Some Farmers Have Learned To Survive Without Government Handouts

In recent months, this column has served as a sounding board on farm subsidies.

To what extent subsidies survive will be decided in the coming months, as Congress crafts a new fiveyear farm program. The first hearings are next week.

Wrenching revisions appear inescapable, given the sea change in national politics, downsizing of government, and impetus for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.

What many regard as farm welfare is highly unpopular. That’s true not only for readers city born and bred, but also for others with rural roots - even some still down on the farm.

Unfortunately, farmers invariably claim, they have no recourse.

They are victims of the system, much the same as millions of welfare families have been enslaved by generations of government handouts.

Farmers say they need time to extricate themselves from the clutches of government. Ag industry officials ask taxpayers for continued support and patience until farmers can overcome their debilitating dependence on government giveaways.

In this context, reader Larry Goehner of Spokane offers unusual insight.

“I notice,” writes the recently retired Boeing instructor, “that all of the farmers you spoke with, as well as those who responded in letters to the editor, were talking of government subsidies as the only option.”

Not so, says Goehner.

His letter follows, largely intact:

Let me tell you about my brother-in-law Albert, who is a dryland farmer in North Dakota.

Farming conditions are not so much different in North Dakota than here in Eastern Washington. And Albert is a diversified grain grower, primarily wheat.

He has farmed there for about 30 years.

He had to buy the farm from his father, who was not particularly generous with the selling price. Albert more or less had to bust his butt in order to pay off the farm over a period of 8 to 10 years.

Now, you may ask, what is different about Albert?

Just this: He has never taken one dime from the government over the years.

He has never participated in any government program that provided a subsidy. He has always sold his cash crops on the open market for whatever he could get.

And, he has been quite successful.

His peers are jealous of his success and envy him.

But every one of his neighbors who farm in the same area with similar soil conditions relies on government programs to keep them afloat.

Albert looks with disdain at them because of their dependence, as these programs put farmers in servitude to the government. Such programs enable the government to dictate:

How much in acreage is allowable for the various grains.

How to till the soil.

How much acreage must be kept in wetland and not cultivated, etc., etc.

I think you get the picture.

Albert farms his ground according to methods he deems best for top production. His soil does not erode any more than his neighbors’ soil. However, his neighbors must use farming practices dictated by the county extension service.

Well, there is a lot more I could relate to you on this subject. But suffice it to say that my brother-in-law has proven that government subsidies are not necessary.

I realize he is the exception to the rule. Not all farmers would be successful by not following government dictates.

Albert works long and hard in his business and is a good manager.

He puts in extremely long hours during the spring and summer when farmers need to be in their fields working the soil, tending the crops, and so forth.

According to Albert, many of his peers spend their most productive hours in town at the local gathering place. There they drink coffee and debate the merits of the various methods by which the government will hand out more largess.

For many farmers, this practice is possible because of government “set-asides” which allow these people to loaf while the government subsidizes them for not cultivating the land. Just another example of welfare.

Incidentally, I have never farmed, even though I grew up on a farm and was expected to farm. I chose to do other things, and am not sorry I did.”

Coming Sunday: Farmers have the last say. Column critics blast away in “Wheat Life” magazine, the bible of this region’s wheat industry.

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