The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Now this one, also from ENN, really gets my goat, no pun intended. These clowns want to end farm susidies by the federal government when most U.S. farmers have already been driven out of business. I'm not talking the huge corporate farms, I'm talking the small family farmer. I think we should only give subsidies to farmers that own the land they farm, not to corporations, but that's another issue. What surprises me is that U.S. farmers aren't agressively pursuing wind energy as the new cash crop in addition to traditional agriculture. Both have a tendency to coexist extremely well together. Where the heck are the AG COOPs on this? It used to be American farmers were some of the most innovative people on the planet at brilliant capitalism. The individual ones that have survived the "corping" of the American farm sure should be. All the same, we're already a country at war on two fronts plus shadow wars and we can barely manufacture or own washing machines, ahhh, duuuhhh, what happens if we P.O. the little country that makes our bullets for fifteen cents an hour? So now we're going to export our food production too? This is good for national security? This is not some very rotten third-world BALOGNA? Enough soap boxing, though. Seriously, U.S. farm cooperatives and individual farmers would be very well advised to get solidly behind wind and other renewables, especially in light of stories like this one...

Friday, August 22, 2003
By Reuters


WASHINGTON — The United States has a moral duty to slash its farm subsidies even if developing countries do not reciprocate by opening their markets to more U.S. farm goods, officials with a leading private sector development group said Thursday.

The United States is under pressure in world trade talks to reduce the billions of dollars in subsidies it pays to farmers each year. Leading U.S. farm groups have vowed to fight such an agreement unless developing countries reduce their tariffs to allow in more agricultural imports.

Gawain Kripke, a senior policy advisor with Oxfam, said the United States had a greater responsibly to eliminate subsidies that depress prices for farmers in poor countries and make it harder for them to compete for export sales.

"It doesn't work to demand that developing countries roll over on their agricultural sectors in order for the U.S. to reduce its subsidies," said Kripke. "The U.S. is sinning — and so is the E.U. (European Union) — by subsidizing and dumping products on poor countries."

Also, in an era of $400 billion U.S. budget deficits, farm subsidies "may be a luxury we can't afford," he said.

U.S. farmers are expected to receive about $19 billion in...(Read on in: US has responsiblity to cut farm subsidies, says Oxfam