BIG FARMS MILK CORONAVIRUS MONEY

            When the USDA set up its coronavirus aid program for farmers, it said no farm would get more than $250,000.   That was then.

             According to a report in Successful Farming,  $750,000 each has already gone to five farms and 13 have received $1 million to different entities with the same address.  That's a far cry from $250,000.

             Double dipping into the Payment Protection Program, some farms have received more than $1 million additionally. As usual, only a handful of farms took the $6 billion payout.  Although the report highlights the most egregious participants, the lion's share of the money went to extremely large farms.

             The paperwork and politicking to take advantage of these programs are far beyond the capabilities of medium and smaller farms.  These crises provide perfect opportunities to pay off power brokers within the trade fraternity and offer corporate welfare to the big players.

             I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The government's job is to defend us from foreign attack, provide a court system to adjudicate disagreements, and provide local law enforcement to protect us from each other.  That's it.  Every time the government exceeds those three basic spheres, it spreads monetary and social injustice everywhere its tentacles reach.

             Lots of people today think that somehow their agency or their government program would do the right thing.  I've got news for you; none of them does the right thing.  They're just legal ways to pick losers and winners, to buy and sell freedom.  A government big enough to help is a government big enough to hurt.  The most disempowering thought in the world is the notion that people can't take care of themselves.  In the name of that charitable but naive thought we've propped up factory farms, erosion, monocultures and community-destroying systems while marginalizing and thwarting farms like Polyface.

             This is all part of unfair pricing and prejudicial access to authentic food.  People who vote for these programs are not evil; they're just simpletons and thieves.  I find it reprehensible that my taxes, hard won and hard paid, subsidize these entities in the food marketplace; entities I'm forced to compete with for the consumer dollar.  Entities who sneer "elitist" at my prices.

             Are you weary yet of folks thinking "government help" is always positive?