Re: Hard times on the farm

[Ken Hanly <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I find this post somewhat unusual. The paradigm of
agricultural poverty around here would not be ranchers but
grain farmers. Cattle prices are relatively good and
ranchers are on the whole much better off than straight
grain producers. Perhaps Nebraska has had specific problems
that impact on ranchers.
In looking at net farm incomes it is important to note that
these are businesses and are able to deduct all sorts of
expenses unlike wage incomes.
Even in the best of times net farm incomes do not look good
and in terms of
return on invested capital they almost never look good.
	Consolidation of farms does not mean necessarily that the
remaining farmers are not doing OK just that margins require
larger units to make a reasonable income. It is certainly
true though that for a young person to start farming by
purchasing land, machinery, etc. is out of the question for
most. If
a young person had that much money it would make more sense
to invest it and
retire at 21. Of course poverty stricken farmers hereabouts
drive around in 4X4 pickups that cost more than I could ever
afford and I couldn't even muster a down-payment on a
combine. They have lots of assets but they belong to the
bank or credit union.
   Cheers, Ken Hanly

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> New York Times, April 2, 2000
>
> As Life for Family Farmers Worsens, the Toughest Wither
>
> By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
>
> TRYON, Neb. -- Walking across the prairie, stepping carefully around cow
> pies, Mike Abel confesses that he has told his son and daughter not to
> follow in his line of work.
>
> He sounds for a moment like a repentant bank robber. But Mr. Abel, 45, is
> in an even less promising field: He is a cattle rancher.
>
> Ranchers like Mr. Abel on the lovely desolation of the Nebraska prairie
> near this hamlet, miles and miles from nowhere and nothing, evoke the
> gritty determination and toughness of John Wayne on a good day. These days
> the ranchers evoke something else -- poverty.
>
> This rural area, McPherson County, is by far the poorest county in the
> country, measured by per capita income. Federal statistics show that people
> in McPherson County earned an average of $3,961 in 1997, the most recent
> year for which statistics were available, compared with $5,666 for the next
> poorest county, Keya Paha, also in Nebraska. The richest, New York County,
> better known as Manhattan, had a per capita income of $68,686 in 1997.
>
> Cowboys like Mr. Abel might seem the last people to cry. But with much of
> the agricultural economy in deep distress, with dreams of family farms
> fading like old cow bones on the prairie, even the cowboys' lips are
> sometimes trembling.
>
> "What always hurt us was when we're at the table trying to figure out how
> to make a land payment, and the kids are seeing us crying as we wonder what
> happens if we can't make the payment," said Mr. Abel, a sturdy man with
> flecks of gray in close-cropped hair. "We'd always hoped this would be a
> family operation. But why should my son, Tyler, struggle and make money
> only two out of five years when he could get a good-paying job in the city
> somewhere?"
>
> While most of the American economy is going gangbusters, many rural areas
> are undergoing a wrenching restructuring that is impoverishing small
> ranchers and farmers, forcing them to sell out, depopulating large chunks
> of rural America and changing the way Americans get their food. The gains
> in farming and ranching efficiency are staggering, but so is the blow to
> the rural way of life.
>
> Just a few years ago, the United States thought it had a plan to revitalize
> the agriculture economy: the Freedom to Farm Act.
>
> Passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996,
> the law aimed to phase out subsidies but ease regulations and promote
> exports to make farming profitable without government aid.
>
> Almost everyone agrees that the law has not worked (although there is also
> a consensus that it is the other guy's fault). Direct federal payments to
> farmers last year rose to a record $23 billion. That is far more than the
> federal government spent on elementary and secondary education, school
> lunches and Head Start programs combined.
>
> With the failure of American farm policy, no one has much of a plan
> anymore, even though the present course appears unsustainable.
>
> The growing cost of federal farm programs, the replacement of small family
> farms with huge factory farms, the fading of rural hamlets -- all these
> point to historic changes under way in American agriculture. Yet the
> changes are happening without anyone guiding them or the nation paying them
> much heed.
>
> The poverty statistics can seem misleading to city dwellers, for the poor
> farming areas rarely have homeless people or anything like a slum, and in
> any case cattle and hog prices are rising this year. But prospects look
> dismal, adding to the pressure on many rural areas.
>
> The depopulation is evident in the grade school in Ringgold, a crossroads
> village in the east end of McPherson County. Leah Christopher, an
> effervescent eighth grader who is an outstanding gymnast, will graduate
> from the school in a few months at the top of her class, and at the bottom.
> She is the only eighth grader.
>
> The entire school, from kindergarten to the eighth grade, has only one
> teacher and seven students, four of them from Leah's family. Another grade
> school in the county has just four students and will drop to three next year.
>
> "I took a training course once where the other teachers were talking about
> using the school psychologist and other resources like that," said Elnora
> Neal, the teacher at the Ringgold school. "Well, I'm everything. At this
> school, I'm teacher, nurse, psychologist, P.E. teacher and janitor."
>
> McPherson County had 1,692 people in 1920, and since then its population
> has been steadily falling, to about 540 today. At its peak, it had 20 post
> offices, 5 towns and 63 school districts; now it has 1 post office, 5
> schools and, if one is generous enough to include Ringgold, 2 towns. The
> average age in the county is in the late 50's, the average American farmer
> today is 54.
>
> Complete article at:
> http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/farm-poverty.html
>
> Louis Proyect
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