Senators challenge "Know Your Farmer" program

[greenbird]

Senators Saxby Chambliss and John McCain in a letter to Secretary Vilsack:

American families and rural farmers are hurting in today's economy, and its unclear to us how propping up the urban locavore markets addresses their needs. Given our nation's crippling budgetary crisis, we also believe the federal government cannot afford to spend precious Rural Development funds on feel-good measures which are completely detached from the realities of production agriculture.

http://aglaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/senators-challenge-know-your-farmer.html

[fasttense]

1. So Saxby Chambliss and John McCain are putting in a good word for corporate farms.

They are busily helping out Monsanto, ConAgra and ADM. Can't have those local small farmers getting in the way of corporate profits.

The "Know Your Farmer" program also offers many small grants and cost share programs that help smaller farmers. But Chambliss and McCain think it is NOTHING but a feel-good program.

We recently saw the collapse of the financial industry, without a government bailout, all those big corporate banksters would have been bankrupt. Soon after, the automobile industry suffered severely, housing and construction corporation also fell apart. Malls and retailers closed by the thousands. Do Chambliss and McCain believe that somehow the food and farming corporations are immune to financial collapse? Do they really believe that those farming corporations are not playing the same games in finance as did the other corporation that failed? As if Monsanto and ConAgra are not over-leveraged and hiding liabilities like all the others.

When the farming and food corporations fail, what will we eat? That's why we need the small farmer. When these corporations fail, the only thing standing between you and starvation will be the small farmer.

[greenbird]

2. Excellent points.

It's amazing how stupid they think we are. They're counting on it, actually.