Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow | The government spends upwards of $20 billion dollars on farmers, the vast majority of it on the 500,000 or so grain farmers. That works out to an average of $40,000 per operator. Given that amount of largess, the taxpayers kinda deserve to know a few basic things. I wonder what would happen if the government said: "no report, no check?" I agree, however, that most of that information could easily be gotten from the RMA. The question is does the government have the right to have access to your planting intentions. Well, maybe, see'n that they are going to foot the better part of your crop insurance bill in the coming year. But I don't think that they should release that information to the public. The problem therein lies, how to keep the "well connected" from gaining the inside information. Personally, I suspect that the information that the seed & fertilizer dealers have collectively is probably a whole lot more valuable & accurate. It would be interesting to know whether the seed companies cooperate and pool their data somehow. |
Usda survey
