Understanding Illinois: Are Farmers Becoming Serfs to Big Ag?
•February 27 2019•
By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist
Based on what I hear from atop my perch in rural central Illinois, I worry that my farmer friends may become but serfs to Big Agriculture. That is, farmers provide the labor, soils and risk in service to a very few global chemical and other ag companies. The farmers must buy their inputs from these few companies, yet the companies call most of the shots and reap the rewards, it seems.
I grew up a “town boy” in a tiny farm town; never knew much about ag, still don’t. After a career away, I moved back to my hometown. I love my farmer friends and appreciate the bounty of American agriculture, so I yearn to be proved wrong about all this.
The following is what I observe and also hear from my farmer friends at the back table at Connie’s Country Kitchen in my town.
The farmers buy seeds, but don’t own them; they cannot plant with seed they have harvested. They used to own and work on their equipment; now farmers often lease, because it’s too expensive to buy.
Well, you say, at least farmers can decide what crops they want to plant. Yes, to paraphrase Henry Ford, they may plant any crops they want so long as they are corn and beans. That is because nothing much else is protected by subsidized government crop insurance, which includes some price protection. Thus, the bankers who hold the loans on land and for spring planting needs insist that the farmers buy this insurance, which also indirectly protects Big Ag.
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