Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 19, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 9
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 19, 2005 at about 11pm CST
Segment 9
Crop subsidies are a big problem right now. People get a strange insecure feeling when you start saying that we should import our food from Third World countries. The worry has always been that the Third World could cut us off. What if we didn't have crop subsidies? What if there was a set of companies that were part charity, part business?
Let me outline the charity I have in mind. What if instead of a farmer working to raise a crop and selling it, a charity type company provided all the infrastructure to grow the crop for a fixed income to the farmer. Think about it for a moment. What if a charity could get the fertilizer, seed and various other products donated by huge corporations? When it came time to harvest the farmer could know how much they were going to make. It would mean that the food banks would have a ready source of food for the needy. The farmers would be kept in business AND we would have excess production in case of a cutoff of supply.
There has to be checks and balances on the system. The farmer that signed the contract would have to have a buyout price, so the farmer was not cheated by a sudden spike in the price of the crop. What I am saying, at the time of delivery the farmer would have the choice of selling the crop on the open market and paying for the stuff they were provided by the charity or they deliver the crop to the charity and get the fixed income they agreed to. That means that were there a sudden shortage of food in this country, the shortfall would be made up by excess capacity.
The whole problem I am seeing in the crop subsidy debate is that the family farm needs that extra income to keep going. With this a farmer could have a salary that they could count on. Of course there has to be some type of oversight to make sure that farmers are not pushed to sign exclusive contracts where they sell at the fixed price regardless of the market price. That would end up with something close to sharecropping which was always a bad idea for the farmer.
The advantage of this idea is that it would allow us to feed the poor while keeping farms working. Right now, too many farmers are not getting much of a return on their investment. If something like this were done, then the need for subsidies would go away.
I can even see such a charity getting involved in processing the food. I mean, what if a food company donated a shift or two per week for packaging food for the poor. The charity could get groups like Kiwanis to provide the labor and the food would get processed for feeding the poor. The only problem I am having is the charge back in the case of the farmer paying for the products they used. How would that be billed? How do you suddenly pay the company that donated the products? Or would the buyout price be called something else as far as the law is concerned? I mean, is there a way for a charity to make a profit as long as it plowed it back into the production of a crop for the poor? What if the company providing the fertilizer was to provide it to the charity on consignment? If the contract with the farmer were exercised by the charity, then the fertilizer becomes a donation. If the farmer backs out, then the consignment becomes a sale.
The farmer would almost always have the incentive to produce as much of their crop as possible, just in case they wanted to sell at the higher price. There are always people willing to game the system. This one would have a really big chance of being abused without oversight, because the charity could take advantage of the farmer and the farmer could take advantage of the charity. Interesting idea. I’ll have to work on it.
Segment 9
Crop subsidies are a big problem right now. People get a strange insecure feeling when you start saying that we should import our food from Third World countries. The worry has always been that the Third World could cut us off. What if we didn't have crop subsidies? What if there was a set of companies that were part charity, part business?
Let me outline the charity I have in mind. What if instead of a farmer working to raise a crop and selling it, a charity type company provided all the infrastructure to grow the crop for a fixed income to the farmer. Think about it for a moment. What if a charity could get the fertilizer, seed and various other products donated by huge corporations? When it came time to harvest the farmer could know how much they were going to make. It would mean that the food banks would have a ready source of food for the needy. The farmers would be kept in business AND we would have excess production in case of a cutoff of supply.
There has to be checks and balances on the system. The farmer that signed the contract would have to have a buyout price, so the farmer was not cheated by a sudden spike in the price of the crop. What I am saying, at the time of delivery the farmer would have the choice of selling the crop on the open market and paying for the stuff they were provided by the charity or they deliver the crop to the charity and get the fixed income they agreed to. That means that were there a sudden shortage of food in this country, the shortfall would be made up by excess capacity.
The whole problem I am seeing in the crop subsidy debate is that the family farm needs that extra income to keep going. With this a farmer could have a salary that they could count on. Of course there has to be some type of oversight to make sure that farmers are not pushed to sign exclusive contracts where they sell at the fixed price regardless of the market price. That would end up with something close to sharecropping which was always a bad idea for the farmer.
The advantage of this idea is that it would allow us to feed the poor while keeping farms working. Right now, too many farmers are not getting much of a return on their investment. If something like this were done, then the need for subsidies would go away.
I can even see such a charity getting involved in processing the food. I mean, what if a food company donated a shift or two per week for packaging food for the poor. The charity could get groups like Kiwanis to provide the labor and the food would get processed for feeding the poor. The only problem I am having is the charge back in the case of the farmer paying for the products they used. How would that be billed? How do you suddenly pay the company that donated the products? Or would the buyout price be called something else as far as the law is concerned? I mean, is there a way for a charity to make a profit as long as it plowed it back into the production of a crop for the poor? What if the company providing the fertilizer was to provide it to the charity on consignment? If the contract with the farmer were exercised by the charity, then the fertilizer becomes a donation. If the farmer backs out, then the consignment becomes a sale.
The farmer would almost always have the incentive to produce as much of their crop as possible, just in case they wanted to sell at the higher price. There are always people willing to game the system. This one would have a really big chance of being abused without oversight, because the charity could take advantage of the farmer and the farmer could take advantage of the charity. Interesting idea. I’ll have to work on it.
posted by aRandomTexan at
9:35 AM
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