Our farm data will soon change and for the worse. At present, there are 3 million laborers who work on 2 million farms. Most are family owned operations. Farming is defined by economics. If you had income of $1,000, then, you are a farmer. By the way government subsidies make people who never stepped foot on grass, a farmer. Subsidies should go to people who work a farm, not absent owners.
Of the 2 million farms, 90% are small which means that income on a yearly basis was $350,000 or less. However, these small farms produce 20% of total production. Large-scale farms amount to 2.5% of US farms, but produce 50% of our product. They earn from $1 million and way up.
Breakdown
In general, one farm can feed 166 people. The problem in the outlook is the rising global population and possible food insecurity.
At present, the value of US farmland is $2 trillion, but that figure changes all the time. The lockdown of the nation's economy will effect farming for the worse.
Did you know that women are the biggest influx into farming? They grew by 27% from 2012 to 2017. Taken as a whole, farming accounts for only 1% of GDP.
No longer #1
The US has lost the top spot. We are currently third in world production. This is due to many reasons to which is people having left farming for the city. Back in the day (1840) 70% of our population were on farms. This is our heritage of individualism and being self-proficient. Modern media influence is trying to change that. If one looks deeper into their byte lines, you can see their small thinking. Our founders may not have been perfect, but who is? However, they were schooled in the philosophical and literary tradition that dates back to classical antiquity. They understood the fragility of civil peace and the danger of the vengeful mob. I really dislike the people who attack our founders statues and Christopher Columbus.
Our present leaders, use politics to buy votes. These products of politicized instruments also reveal our failing education system. They offer no vision. The best word to describe both of our political parties is malfeasance. I don't want to drift off the topic, but like I say in my unpublished work, "All things are connected."
What I See and Fear...
The producer price index came out last week. It said that prices dropped by .02%. This means things were cheaper, however the PPI for May was up .04%. I think that I know the answer.
With all the fear spread by government and the media, people rushed to grocery stores. Can you ever remember seeing empty shelves in a supermarket? Yet, there they were. No tuna. No meat. No rice. Only high price can goods and the biggest, hardest item, no toilet paper! Even with all this emptiness in grocery stores, the government says prices only rose by .04%. They have manipulated these indexes so much that they have no relation to reality. Malfeasance is the word!
By the way, Bank of America says inflation will rise to 4% in Mexico. It is off the charts in Argentina and Brazil. In Lebanon, their currency, the lira went from 1500 to 4300 versus the US dollar. That's inflation!
I saw an economist on PBS, a Nobel Prize winner Esther Duflo. She had some real good points on poverty, but I take exception to this. She does not know what she is talking about. Get away from computer stats and get out into the world. She says that it is a lie that immigrants take all the low wage jobs. Go to an airport. All the cleaning people are Hispanic. Go to a meat or chicken factory. How about hotel or hospital laundry? A black or white person can no longer get these jobs. It is the same for cleaning agencies in almost every city. All the help are Hispanic immigrants. Critics will say Americans will not do these jobs. That is BS! People will sadly do any menial task to eat or feed their starving children. The media controls the dialogue. The one fantastic aspect of immigrant labor was on farms. They moved throughout the nation as harvest time changes in growing zones. These people need better pay, benefits and living conditions. However, the lockdown have kept them absent from the farms. Food rotted in the fields. Farmers also could not find drivers to deliver their bounty. They lost everything! Farms will go under. Our food supply will not only be in danger, but whatever is grown and delivered in the future will cost more. We can see that in the recent resupply by our stores. Meat is unaffordable. Chicken is king. People have always avoided inflation by substitution. A solid, albacore tuna can is like finding a silver coin. Rice costs like sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes is like hamburger. What lie will the government say about this as it happens? Of course, government did not suffer a lockout of a job. They do not count the basic needs of life, food, energy and shelter in their index, but as the blind man says, "We will see."
I got off topic again with the immigrant mention. My view is I'm for immigration, but not at all times. A weak, fragile economy like our present one, cannot have more immigration. This forces people to beg for low paying jobs. It is a negative spiral. If we stopped our military spending and devoted our resources into a future outlook for our nation in solar, wind and electric autos - all segments that would provide livable wages, then, we could open our borders. Not until we see the end of homelessness and our rising poverty levels.
Tidbits on farming...
One hen averages 250 eggs per year. We find many other uses for product. Corn for oil and gasoline. Soybeans will make crayons. Peanuts for peanut butter. One baseball requires 150 yards of wool. One cow can average 6.3 gallons of milk. It takes 4,400 cranberries to make a gallon of juice. The Keystone State grows the most mushrooms. Idaho grows one-third of US potatoes. Note: the US still leads the world in corn production. S. Dakota grows the most sunflowers. Washington produces the most hops. Texas has the most farms. It should it is the biggest. Sadly, the US grows the most GMOs. Georgia has its peaches and Florida its oranges. Nebraska has the highest land usage under farming at 92%. Maybe that is why Buffett went into the stock market? He could not find a farm? Cattle is the largest sector, but it is declining every year. In 1975 there were 45 million cows. In 2014 the number dropped to 29 million.
The medium income of farmers is higher than average, however only 2 in 5 small farms turn a profit. These are hard working people. Two-thirds of them have a second job. I guess that they can relate to city people after all because many in our cities work two jobs. All things are connected!
