The Department of Agriculture provides an array of subsidies for farmers and imposes extensive regulations on agricultural markets. It operates the food stamp and school lunch programs, and it administers numerous subsidy programs for rural parts of the nation. The Forest Service is also within the Department of Agriculture.
The department will spend $148 billion in 2015, or $1,203 for every U.S. household. It operates about 266 subsidy programs and employs 91,000 workers in about 7,000 offices across the country.
Agriculture
Agriculture, Crony Capitalism, Regulations
How Big Rigs the Game Against Small
….Joel Salatin’s Everything I Want to Do is Illegal is a good first stop to learn about how big government and big agribusiness have worked hand in glove to disadvantage innovative smaller farms. Salatin shows in painful detail the way well-meaning but often clueless government bureaucrats serve as the long arm of a rigged system,…
Agriculture, Federal Government, Government Spending
Cato: 10 [Persuasive] Reasons the Farm Bill Makes No Sense
Any one of Chris Edwards’s ten would be sufficiently persuasive. Here’s one example, with all worth reviewing: 3.) Farm subsidies are reverse Robin Hood. Farm subsidies transfer the earnings of average taxpaying families to well-off farm businesses. In 2011, the average income of farm households was $87,289, or 25 percent more than the $69,677 average…
Agriculture, Free Speech, Law, Legislation
Speech Victories
Efforts to silence residents from speaking on agricultural policy are thankfully failing. Too bad these unconstitutional laws were enacted or proposed in the first place: Laws meant to crack down on farm whistleblowers, commonly referred to as “ag gag” laws, have been drawing fire around the country from various quarters—from animal rights activists to free…
Agriculture, Animals, Free Speech, Regulations
How Ag Gag Laws Suppress Free Speech
Utah and Iowa, among other states, have passed ‘ag gag’ laws to prevent the recording of videos that reveal animal abuse at slaughterhouses. These private recordings are a consequence of regulatory failure, just as laws to prevent them are proof of political hypocrisy. If states regulated properly the videos wouldn’t be necessary; likewise, proper regulation…
Agriculture, America, Conservation, Liberty, Regulations
The municipal war against…vegetable gardens
In America, and places beyond, homeowners’ vegetable gardens have become a target of municipal officials. They’re beautiful, offer fresh food, conserve water, and are peaceful uses of homeowners’ private property: yet for it all, vegetable gardens still offend officials’ laughable sense of what’s appropriate. That appropriateness in this case is little more than a dull…
Agriculture, Economy, Free Markets, Regulations
Boosting Big Farms at the Expense of Small Ones
It’s about as hard as ever to be a small famer in America. Some difficulties are simply a consequence of competition, by which both farmers (compelled to be more innovative) and consumers (getting better goods at lower prices) benefit. Yet, when government, itself, becomes a burden and hardship for small famers, we have tolerated what…
Agriculture, Food, Law, Liberty, Regulations, Wisconsin
Friday Poll: Raw (Organic) Milk
Wisconsin is prosecuting a dairy farmer, Vernon Hershberger, over his sale of raw milk. Hershberger is representing himself, and his effort to have the charges dismissed has been denied. Should organic milk sales be lawful in Wisconsin, America’s Dairyland? What do you think? Raw (Organic) Milk Poll
Agriculture, Business, Federal Government, Free Markets, Government Spending
Supporting food freedom, and agriculture without government subsidies
Reason interviewed free-market farmer Joel Salatin in an article published on 5.5.12. Two of Salatin’s observations stand out. On deciding what to eat: I think the government should allow this debate to flourish in the marketplace of ideas. The government entered this debate in the early 1970s by publishing the first food pyramid, a guide…