Instead farmers of big corporate farms are looking to make the most money possible, so they will only grow specialty crops which are subsidized by the government, and since only the farms growing specialty crops get subsidies, the ‘mom and pop’ farms begin to suffer. The big named agriculture corporate farms also support the governments’ decision to reroute river water, which would cause irreversible damage to the river and the local family farms that surround it. In addition, big corporate farms create an immense amount of pollution, and deposit large quantities of harmful pesticides into the air.
Big agriculture corporate farms are wiping out small family farms with their subsidized crops, tainting the central valleys’ air by emitting vast amounts of pollution and pesticides and destroying California’s environment by influencing the government to reroute rivers. Subsidizing farms, that only produce specialty crops cause local ‘mom and pop’ farms to suffer. “Ninety percent of all subsidies go to just five crops. . . [t]wo thirds of all farm products. . . receive almost no subsidies [a]nd just 10 percent of recipients receive 75 percent of all subsidies”( Agricultural Subsidies: Corporate Welfare for Farmers).
As explained in the blog: Agricultural Subsidies: Corporate Welfare for Farmers, farm subsidies were originally set up after the great depression in 1930s’, back when nearly 25 percent of the population lived on farms. “Today only 1 percent of the population live on farms”(Agricultural Subsidies: Corporate Welfare for Farmers) and these farms are far more productive and successful than they were in the 30s’ though these subsides are still being used. The five crops that receive subsidies are corn, rice, cotton, wheat, and soybeans, all other produce (which is two thirds of all farm products) do not receive any help from the government.
The Essay on Farm Subsidies – A Necessary Evil?
Subsidies are payments, economic concessions, or privileges given by the government to favor businesses or consumers. In the 1930s, subsidies were designed to favor agriculture. John Steinbeck expressed his dislike of the farm subsidy system of the United States in his book, The Grapes of Wrath. In that book, the government gave money to farms so that they would grow and sell a certain amount of ...
The farms that do not receive subsidies are the small local family farms usually seen on the side of the road selling the fruits and vegetables in homemade fruit stands . It has become so hard for small family owned farms that they can get more money selling their farm land to larger farm corporations, than they would by selling their produce. “From 1995-2009, the largest and wealthiest top 10 percent of farm program recipients received 74 percent of all farm subsidies, with an average total payment over 15 years of $445,127 per recipient”( Chapman).
Big agriculture corporate farms that produce the five specialty crops receive government payments, yet if you go to the grocery store, you will find racks filled with tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli , etc grown by the small family farms. When you look at farming in California, there are two agriculture systems. One that is based on generous federal subsidies and the other relies on the open market and the free interaction of supply and demand, which are the small local family farms.
For the farmers of small family farms, they plant, harvest and sell the crops, and if things go well they earn a profit, if not they do not. Supporters of farm subsidies have argued that “such programs stabilize agricultural commodity markets, aid low-income farmers, raise unduly low returns to farm investments, aid rural development, compensate for monopoly in farm input supply and farm marketing industries, help ensure national food security, offset farm subsidies provided by other countries, and provide various other services”(Sumner).
These subsidies have been around for so long that farms have established themselves and develop accordingly , so they can now only grow a certain crop productively and removing their subsidy will cause farms to fail, and produce to suffer. If we were to remove these subsidies and entitlements it would drastically reduce farmland asset values. However there is very little evidence that supports this claim.
The Essay on Hard Work Family Small Parents
The most important characteristics that I have, come from those my family has taught me for years. The care, dedication, effort, hard-working attitude, and pride that are significant to any success I may achieve, have all come to me by my family. Born the child of two immigrants who came here with very little, the importance of having a good work ethic was emphasized by my parents repeatedly. They ...
In an article in the Southern East Farm Press, Forrest Laws interviewed former congressman Cal Dooley, who calls subsidies an obstacle to agricultural prosperity, stated that, “[a]llowing a minority of farmers in the United States to refuse to give up our archaic farm policies is holding hostage the 75 percent of U. S. agriculture that is willing to compete and win in the global marketplace”. There is no argument, the fact is that a small percent of the farmers receive a large percent of the farm bills subsidies but only produce specialty crops such as corn, rice, cotton, wheat, and soybeans.
The rest of the farmers who produce nearly one third of the U. S. agriculture output today, are doing so without help from subsidies. The big named agriculture corporate farms support the governments’ decision to reroute river water that could cause irreversible damage to the river and surrounding local family farms Due to the Mediterranean like climate and the rich soil ideal for faming, water in California is as valuable as gold, and has long been a debate amongst California’s citizens and farmers. From the Colorado River to California’s Central Valley, water from the subsidized farms and playgrounds created by Government irrigation is being diverted to nearly extinct fish and wildlife, long-forgotten Indian tribes and cities that barely existed when the big dams and canals were built”(Egan).
Most recently, in 2009 governor Jerry Brown proposed the idea to build water tunnels to reroute water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta into the state water project.
In a recorded discussion on PBS News Hour, correspondent Spencer Michel reports on how rerouting water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will affect local farm families. “[R]esidents of this half-a-million-acre watery landscape in northern California are concerned that the state and federal governments, along with powerful, thirsty interests further south, some of them corporate farming operations, will divert more of their water and ruin their land and their livelihoods” (Spencer Michel).
The Essay on Major Problems In California History
The major arguments in the two essays by Cletus E. Daniel and Devra Anne Weber revolved around the harsh working conditions and poor wages that the farm workers were subjected to in California. These injustices prompted reactions from the farm workers through strikes that were organized by their unions and mutual aid societies in a bid to negotiate for better wages and improved standards of ...
Rogene Reynold, whose family has farmed the delta for two generations, comments “[f]ollow the money, and that’s all I can really say about it, there are powerful moneyed interests in taking the water out of here, it’s a transfer of wealth, pure and simple, and the excuse of revitalizing this delta is just that, an excuse” (California Water Wars: Will Thirsty Interests Divert More Water).
Big money farm corporations are backed by big names in the government and posses too much control of the water in California.
The big named agriculture cooperate farms support governments’ decisions and want to reroute river water that could cause irreversible damage to the river and surrounding local family farms. State and federal agencies argue that this plan will restore the environmental health of the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and modernize its two primary water supply systems that “help to sustain 25 million California’s, 3 million acres of agriculture and California’s state wide economy”(California Water Commission).
This effort is known as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and is “is being developed to meet the state’s toughest environmental standards and in compliance with the Federal Endangered Species Act”(California Water Commission).
A census is emerging that “in order to restore the Delta environment and secure reliable water supplies, new diversions must be constructed in the northern Delta and the supply transported via new water tunnels to the existing aqueducts in the southern Delta”(California Water Commission).
If the BDCP were to follow the environmental standards precisely then there would be no problem with these water tunnels, but they are not. These twin water tunnels not only endanger the Delta Smelt, a fish commonly found in the Delta River, but they will throw of the natural environment completely. The twin tunnels will also affect multiple Californians highways and cause for expensive construction . Ultimately, due to these two twin tunnels, the delta would flood with salt water from the bay and Southern California would lose half of its water supply.
The big name corporate farms that receive subsidies for their crops from the government and influence the way water is transported also cause large amounts of pollution and use loads of pesticides that are poising local residents. “This year 1,400 Californians will be poisoned, or injured, by pesticides or other agricultural chemicals. Nearly half will be disabled for a time, most will recover, nine or ten will die. These are predictable figures, based on state public health records that show half the casualties are farm workers”(Taylor).
The Essay on Landfills Leaks Into The Ground Water People Make Air
Did you know that we have a BIG problem in our world? The problem is that there is too much waste being produced by humans. Waste is left over material like paper, lunch bags, cans, bottles, plastic bags, wood and metal. Waste is stuff we throw into the garbage because we do not want to use it no more. It's stinky and filling up the landfill sites. We are littering and polluting the land, water ...
Along with pesticides, the big corporate farms fill the central valley with pollution that rises from plowed fields and factory-farm feedlots, and the big diesel trucks they use transport their produce. “In Fresno, the valley’s biggest city, schools fly color-coded flags to alert students to bad air. With a population of less than 500,000, the city has the state’s highest childhood asthma rate”(Bauerlein).
People do not realize just how immense the damage done by large corporate farms is on the central valley.
Health surveys reported in 2001 by the California Health Interview Survey show a 24% higher prevalence of asthma in children in the San Joaquin Valley than in the rest of the state and a 19% higher prevalence for adults. There are approximately 110,000 children and 240,000 adults with asthma in the San Joaquin Valley(Air Resources Board).
When a large corporate farm obtains large amounts of land , they push cattle off of farms to feed lots which produce large quantities of pollution in both our water and our air.
Then the maintenance for these large fields requires extreme amounts of pesticides, and fossil fuels, used for plowing and for the transportation of their produce. It is obvious to see that the environmental cost of these large corporate farms far outweighs its benefits. A number of people challenge that the pollution in the valley is not largely affected by large corporate farms because it arrives in the valley from by a number of causes, such as the shape of the valley and different sources of “ozone and particulate matter”(Air Quality & Environmental Health).
The central valley is shaped like a bowl, with the coastal range to the west and the cascade range to east, so the pollution from big cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles , travel down into the valley where it becomes trapped between the two mountain ranges. The hot, stagnant, sunny weather of the central valley also adds to the pollution when it is combined with “ozone precursors”, which creates the smog that looms over the valley during the summer. Ozone precursors in the San Joaquin Valley come from cars, trucks, buses, agricultural equipment, dairies, and consumer products such as paint and even hair spray”( Air Quality & Environmental Health).
The Essay on Air and Water Pollution: The Gulf Oil Spill
On April 20, 2010, BP’s oil rig Deepwater Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and unleashing more than 200 million gallons of oil into the water (Sakashita, N.D.). The spill oiled more than 1,000 miles of shoreline and a study from the Center for Biological Diversity shows that more than 82,000 birds; about 6,000 sea turtles; nearly 26,000 marine mammals, including dolphins; ...
Due to the high number of trucks that use highway 99, diesel soot has become a particular concern in the central valley, along with windblown dust and wildfires. “[Particulate matter] comes from agricultural operations, industrial processes, combustion of wood and fossil fuels, construction and demolition activities, and road dust kicked into the air” (Air Quality & Environmental Health).
Agriculture operations are just a small part of this huge problem of pollution in the central valley, so the big corporate farms should not be prosecuted for the damage done by all the previously listed pollutants. On the other hand, if you read the recently stated facts from the Air Quality & Environmental Health, you will notice that agriculture operations, agriculture equipment and dairy farms were all mentioned repeatedly, as well as a lack of information detailing exactly what percent of the diesel trucks driving highway 99 were trucks carrying produce from a big corporate farms.
Furthermore, if you continue reading from the Air Quality & Environmental Health website you will read that “[c]ontrary to popular belief, the majority of pollution in the San Joaquin Valley does not come from outside the area. Air pollution transported from the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento areas account for approximately 27% of the total emissions in the Northern portion of the Valley”. Clearly, these big agriculture corporate farms are causing a large percent of the harmful and deadly pollution in the central valley.
Large corporate farms are wiping out small family farms with their subsidized crops, contaminating the central valleys’ air by producing immense amounts of pollution and pesticides and are demolishing California’s environment by influencing the government to reroute rivers. Although they may produce large quantities of crops, they are causing even a larger damage on the central valley, that may become irreversible. So go out and take a stand against these outsized corporate farms, and buy your fruits and vegetables from the local family owned fruit stand down the street.
The Essay on Economic Externalities – Air Pollution in Kolkata
According to statistics released by the Scientific and Environmental Research Institute, quoting government figures, Kolkata had a suspended particulate matter (SPM), the measure of pollution, at a steep 511 compared to Delhi’s 234 and Mumbai’s 322. That earns Kolkata the crown for the most polluted city in the country – a distinction reserved for New Delhi for last few years. Mumbai ...