Farmageddon Is Real And Farmers Are Suffering
Via Bruce Wilds’ Advancing Time blog,
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 09/06/2019
Farmageddon is real and very painful for a small segment of America. According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times. Today many farmers living in America’s farm belt are facing tough times with no end in sight. The trade war with China has taken a toll by bringing grain exports to a near halt. This has caused grain prices to tumble adding to the list of blows hitting farmers. While the number of people employed on farms has declined over the decades farming remains a big business and has a huge impact on many communities. In these areas, the money flowing into local businesses as farmers sell their crops is evident in everything from truck sales to the little things common in everyday life such as dining out or getting a haircut.
The USDA’s farm income forecasts are released three times a year. While little noticed by the average person living on the coast or in one of our many large cities this is a big deal. As mentioned earlier in this article farm income is not contained in a closed-loop but spills into other parts of the economy. Many areas in the heartland of America have not experienced the benefits showered upon Wall Street, because of this we should not be surprised if the gloom covering many areas of the country does not lift anytime soon. The chart to the right shows a “forecast of income” but fails to take the impact of the trade war into full consideration.
Sadly, getting support to the average working farmer is more difficult than it might seem. A recent article in AgMag claims About 9,000 “city slickers,” that means, people living in luxurious neighborhoods in large cities received a farm bailout from the Trump administration’s recent effort to minimize the impact of the trade war on farmers. An updated Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of Department of Agriculture data revealed that many recipients of the relief money live not in farm country but in large cities or other decidedly non-rural locations. These urban recipients of the bailout include members of farm families, landowners, and investors that provide land, capital, equipment for farms or make operational decisions for how a farm is run.
The Rest…HERE
