Food Prices Rise, Farmers Respond (April 1, 2008) �Food Prices Rise,
Farmers Respond� (Business Day, April 1) discusses the effects that
rising commodity prices have had on farmers and their planting
decisions.
As a group representing family farmers, we feel that it is just as
urgent that the United States re-establishes Strategic Grain Reserves
just as we have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
So far, the current farm bill has completely overlooked this critical
issue. We are just one drought away from seeing $10 per bushel corn,
with absolutely no plans in place to deal with this calamity! Most
civilizations have had reserves.
Leaving our food security to the whims of the global markets is a
recipe for disaster, but this is the situation we find ourselves in
since Congress got rid of our last reserves in the 1996 �freedom to
farm� bill.
A reserve would also help stabilize prices so that farmers would not
have to suffer $1.50 corn and $3 wheat, as what happened when prices
collapsed after the 1996 farm bill. Farmers then had to be bailed out
with expensive subsidy payments.
Ten-dollar corn is a threat to our food system, but $2 corn should be
every bit as unacceptable.National Family Farm Coalition
