Fields of green yield crop of cash

Southeast Missouri farmers have cashed in on federal agriculture subsidies that have drawn fire from both the political right and the left.

Some critics believe such government payments hamper the nation's ability to open up new markets to free trade. They refer to federal subsidies as welfare for farmers.

But most Southeast Missouri farmers say the government money is essential in an industry where they have little control over costs.

Corn and soybeans are grown on farms in Cape Girardeau County which ranked 45th in farm subsidies out of 114 Missouri counties. (Fred Lynch)

Farmers in Missouri's 8th Congressional District collected $1.5 billion in government subsidy payments over a 10-year period, the most of any congressional district in Missouri, U.S. Department of Agriculture records show.

Five Bootheel counties led the state in the amount of farm subsidies received from 1995 to 2004. Stoddard County farmers received the most farm aid, followed by farmers in New Madrid, Butler, Dunklin and Pemiscot counties.

Among the state's 114 counties, Mississippi County ranked 11th; Scott County 17th, Cape Girardeau County 45th; Perry County 60th; and Bollinger County 70th.

Federal payments to farmers include conservation, disaster and commodity subsidies. In 2005 U.S. farmers received a record $23 billion in subsidies. Missouri farmers received 3.5 percent of this.

Corn and soybeans are grown on farms in Cape Girardeau County.

Without government aid, agriculture experts say some farmers couldn't afford to farm. But critics like conservative syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg have called subsidy recipients "welfare kings."

"Today, fewer than one in every 100 workers is in agriculture, and less than one percent of gross domestic product is attributable to agriculture. Yet America spends billions upon billions of dollars subsidizing a system that makes almost everyone in the world worse off," Goldberg wrote in an Aug. 7 column published in the Southeast Missourian.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson strongly disagrees with this claim, saying that relying on imports for food would put the nation's security in a perilous position. "Re-authorizing the farm bill is the best thing to do right now," she said. "Because if we want to be dependent on countries in the world who hate us for our nation's food, then we might as well fold up shop."

Emerson added that farmers she spoke with on her recent tour of the 8th District were united in their insistence that Congress reauthorize the farm bill.

The end of subsidies would also mean fewer farmers and less competition, said Kim Dillivan, assistant professor of agriculture at Southeast Missouri State University.

The end result, he said, would be higher food prices for shoppers at the grocery store.

Rural communities would suffer too, he added. Businesses in those towns depend on a healthy agricultural economy.

"You can argue that food is the most important product that someone can produce," he said. "Government support allows us to have the cheapest food supply."

U.S. consumers spend only about 9 percent of their income on food, Dillivan said, the lowest amount in the world.

Thirty percent of all farm subsidy payments to Missouri farmers went to those in the 8th Congressional District, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics listed on an environmental organization's Web site.

"In Southeast Missouri, you have basically flat, fertile land and the opportunity for irrigation," he said. "That is where you have corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and rice."

Said Dillivan, "I am not surprised the benefits largely go to people in Southeast Missouri because that is where the crops are being grown."

Cotton and rice are heavily subsidized because they are energy intensive, experts say. That's one reason why Bootheel counties garner a huge amount of subsidies, said Gerald Bryan, University of Missouri Extension agronomy specialist in Jackson.

The state's cotton and rice production occurs entirely in Southeast Missouri.

Farmers in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties receive far fewer farm subsidies as a whole than those in some of the Bootheel counties. Bryan said that's because many of the farmers in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties are livestock producers who don't receive government subsidies. But they're not complaining, the feed their livestock eat are kept cheap through subsidies.

Gordonville area farmer John Lorberg and his son farm 900 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat. Over the 10-year period from 1995 to 2004, Lorberg received nearly $328,000 in farm subsidies, the Environmental Working Group reported on its Web site.

But that's little in comparison with the aid received by some Bootheel farmers. Sikeston, Mo.-based Missouri Delta Farms received more than $25 million in government payments for its farming operations in Stoddard and New Madrid counties, according to U.S. Agriculture Department statistics cited by the Environmental Working Group.

Federal subsidies ease the financial burden on farmers, Lorberg said. "Farming is really not a very profitable thing to be in," he said. "Your input costs are so expensive today."

Lorberg estimates it costs him about $120 an acre just to fertilize his corn fields. That includes the cost of anhydrous ammonia, which provides the nitrogen corn needs to grow.

"You just cannot grow corn without nitrogen," he said.

Seed corn costs about $100 a bag. Each bag contains enough seed to plant about three acres.

Farm equipment is expensive. A new combine costs at least $100,000, he said.

Lorberg said he's still in farming in large part because his son wants to carry on with the family farm. But Emerson reported this way of life is in danger. "A lot of farmers are telling me they don't want their children to go into this business," she said. "It's too financially risky."

Ken Minton, a farmer based in Dexter, Mo., received $919,505 in rice subsidies between 1995 and 2004 and said during lean years the subsidies were what kept his farm afloat.

"Subsidies allow us to keep producing even though the market says don't produce," said Minton. "But remember if the farmer folds it's not just him. It's also the companies producing seed, fertilizer, equipment and fuel. They all take a hit. There are a lot of related industries."

Minton says the fluctuations can be brutal.

In 2001 the Missouri price of rice dropped from $2.43 per bushel to $1.67 per bushel. By 2003 the price had nearly doubled to $3.24 per bushel. Experts say no farmer could weather these ups and downs without a governmental safety net.

Missouri rice subsidies more than doubled in 2003 to $69 million to help farmers weather the storm.

David Reinbott, agriculture business specialist with the University of Missouri Extension at Benton, Mo., said farmers can't raise the price of their product like other businesses can to keep up with expenses.

Farmers, he said, are dependent on the commodity market and prices set by the Chicago Board of Trade.

"A farmer's net worth changes by the second. They work with a raw commodity that goes up and down based on factors outside their control."

Members of Congress already are talking about crafting a new farm bill. The current spending bill expires in 2007, and Congress must approve a new bill to keep the subsidies flowing in 2008 and beyond.

Congress writes a new farm bill every five to six years. Reinbott believes Congress will make changes in the government's support of agriculture.

But he doesn't foresee huge cuts in subsidies but rather changes as to where those subsidies will be directed.

Reinbott suggested the government will direct more of its subsidies toward land conservation. "If you walked out on the street and asked the general public, 'do you think farmers should get payments for retiring land?' they'd probably say no, but if you asked 'do you think farmers should get money for conservation programs?' they'd say yes. It's a matter of how you word it."

The government already pays billions of dollars to farmers for land conservation efforts meant to provide habit for wildlife and help prevent soil erosion. From 1995 to 2004, the federal government paid more than $1 billion to farmers in Missouri for conservation efforts, government records show.

"What they are trying to do is reward farmers for good conservation," Reinbott said. During that same period the government paid $3.65 billion to Missouri farmers in commodity subsidies.

But subsidies are a major issue in world trade. Farm subsidies are the biggest stumbling block in World Trade Organization efforts to develop new global trading rules, political observers say. Smaller countries contend that subsidies and tariffs on imports in the United States and Europe amount to unfair trade practices.

But Minton said he has a practical reason why the U.S. should never rely on foreigners for its food. "I'd ask you what is the thing you could never live without above everything else? It would have to be food, right? So if we ever went to war and our ships were being bombed that would be the first thing we would want to know we had enough of. It's a matter of national security to supply our own food," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245

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On the Net

Environmental Working Group's Farm Subsidy Database at www.ewg.org

To view the 2002 Census of Agriculture conducted by the USDA visit:

http://www.nass.usda.gov/