Federal farm policy tends to be so complicated that even farmers themselves likely have a hard time understanding it.

Saturday, July 21, 2001

Federal farm policy tends to be so complicated that even farmers themselves likely have a hard time understanding it.

However, beneath the technicalities of the recently proposed farm bill, one theme should take precedence over others: Creating a level playing field for U.S. farmers.

For the past decade, the federal government has been working to increase free trade with other countries; NAFTA passed several years ago, and now there’s talk of creating a free trade agreement with China.

There was also a movement to get farmers off of government subsidies, allowing them the opportunity to grow what they wanted to profit through the free markets.

The recent problems with farm prices, it appears, stemmed from a combination of the two movements, and mostly because other countries have not constructed the same policies.

Many other countries have subsidized their farmers at a higher level than the U.S., including Canada and Mexico and those in Europe, South America and Asia. Thus while farmers in other countries could withstand lower prices caused by perennial surpluses, U.S. farmers could not.

There’s no question that free trade is good in theory, and that it would be nice if U.S. farmers would not have to rely on government subsidies to make it.

The problem is, the rest of the world is not yet ready for such policies.

For now, it is more important to allow U.S. farmers to be subsidized at a level to allow them to compete with those in other countries and stay in business.