Farmer bailout is yet another funnel to white men

[BronxBoy]

37. I haven't posted on DU in quite awhile.......

Been here some time but had to give up posting due to work schedules. But I had to jump on and add my support to the farmers who are posting here. My small farm is in Georgia where we have been running a diversified operation since 2005, mainly produce, fruit and herbs. While we are somewhat insulated from some of the recent troubles in agriculture because of our niche and our proximity to urban markets, we are seeing major problems.

In addition to my farm, I also work for an organization that funds research and education projects around sustainable agriculture. My work takes me to thirteen southeastern states, USVI and Puerto Rico and the view my friends is not pretty. One of the more depressing things I'm doing right now is helping to convene discussions around the alarming rise in farmers suicides. It's bad and I think we really haven't seen the worst. I made an outreach trip to the USVI last year and met a majority of the farmers on the island. Since that trip three farmers have killed themselves due to mental stressors brought on by the hurricane. That may sound like a lot (although one farmer suicide is one too many) there are only 180 farmers on the entire island. I'm sure some math geeks could extrapolate that out based on the US farmer population and the number would be eye-popping. To make matters worse, agriculture has been pitched as a viable career for returning vets. So we have a group of folks who are already at risk for some significant stressors and asking to consider working in a field that can potentially seriously aggravate those stressors. Combine that with the tariffs and just the general collapse in many commodity pricing and some of us are getting very worried about farmers.

First of all, to echo some of the other posters, dumping on many of these farmers just because they're White and Conservative is not a good look. A a Black man, I've had my share of difficult conversations not only with White farmers but also with Conservative Black ones as well. And while the majority of these funds may indeed go to White, predominantly rich farmers, we have to keep the focus on why other farmers White, Black or Brown are not getting the support they need. I'll give you an example. Hurricane Michael did a number on south Georgia which is a major food production area. Here are the last estimates I saw

Timber- $763 million in lost trees.
Pecans- $100 Million in crop loss. $260 million in lost trees. $200 million in lost income over the next decade
Cotton-$550 million in lost crops
Vegetable Production-$480 million in lost crops
Poultry-$25 million in losses. 129 commercial houses destroyed. One integrator lost 50% of his farmers due to storm damage
Soybeans-$10 million dollars in lost crops
Greenhouse Industry-$10 million dollars in lost infrastructure
Peanuts-$10 million in lost crop. Even worse, all of the buying points such as packing houses, processors and other important infrastructure has been destroyed

While these numbers are simply staggering, the long range ramifications are stunning. When you grow pine trees or pecans you're looking at 10-18 years before you can bring a marketable crop to market. A friend of mine is hearing that producers who are in their late 40s or early 50s are making the decision not to replant. What the long term impact that these decisions will have on these rural communities remains to be seen, things don't look good in the short term.

To make matters worse, the little media attention the area did receive was dismissive and insulting. The New York Times published an article about the area and storm and basically framed it as the chickens coming home to roost for conservative Trump voters who don't believe in climate change. Aside from the fact that too many people see these areas as only White and conservative (this is certainly not the case), the article could have told the story of the tremendous economic loss to these rural communities. There is a large base of African American farmers in this area as well and they have suffered the same losses. Shirley Sherrods large farm and training facility is in this area.

So while it may be tempting to rag on farmers, I see this as an opportunity for the more level-headed among us to begin talking about potential common interests such as crop diversification, moving some production away from commodity crops to supply food to rapidly growing local food systems and how to come together to help farmers, Black or White, deal with the tremendous mental and financial stressors that are getting more serious by the day.

Sorry for the long post