it is comforting to know the fields However, behind the rhetoric of market efficiency lies the are still there...
...ers' cooperatives, diversified crops, and a recommitment to The Save the Family Farm Act, sponsored by Senator Tom thrift even after existing farm debts are restructured...
...Aside eels of land nor the rise of agribusiness has yet disfig= .. from the myriad questions a centralized farming economy ured the portrait...
...It is camaraderie, not mere romanticism, efficiency, all at unwarranted taxpayer expense...
Vol. 113 • October 1986 • No. 18
