26 US House members ask Pres. Obama to let farmers out of CRP

[someday]

I don't know how to post it on here, But a letter from 26 members of the US House sent a letter to President Obama on April 8th asking that He release willing farmers from CRP contract so they can help rebuild dangerously low Word grain stocks.

[TooTallTom]

Lots of programs that pay for set aside land allow for early termination of the program with payment of a penalty. Do you know if that's the case for CRP?

[someday]

Tom I will try to e-mail the address on your post with a copy of the letter sent to the President. Hopefully you will know how to post it here for all to see

[goblueM]

i have a brilliant idea... lets stop turning corn into car fuel instead

better for the land, better for my car engine, and better for food prices

[Rodbldr4fun]

The ridiculous part is that the Ag economy is very strong. How do they justify the action?

[hockeybc69]

goblue nailed that one square on the head........ [PoorWordUsage] are we doing in this country???

[Red Cabin]

+1 better feul economy too

[creepworm]

The ridiculous part is that the Ag economy is very strong. How do they justify the action?

The ag economy is so strong right now, in part, due to the fact that the worlds grain stocks are at an all time low. They justify this by saying that this will put land back into production and will help alleviate the stress on the grain stocks.

This is a terrible idea. A better plan would be to stop giving subsidies to the ethanol industry. Less corn used for fuel = more grain for feed and human consumption. Plus the government would save 3 billion + dollars a year.

[Neighbor_guy]

Yea... because its out job to take care of the world. We can't even take care of our selves. Like has been stated before, stop burning corn in our gas tanks and make corn meal out of it...

[Ufatz]

I really don't like a man who gloats so I'm going to play this quietly, as one of the 19 people in the US who said from the beginning that the entire ethanol carnival was a gigantic scam.

Look back to see who REALLY made money.

That's all......llike I said, I hate a man who gloats.

But I can GRIN!!

[goblueM]

the sad thing is many people see it for what it is... we've known for years that ethanol is inefficient, doesn't help the environment, and doesn't help anybody but the farmers. but the corn lobby is just so powerful

[MJ1657]

the sad thing is many people see it for what it is... we've known for years that ethanol is inefficient, doesn't help the environment, and doesn't help anybody but the farmers. but the corn lobby is just so powerful

Ethanol is helping alot of people that are not farmers. Helping them get rich.

[TooTallTom]

Hi someday, I'm not sure about sizing but this is the letter. Sorry about the delay.

If reading it's tough, try magnifying the window by holding down 'crtl' and hitting '+' on your keyboard. The '-' key will decrease the display size.

[rkhinrichs]

wow thats very interesting. It brakes my heart that there will be less land in the future for our kids to enjoy!

[TooTallTom]

CRP is for privately-owned land. There may or may not be clauses in a particular contract for public access to CRP-encumbered lands, but I don't think access is required as part of the program.

[BobT]

Enrolling land into a CRP contract does not require the owner to open the land for public use. There are other set-aside programs that do, however. I don't recall what they are though.

[someday]

Thanks Tom! I should have been able to do it but just couldn't figure it out. All of this started last Summer when Russia's wheat crop failed because of drought. Bad weather was the norm all over the world last year. Even the US corn crop was lowered over 10 bu/acre from trend yields. If the weather straightens out grain reserves will replenish. If the drought returns to Europe and Asian areas the world could get even more unstable fast.

[lichen fox]

Have you ever tried to eat field corn? 90% of the corn farmers grow is not harvested for "direct" human consumption...in the case of ethenol the "starches" are removed to produce the ethenol...the remainder (or leftovers) are then made into livestock feed...they are simply removing a part of the corn that livestock don't use anyway...the human "food" corn is "sweet corn"....In any case the sad thing is that even if they accomplish this and are able to replenish or even over produce grain and corn products to a point that it drives prices down, the "consumer" will never see a reduction in the cost of food that contains grain products...when the price of wheat rises eventually the price of bread goes up too....when the price of wheat drops and stays there for a long period of time...guess what? bread prices "don't" go down! It's the farmers land and thier livlihood, they should be able to opt out if that's what they want without penalty, in the long-run every acre that goes out save's the taxpayers about $40 or more dollars per acre annually. Times that by however many million acre's are enrolled in CRP and that's alot of savings every year!

[TooTallTom]

Farmers aren't dumb. If they can make more money by harvesting wheat or beans or something else than they can by harvesting corn, they'll equip their operations to plant and harvest wheat or beans or something else.

One thing that keeps field corn prices artificially high is the demand for ethanol, which is artificially high as a result of the subsidies paid by the federal (Does anyone know if any states pay them?) government for ethanol production.

Stop the subsidies for ethanol and some of the demand for field corn will drop off. Less land being planted into field corn leaves more available for things that people actually eat.

[goblueM]

Have you ever tried to eat field corn? 90% of the corn farmers grow is not harvested for "direct" human consumption...in the case of ethenol the "starches" are removed to produce the ethenol...the remainder (or leftovers) are then made into livestock feed...they are simply removing a part of the corn that livestock don't use anyway...the human "food" corn is "sweet corn"....In any case the sad thing is that even if they accomplish this and are able to replenish or even over produce grain and corn products to a point that it drives prices down, the "consumer" will never see a reduction in the cost of food that contains grain products...when the price of wheat rises eventually the price of bread goes up too....when the price of wheat drops and stays there for a long period of time...guess what? bread prices "don't" go down! It's the farmers land and thier livlihood, they should be able to opt out if that's what they want without penalty, in the long-run every acre that goes out save's the taxpayers about $40 or more dollars per acre annually. Times that by however many million acre's are enrolled in CRP and that's alot of savings every year!

you are thinking about food corn in the wrong way... field corn products go into the majority of most foods you buy in the supermarket. high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, ascorbic acid, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, vegetable oil, starch, etc - all is synthesized/derived from food corn. Over 50% of the sugar products in American food are from corn sweeteners

its not just sweet corn for eating directly.

[Ufatz]

wow thats very interesting. It brakes my heart that there will be less land in the future for our kids to enjoy!

Well, here's what you do about that. You work hard, save your money, don't drive two new cars, don't live in a big fancy house, don't buy five dollar mugs of coffee. Invest in some land of your OWN!! Pay it off as you grow old. Then YOU will have some hunting ground and your children will too. And you might even make a dime or two on the investment.

That's where I'm livin'....lots of ducks and birds, deer and squirrels,turkeys and foxes, butterflies and bugs. The grand children frolic in the ponds and dance in the woods and meadows.

Make sure there is land for your kids. Buy it!

PS Not meant to be snide or snotty.

[lichen fox]

But still....it is only 10% of the field corn raised that is used for human consumption...here's some interesting reading...

Field corn is the predominant corn type grown in the U.S., and it is primarily used for animal feed. Currently, less than 10 percent of the U.S. field corn crop is used for direct domestic human consumption in corn-based foods such as corn meal, corn starch, and corn flakes, while the remainder is used for animal feed, exports, ethanol production, seed, and industrial uses. Sweet corn, both white and yellow, is usually consumed as immature whole-kernel corn by humans and also as an ingredient in other corn-based foods, but makes up only about 1 percent of total U.S. corn production.

Since U.S. ethanol production uses field corn, the most direct impact of increased ethanol production should be on field corn prices and on the price of food products based on field corn. However, even for those products heavily based on field corn, the effect of rising corn prices is dampened by other market factors. For example, an 18-ounce box of corn flakes contains about 12.9 ounces of milled field corn. When field corn is priced at $2.28 per bushel (the 20-year average), the actual value of corn represented in the box of corn flakes is about 3.3 cents (1 bushel = 56 pounds). (The remainder is packaging, processing, advertising, transportation, and other costs.) At $3.40 per bushel, the average price in 2007, the value is about 4.9 cents. The 49-percent increase in corn prices would be expected to raise the price of a box of corn flakes by about 1.6 cents, or 0.5 percent, assuming no other cost increases.

[rkhinrichs]

just goes to show how so many things are woven together!

[goblueM]

i think you're still making my point, increased corn prices = increases in much of our food

like you said, one of the major uses of corn is animal feed, in addition to the food products/additives directly synthesized from corn

we're eating the animals and their products that are eating that corn

[Powerstroke]

So let me get this straight, we want to allow farmers who are enrolled in one gov't subsidy to cancel that contract without penalty so that they can in turn use that land for "food production". So they were getting paid to do next to nothing with their land (I love this country-sarcasm), but since there is a "shortage of food", ie higher prices, ie more money to be made, they want out of their one gov't contract so that they can make more money by farming, which just happens to be another gov't backed program.

What a joke. I realize I don't have complete research and figures to post, but if we just eliminated all the extra subsidies that artificially alter the price of things, we would have a more complete picture of the economy. This country has allowed businesses to fail left and right and then blamed business owners, but farmers and ranchers and bankers and huge corporations get handouts and subsidies like crazy and they don't need them.

There is reason a McDonalds cheeseburger costs less than a head of lettuce.