Wednesday evening the Allen County Conservation District will toot its horn when accomplishments of the past year are listed. Waterways, terraces, ponds, other things that help to conserve water and soil and make farmland in the county more productive will be mentioned.
Programs at work in Allen County are duplicated throughout the nation with funding through the U.S. Farm Bill. The current bill is a little different in that it doesn’t focus on subsidies, rather on stabilizing and shoring up what farmers earn from sale of commodities.
There’s much more. The farm bill has been compared to a Swiss Army knife. It has tentacles that reach into many areas, including nutrition through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. SNAP is the largest safety net for the poor.
Farmers long have been beneficiaries of farm bill funding, but, at least philosophically, it’s a misnomer to limit discussion to just them and their allies. Much of what the farm bill does is help to ensure low food prices for the multitude of citizens who trek to a grocery several times a week.
Subsidies before, and payments now for whatever reason in the agricultural arena, mean more to consumers than most probably realize.
To wit: U.S. consumers spend 6.8 percent of their disposable income on food, the lowest among the industrial nations. Across the borders, Canadians spend 9.1 percent; Mexicans 24.1 percent. In the U.K. its 8.9 percent and a bit farther to the east 29.1 percent in Russia.
In undeveloped countries and others on the cusp of development, the percentage soars to 50 percent or more. And, malnutrition is inversely proportional in just about every case to how much is spent on food.
ON AVERAGE an American farmer feeds 155 people worldwide, which makes it difficult not to refer to the U.S. as the land of plenty.
The step that begs taking is to find ways to be certain that those doing without or just getting by are brought into the fold. We should have no child go to bed at night hungry, or not have an education that gives them every opportunity to succeed as adults.
The second part of that equation is a states’ rights issue, one those gathered in Topeka right now should take to heart.
— Bob Johnson
