Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm

originally posted by: vinifalou
And this is how you laundry your money successfully to spend in black ops and secret projects.

Probably, and without the landowners approval. You know Government right? They don't ask, they take.

I'm sure the black op secret projects are for the secret 5 eyes alone. They're so cool, so covert. Where do I sign up. 'yug'....

originally posted by: BotheLumberJack
a reply to: diggindirt

Still reading your reply and thanks! I'll respond to it in a sec.

If people that own land, don't farm.. what do you do with it? Is it there to safeguard for future Gov 'unbenownst to the land owners', to take later on for I don't know, .. for the sake of it i'll toss in 'NWO' camps. I'm not really an expert in this area, so all I can do is speculate and imagine.

he doesn't farm the land. that does not mean the land is not being farmed. a farmer leases the land and does the farming of it. this happens all the time, especially with older, smaller farms. i have a friend who does this. he does not farm the land himself. yet leases to another farmer who farms his own land plus the land he leases from other farms. in many cases those leasing the land are really too old to farm it themselves. and since a small farm these days does not pay enough to live on, many children of farmers refuse to take up the work instead seeking higher paying jobs (like at the local McDonalds or Wal-Mart). and so another farmer leases the land, as well as other farmland, making a big enough farm by todays standards to actually make a living at.


and yes there are indeed "farmers" who are literally paid by the government not to farm their land. this at least used to be call the landbank. it's purposes are both to insure that in a case where for some reason farmland gets destroyed, or for some reason can no longer be farmed, that there is fresh land available to take up the slack and not end up with food shortages. the secondary purpose of course is to keep food prices higher, than if all the available farmland was being farmed. which would possibly create a major food surplus, making food worse less. and thus farmers not even earning a fraction of what they need to live on, and pay their debts. a situation made worse of course by companies like Monsanto (now Bayer, who have taken Monsanto over). who charge for things like seed every year, because of patents and intellectual property laws. instead of the old farming practice of using a part of your crop to provide seeds for next year's crop. which is strictly not allowed by companies such as Monsanto/Bayer, and strictly enforced by them.

the problem is that the real profits on food are not made by farmers. but by the food consortiums that are the ones that get to set the price a farmer gets paid, and the much higher price food is sold at. while keeping most of the profits made from selling food for themselves and their share holders. and thus quite a lot of these subsidies farmers get paid (and actually need), is yet another form of corporate welfare that benefits the huge food industry companies, not really the farmers. then on top of that farmers are given strict quotas on the amount of food they are [allowed to sell to the food industry. with cutbacks on quotas if they fail to produce enough. which means that they must try to over produce food. and any over production has to be destroyed. things like leaving excess crops to be plowed under or buried. or in the case of dairy farmers, literally millions of gallons of milk quite literally dumped down the sewer, upon pain of laws and loosing the ability to be allowed to farm. and i am not joking about that. i had a relative who pissed off with the extreme waste of milk decided to raise a few hogs to use that milk up, and of course earn needed money, and extra food for the family. as soon as the government found out. they forced him to DESTROY the hogs. or have his dairy farm shut down. years later he tried raising a few hens for eggs. they found that and forced him to shut that down since it was illegal farming as he was not licenced to do so under the egg board to do so. and failure again would result in them shutting the dairy farm down. even the stands of vegitables and selling at farmer's markets is technically illegal. and for many farmers they acually make more money from selling in those cases, than they are paid for their entire quota of grown crops. although they have tried to crack down on that illegal trade they keep failing due to public outcry.

a reply to: generik

That totally confused the # out of me.. Let me re read it without the grass brb.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack


One other thing about this, the majority of corn grown in the United States is used as livestock feed while food waste, which could be used instead, is tossed in landfills.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Masonicus, i've missed you! Where hast thou been! Thank you for your input. Yes you're correct I believe I mentioned that however I could be misaken.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack


I've been at Langley planning for the implementation of Red/Blue Lists and prepping FEMA coffins.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Cool. I wondered what you were doing these past 5 days. Take a few pics for me. Even cooler, lay in the FEMA coffins and then take a few mug shots, that would rock.

a reply to: BotheLumberJack

I tend to think that the people who are "worried" about Trump are actually worried that the old political order is being turned on its head and having its backside spanked. My farmer, a life-long Democrat showed up at my house with a MAGA hat because he was tired of the same old stuff.
He farms thousands of acres but in small patches, small farms that were once farmed by a single family. He leases the land from us and in turn we are paid from the proceeds of the harvest. For me, with a small holding, it isn't a major portion of my income but the rent from the land is enough to pay the taxes and do the usual maintenance of the land. If there is a need for major projects, say a complete reworking of a waterway that has been damaged by a lot hard rains, as happened a couple of years ago, the costs can exceed the profits of several years for me. That's when we apply for the available matching funds.

Seems to me that is a pretty good deal because it puts thousands of dollars into the local economy when I hire the heavy equipment operators and buy the materials needed. The money stays in the community, the land doesn't erode away and continues to produce food crops. We all pay taxes back to the government for the income, I pay income taxes on the matching funds, the equipment operator pays taxes on what I've paid him and the guys selling the materials for the repairs pay taxes on their income. None of us are getting rich by milking government programs but we're talking small businesses here, not corporate farming.

a reply to: Sookiechacha
I suspect you are right but I do know that the regulations and rules imposed over the years of the Obama administration put a ton of new work on the local USDA departments. I'm sure there are people in DC who are sitting and reviewing each and every power of attorney and each farm deed every single year....sure. If these rules and regulations did one single thing to improve the lives of farmers or consumers----but they don't, they just make more work for farmers, landowners and the local reps of the USDA.

a reply to: diggindirt

I too have 180 acres leased to a farmer. To my knowledge we have never gotten subsidies on the crops [cotton and onions] or the land reclamation. However we received a nice check from the DOE for the oil and gas leases.

Energy more important than crops....