Congressional pork for agribusiness
By Heather Cottin
Congress named it the "Farm Security Bill" in 2001 and
passed it at the end of April 2002. These days if you add the
word "security" onto any legislation it's bound to pass, even
if it is another robbery from the people to enrich the ruling
class.
The April 26 New York Times reported that Congress agreed on
a $100 billion farm bill that would raise subsidy payments to
the country's biggest grain and cotton farmers. The legislation
appropriates more money than ever before for these subsidies,
at a time when agribusiness makes up 13 percent of the gross
national product.
Couching the report to make the bill appear beneficent for
the poor, the Times called the Farm Security Bill a "major
piece ... of social welfare legislation ... increasing food
stamps for working families and children and restoring the
right of legal immigrants to receive them." It claimed the bill
will relieve the food pantries and soup kitchens that have been
unable to meet the needs of those who face "food
insecurity"--the new jargon for hunger.
The farm bill sets aside $6 billion for food stamp payments.
Food stamps are a real, concrete benefit for poor people and
winning back some of them for some of the poor is a victory.
Much of the money, however, will still end up in the pockets of
agribusiness billionaires.
The billions of dollars slated for this part of the program
will go right back into the corporate coffers. The farmer only
gets 20 cents from the sale of groceries and the distributors
get the rest--and the Times admitted it. So poor people will
get some overpriced food while agribusiness and the
supermarkets rake in their profits.
Congress paid lip service to saving the small family farm.
But the final legislation actually handed over the money to the
corporations so that they could buy out and eliminate the
competition of the family farmers more quickly.
Washington was in a hurry. The bill had been around for over
a year. Key members of Congres were organized to expedite the
heist. Said Rep. Kent Conrad, a Democrat and chair of the
Senate Budget Committee, "If we do not use the money ... it is
very likely not going to be available next year."
Even the conservative Heritage Foundation is incredulous.
"The new subsidies would follow a year in which American
agriculture is expected to break its income record by $3
billion, see its net worth exceed $1 trillion for the first
time." Heritage writes, "Subsidies will continue--by design, if
not by intention--to favor the rich."
When there was talk of limiting the amount paid to $275,000
per farmer, negotiations got messy. The final bill has a limit
of $360,000 which the Times called "symbolic. . . with
exceptions." In other words, you can drive a tractor through
it.
The U.S. has 2.2 million farms; 60 percent get no federal
government subsidies at all. According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, 47 percent of commodity payments flow to
176,000 large commercial operations. (Rural Migration News)
A look at U.S. rice production reveals that the top 1
percent of farmers and farm groups in the Mississippi Delta
region receive 26 percent of the subsidies. Three-quarters of
rice farms are worked by tenant farmers living in shacks and
facing "food insecurity" themselves. (Rural Migration News)
But tenant farmers are not getting the subsidies. Small
family farmers aren't getting the subsidies.
There are 25 million people who are facing "food insecurity"
in the United States, according to Second Harvest, a charity
that has conducted extensive research on hunger in this
country. They are not getting the subsidies either.
They may get some food stamps. Hunger will not be eliminated
as a result of this legislation.
But agribusiness will be fattened like a hog by this new
bill that takes from the poor and working class and gives more
money to the ruling class. The corporations are being
subsidized. They are the hogs feeding at the trough of
congressional appropriations.
But then, what happens to hogs when they are all fattened
up?
Reprinted from the May 9, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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