Comments on: Obamamania missing in farm country

By: Robert Carothers

Robert Carothers — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:15:45 +0000

The american farmer has been left out, I’m talking about the mom and pop small farmers. The large ag farmers reap many thousands of dollars of subsidies while the small farm family’s loose money because they cannot afford fuel, fertilizer,seed or insurance!
The cost of keeping up equipment, replacing older equipment, have driven the small producers into bankruptsy as these cost have quad drippled in the last 10 years.
The small independent farms simply can’t afford to buy new equipment. The needs that come from govt laws, to be able to comply need to be overhauled!
The small family farms are loosing the younger generation, to leave the farming business for jobs in the bigger cities as they can’t make a living on the family farm! As we loose these young farmers the farms are sold to developers for more homes for people that want to get away from the cities, yet be able to commute to jobs that are found in the industrial cities.
We are losing the land and the people that feed the world!

By: lvh

lvh — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:50:07 +0000

But they will have broadband..yippee!!

By: John Galt

John Galt — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:28:13 +0000

I love comments like, “You must not like America” if you don’t want farmers to get a guaranteed ride. How about farmers learn to simply compete? Its inevitable so begging for tax dollars to fill in for business failures won’t cut it. I guess you’re also a big fan of the bank, auto and insurance bailouts too? While we’re at it, lets bail out the retailers(its not their fault), the builders(they’ve had a tough time), the ad agencies (ouch!). Anyone else want free tax payer money? Get your hand out now before its all gone!

By: sluke

sluke — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:44:04 +0000

Obama is not the first black President. He is the first half white president. But the media continues to get on there knees for Obama. Well I am ready to see the”change”.
You would think that Obama in the new messiah.

By: jason

jason — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:57:43 +0000

I am sure some farmers like him and some don’t. Most private farmers that I have known in my life probably wouldn’t have much faith in him for very good reason.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:49:54 +0000

So obviously Mike doesn’t believe in supporting the United States economy. If it weren’t for the farmers in the United States many people would go without food. If you’ve ever heard the moto “we feed the world,” it’s true. Agricultural exports from America are huge which brings billions of dollars in revenue to America, that’s besides the revenue created by sales of Agricultural goods by American farmers within America. I’m going to venture to say you don’t like America much.

Besides that, yes, I hope to see Obama make good on his stance in Agricultural issues because if he does he would have provided more benefit to the Agricultural community than McCain had expressed. We’ll just have to wait and see. So often, politicians make promises they can’t keep.

By: mikesf13

mikesf13 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:27:17 +0000

I would be more than happy to buy cheap sugar from Fiji, cotton from Africa, beef from Argentina and wheat from Canada. The arrogance of those farmers and ranchers cheering Sarah Palin in 2008 was stomach turning. They think nobody else works for a living or has ever struggled. Time for them to get off welfare.

By: buffalojump

buffalojump — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:14:11 +0000

I sincerely hope Obama success but I also hope people don’t think Obama will be overly concerned about rural and resource based America. He is strongly supported by many influential old time politicians and political families who have never showed genuine concern for rural/resource based America. Any democratic families of royalty come to mind?

Small farmer morality and ethics would be a breath of fresh air in DC but if anyone thinks this will happen I have a bridge in … for sale.

Finally for America’s benefit we all must hope for President elect Obama’s success.

By: cthings

cthings — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:26:01 +0000

There are farmers and there are corp farmers.

Corp farmers worry that the Pres Elect will not do as they say, like a good puppet. Ensuring their wealth over the needs of the country and its people as a whole.

My family knows a lot of the smaller mom-n-pop farmers and they have confidence Obama will do what he can to fix what the last person in his office has done.

Small farmer morality and ethics sure could be used in DC these days…in contrast to the greed, corruption and treason we have seen since the 50′s…