Combines Farmer ARE the reason for low grain prices

The reason is a lot of that govt money is already capitalized into the land values and if you lose this govt money it would have a ripple effect on the land values and then it would effect the amount of money that the local govts need that is collected from property taxes. And then you would have a lot of farmers balance sheets go bad with the land devaluation and then banks would start have having defaults on there loans. The older farmers that are counting on there rent checks for retirement would find the checks to small and this would lower there standard of living. The end result would lead to an even faster depopulation of the rural areas and then the local govt would be collecting even less taxes. So as you can see it would be very hard to all at once take the govt out. I don't think you will ever be able to get the govt out of the farming because this is simplest and the best investment of our tax dollars to keep the economy rolling, because the farm is where it all starts and the money invested here ripples through our whole economy.

I can see your point but some where along the road it must self destruct.The only reason it works is because of the huge economy of the USA.Its demise would be hastened I'm sure if the average tax payer understood where a lot of his taxes were going.Maybe its time to weed out the inefficient farmers,anybody can farm on handouts but true efficienty comes when you stand on your own.

Well the response wasn't as torrid as I expected!!

If you take the government out of farming,its

Thats why I hope the average taxpayer understands that its cheaper for him or her to spend their tax money at the beginning of the food chain rather than spend who knows how much money on damage control from the sudden devaluation of the ag industry. It would cost everyone in more ways than just their tax bill. Our govt program in a lot of ways is our labor union since we can't organize and produce according to the market. When you look at the average industrial worker he more than likely belongs to a union and if he doesn't he indirectly benefits by them. These unions have over a long period of time caused the inflation of wages that have been capitalized into our society. The government really has no choice but to subsidize because all of our inputs are created by the industrial part of our economy and if we devalue how are we supposed to do business with this part of our economyIJIJIJIJ like I said before the tax payer dollar is used to maintain the standard of living for our whole economy. It would be nice to roll back all the susidies and the salaries of all society but as you can see that isn't going to happen. Its taken decades to get where we are and there is no way, in one fell swoop can you just say yes this isn't right and quit funding the ag economy. The price from doing this would be way higher than the small percentage of the total govt budget that we now use to protect the health of the ag sector. I don't know your govt situation, but I suspect your profit margins are very similiar to ours, you just have to play a differnt game than us.

Aussie: I am indeed perplexed about how this whole subsidy thing has developed - it seems that history is telling us that in western civilizations, countries that have the ability to do so (are very strong economies) will protect their agriculture, as first seen by the Europeans, and we in the US have followed suit. The fact that this happened is a natural thing to develop, like human nature. We as farmers are in an economic undeclared war that can be unfairly harmful to some of us. That truely is not right, but I don't know what would change it.

I'd like to do the profit margin test one day out of interest.I see your point on the whole thing ,it's a pity it's gone so far as to no turning back.

The europeans seem to have really gotten into the farm subsidy

Hey Aussie,how are you fairing after all the rain down your way.(By your e-mail address I presume you're down that way.) Oz.

Bloody awful!!!