Interesting story, in lieu of the apparent rice shortage. Texas rice farmers going under...

[Dover]

Tx. land owners being paid to take their land OUT of production...
and some are using this as a selling point, placing their land on the market to developers and individuals with this built in little fringe benefit. Say good-bye to prime farm/rice land and to the farmer and farm economies that are built up around them.


Tenant/USDA issue devastates rice farmers

Worth Lucas of Matagorda County has tenant-farmed the same land, for the same landlord, for 29 years. For three decades Lucas has worked the tight, black clay soil, making a huge investment in equipment and time growing rice, bound to his landlord at a fair rental rate by only a verbal agreement.

Things are changing this year, however, for this 52-year-old cattle and rice producer. The landlord recently died, survived by four heirs. The new landlords have learned to work the farm bill to their benefit, and have chosen a route taken by many across the Texas Gulf Coast that endangers the livelihoods of farmers growing a crop with a rich, 100-year history in the Lone Star State.

A majority of the new landlords originally wanted to take all the government payments for the rice base and take the land out of production. One, however, in an effort to keep Lucas farming, offered a proposal where the landlords would get a majority of the government payment for the land through Lucas by raising the land rent.

"They're under the impression, and I am too, that what they are doing is all legal," Lucas says, noting that many landowners, facing payment limitations of their own, resort to raising rents sky high to tap further into government programs through the tenant's eligibility. "My biggest problem is, I have a moral issue with this...me, taking all of the government checks and giving it back to them..."

cont'd

http://www.txfb.org/texasAgriculture/2003/020703/020703rice.htm

[Mojorabbit]

1. Depressing ....n/t

[formercia]

2. Just like the Gasoline shortage due to lack of refinery capacity.

Manufactured shortages.

[Dover]

3. Well....this farm bill has a history going back several years.

So I don't know if that was the original intention, though they are reaping rewards from the current "shortages". Originally it was more about the free market hype and how many ways they could take advantage of a loophole they created to fill a few people's pockets at the expense of many. However, I wouldn't underestimate their potential for farsightedness regarding market manipulations of commodities.

Read this article and I think it will become clearer.


Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm

EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years.

Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.

Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709.

"I don't agree with the government's policy," said Matthews, who wanted to give the money back but was told it would just go to other landowners. "They give all of this money to landowners who don't even farm, while real farmers can't afford to get started. It's wrong."

..snip..

When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they brought a new free-market philosophy toward farm policy. In a break with 60 years of farm protections, they promoted the idea that farmers should be allowed to grow crops without restrictions, standing or falling on their own. The result was the 1996 bill, which the Republicans called Freedom to Farm.

The idea was to finally remove government limits on planting and phase out subsidies. But GOP leaders had to make a trade-off to get the votes: They offered farmers annual fixed cash payments as a way of weaning them off subsidies.

That sweetener was needed to win over wheat-state Democrats -- led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) -- and GOP House members from rice and cotton districts. Wheat growers alone stood to receive $1.4 billion in the first year. The payments for rice growers were increased by $52 million at the last minute in an effort to win support from Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.).

The new payments were calculated on a farm's "base acres," or production dating to 1981. For example, if a farmer had planted 400 acres of rice, he was entitled to a check of about $100 an acre, or $40,000, every year. The amount per acre varied depending on past production.

The payments were unrestricted -- farmers got them whether or not they grew any crops, or whether prices were high or low.


..snip..

The original intent was to make a step in the direction of eliminating farm programs," said then-House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), who led an unsuccessful fight in the 1990s to trim the subsidies. "By 1998, there was no zeal left."

Instead of cutting, Congress ended up expanding the program, now known as direct and countercyclical payments. A program intended to cost $36 billion over seven years instead topped $54 billion.

"The farm policy we're pursuing now has no rhyme or reason, and we're just sending big checks to big farmers," said Gary Mitchell, now a family farmer in Kansas who was once a top aide to then-Rep. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the 1996 bill's House sponsor. "They're living off their welfare checks."

Efforts to overhaul the farm subsidy network have been repeatedly thwarted by powerful farm-state lawmakers in Congress allied with agricultural interests.

"The strength of the farm lobby in this town is really unbelievable," Armey said. "I don't think there's a smaller group of constituents that has a bigger influence."


...cont'd

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...




on edit: after reading the article below (4/15/08), it confirmed for me that they probably ARE doing as you suggest...creating shortages and manipulating markets for both profit and as leverage in global negotiations.

[Dover]

5. US Rice Farmers Boost Production as World Faces Shortage (4/15/08)

US Rice Farmers Boost Production as World Faces Shortage

By Greg Flakus
Dayton, Texas
15 April 2008

A dramatic surge in the international price for rice has U.S. producers planting more fields in an effort to increase profits. But, as VOA's Greg Flakus reports from the rice-growing area of Dayton, Texas, high costs could limit their margins.


Rice plants in East Texas

Tractors are tilling the land and building earthen rows that will serve as levees once water flows into these fields. This area of southeast Texas is one of the best rice growing areas of the United States. Other states that also produce major amounts of rice include Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ray Stoesser plants rice on more than 1,800 hectares of land in the area near his home in Dayton, Texas and he is hoping the recent jump in prices will help him come out ahead.

"Naturally, we watch the market and the market is better than it has been since 1974 right now," he said. "We can grow rice and make a good yield and we can usually get a second growth, so we will maximize our profits."

..snip..

Roberts says the United States exports about half the rice it produces, so when prices are low on the world market, farmers tend to shift production to crops that are more profitable at home, like corn and soybeans. The price of both of those crops has risen sharply in recent years because of their use in making bio-fuels.

Dwight Roberts says the reason for the international shortage of rice has to do, in many cases, with government policies in nations where prices for consumers were subsidized without providing incentives for farmers. He also blames drought in Australia, where rice production has virtually come to a halt, and an increase in demand driven by population growth.

..snip..

Increased production in the United States will help alleviate the rice shortage in some parts of the world. The United States has promised to help the Philippines, which imports about 15 percent of the rice consumed in the country and is facing severe shortages. But overall, the demand for this grain worldwide is likely to outpace production, keeping the price high and promoting social unrest in poor nations where food supplies are low.


http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-15-voa50.cfm

[Dover]

4. The recent PBS program on this topic

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/2008/04/producers-notes.html

[MissMarple]

6. Bill Moyers had a program on the farm bill this month, too. I had no idea!

It is crazy how screwed up it is and there is no political will to change it. Even the Democrats are apparently unwilling to make changes that may effect influential land owners, and Bush won't increase the food stamp program. It is insane and mind boggling. It is supposed to be undergoing changes this month, but I'm not holding my breath. The family farms it is supposed to help don't see much benefit. And the hungry in this country are growing in number by the day and the food banks are stressed. That I knew about. :nuke: