NEMO | DCH - 9/28/2025 06:41
While not a big fan of CRP, mostly for reasons you mentioned, your comments are incorrect and you have no idea how bad things were at that time. People can say what they want, but the mid 80’s took out more small farmers than most remember.
I was buying, fixing up, and flipping farms in the early to mid 90’s. One—the owner threw the house keys in the mailbox and left. Another, it took 2 years to get the title cleared up, after I put the deposit on it, so that I could even buy it.
Both of those were on either side of the Iowa Missouri border.
CRP put a floor in places on land values and started to stabilize rural America. The places that totally fell apart were marginal production areas and yes, that was a lot of Southern Iowa and Northern Missouri. That area has always been a land of haves and have nots.
I have a pretty good handle on how bad the 80's were and small farmers being taken out.
CRP may have put a false floor on land values but it didn't stabilize rural America.
The families that put land in CRP are families that now no longer farm.
CRP is another nail in the coffin of small family farms. |
a case for expanding crp
