Science Forums 2

[Michaelangelica]

Politics?
economics?
socailism in the USA?
social welfare?
World poverty
Which heading should USA Farm subsides go in?

These has been world wide condemnation of these for years.
but like Guantanamo bay they go on and on

Some background info:

• From 1995 to 2006, the top 10 percent of recipients were paid 74 percent of all USDA subsidies.

A fascinating break up here
EWG || Farm Subsidy Database

Check out waht your State is getting here
Mulch
Who gets what

1 Riceland Foods Inc Stuttgart, AR 72160 $554,343,039
2 Producers Rice Mill Inc ∗ Stuttgart, AR 72160 $314,028,012
3 Farmers Rice Coop Sacramento, CA 95851 $146,174,314
4 Harvest States Cooperatives Saint Paul, MN 55164 $49,470,473
5 Dnrc Trust Land Management - Exem Helena, MT 59620 $38,396,957
6 Tyler Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $37,009,744
7 Sd Building Authority Sioux Falls, SD 57117 $29,843,276
8 Ducks Unlimited ∗ Memphis, TN 38120 $29,387,612
NOTE: Over 80 percent of the payments listed for Ducks Unlimited are 'cost share' reimbursements for technical assistance to restore wetlands at many locations on private lands not owned by D.U. The technical assistance is provided to private landowners under contractual arrangement through USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

EWG || Farm Subsidy Database


some comment

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Farm subsidies Corporate Welfare, Dead Farmers get Billions, Corporations get millions! More spent than on Homeland Defense!
Farm subsidies is largest Corporate Welfare program with more given to them than we spend on Home Land Defense. Dead Farmers get Billions, Corporations get millions and needy farmers get nothing but for Willie Nelson!
. .
Thinking that Farm Subsidies were out there to help average farmers, I should have known better but I was really caught off guard when I became aware that Washington spends more on corporate welfare than on homeland security and farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program.

An Average American Patriot: Farm subsidies Corporate Welfare, Dead Farmers get Billions, Corporations get millions! More spent than on Homeland Defense!

Do your taxes feed the rich?
Posted by Ken Kolker | The Grand Rapids Press November 11, 2007 00:54AM
Categories: Top Stories

GRAND RAPIDS -- Not everybody who gets crop subsidies is a farmer.

Consider Dick DeVos. That Dick DeVos. The former president of Alticor Inc., the son of one of the richest men in the country, the Republican who ran the most expensive campaign for governor in Michigan history.

He got more than $6,000 in federal farm subsidies from 2003 to 2005, mostly for corn.

His wife, Betsy, got an equal share.

A close DeVos associate, Jerry Tubergen, who lives in a $1 million home in Ada Township, got a slightly smaller cut.

The DeVoses are joined on the farm subsidy list by other big names, including David Rockefeller, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and talk-show host David Letterman.

Critics of the far-reaching farm bill, being debated in the U.S. Senate, hope to change that. They say too many millionaires, absentee landowners and big factory farms benefit from a program born in the 1930s to help family farmers survive the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.

Do your taxes feed the rich? - Latest News - The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com

Published on Monday, May 6, 2002 in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Why U.S. Farm Subsidies Are Bad for the World
They make it possible for us to export food so cheaply that farmers in poorer nations can't possibly compete.
by Andrew Cassel


Last year, I wrote about a documentary called Life and Debt that examined how globalization had affected ordinary people's lives in one poor country, Jamaica.

Why U.S. Farm Subsidies Are Bad for the World

Elizabeth Becker, reporting in the September 9 New York Times ("Western Farmers Fear Third-World Challenge to Subsidies"), underscores Mudd's analysis noting, "In the past decade, industrial-scale farmers have tipped their allegiance decisively toward the Republican Party, which supports the current system. Political contributions from agribusiness jumped from $37 million in 1992 to $53 million in 2002, with the Republicans' share rising from 56% to 72%, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

"Those commercial companies were not disappointed when President Bush signed into law last year a new farm policy that increases permanent subsidies by $40 billion a year, even though Mr. [Robert] Zoellick [U.S. Trade Representative] had promised the developing world that subsidies would be cut in this new round of trade talks."

Al Krebs: They Aren't "Farm Subsidies", But Corporate Welfare!

Seedy workings in U.S. farm subsidies
A farm tractor

Canada and Brazil are asking the World Trade Organization to look into whether the U.S. is violating international law by giving too much in subsidies to its farmers. Paul Brandus has more.

Marketplace: Seedy workings in U.S. farm subsidies

Brazil challenges US farm subsidies in new WTO case
The Associated Press
Published: July 12, 2007

GENEVA: Brazil has filed a new complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organization, alleging that U.S. payments to farmers have exceeded WTO limits.

The request for consultations marks the first step in what could become another lengthy dispute between the U.S. and Brazil over the billions of dollars (euros) Washington gives out annually in farm subsidies. They have argued for the last four years over the legality of U.S. payments American cotton farmers.

The new case also comes amid strained commercial relations between. . .(most countries?-m)

Brazil challenges US farm subsidies in new WTO case - International Herald Tribune

Full Disclosure: Who really benefits from federal farm subsidies

For decades, American taxpayers have provided tens of billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies to some of the largest and wealthiest farm businesses in the nation. But thousands of people who benefited from the subsidy flow were shielded from public view behind layers of partnerships, joint ventures, limited liability corporations, cooperatives, and other business structures that obscured their personal subsidy claims.

Not anymore.

A new online database, developed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) from millions of previously unpublished USDA subsidy records, provides nearly full disclosure of federal farm subsidy beneficiaries for the first time.

Mulch

In Recession, Modest Help for Most Americans, But Big Bucks for Big Farms

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2008. Over the next few weeks, some American couples will get $1,200 of their own money back from Washington. This is the maximum, one-time tax rebate Congress provided last February in their desperate attempt to revive our faltering economy that has since been declared in recession.

By contrast, in a few months some other American couples, who operate some of the largest, most profitable farms in the country or merely own huge swaths of farmland, could be receiving 100 times that amount from the government-$120,000. That's what could happen if the House version of the 2008 farm bill becomes law later this week.

What's more, $120,000 will just be the first of five guaranteed annual crop subsidy payments that will bring them $600,000 through 2012.

The disparity owes much to the decades-old momentum behind farm subsidies which delivered $13.4 billion to farmers in 2006, according to the latest update of the Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database website (site and analysis).

EWG || Farm Subsidy Database

And life goes on just as before

US farm bill in trouble

Friday, 18/04/2008

A new US farm bill that could increase trade-distorting subsidies and streamline mandatory country-of-origin meat labelling rules, which Australia opposes, appears in big trouble.

A bitter fight in the Congress over farm bill tax breaks and extra spending has all but killed the bill for this year, raising the prospect of a long-term extension of current law.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig argues billions in new US farm, nutrition and bio-energy spending, plus new meat labelling rules, could be lost.

"We've acquiesced to finally implementing a mandatory country-of-origin labelling program, by September of this year. Well, I don't know if you can do it, if you keep shoving the farm bill out, keep extending it," he said.

The pending bill streamlines labelling rules, which is likely reducing retailer costs that could have discouraged use of imported Australian beef.

But it also slaps a US research and promotion levy on imported dairy.

US farm bill in trouble - 18/04/2008