Posted 2/15/2008 11:09 (#310399 - in reply to #309762) Subject: RE: Govt payments...
north central SD
The dirty little secret concerning the farm payments is that the real purpose of them is to get smaller operators off the farm as gently and as painlessly as possible. The govt is worried that there won't be enough people to take over after this older generation is gone and they should be worried. One way to ease the transition is to make it easier for the larger operators take over by subsidizing crop ins. It would be hard for some guys to farm more and more acres without crop ins, considering the risk. I personally don't agree with all of this since I believe that it's none of the govt's business to try and determine who goes and who stays. It should be up to each farmer to manage their own risk. One of the other problems with this strategy is that small towns are just going to dry up and blow away at an even faster pace.
Govt payments...
