Current Articles A Hard Time With Consistency Beheading awaited a French Queen in the 1700s when she was reported to have said, "let them eat cake," after learning the peasants had no bread. Yet with more than 1 billion hungry people around the globe today, praise awaits the modern day version of this statement—"let them eat organic." [View the Full Article] TIME Flies: Part 4 Over the past month, we've dissected this 30-year-old cover story, which holds as much relevance today as it did when it was first written. In particular, we've looked at the age-old myth that U.S. farms are being taken over by corporate agribusiness, as well as the litany of challenges facing the modern-day farmer. [View the Full Article] TIME Flies: Part 3 In addition to bad hairdos, Woodstock, and butterfly collars, the ‘70s also brought with it groundbreaking technologies that propelled many U.S. businesses into a new era. Farming was no exception. But the new technologies that improved efficiency and boosted yields came with a hefty price tag. The cost of farming skyrocketed during the decade, and the low profit margins that have long haunted the profession got even thinner. [View the Full Article] TIME Flies: Part 2 To hear agriculture's opponents tell it, you'd think most farmers are raking in the big bucks. But anyone who's been around the business knows that's never been the case. The margins in farming are as thin today-maybe thinner-as when TIME magazine had this to say in a 1978 cover story "The New American Farmer": [View the Full Article] TIME Flies: Part 1 Nowadays, it's pretty difficult to get a mainstream news organization to pay much attention to the business of farming or the importance of the profession to the country. Big-city reporters today tend to focus on the sensational and the conflicts created by a handful of over-zealous farm opponents. [View the Full Article] Farmers Take Boston Globe to Task The Boston Globe's May 26 editorial against farmers and farm policy was nothing new—it included the arguments opponents of agriculture have been using for years. What was new was the speed with which the agricultural community responded to these attacks to point out the misinformation, and in some places, completely erroneous claims.... [View the Full Article] Give Me a Break You can almost set your watch by it. About once a year "20/20" reporter John Stossel produces a piece about the evils of farm policy. None of the material is groundbreaking—he uses the same talking points that have been regurgitated by farm opponents for years... [View the Full Article] Myth Busters Part 5 - Administration Projects in the Farm Bill In the fifth installment of our ongoing series about the unsubstantiated claims from farm policy opponents, Farm Policy Facts will examine a recent claim made by the Bush Administration about the farm bill that’s left a lot of folks on the Hill scratching their heads... [View the Full Article] Myth Busters Part 4 - Baseless Administration Claims In the fourth installment of our ongoing series about the unsubstantiated claims by farm policy opponents, Farm Policy Facts will take a closer look at a recent claim made by the Bush Administration about the pending farm bill... [View the Full Article] Myth Busters Part 3 - Big Farms vs. Small Farms In the third installment of our ongoing series about the unsubstantiated claims by farm policy opponents, Farm Policy Facts will examine the relationship between farm payments and food production... [View the Full Article] Myth Busters Part 2 - Federal Spending and the Farm Bill In the second installment of our ongoing series about the unsubstantiated claims by farm policy opponents, Farm Policy Facts will examine the notion that commodity programs break the bank... [View the Full Article] Myth Busters Part 1 - Commodity Prices and the Farm Bill President John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.”  Opponents of farm policy obviously didn’t get the memo. During this farm bill, a handful of special interest groups and big city papers have continued to regurgitate numerous myths about farm programs even though the numbers prove these arguments to be blatantly false. Over the next couple of weeks, Farm Policy Facts will debunk some of the biggest whoppers... [View the Full Article] Will History Repeat Itself? Soaring commodity prices…farm incomes on the rise…increasing land values…banks happy to cash-flow farming operations. Most people involved in writing the new farm bill might read those phrases and think it’s a description of current situation in rural America. It’s not; it’s a description of the years leading up to the farm crisis of the 1980s... [View the Full Article] Hypocritical Critics Flip Flop on Crop Prices U.S. farm programs were recently being attacked by big-city editorial boards and farm policy critics for keeping commodity prices too low and, thus, harming developing countries. Now, with many agricultural commodity prices on an upswing... [View the Full Article] Big-City Newspaper Backs Farm Bill We were wrong: Not all big-city newspapers oppose the farm bill. In a stunning about-face, the editorial board at The Boston Globe urged lawmakers this week to quickly pass the stalled farm bill because of its vital nutrition programs... [View the Full Article] Senate Panel Makes Reforms to Farm Bill By now, the opponents of farm policy sound like broken records. The Senate Agriculture Committee had not even completed its markup of the farm bill, and these naysayers were already attacking the bill and Committee members for not making reforms... [View the Full Article] Beyond Our Borders: A Strong U.S. Farm Bill Has Global Implications All too often we hear from self-anointed advocates who claim that U.S. farm policies contribute to poverty around the world. Yet they consistently ignore the real experts on global issues calling for the very same policies those naysayers are predisposed to reject... [View the Full Article] House Bill Brings Real Reform The last vote had barely been cast on the House farm bill when the spin machines for groups from the far right and far left started whining in overdrive... [View the Full Article] EWG Recklessly Ignoring the Facts By: By Farmer X According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), my operation received about $110,000 in farm program payments in the 2005 program year—a lot of money by many standards. The insinuation of this is that we are rich farmers, rolling in the dough provided by hardworking American taxpayers. Nothing could be farther from the truth... [View the Full Article] A Safety Net for All Americans By Jeff Nunley Recently, one of my neighbors in town was complaining about our U.S. farm program. He made the statement that he wished the government would subsidize his income, like it did for farmers. [View the Full Article]