Farmers’ share of food dollar sharply declining…along with farm incomes

5/22/2018

We live in a time when farm critics and activists are complaining ever more loudly about the “powerful” farm lobby, “corporate farming” and, their favorite: “industrial agriculture.” They try to build anger against family farmers, particularly if they are larger than they think they ought to be. About 97% of farms across the nation are family farms, that is owned and operated by family members and usually handed down from generation to generation. Some are large, some small and many in the middle. But family farms just want to survive and pass the farm and land to the next generation.

These farm families for the most part are hurting, as this May 17 article in USA Today makes clear. Farm income is at or near the lowest in 12 years.

Think about this next time you are enjoying a steak, a cup of yogurt, or a fresh baked slice of bread. If you paid $10, for that steak, the farmer who raised the beef got only $2.20 of your dollars. That compares to $4.40 of it just four years ago. That was 2014! Remember way back then? Milk? Today’s dairy farmer gets 30 cents of the dollar you spend on dairy products, compared to 51 cents just four years ago! Wheat farmer gets just 12 cents of your delicious bread, bun or donut dollar.

Numerous stories about farmer suicide rates (highest of any work category) highlight the difficulty and uncertainty that face today’s farmers. This is why the effort of some so-called environmental groups to load massive new requirements on our farmers in these conditions (requirements that would not improve the already impressive and improving environmental performance) is so frustrating to farmers.