THE UNITED STATES is experiencing its worst drought since 1956.
Amid seemingly endless heat, crops bake and livestock pant.
Politically, though, the brutal weather is manna from heaven for the
agriculture lobby and its amen chorus on Capitol Hill. At last — the
perfect excuse to pressure House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) into
speeding consideration of a subsidy-rich, five-year farm bill!
“What do we do? We need to pass a farm bill,” said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who has already shepherded a version of the legislation through the upper house. Actually, the flawed bill is irrelevant to the farm belt’s current predicament, and it could perversely magnify losses from future natural disasters.
The worst damage is to the corn crop, 80 percent of which goes to feed animals. (Sweet corn for people “is not being heavily affected by adverse weather,”according to the Agriculture Department.) Corn supplies were already tight before the drought, so feed costs for pork, dairy, chicken and beef producers are headed up.
But keep the potential hardship to producers and consumers in perspective. “U.S. farmers face this drought in their strongest financial position in history, buoyed by less debt, record-high grain and land prices, plus greater production and exports,” reported Christine Stebbins of Reuters, after a thorough canvassing of industry and government experts. Farm losses should be far smaller than those suffered in the last big drought 24 years ago.
In fact, the Agriculture Department estimates that government-subsidized crop insurance covers more than 80 percent of farmland planted with major field crops — at least two of which, wheat and cotton, appear pretty much unaffected by the dry weather anyway. Dairy farms are the least likely to be in drought-ravaged areas, the USDA reports. And many of them enjoy federally subsidized insurance against rising feed costs.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ease-up-on-the-drought-drama/2012/07/24/gJQAY0hZ7W_print.html
“What do we do? We need to pass a farm bill,” said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who has already shepherded a version of the legislation through the upper house. Actually, the flawed bill is irrelevant to the farm belt’s current predicament, and it could perversely magnify losses from future natural disasters.
The worst damage is to the corn crop, 80 percent of which goes to feed animals. (Sweet corn for people “is not being heavily affected by adverse weather,”according to the Agriculture Department.) Corn supplies were already tight before the drought, so feed costs for pork, dairy, chicken and beef producers are headed up.
But keep the potential hardship to producers and consumers in perspective. “U.S. farmers face this drought in their strongest financial position in history, buoyed by less debt, record-high grain and land prices, plus greater production and exports,” reported Christine Stebbins of Reuters, after a thorough canvassing of industry and government experts. Farm losses should be far smaller than those suffered in the last big drought 24 years ago.
In fact, the Agriculture Department estimates that government-subsidized crop insurance covers more than 80 percent of farmland planted with major field crops — at least two of which, wheat and cotton, appear pretty much unaffected by the dry weather anyway. Dairy farms are the least likely to be in drought-ravaged areas, the USDA reports. And many of them enjoy federally subsidized insurance against rising feed costs.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ease-up-on-the-drought-drama/2012/07/24/gJQAY0hZ7W_print.html
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