[env-trinity] Long Beach Press Telegram Dec 15

[Byron]

CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT

Editorial: Pulling the plug on handouts

Long Beach Press Telegram - 12/15/04

These farm subsidies don't make sense.

In 1936 the federal government began offering cheap, subsidized water to
California farmers in an effort to encourage Western settlers to start small
family farms.

Yet nearly 70 years later the federal government is still doing it and now
the subsidies are massive and primarily going to large, wealthy corporate
farming operations.

Does this sound to anyone like a prudent use of taxpayer money?

Federal farm subsidies are a nationwide problem. What began as an earnest
attempt to assist family farms has become an indefensible handout of
taxpayer funds to some of the largest farming corporations.

A study released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit
Washington, D.C.-based group opposed to federal farm subsidies, took aim at
one specific subsidy: California's Central Valley Project. The project
provides one-fifth of California's total water use to farms at prices far
below market value.

The study found that taxpayers are subsidizing water use to the tune of $416
million a year, based on the current market value of water. The state's
largest, wealthiest farms are getting the lion's share 67 percent of the
subsidized water went to the top 10 percent of farms, the study reports. One
large farm received nearly $4 million in water subsidies alone, not
including crop subsidies and other federal discounts.

The subsidies are inherently unfair, favoring one type of business over
another at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Also, there are consequences to
disrupting the market with a flood of subsidies.

Competition from subsidized American crops have forced many Mexican farmers
out of business, many of whom then come to the U.S. to work illegally. The
subsidies also put small and medium-sized California farms at a major
disadvantage. Smaller farms generally favor high-value crops and use more
efficient irrigation techniques.

Technically the Central Valley Project is supposed to benefit only farms of
960 acres or less, but farms get around that restriction by subdividing lots
into 960-acre parcels. Until 1982, only farms of 160 acres or less were
eligible for the cheap water.

If there ever was a sound argument for federal intervention in the farming
business, that day has long passed. Sending hundreds of millions of dollars
to farming operations is not only antithetical to American free-market
ideals, it's a foolish misuse of taxpayer money.

The Central Valley Project will soon come up for review. Pulling the plug on
California's water subsidies would be a good place to start cutting off the
flow of farm handouts nationwide

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Consultant, California Trout, Inc.

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 519 4810 ce

415 383 9562 fx

bwl3 at comcast.net

 <mailto:bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org> bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org
(secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

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