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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWell, this is MY last post on the farmers (welfare) package....
Article from Politico re-hashing most of what we know already. Thing is, even IF the governmet re-opened tomorrow, it would take well into Nov. or Dec. to get asshole's biggest voting block their money, which would be too late for a crap ton of farmers. They are going broke in real time.
Article claims they could be given as much as 50 billion now, which comes on the heels of the Administration giving away 20-40 billion to Argentina. Yeah, I know...it's what they voted for but if you don't recognize how this mess can hurt all of us then I don't know what to tell you all. Here's the article:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/16/trump-promised-farmers-help-its-complicated-00610757

Traildogbob
(12,053 posts)Expecting that Argentina 20 billion to be as high as 40 billion or even 60 billion.
gab13by13
(30,161 posts)Traildogbob
(12,053 posts)From those that pay taxes. Not from the tariff Fund
(Our taxes as Well if it existed) that has trillions stashed for
.trump and his pals.
Farmers, you been had, again. Stop hitting yourselves.
democratsruletheday
(1,644 posts)will edit that change into my original post...thanks. These fuckers are running us into an iceberg
Traildogbob
(12,053 posts)Thieves, liars and child abusers. With their Gods blessings.
No funds for snap. Guess Jesus needs to start passing out fish, bread and wine.
littlemissmartypants
(30,341 posts)Lovie777
(20,749 posts)just a hunch. Same parallel to heath insurance, good paying jobs, and of course education.
More money in their pockets.
gab13by13
(30,161 posts)and give to Big Farma?
Skittles
(168,201 posts)OUTSTANDING
walkingman
(9,989 posts)It is bipartisan, and I personally think it is self-perpetuating. This year a large part will be because of tariffs, often it is weather related, but any given year it is because of price levels, which are caused by Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
IMO, these bailouts because of government actions (tariffs, etc) become expected and have no consequences because taxpayers mask the issue. It encourages bad practices and has no political consequences. It is simply corporate welfare (most farms these days are LLCs).
Shoeless Louis
(90 posts)so now that the tariffs have destroyed trust in our good faith negotiations. Trump is nothing more than a bull in a china shop when it comes to business decisions. The good news is that maybe we wont have to sell our National Parks to Saudi Arabia, they can just buy up all the swiftly disappearing private farms. The farmers will still have a job, but it would be working on somebodys elses farm.
yellowdogintexas
(23,487 posts)I grew up in a farming area where the vast majority of the farms are family farms. The LLC designation allows them to function as a small corporation but they are by no means giant business enterprises. My sister's family has an LLC; they have about 10 workers at most. While most of their crops are managed completely by machine, they grow tobacco which is extremely labor intensive. Once the plants are in the ground, everything is done by hand; it is backbreaking work and it takes an entire year to bring in the crop.
I know a lot of them voted for Republicans but there is no excuse for what the administration has done to them.
Keepthesoulalive
(1,935 posts)He did the exact same thing during his first term and he doesnt care about them he just needed their vote.
walkingman
(9,989 posts)it is crazy that the POTUS is allowed to pick the winners and the losers in all aspects of our economy - including farmers. The cost of production is affected, planning is impossible, and prices across the board are affected.
Agree that because you are a LLC only means that farmers are trying to limit their liability. The bad thing about the whole process is....IMO, a program created with good intentions is abused by those with wealth and influence, as is our entire "free market" system. There is really nothing free market about any of it.
It is a system that leaves all the players with no options - they have to play within the system or it is almost a guaranteed lose situation. Farming like everything in the US is about influence and sadly the political players know how to use this system to stay in power.
Mysterian
(6,019 posts)Farmers should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
flashman13
(1,663 posts)littlemissmartypants
(30,341 posts)progressoid
(52,177 posts)He wants to be seen as their savior. Or at least be the center of attention. He loves attention.
flashman13
(1,663 posts)NickB79
(20,133 posts)Small family farms will get a pittance, go bankrupt, and see their land bought up by the megafarm corporations.
If they're lucky, they'll be hired on as laborers on the land they once owned.
progressoid
(52,177 posts)compared to last year. Yeah, it's not the mega farms going bankrupt.
walkingman
(9,989 posts)from the "farm bill" because it muddies the waters. If SNAP was funded separately, then it would clearly show what each of the political parties actually support. Historically, the GOP does not like SNAP because it is a social program. However, they have no problem at all spending billions to bailout and subsidize corporate farms (which btw most farms are LLCs) at taxpayer expense.
Wounded Bear
(63,264 posts)The effect on food prices is locked in and farmers everywhere are facing bankrupcy from losing a season of production. Pouring money in won't help the basic problems caused by trump this year, and will mostly funnel into the BigAg producers anyway. Family farms have suffered another hammer blow.
Trumponomics in action.
Aristus
(71,138 posts)So if it hurts them before it hurts us, well, that's just too fucking bad for them. Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em sideways with a splintery two-by-four.
ashredux
(2,789 posts)littlemissmartypants
(30,341 posts)angrychair
(11,302 posts)Any money they give out is almost entirely going to go to corporations with big factory farms.
The concept of the independent family farm is almost entirely a lie.
The USDA only defines a family farm with a farm income less than $350,000 but in many cases these "small" farms are actually owned or have exclusive contracts with a big corporations and the "farmers" are often little more than caretakers but on paper at least, "the farmer owns the land". It's how big AG companies keep that money flowing.
Red Mountain
(2,201 posts)This is from Wikipedia (and a bit dated) but more current info seems to me to indicate things aren't all that different now. Biggest change doesn't seem to be the number of non-family corporate farms going up but that the ones that exist are controlling more land as a percentage of land farmed.
This doesn't mean that corporations aren't asserting too much control over farmers......either through contract growing, gmo seed, chemicals or just plain controlling the market for farm products but you get the idea. It is NOT a free market and the truly independent farmer has a tough time surviving the inevitable dips in commodity market prices.
I'm a small family farmer. One of these days I really need to get around to forming a llc which will make me a....drum roll.....corporate farmer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_farming
The 2012 US Census of Agriculture indicates that 5.06 percent of US farms are corporate farms. These include family corporations (4.51 percent) and non-family corporations (0.55 percent). Of the family farm corporations, 98 percent are small corporations, with 10 or fewer stockholders. Of the non-family farm corporations, 90 percent are small corporations, with 10 or fewer stockholders. Non-family corporate farms account for 1.36 percent of US farmland area. Family farms (including family corporate farms) account for 96.7 percent of US farms and 89 percent of US farmland area;[26] a USDA study estimated that family farms accounted for 85 percent of US gross farm income in 2011.[27] Other farmland in the US is accounted for by several other categories, including single proprietorships where the owner is not the farm operator, non-family partnerships, estates, trusts, cooperatives, collectives, institutional, research, experimental and American Indian Reservation farms.
In the US, the average size of a non-family corporate farm is 1078 acres, i.e. smaller than the average family corporate farm (1249 acres) and smaller than the average partnership farm (1131 acres).[26]
kbowman
(6 posts)Last edited Thu Oct 16, 2025, 01:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Relief for farmers should have a name similar sounding to relief for poor struggling non-farmers. Give it a similar sounding name - e.g. farmfare, etc. They see themselves as different, but they are not. Make them think whenever they hear it. I'm sure someone here can come up with some good ones.
Edit: However, I remembered that most farmers are fairly well off and farming if not owning multiple square miles of land (I grew up surrounded by them). So, farmfare and wellfare are not really the same thing. One set of people genuinely could use help, the other are well off, but don't want to have any consequences for their past bad decisions.
Happy Hoosier
(9,162 posts)... may be needed to break the fever dream. I don;t like it. But if we keep bailing them out, what incentive do they have to change? They can have their cake, and eat it too.
Red Mountain
(2,201 posts)the farmers didn't ask Trump to antagonize the Chinese and destroy the markets they rely on. The markets they built over the years.
Yes, red states tend to be rural. Yes, they voted for Trump. But they're not all republicans.......and the ones that are are seeing where the culture war bullshit they got sucked into has led them.
Small farmers are businessmen, first and foremost. They see how bad the current climate at the top is for business. If it doesn't get better the handouts will never be enough. They'll inevitably fail.
It's an opportunity to educate, not beat them down.
Keepthesoulalive
(1,935 posts)He is what he always was a failed businessman who has the intellect of an amoeba.
Prairie Gates
(6,557 posts)It was the number one top line item of his entire trade platform. He did it last time and promised he would do it again. What kind of an idiot could have voted for Trump not understanding that he would be engaging in a trade war with China that had the potential to damage their markets?
Red Mountain
(2,201 posts)It's always worked out in the past. Because the Chinese didn't have other options.
Now they do.
Those markets might never come back if South America has lower production costs.
I don't fault some farmer in the midwest getting caught with his pants down. Things just changed. A lot.
Graham Platner would like a word.....
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ODDCdZFXnmQ
NorthStarStCentrist
(2 posts)It's getting to that point.
LetMyPeopleVote
(171,729 posts)Hassler
(4,605 posts)Very powerful for his farmers in two weeks, or maybe fourteen days.
Mysterian
(6,019 posts)Who did they vote for?
Blue Full Moon
(2,943 posts)The tech bros get enough of the farmland at dirt cheap prices.