With Trump's subsidy, farmers grow distrustful of simple solutions
SAN DIEGO -- Take it from this country boy, Mr. President.
Farmers -- including those in my native Central California -- don't need your handout. They just want you to remove your boot from their neck so they can make a living.
The Trump administration is offering an estimated $12 billion in farm aid, which is about the last thing farmers need.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue calls the proposed assistance "a firm statement that other nations cannot bully our agricultural producers to force the United States to cave in."
The farmers I know aren't worrying about Uncle Sam caving in to foreign countries. They're worried about their entire industry caving in on them, their families and their futures.
Still, they don't want welfare; they only want to grow their crops and sell them at a fair price. Most of them accept they're not going to get rich tilling the soil, but they'd appreciate it if they didn't have to go broke in the process of providing nourishment to the nation.
Some respect would also be appreciated. Farmers remain the neglected step-children of the American economy.
In California, the nation's agricultural capital, farmers have gotten so efficient at seeding, harvesting, packaging, selling and shipping fruits and vegetables that they can feed most of the country and part of the world. Meanwhile, blowhard politicians in both parties tout the hip commodities of technology and Hollywood films as driving the economy in the Golden State. But as an industry that generates nearly $60 billion in annual net income, it's farming that fills our bellies.
Supposedly, Trump's farm handout would come in three forms; direct payments to farmers who grow soybeans, sorghum, wheat, cotton, dairy and hogs; government purchases of fruit, nuts, legumes and meats that go to food banks; and the development of new markets for exports.
Whether he is bashing the European Union or separating refugee families at the border, Trump's M.O. is to break things and then quietly try to cover up the wreckage with a Band-Aid.
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