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DEVILS LAKE -- American taxpayers spent too much money on government
payments to farmers in 2000 and Congress should work to bring spending
under control, an NDSU farm management specialist told farmers at a
meeting in Devils Lake Thursday.
Although it is unlikely that Congress will make any changes to the
current farm bill, it should address the runaway cost of spending when
it drafts the new farm bill in 2002, said Dwight Aakre, NDSU farm
management specialist. Aakre was one of the featured speakers at the
Lake Region Extension Roundup in Devils Lake.
The so-called flexibility of the current farm bill really is a myth
because farmers don't plant crops for the market, they plant for the
market loan program, Aakre said. That program, along with other
agricultural subsidy programs and disaster programs, is increasing the
cost of farm programs by billions of dollars every year.
Failure to control spending cost taxpayers $28.2 billion last year,
the largest amount ever, Aakre said. That breaks down to $92 per
harvested acre of U.S. farmland and $54 per acre of North Dakota
farmland. This year, spending is expected to increase to more than $30
billion, Aakre said.
"I really believe Congress has to address this issue of high
costs," he said.
Farmers' role
Farmers must start policing themselves when it comes to curtailing
the cost to taxpayers and one way to do that is to reduce surplus
production, a move that would help increase commodity prices.
"The biggest problem in agriculture is that we're doing too
good of a job," Aakre said. Every other industry decreases
production when prices fall, and farmers should do the same, he noted.
One way they can accomplish that is to leave some acres unplanted each
year, something that many agricultural organizations traditionally
have strongly opposed, Aakre said.
"Set-aside is a dirty word to most farm groups and commodity
groups," he said. Farm groups traditionally have opposed idling
acres because they believe that if U.S. farmers reduce production,
their competitors around the world quickly will grab their market
share.
But Aakre believes that farm policy should address the set-aside
issue because unlike other industries, such as the automotive
industry, agriculture doesn't have a single decision-maker or board of
directors telling it to limit production, Aakre said. And even though
idling acres might hurt individual operations, such as his own farm
near Hawley, Minn., it will result in higher prices to U.S. farmers in
the end.
The trade issue
Besides reducing production, another issue that the next farm bill
must address is trade, Aakre said. It's counterproductive for the
United States to continue to "beat" on Canada and Europe
because of their trade policies, Aakre said. Instead, U.S. farmers
must reconcile themselves to the fact that trade is a two-way street.
"We have to recognize this is a global economy. If we expect
to export, we've got to import," he said. |