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Most farmers don't want subsidies. They want a fair price for their crop...but when it finally occurs, we have to worry about congressional hearings looking into remediating the "outrageous" prices we're receiving.

By historical standards, the price of wheat, a crop my family grows on 500 acres of prime land in Eastern Oregon...even the recent record prices they've received...is about one-third what it should be had the price simply increased equal to inflation.

When I worked up there as a kid with my grandfather, in 1974, the price of wheat hit $5 per bushel. 18 months ago, Christmas 2006, the price of wheat was exactly the same: $5 per bushel. Today, the price is about $8 per bushel.

In that time, the price of fuel has gone from say 75 cents per gallon to over $4. Prices of equipment have increased 3-fold or more. The cost of living has gone up nearly 500%.

If the price of wheat had simply increased with inflation, a bushel of wheat would be over $23, rather than the $8 or so it is today, or the record $13 it was at the beginning of this year.

I'm no fan of subsidies, but I dare say they've helped keep prices of food low, since if my family...and many others...had not received some sort of assistance, they wold be out of business and there would be much less grain being grown.

And if supplies go down, the current prices...or even the recent record prices...would look like an incredible bargain rather than something to label as a crisis.

By the way, a 500-acre farm, which averages about 100 bushels per acre...very good yields...can barely support two people. No wonder the family farm is becoming a misnomer.

posted 5 years ago
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