Consumers may say they are willing to pay - before the fact,
but do they put their money where their mouth is? Some consumers
are already paying more for organically grown food, but many do not
or cannot - they will buy what is cheapest.
The money generated from the proposed tax on pesticides and
fertilizers is supposed to go to financing programs to reduce
pesticide use. It is interesting that the present Congress is
proposing to cut portions of the budget for IPM and Sustainable
Agriculture - programs already in place and working to reduce
pesticide use.
I don't know about other states, but the Cooperative Extension
Service in North Carolina is already educating farmers on how to
use fewer pesticides and other chemicals. North Carolina has a
very active and increasingly effective IPM education program. (I
am an area specialized agent, in IPM, with the North Carolina
Cooperative Extension Service.)
It is naive to expect the farmer to be able to pass the
increased costs of production (a tax on agricultural chemicals) on
to the consumer. Increased production costs do not mean increase
in what the farmer gets paid for his/her product. Unlike the
automobile manufacturer who passes additional costs of safety
equipoment on to the consumer who pays more for the car, the farmer
takes the crop to market and gets whatever the buyer chooses to pay
for the crop. Looking at commodity prices over the years, the
price received by the farmer has little or no correlation with the
cost of production.
The views expressed above are my own and do not necessarily
represent those of the North Carolina Acooperative Extension
Service or North Carolina State University, or any other group with
which I am affiliated.
--Marjorie Rayburn
-- Marjorie Rayburn E-Mail : mrayburn@chowan Internet: mrayburn@chowan.ces.ncsu.edu Phone : (919) 482-8431