Steve, I'm not defending ethanol, or the infrastructure that got it there. My point was, and has been all along, that the so called subsidies to farmers are in reality subsidizing all American households who crave cheap food. When the government won't stay out of our (farmers) business, and uses our produce as a leveraging tool with other nations, such as with unilateral embargoes, the farmers are at the governments' mercy. I would love for them to institute a hands off policy as far as what we plant and what we receive for it. But, the government is much more afraid of the ire of households across the nation because of super-escalated food prices than it is of upset farmers.
If there were no incentives to farmers to influence what we plant, no incentive programs for certain crops, there would be extremely volatile swings in commodity prices. This would result in wild swings in food and fiber prices. For it's entire life, the overwhelming driving purpose of the Farm Bill has been to ensure a stable supply, and relatively cheap prices, of and for food. Their way of ensuring that has been subsidies, in whatever form they assume, from one Farm Bill to the next. This has, unarguably, insured the most stable and inexpensive food supply in the world.
As I said before, people shouldn't bit** about farmers subsidies with their mouth full.
SRH
Last edited by Stan; 06/27/18 10:24 PM.
