There is a huge debate going on between Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack over the issue of "rural subsidies". I didn’t know what a farm subsidy was so I looked it up and found this great website Farm $ubsity Database. It defines subsidies as "a ‘safety net’ to agricultural producers to help them through the variations in agricultural production and profitability from year to year - due to variations in weather, market prices, and other factors - while ensuring a stable food supply. However, this support is highly skewed toward the five major 'program' commodities of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice" It lists some facts about farm subsidies in Georgia:
- 70 percent of farmers in Georgia did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
- Ten percent collected 82 percent of all subsidies.
- Amounting to $4.18 billion over 15 years.
- Top 10%: $33,488 average per year between 1995 and 2009.
- Bottom 80%: $451 average per year between 1995 and 2009
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| "Field of cotton" from the Library of Congress Cotton is the receives the most subsidy payments of any crop in Georgia |
These subsidies are causing many rural farms to close down because they cannot compete with these government subsidies factory farms. This is putting thousands of people in rural America out of work. When these out of work farmers move away, the small towns they leave behind are destroyed. All of the agricultural wealth is concentrated in the few hands of the large factory farm owners. This practice is detrimental to rural American, rural Americans, and it will eventually damage the American economy. The government should be supporting family owned farms that are the future of our agricultural system.
~Hannah Frame
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