Farmers and consumers across the country be on notice.  Wisconsin Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat, has introduced legislation (H.R. 2720) to end price-based crop subsidies and reduce the $5.2 billion in fixed annual payments that go to grain and cotton farmers.  In place of subsidies, farmers would be allowed to set up IRA-type risk management savings accounts that they could tap in lean years, an idea borrowed from Canada but never popular with U.S. farm groups. The savings from the subsidy cuts - $20 billion over five years - would be put into conservation programs, food stamps and reducing the federal budget deficit.  Kind's legislation is being reviewed by the House Agriculture Committee. 

Kind argues the demand for biofuels has driven the prices of corn, soybeans and other commodities to the highest levels in a decade, making it harder to justify subsidy programs. He further states the legality of the farm programs under international trade rules have been challenged and may be found to violate agreements with other nations.

Who has the most to lose if this legislation is passed by Congress?  The family farmer and the average working American!

IRA-like savings accounts protect corporate farmers who can put unlimited funds in their risk management accounts.  Under the legislation, money put into these accounts is subject to taxation when farmers withdraw funds; a tax that would disproprotionally affect smaller farmers.

Eliminating farm subsidies would also affect the pocket books of working Americans.  We pay relatively low prices at the grocery market because government has committed itself since the New Deal to the American farmer.  Placing the control of future market prices in the hands of mega-farm CEO's will bring the same affects on food prices as we see in the oil market.

Government's subsidy program also provides for the buying of surplus agriculture production which in return feeds the nutrional needs of many poor and indigent Americans.  If price subsidies are eliminated, market prices will lead to less production and the end to nutritional programs that feed schoolchildren, disabled veterans, etc.

Reform of our farm subsidy program is long overdue, but radically changing the current system to the un-"Kind" proposal by the Wisconsin representative will bring disaster to America's family farmers, consumers, and rural communities.  Let us not chance the long-standing, successful program of farm subsidies that has enabled all Americans to prosper for a untried, unfair revolutionary idea that promises to destroy the agriculture production industry in the United States.

Sources: The Des Moines Register
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