I don't think she was flummoxed. I doubt that she has ever been flummoxed. Would someone call her up and ask whether she has ever been flummoxed?

Just another rip on the last Republican Farm Act by those who seek an intensification of the last Republican authored Freedom to Farm Act. This article, like others recently, parrot the same preposterous talking points, directing the reader to object to ANY farm program. This latest is especially cute, including a reference to an anti-farmer ad which presents a prissy male model type and claims that he is a farmer. I'm sure that he, like the author of this article, has never visited a farm.

Dryland hard winter wheat is a large part of the US grain crop. I know a number of large farm wheat farmers, around 4-5,000 acres each. All are family farms. Most of these "big farmers" are actively involved in the farm work, although other family and/or hired hands do a lot of it. A couple are in their 70's and no longer do the heavy work.

Rental costs for dryland winter wheat is about $35/acre in our area and yields are about 32 bu/acre. If one is purchasing land, his land costs would be higher than this. Aside from land costs, other production costs can run from $50-60/acre. If one harvests 32 bu at the target price of $4/bu that is $128/acre. The government "subsidy" (originating in the 1999 farm act) is $14/acre. This relatively meager and unnecessary "subsidy" has defaced the image of the american farmer, rendering him sort of the O. J. Simpson of Agriculture. Seriously, no one is going to get rich from these subsidies. Neither are they going to result in inflated land prices. Neither are they going to lead to overproduction. Neither are they going to deflate commodity values in Southern Angorastan.

To receive ANY wheat subsidy, one must sign up for the wheat program. One must certify the crops produced on the base acreage of your farm. This is done with your local Farm Service Agency, which makes spot-checks to confirm that what you have claimed is true. This is not to say that one cannot steal from the government, but there are risks involved in commiting fraud. It's similar to a physician claiming to have treated a bunch of non-existent Medicare patients. Might get by with it.........maybe not......

I just hate seeing stuff this bad and inacurate in Salon, or the WaPo or the NYTimes, and seeing comments such as "family farms no longer exist", or "we should just do away with the farm program". The overwhelming majority of our populace seems to no longer have an awareness of what a farm is or why it is or how it is, and the sources that they rely on for information are failing them.

Well, enough of this rant. If you have not guessed, I am a wheat farmer, pretty small sized, family farm type. The most I have farmed is short of 1,000 acres, currently less than half that. I support a return to the farm program policies of the pre Freedom to Farm Act.....where there were no "subsidies", but there were price supports that were linked to measures intended to regulate production. Participation was voluntary, but farmers could not have the security of the price support without pledging compliance with any prescribed production limitations. Incidentally, with this farm program, and with current commodity prices, the cost to the government would be approximately.....Zero........

Well, I guess I agree with those that think that Ms Waters' recommendations are somewhat impractical and naive.....but I certainly agree with eating locally grown produce in season whenever possible. In saying this, my primary motivation, I guess is taste. Not in all vegetables, but some, like tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, do not taste the same to me as when I was growing up (long ago). When I grow tomatoes in my own garden, the difference is obvious. Whether there is any difference in nutrients, I have no idea, nor whether there is any "health" reason to eat locally.

If the demand for local produce grows, then a point will be reached where the local mom and pop gardeners cannot keep up. Then some farm lands will need to shift from other crops to veggies, and there will be an increasing need for seasonal farm workers. Where will they come from and how will they be paid? There seems to be a trend for seasonal farm workers to be non-migrant. If so, how will they be paid a yearly living wage, when they only work for 40% of the year. Taco Bell can't reasonably be expected to take up the slack in these workers pay. Perhaps a "local produce sales tax" can pay these workers for the idle months. Or perhaps a "guest worker program" could return them to a country of origen for storage until they are again needed.

Now for the un-seasonal months. There are some veggies that I hate to buy from grocery chains at any time, but most are acceptable if not ideal.........but there was a day when produce was shipped from Fla, and Texas, and Calif, to outlets around the nation and it was much better than todays produce. Granted, shelf life was shorter, but the system worked, didn't it? I wonder how much the price of a tomato would increase if it were of a "good" variety shipped in from Calif to Oklahoma in the middle of winter. I wonder how much less produce a grocery chain needs to stock with the markedly increased shelf life of todays industrial veggies. Is it also impractical and naive to suggest that the large industrial farms of our produce areas, both organic and non-organic, would ever agree to return to the vegetable varieties of the past?