There’s a movie currently making the rounds on public television stations called “King Corn.”
A trio of filmmakers from back east traveled to Greene, Iowa, a few years ago. They rented an acre of land and planted corn. They wanted to discover how corn and corn byproducts made their way into the food chain of every American.
In one scene, they’re talking and in the background can be seen the price board at a gas station with fuel around $1.70 per gallon. (Who’ have thought we’d be remembering $1.70 gas fondly?)
Anyway, they had a pretty good year. Their acre brought in a little more than 180 bushels of corn, which they sold at the local elevator. One thing they found, when they’d added up their expenses for land and equipment rent, fertilizer, etc., was they’d lost money.
If it hadn’t been for federal subsidies they qualified for by raising an acre of corn in Iowa, it would have cost them more to produce their crop than they made by selling it.
Fast forward to today. Lawmakers are stalled, debating a new version of the very legislation the filmmakers took advantage of to make a few pennies for almost a year of work.
Just about everybody involved in the debate, from President Bush on down, is parroting the mantra of “record crop prices” as they consider drastic cuts to a new farm bill. What they’re not talking about, though, are the subsequent record input prices farmers are also facing today.
Oil prices have soared to record levels. And oil is in just about everything a producer needs to grow a crop, from the fertilizer used to fortify the ground to the fuel tank of the tractors, cultivators and harvesters used to work the ground and bring the crop to market.
But the farm bills do more than provide a safety net for producers. Farm legislation also administers and funds nutrition programs for low-income families that allow them to eat.
The current farm bill has been extended numerous times since it expired last September. Reporting on agriculture, one learns that farm bills are not simple things. We understand the debate is detailed and often heated. But something has to be done.
We would urge legislators and President Bush to put aside the in-fighting going on right now and do what should have been done almost a year ago. Adopt and sign a farm bill.
— Andrew D. Brosig for The Girard Press