Farms/Rural Americans
I support:
- Ending the subsidizing of mega farms which drives megafarmers’ neighbors out of business by bidding land away from them.
- Ending loopholes that allow megafarm operations to receive millions in loan deficiency payments and marketing loan gains through generic certificates or by forfeiting commodities to USDA to pay off loans.
- Setting enforceable payment limits on loan deficiency payments, marketing loan gains, and all other income support payments. This limit should be strictly applied to everyone, regardless of how many corporations they create.
- Tightening rules on who can qualify for farm programs to require more active involvement in management or labor, except for landlords who share rent.
- Entrepreneurial development in rural areas and strategies to build assets and wealth for rural people and in rural communities, and to address the persistent, deep-rooted poverty present in many rural parts of the nation. Both strategies address the growing economic disparity between rural and urban areas of the nation. And both strategies address the issues of how to repopulate rural areas and how to ensure the long-term future of rural America
- Rewarding good stewardship of the land by placing a greater emphasis on working lands, communities and fostering a new generation of conservation-minded farmers and ranchers. Although each farmer has a moral obligation to leave the land at least as well as s/he receives it, the public also has an obligation to share in the cost of protecting the land and water on which all of us – current and future generations – rely for survival.
