Approximately seventy percent of the land falls under this category(USDA 1). As more and more small farmers are going bankrupt, lager farmers and corporations are buying the land at extremely reduced prices. My uncle, Junior Bierig, recently purchased a one hundred and twenty acre farm for sixty-nine thousand dollars. "That seems like a lot of money, but in the last seventies, the farm sold for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In the early eighties, the farm sold once again for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars"(Bierig, J, personal communication, February 25, 2004). The price of land had decreased, but everything else has risen in its place.
Government payment are not all they are cracked up to be. "The government pays the farmer the difference between the price of grain and two dollars and sixty cents per bushel"(Bierig, H, personal communication, February 25, 2004). Everything over that price is not subsidized unless the crop is destroyed. Diesel is sold to farmers at a reduced rate. Farmer's pay an average of about forty cents per gallon less that we do, but the fuel is to be used for agricultural purposes only. The government also offers farmers a reduced death tax rate. The children of farmers can now inherit up to one million with out being penalized verses six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for normal citizens(Time 1).
The American farmer has been the backbone of our nation since its beginning. Agriculture is our nation's only source of bargaining power. We rely almost totally on the Middle East for our fuel, the Far East for electronics, and Mexico and other second and third world countries as a source of labor. Products that were once produced the United States are now being produced in other countries to make the cost of paying workers minimal, but the high prices don't reflect the lower cost of the labor expense.
In my opinion, nothing is more vital to the United States than our farmers.
