Re: five acre farm was farm or business
Bob MacGregor (rdmacgregor@gov.pe.ca)
Wed, 23 Dec 1998 09:56:17 -0400
It is also interesting that government programs that are purportedly designed to take marginal land out of production always seem to show up when markets are flooded with grain (or whatever) and prices are depressed. The depressed prices have, in the past, meant that government defficiency payments have been very large; thus, setting aside land would help bolster prices by cutting back supply and would reduce defficiency payments.
Don't get me wrong, the conservation effects are valuable and worthwhile -- but I'm not sure that they should be the responsibility of the government (harken back to another recent thread which discussed the responsibility of business to internalize externalities).
Anyway, however the government does it, it manages to provide roughly 1/3 of farm income year after year.
BOB
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