No free market for farmers

By Libby

The free market capitalists keep telling me that government intervention is bad when it comes to regulating corporations. The logic being that consumers will punish corporate behemoths for bad behavior by refusing to buy their products. I don't see how that theory holds up when consumers don't get a choice.

Take for instance fresh fruits and vegetables. Consumer demand is rising so quickly for locally grown produce that farmers don't have enough acreage to fulfill the demand. So this farmer rented some acres from another farm. However, since the other farmer had been taking subsidies for corn, they were all punished for giving the people what they want.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program. [...]

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

What's driving this ridiculously counter-productive approach? Corporate farms of course. The huge monoliths who truck in most of the country's 'fresh' produce from California, Florida and Texas have successfully lobbied Congress to enact anti-competition/anti-consumer measures in order to protect their own profits. The only thing free about that is the ride the corporations receive for lining the campaign coffers with their political donations.