1979 - 11-19-79 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

iu BOOK r pp PACE A RESOLUTION FOR SUPPORT OF THE SMALL FARMERS recognize the need to encourage the continuation of small family farming as a part of the agricultural system in the United State of America. WHEREAS, Consolidation in the agricultural sector has had and continues to have very serious consequences for-people in both rural and urban America. With the decline of the family farm system, more and more individuals-are, forced into cities, adding to the problems that plague these centers. Meanwhile, rural communities suffer because many small towns depend heavily for their social and economic health on the residents of surrounding farms; and FPdEREAS, The basic function of the family farm system, of course, is to produce food, which it does cheaply, efficiently and in great abundance. There is no evidence that further consolidation in agriculture would lead to significant increases either in efficiency or in production. It could mean significantly higher food prices however. As control of food production falls into fewer hands, the potential for price manipulation grows. Already, giant farms wield significant economic power and corporation control, through land ownership and contracting, about twenty-five percent of the country's agricultural output; and WHEREAS, The most recent USDA estimates place new farmer entry costs at nearly $500,000 for a medium-sized commercial grain or dairy operation. Increasingly, most farm land transactions involve expansion of acreage rather than new purchase of land. At the same time, land prices are inflating at an unprecedented rate across the nation. There has been a 100 percent increase in agricultural land prices over the past five years - in some areas of the country, the increase is even greater; and WHEREAS, Tax laws currently offer those people who actually earn the greatest portion of their income from non-farm sources significant benefits from the ownership of farmland. This so-called "tax loss farming" permits these people to write off their farm losses and expenses from income earned elsewhere; and WHEREAS, It is not too late to turn the above trends around, to figure out ways of combining the best of innovative, highly productive farm technology with the traditional diversity and resiliency of small and moderately-sized family farms; and NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY that we do hereby seek the Senate and House of Representatives of the Unite State of America to enact a Family Farm Development Act that shall contain; (1) a strongly developed family farm system of agriculture is an essential component to a healthy environmental and rural economy; (2) the economic health and well-being.of farm communities and the stability of the farm economy as a whole depend on local ownership of farmland and on land ownership patterns that include small farms affordable to new and young farmers wishing to enter the practice of agriculture;