[env-trinity] The most politically powerful welfare recipients in the world

Wed Oct 26 09:55:58 PDT 2005

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/10/25/92116/482?source=daily 

The most politically powerful welfare recipients in the world

Posted by David Roberts
<http://gristmill.grist.org/user/David%20Roberts>  at 9:21 AM on 25 Oct
2005 

We're happy to present this guest essay from Lloyd G. Carter, an
attorney and former journalist who has written about California water
issues since 1969. Carter is president of the California Save Our
Streams Council.

-----

 Remember the family farmer?

He was immortalized in Grant Wood's 1930 painting "American Gothic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic> ": a grim, hardscrabble
stoic in overalls, grasping a pitchfork. Guess what? It wasn't really a
farmer. It was Wood's dentist posing as a farmer.

Fresno County's own philosopher/farmer, Victor Davis Hanson, announced
years ago that the family farmer was a figment of the urban imagination.
Hanson wrote that the multi-generational family farm has all but
disappeared and that soon the only thing left will be "broke serfs and
thriving corporations."

But now a coalition of western San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests
have launched a multi-million dollar media blitz to convince
Californians that the modern "family farmer" still exists -- and needs
to keep consuming colossal amounts of California river water. The
statewide ad campaign includes television spots, full page newspaper
ads, bus stop billboards in big cities, and even sponsorship of the
"California Report" on National Public Radio. The word "family" is
repeated ad nauseum.

There are also two high-tech websites defending agriculture's need for
over 80 percent of California's developed water, and claiming that
massive water diversions from the Delta are having little or no impact
on the collapsing Delta fishery or Delta drinking supplies for 22
million Californians.

The California Farm Water Coalition <http://www.cfwc.com/>  campaign is
funded primarily by the Westlands Water District -- the largest water
district in America -- and some adjacent federal irrigation districts.
Also helping win the hearts and minds of urbanites are Tulare Basin
growers like cotton billionaire J.G. Boswell, Calcot (a cotton marketing
organization), banking interests, the California Farm Bureau, and
Central Valley Project (CVP) irrigation districts.

At stake is the seven million acre-feet of Northern California river
water doled out annually by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in its
operation of the CVP, a vast network of canals and dams stretching the
length of California's Great Central Valley. Jason Peltier, a former
lobbyist for the CVP water districts, is now a key Interior Department
official involved in making sure growers lock up that seven million
acre-feet for another half century through contract renewal
negotiations.

Seven million acre-feet is enough water to meet the annual domestic
needs of 35 to 50 million people [an acre-foot is the volume of water
that would cover one acre to a depth of one foot]. Some 2.4 million
acres of California farmland are now planted to cotton, rice, wheat,
corn, and other grains eligible for federal crop subsidies, most of it
irrigated with heavily-subsidized federal water. 

Subsidized water to grow subsidized crops, pumped uphill with subsidized
electricity: Big agribusiness wants to keep it that way and has made the
little guy in overalls the poster boy for its pitch.

If valued at only $100 an acre-foot, the Bureau's annual supply, donated
by California taxpayers, is worth $700 million a year or $35 billion
over the 50-year life of the contracts (25-year contracts plus a
virtually automatic 25-year renewal clause). The urban retail value of
that water is $600 an acre-foot, or $210 billion over the 50-year life
of the contracts. You can see why the CVP growers want to convince us to
use precious water to grow surplus crops.

Westlands' 600 growers have the most to gain, seeking to renew a
contract for 1.15 million acre-feet of water even though they have
downsized 100,000 acres in their 942-square mile district and are
seeking nearly a billion dollars from Congress to build a drainage
system for their selenium-polluted waste water.

Both environmental groups and conservative think tanks like the Heritage
Foundation and the Cato Institute have attacked crop and water subsidies
as a colossal waste of taxpayers' money. 

Nowhere does the ad campaign mention the destruction of birds at the
Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge caused by ag wastewater from
Westlands 20 years ago. Instead, grower billboards show a healthy
black-necked stilt bird and claim "farm water" is "habitat" for
wildlife.

So what is a family farm? Well, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is
currently working on developing a definition based on relative size. At
stake is $20 billion a year in crop subsidies. You can bet the big guys
will have their say.

It is true that farms owned by corporations or partnerships make up just
two percent of all farms in America -- but, they account for 15 percent
of farm output.

Very large "family farms" (those with sales of $500,000 or more),
according to the USDA, make up about three percent of all farms but
produce about 35 percent of total American farm output on just 10
percent of the land.

So while it's true that there are still small family farmers, it is the
big guys, getting bigger all the time, who run the show. And they don't
wear overalls. In California, the subsidy checks get harvested every
year, rain or shine. An affluent neighborhood in North Fresno -- 50
miles from the Westlands "farms" -- is home to wealthy growers who draw
more subsidy money than any other zip code in America.

Hey, the Waltons run a family store, right? It's called Wal-Mart. Bill
Gates has a family business. Doesn't everyone have a family? Is that the
criteria for a free ride from the government? Rep. George Miller, a
long-time Westlands critic, argues that "California's megafarms are the
most politically powerful welfare recipients in the world." 

In California's modern version of American Gothic, peasants with
pitchforks may live in mansions, thanks to the taxpayers.

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Hidden subsidies/a question

Good stuff. The USDA's $15-25 billion per year in direct commodity
subsidies are well-known; this piece sheds light on the hidden,
literally underground government support on which industrial ag also
depends. 

It's also good to see the babble about "saving the family farm"
eviscerated. Real family-scale farms exist in spite of government
support for megafarms; there's scant real government support for small
producers. 

One question for Carter. You write that "Some 2.4 million acres of
California farmland are now planted to cotton, rice, wheat, corn, and
other grains eligible for federal crop subsidies, most of it irrigated
with heavily-subsidized federal water." 

Yet when I think of the San Joaquin Valley, I think of monocrop
fruit-and-veg production, not grain and cotton. Does the cheap water
you're talking about in San Joaquin also amount to a hidden subsidy for
our habit of eating "fresh" tomatoes in January in Cleveland? 

by Tom Philpott <http://gristmill.grist.org/user/uid:2988>  at 11:34 AM
on 25 Oct 2005
<http://gristmill.grist.org/comments/2005/10/25/92116/482/1#1> 

EWG databases on water subsidies

Editor: 

Curious readers of Lloyd Carter's essay on how big California
agribusinesses hide behind the image of the family farmer, even as they
get millions of dollars worth of federal water subsidies, can learn more
in Environmental Working Group's series of investigations of the Central
Valley Project. The series includes databases showing just who gets the
water and how much it's worth -- information previously shielded from
the public by state law.   

Go to 

http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5017
<http://www.ewg.org/issues/siteindex/issues.php?issueid=5017>  

Bill Walker
EWG, Oakland, CA

by deadline <http://gristmill.grist.org/user/uid:3153>  at 12:19 PM on
25 Oct 2005
<http://gristmill.grist.org/comments/2005/10/25/92116/482/2#2> 

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