- Jun 6, 2007
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Washington politicians especially the President need to come-up and implement bold plans to address skyrocketing farm commodity prices. This past week America has learned that the wheat harvest in China looks real bad and that the price of cotton is approaching two dollars a bushel (cotton priced at no more than a dollar a bushel has been something that was practically a given over most of the past "century") and U.S. corn or wheat stocks are at their lowest levels in fifteen years. The Farm commodity markets over the past twelve months have been entering "Alice in Wonderland" behavior, the prices have skyrocketed to dangerous levels. America is in a crisis with food commodity prices and approaching an "extremely serious" crisis level which many countries are already in. U.S. food processors have been absorbing much of the costs of these commodity price increases but this can't go on for much longer American consumers and American families are going to start to be hurt by these commodity price hikes if these trends continue and consumers in other countries throughout the world haven't been so lucky their food prices have significantly increased and the world has seen political instability over these developments which is only going to get worse and certainly large amounts of violence will ensue here! When it comes to cotton price increases we have already learned that U.S. clothes designers plan to raise prices over this which will have a ripple effect of reducing units of clothes merchandise sold in America and thus reducing employment in and outside America. The cause of this problem is weather calamities throughout the world whether it be droughts in Russia or flooding in India which reduce crop yields. America could help itself and the world with this with this problem if it used its land wealth America has an abundance of land which could be utilized for farming but it has to be cleared and/or brought on line for this purpose!
America hears token comments from U.S. government officials and Washington politicians how land that was used in the past for farming will be sought after to be brought back into production, farm industry friendly rhetoric, but nothing profound and dramatic to turn the tables on this problem. One only has to drive on America's interstate to see the abundance of public land that could be turned into farm land. Some of this public land is owned by the Federal Government and some owned by the states. The U.S. government needs to act now and start identifying Federal lands that could be turned into productive farm land and develop a plan that clears the land for farming and develops attractive programs to farmers for leasing the land to farmers and loan them money to farm the land. Washington needs to for at least the next few years until this crisis is past give the Secretary of the Department of Agricultural the power to stop all litigation from environmentalist on bringing new farm land on line giving this Secretary the power to hear environmentalist appeals and others complaints in a fast track manner with the power to stop specific farm land development if warranted and/or put restrictions on such development like banning the use of certain fertilizers which would dangerously pollute important nearby bodies of water. This crisis is so bad Washington should be leaving no stone unturned here, this writer is from Pennsylvania and knows first-hand that "Valley Forge National Park" and "Gettysburg National Park" has plenty of land that could be readily turned into farm land and it should be done so immediately. The Federal Government should have identified "state" owned land across the country that could readily be turned into farm land and publish this information and lobby the states to do so, give the states the incentive where the Federal Government will turn over to the respective state for the next twenty years all Federal tax income coming to the Federal government from farming on state owned land that the state brings on line for farming over the next seven years. It really is criminal the President and members of the U.S. Congress tepid response to this world commodity crisis, fortunately there is still time for these actors to act for the American people but very very little time!
America hears token comments from U.S. government officials and Washington politicians how land that was used in the past for farming will be sought after to be brought back into production, farm industry friendly rhetoric, but nothing profound and dramatic to turn the tables on this problem. One only has to drive on America's interstate to see the abundance of public land that could be turned into farm land. Some of this public land is owned by the Federal Government and some owned by the states. The U.S. government needs to act now and start identifying Federal lands that could be turned into productive farm land and develop a plan that clears the land for farming and develops attractive programs to farmers for leasing the land to farmers and loan them money to farm the land. Washington needs to for at least the next few years until this crisis is past give the Secretary of the Department of Agricultural the power to stop all litigation from environmentalist on bringing new farm land on line giving this Secretary the power to hear environmentalist appeals and others complaints in a fast track manner with the power to stop specific farm land development if warranted and/or put restrictions on such development like banning the use of certain fertilizers which would dangerously pollute important nearby bodies of water. This crisis is so bad Washington should be leaving no stone unturned here, this writer is from Pennsylvania and knows first-hand that "Valley Forge National Park" and "Gettysburg National Park" has plenty of land that could be readily turned into farm land and it should be done so immediately. The Federal Government should have identified "state" owned land across the country that could readily be turned into farm land and publish this information and lobby the states to do so, give the states the incentive where the Federal Government will turn over to the respective state for the next twenty years all Federal tax income coming to the Federal government from farming on state owned land that the state brings on line for farming over the next seven years. It really is criminal the President and members of the U.S. Congress tepid response to this world commodity crisis, fortunately there is still time for these actors to act for the American people but very very little time!
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