The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC) | August 12, 2001 | By Bob Williams, Staff Writer
Delano Cox is the most valuable employee at her family's 8,000-acre farming business in Monroe, even though it has been years since she helped with the crops and livestock.
Cox's main job is harvesting the various farm aid programs offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the past five full calendar years, from 1996 through 2000, Cox Brothers Farms has pulled in nearly $ 1.9 million in federal agriculture payments - government money for everything from cotton subsidies to disaster assistance.
Cox, 60, typically works a 65-hour week, with much of it devoted to getting all the federal aid the farm qualifies for, churning out application forms and delivering them to the local USDA office. Her efforts have made Cox Brothers the state's largest recipient of federal farm payments over the past five years.
But the huge farm, which operates in three counties, is far from alone when it comes to tapping into the federal cash pipeline.
Records obtained by The News & Observer show the U.S. Department of Agriculture has paid out more than $ 1 billion to nearly 114,000 individuals and organizations in North Carolina over the past five years. The payments have risen sharply during the period, from about $ 75 million in 1996 to more than $ 448 million last year.
Cox said she would prefer not to be dependent on government money, but the payments are vital because of stubbornly low crop and livestock prices.
"Frankly, I think it stinks we are getting money from USDA rather than from a fair price on what we grow," she said. "But what is the farmer supposed to do? We have to do anything we can to get by when the prices are this bad."
One reason for the spike in payments in North Carolina is that the Agriculture Department started paying crop loss and disaster compensation to tobacco farms two years ago. In addition, USDA payments have been rising nationwide over the past few years, although at a much slower rate than in North Carolina.
This isn't what Congress had in mind when it attempted to overhaul national farm policy in 1996. That legislation, dubbed "Freedom to Farm," was supposed to wean farms off government subsidies altogether by 2002. The idea was to allow farmers more leeway to experiment with different crops each year and still receive government subsidies. The legislation called for the subsidies to be gradually reduced, disappearing completely next year.
At the time the Freedom to Farm bill passed, commodity prices and farm incomes were at record highs. Then commodity prices started to tumble, falling to historically low levels where some remain today.
Farm interests started pressuring Congress to make up for their lost income. Flush with unprecedented budget surpluses, Congress has shoveled more dollars to farms each year as part of emergency agriculture bills.
In the past, North Carolina has ranked well down the list of recipients of federal agriculture largesse. Most benefits were tied to crops concentrated in other states, such as wheat, corn and cotton.
For example, North Carolina ranked ninth nationally in terms of total farm product sales in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available. That same year, the state ranked 22nd in terms of government payments.
At the other end of the scale were states such as Montana, where many wheat and grain crops are grown, which ranked 34th in terms of farm marketings but 15th in government payments.
Who should benefit?
Backers and beneficiaries of the programs say they are essential to helping farmers survive, particularly small farmers. But the records show that many payments go to people and organizations who have little or no direct participation in growing crops or raising livestock.
For example, one retired woman in the mountain community of Highlands, Lora Tarbox, 67, has collected nearly $ 15,000 over the past five years as her cut from a farm her family owns in Texas. Tarbox said she has never actively participated in farming the property.
Among others who have received USDA funding over the past five years:
- Retired N.C. State University agriculture professor Charles Stuber and his wife, Marilyn, have collected more than $ 130,000 for land they own in Nebraska.
- William and Jean Rooney, who live in Hatteras on the Outer Banks, have gotten USDA checks for more than $ 111,000 over the past five years for farms they own in Kansas.
- The state Department of Transportation's Right Of Way Branch has gotten $ 96,638 for maintaining as a natural wetland a swampy dairy farm it bought several years ago in Bladen County.
The records show that more than 600 individuals or organizations in Raleigh have received USDA payments totaling $ 1,000 or more over the past five years. More than 320 payments of $ 1,000 or more went to individuals and organizations in Charlotte.
Critics of the programs say that they have nothing against farmers, but that using taxpayer money to pay absentee landlords and others loosely related to agricultural production is wrong. They also complain the majority of the money flows to large farming operations, not struggling small farms.
"We don't do this type of thing for restaurants or most other types of businesses," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington watchdog group that has tracked USDA payments for years. "It certainly hasn't stemmed the flow of small family farms going out of business."
Cook also contends that many subsidy programs are unfair because they are based on past crop production.
"There are many situations where one farm qualifies for a big subsidy while another one right next door doesn't," said Cook. "The only difference is that one farm has raised qualifying crops in the past. How fair is that?"
Some farmers and others who receive checks from the USDA say they would prefer that the government get out of agriculture altogether, but point out that low commodity prices and global competition make the subsidies necessary.
"Those payments are about the only way we have been able to keep farming," said Rusty Cox, Delano's son and one of 16 people who works full-time at the Cox Brothers operation. "The best thing would be for consumers and all the middlemen to pay a decent price for our crops and livestock. If that happened, then the government could stay out."
Production and conservation
Stuber, the retired N.C. State professor, said the payments he receives make it possible for him to keep a young farmer working on the land he owns in Nebraska.
"From a pure financial standpoint, I could probably make more by investing in a CD at the bank," said Stuber. "What most people don't realize is that most landowners put just about as much into the farm as my tenant does. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I believe most of us share equally in the risk with our tenants."
Some of the federal aid is designed to prevent farming. The $ 96,000 that has gone to the Department of Transportation over the past five years is for corn the state never intended to plant in the first place.
DOT bought the 175-acre tract, which was once a working dairy farm, to turn into a wetland. The agency needed to provide a new wetland area as compensation for other wetlands destroyed by road projects.
"Basically, the subsidy is for not planting anything there," said John Williamson, director of DOT's Right of Way Branch. "It's pretty swampy. I'm not sure we could grow anything there even if we wanted."
The head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's state office in Raleigh said most people outside agriculture don't understand how the programs work or how vital the subsidies and other payments are to maintaining American agriculture.
"I don't think there is any doubt we would have fewer farms in this country if it wasn't for these programs," said Keith Weatherly, executive director of the USDA's Farm Service Agency in Raleigh, which oversees most agricultural aid programs. "These programs are all that is keeping many farmers in business with commodity prices the way they are."
Weatherly said his agency spot-checks farms to make sure they are not abusing the system.
"If we find one taking advantage of the programs they are kicked out," he said. "That doesn't happen a lot, but it has happened."
Tarbox, the Highlands retiree, said she believes she is helping the farm-preservation cause back in her native Texas.
"It's true that I have never had dirt under my fingernails, but I still contribute a great deal to farming by helping keep our land in production," she said. "Most city people don't understand how these things really work. We could probably sell our land and have a lot more money, but we have chosen not to do that."
At the same time, Tarbox said she is sometimes uncomfortable with the programs and isn't sure how well they actually work.
"I'm sure there are problems with the programs, but farmers can't live on air," she said. "If the final result is that more farmers are able to keep farming, then I think that is a very good thing."
Some N.C. Recipients
Here are some notable individuals and organizations in North Carolina who received payments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1996 through 2000.
The Nature Conservancy: $ 743,897
N.C. Department of Transportation: $ 96,638
Pork producer Murphy Farms Inc.: $ 584,332
Pork producer Prestage Farms: $ 64,995
N.C. House Minority Leader Leo Daughtry: $ 12,359
Former N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham: $ 4,624
Former U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth: $ 116,180
Baseball Hall of Fame member Enos Slaughter: $ 932
Terry Sanford Jr., Durham developer and son of former U.S. Sen. Terry Sanford: $ 20,625
Copyright 2001 The News and ObserverThe News and Observer (Raleigh, NC):
