Not health insurance: crop insurance

[AllieBaba]

Here is a problem...ppl think farmers are the richest of the rich (it's always elitist city folk who think this)

My friend's crop insurance increased from $5000 to $9000 this year.

Won't be paying for help with harvest next year...

 

[gcomeau]

Here is a problem...ppl think farmers are the richest of the rich (it's always elitist city folk who think this)

My friend's crop insurance increased from $5000 to $9000 this year.

Won't be paying for help with harvest next year...

I have ever once met a single person in my entire life who thought farmers were the "richest of the rich". Where exactly did you encounter these people?

Or was that some kind of stealth sarcasm that got past my radar?

 

[Oddball]

Family farms regularly have gross incomes in excess of $250,000.

According to Barry Obutthead, they're all rich.

 

[AllieBaba]

Gross income, lol.

They're a flipping nightmare. These ppl live in a dilapidated 19th century house...so woefully run down they live in the bottom only, and not even the entirety of that. The bathroom has a horrible stand-up shower (think 1930s style, metal and weird frosted glass, tin bottom and sides) and the tub hasn't worked in the entire time I've known him which is 20 years now. The toilet is falling through the floor, and they don't have money to fix the bastard. They FINALLY did some work in the kitchen, which consisted of putting in a new sink, and that was a huge luxury.

I know ppl who live in barns on family farm land because it was determined by beaurocrats in Washington they couldn't replace homes that burned down (environmentally unsound) or build more than one house per 160 acres. So if you sell off your land except for 20 acres, you can't build a fucking house on it. They send mincing, prancing code nazis out from the cities to tell our people, who have lived and worked this land all their lives, where they can build, and how they can build, and if they can build. And they aren't nice about it. They act like it's their land and they're doing the owners a favor to allow them to use it at all.

Anyway, my friend said one of the reasons the insurance is higher this year is because they had a good harvest LAST year. Not this year. So they're being penalized for having a good harvest more than a year ago, and the only money they've got is the pittance they have after expenses from the crappy harvest this year.

It's just lovely.

 

[AllieBaba]

It's all good though. We're going riding this weekend, so I don't care. And I'm cleaning out my garage/shanty, and the tack room, and the pasture.

It's not like a real garage, my car will fit in it, but you can't open the doors when it does. But when it fills up with garbage (sorry, I'm not paying $30 a month to dispose of 2 bags of garbage per weekend. Which I load onto the truck myself) everyone can see it. Because there's no garage door.
Love to make it into another bedroom. It couldn't possibly be any worse than my daughter's bedroom, which is about 10x10 and doesn't have a closet, and goes up in the corners something fierce.

 

[veritas]

Yet you think supporting the private health insurance model is ok. It's the same thing really. And then add on the seed companies that make insurance look saintly. Genetically modified crap from big chemicals killing the environment, suing people for their cross pollination contamination and winning!

 

[gcomeau]

Family farms regularly have gross incomes in excess of $250,000.

According to Barry Obutthead, they're all rich.

Are you sure you understand the difference between gross income and revenue?

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income 15 States

Because your numbers seem just a *little* bit off.

 

[princyjoshu]

Thanks for sharing with us its new to have a good topic to talk about it,,,,

 

[xotoxi]

ppl think farmers are the richest of the rich

Are you INSANE?



You clearly have not spoken to many ppl!

 

[veritas]

I love how ali flounced in here all outraged and then flounced out like everything was all cool and she was going riding.

Flake-o-rama.

 

[xotoxi]

I love how ali flounced in here all outraged and then flounced out like everything was all cool and she was going riding.

Flake-o-rama.

Maybe she was going to a fancy, formal shin-dig to hob-nob with some farmers.

 

[xsited1]

Here is a problem...ppl think farmers are the richest of the rich (it's always elitist city folk who think this)

My friend's crop insurance increased from $5000 to $9000 this year.

Won't be paying for help with harvest next year...

I know a lot of wealthy farmers. However, I just looked up their average yearly income:

In 2009, average family farm household income is forecast to be $75,895, down 5.2 percent from 2008, and 8.0 percent below the five-year average for 2004-08.

2009 Farm Income Forecast

 

[xotoxi]

I know a lot of wealthy farmers.

You must be one of those elitist city folk, huh.

 

[Oddball]

Family farms regularly have gross incomes in excess of $250,000.

According to Barry Obutthead, they're all rich.

Are you sure you understand the difference between gross income and revenue?

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income 15 States

Because your numbers seem just a *little* bit off.

I know the difference, bub....That's why I specified GROSS incomes.

Sheesh.

 

[PixieStix]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Iy2Jw4DVk]YouTube - John Mellencamp Rain On The Scarecrow[/ame]

 

[Toro]

Who thinks farmers as a group are rich?

Don't people understand the difference between revenues and incomes?

 

[gcomeau]

Family farms regularly have gross incomes in excess of $250,000.

According to Barry Obutthead, they're all rich.

Are you sure you understand the difference between gross income and revenue?

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income 15 States

Because your numbers seem just a *little* bit off.

I know the difference, bub....That's why I specified GROSS incomes.

Sheesh.

Who are you "sheesh"ing exactly? You realize those figures I just pointed you at ARE gross incomes right? Can you even read the charts? Do you not realize they demonstrate your statement was just a little bit off?

The median gross income of a family farm in the US is barely over $50k for cripes sake.

 

[RodISHI]

Are you sure you understand the difference between gross income and revenue?

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income

ERS/USDA Briefing Room - Farm Household Economics and Well-Being: Farm Household Income 15 States

Because your numbers seem just a *little* bit off.

I know the difference, bub....That's why I specified GROSS incomes.

Sheesh.

Who are you "sheesh"ing exactly? You realize those figures I just pointed you at ARE gross incomes right? Can you even read the charts? Do you not realize they demonstrate your statement was just a little bit off?

The median gross income of a family farm in the US is barely over $50k for cripes sake.

That "median" is the kicker. Most people have no clue how many of these small family farmers and their families live. If they make $50k a year they are most likely also running trucks and doing specialty work, combining, mowing or planting for a corporate farm, and most we know have at least one parent who works a full time job on top of working full time at the farms. Most farms now collect a tremendous amount of subsidies in order to survive. The money makers are the chemical companies, the seed companies, the marketers and the equipment companies.

I have one neighboring family farm that is an actual family farm that collects no government subsidies at all. She is a vet and they both work on the farm continually. They live in a pole barn that has been converted with partial living quarters. Running water to the kitchen. Simply a pot no toilet in a bathroom area. No separate rooms except for the potty area and the animal care room. No carpet only concrete floors that are painted. On the one end of the building she has a little room where she takes care of small animals in her practice and she takes care of several of the larger cattle operations cows around here on a regular basis. They have several hundred head of cows and several hundred acres of hay. It has taken them twenty years of working seven days a week to build that farm from a small acreage that his family previously owned and build their herd of cows. They grow and can their own food from their meat to their veggies and keep chickens for their own eggs. One daughter keeps bees so they can have their own honey source. They also spend several weeks of every year in the spring and the fall helping family members in the northern portion of the state who also have a family farm. She drives a 1970's beater and he drives an old 70's pickup. They used an old/old tractor up until last year. Both children always had a ton of farm chores. It is a treat for them when they sell some of their calves they shop for items like walnuts for cookies and those things that their farm does not grow. Are they rich?

Most likely they will leave the family farm to their children and their children will divide the land and raise their children. These are exceptional people and very rare. Most farms do not operate as they do. The majority of farmers get subsidies and take out huge loans to just plant crops each year. They must grow their farm acreages bigger and bigger each year in order to keep up. The cost of grain, corn and wheat that farmers are being paid for does not come anywhere close to meet with the inflated cost they must pay to keep their farming operations.

My other neighbors also have small family farms. They all both work full time outside jobs except for one to support their farming efforts.

Throughout the world the marketers, politicians and bankers have kept the family farmers in check to insure those family farms just barely make it each year and the bankers, politicians and marketers make all the profits they can squeeze out of these poor slobs willing to play their profits game.



Retail Realities: Corn Prices Do Not Drive Grocery Inflation — Food & Water Watch

They come up with more ways to strip wealth from small family farming operations every year. Each year people become more dependent on these people who are playing the whole system for every bit of control they can get over people who desire independence and freedom. Each year they gain more control over everyone's lives controlling the basics of the food, the water, the housing and the utilities.

The Bottom Line of Tracking Livestock: The Money Behind the National Animal Identification System

The sad part is that the majority of the people are letting them do it to them.