Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Farm Susidies Good or Bad.

After reading the articles provided and doing some research on the internet, I think that farm subsidies have some good points and some bad points.
The good side of farm subsidies is that farmers know that they have security and stability if a natural disaster was to harm their crops. The have something to lean on if their crops get ruined by weather or any disease. Adrienne Lewis of USA Today said in an farm subsidizing report that "Farmers deserve a safety net to help them survive when bad weather damages crops". USA produces enough food to not only satisfy today's needs but also have food for bad times and it also exports crops on a very cheap price. This abundance of food also means that the general population will get the food at a very cheap price. If farm subsidies was to cut then the price of food might dramatically increase and it might even out the money that tax payers pay for farm subsidies. It is also a fear that USA might not have this stability in food department and agriculture.
The bad side of farm subsidies is that now a days more than half of the farming is done by big farming businesses which don't need farm subsidies. So, most of the money that taxpayers pay goes to these big farming businesses as Steven Kull in his farm subsidies report says "approximately 80 % of U.S subsidies go to large farming business". This is not fair for the taxpayers pocket because the hard-earned money doesn't reach deserving people. And in return the poor tax-payer is is drowning in dept. Another downside of farm subsidies is not only to USA but to the countries where U.S exports the food so cheaply. Because U.S exports the food so cheaply, countries like Jamaican farmers cannot compete with U.s's low prices and in turn stay in loss. USA exporting food so cheaply is not good as it increases the overproduction of crops which decreases the market price and in turn the farm subsidies goes up to. Even people who don't do farming but have farm lands also get subsidies. So, the only one paying for all of this is the tax-payer while big farming businesses also take the advantage of the subsidies.Farm subsidies also have another bad side that it encourages Large farming business to grow more and more crops faster and in doing so they add lots of pesticides and fertilizers damaging the environment. This also mean that the crops are going to be less healthy and full of fertilizers and pesticides which can puts consumers health in jeopardy.
In my opinion, subsidies should only be given to deserving farmers which do farming for living and not the large farming companies. Tax-payer should not have to pay so much as farm subsidies that they go in debt. There should be a strict system that only allows to get farmers that actually grow crops for a living to get farm subsidies and not large faming companies or those people who own farm lands but don't not cultivate. This will also be in favor of taxpayers as they would have to pay less farm subsidies; on the other hand, farmers will also have security and the stability in USA's agriculture and food department would not be damaged. I discovered one more thing while researching on this topic that most of the money only five crops which are corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice. So, how do all of the other crops do well without th ehelp of the government. I think that subsidies should not be given regularly;but, only to farmers when they are in need or when bad weather or a famine destroys their crops.

work cited:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0506-09.htm
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=3795%20
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36207.html
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/07/post-30.html