The Federal Agriculture Policy Offers Farm Subsidies and Incentives

By Kristen Davenport
Published on September 1, 2006
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PHOTO: RAY MALACE
The federal agriculture policy offers farm subsidies and incentives.

Learn about the federal agriculture policy and farm subsidies and incentives.

If arguments over farm subsidies and agricultural policy make your eyes glaze over, try thinking this way: The government might be willing to provide farm subsidies and incentives by doing absolutely nothing on your rural land.

That’s right — money for nothing.

Talk about the federal agriculture policy might, at first glance, seem dreadfully dull. Only folks who live in the breadbasket – the central part of America where thousands of acres are pushing up corn and soybeans for Cargill — need worry about the national farm bill, right?

Au contraire. Small farmers and nearly anyone living on rural property should sit up and start thinking. The farm bill isn’t just a fight over farm subsidies. It’s also a fight over dollars for farmer’s markets, conservation, biodiversity, rural planning and nutrition programs.

The current federal farm bill expires in about one year — as soon as the 2007 crops are harvested (you’ve got to love a law whose timetable is based on when watermelon is ripe). But discussion over what the next farm bill should look like already inspired public hearings this summer. Some agriculture groups are eager to make shifts in farm policy that could have far-reaching implications – from big corporate industrial farms down to mom-and-pop 50-tree orchards selling fruit on the roadside.

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