At Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s recent confirmation hearing, the tart-tongued Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., irked promoters of alternative agriculture with an unflattering characterization of organic farmers:
“That small family farmer is about 5′2″ . . . and he’s a retired airline pilot and sits on his porch on a glider reading Gentleman’s Quarterly – he used to read the Wall Street Journal but that got pretty drab – and his wife works as stockbroker downtown. And he has 40 acres, and he has a pond and he has an orchard and he grows organic apples. Sometimes there is a little more protein in those apples than people bargain for, and he’s very happy to have that.”
Roberts also offered a few descriptive words about what his critics understood to be a “real” farmer in his view – with “10,000 acres. And his tractor costs about $350,000. It’s amazing, in terms of the costs. But these folks are the folks who produce the food and fiber for America and a troubled and hungry world.” One critic called Roberts’ statement “knuckle-dragging”; another termed it an “imaginatively gift-wrapped cow pie.”
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53 Comments
Actually small, organic farms is traditional farming, massive monoculture, corporate farms is alternative farming. Small farms are more productive and profitable.
However, corporate farms donate more to Robert’s campaign, which he, in return, hands out billions in corporate welfare. It’s not surprising that Roberts hates the traditional farmer, but Kansas will keep on re-electing him anyway.
Senator Pat Roberts is making valid points. Better listen before more taxes are extracted from your billfold to support the gentlemen farmers.
It was Bush and Roberts who voted to give subsidies to people who built homes on former farm land and don’t farm.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html
Roberts also voted against a bill that would limit subsidies for people making more than $750,000.
My mistake, Bush vetoed the farm bill and was against subsidies for rich farmers. However, Roberts voted to override the veto.
“Small farms are more productive and profitable.”
If you make $1,000 per acre and you only have an acre you are still broke.”
Robert’s statement was also true. Calculate grain calories as 100 per ounce, and do the math. Take that times six billion, and tell me how people with hoes are going to feed the world.
The Dominican Republic is the only “ho” powered economy I’ve ever experienced.
Damn. I’m getting old.
I remember when Roberts imagined himself a champion of the family farm.
The REAL “gentlemen farmers” are those who sit in McMansions in Dallas and condos overlooking Biscayne Bay while endorsing their share of Pat Roberts’ BigAg subsidy checks.
Maybe it’s just the evolution of the economy. I dunno. Roberts’ vaunted (and tall and burly — WTF?!) 10,000 acre farmers are producing commodities. The local family (including organic farmers) produce real food! Real food real people eat!
What a concept.
I’m a native of a small Kansas town. I get raw milk from a family farmer who milks a couple dozen cows a day. I don’t care if next Sunday’s leg o’ lamb had a name last week.
From a screenplay I should be writing:
INT. CHURCH BASEMENT — NIGHT
A particularly stunninly handsome man walks up to the podium. Fellow recovering ADDICTS in the audience sip coffee and smoke cigarettes.
MONKEYHAWK —
I’m Monkeyhawk and I am addicted to heirloom tomatoes.
ADDICTS
(in unison)
Hi, Monkeyhawk!”
But I digress…
I wonder is “ksfarmgrrl” is one of Pat Roberts’ “…five-foot-two
gentleman* farmers….”(*Okay. The comparison isn’t entirely accurate.)
It’s another one of those examples of how I’m not in the least surprised a CON believes it, but that the CON was dumb enough to say it out loud.
In Kansas!
Odd.
The problem with heirloom tomatoes is you get like two tomatoes per vine.
“beber” gets it wrong with –
“The problem with heirloom tomatoes is you get like two tomatoes per vine.”
No.
The “problem” with heirloom tomatoes is they’re addictive.
“Mennonite Heroin,” I tell ya!
And those “Girls of the Hood” (or bonnet, or scarf, or whatever they call those thin things on their heads) actually CANNED some of last summer’s tomatoes and they’ll sell you a quart or two… that turns into pasta sauce and salsa and…
I’m tellin’ ya. If word gets out, Kansas Mennonites will put Afghanistan opium out of business and we’ll be up to our armpits with heritage tomato junkies.
Not a pretty sight…
Have you ever tried to grow them? Stick with Big Boys and Early Girls, Jet Stars and Celebs. Most heirloom tomatoes are beefsteak types, which don’t pollinate well when it’s hot. Yes, you get a good crop sometimes, but it’s rare. You might be able to do it with shading.
Well, when we get our carbon footprints down to where it needs to be to save the planet, we will all need to contribute via taxes to government support of our organic farmers and other producers who don’t use carbon spewing equipment. You can help too. Start saving doggy poo right now and be ready to mail it. Further instructions to follow.
Oh, and from the source website of this thread, in case you want to know what you know who will say in response to any AGW post.
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Heheheheh. I am five foot two. Or at least that is what my driver’s license says. I think I lost an inch or so when I had my knees replaced.
Beber, why dont you tell us why you are not farming anymore.
Methinks someone went broke and lost his farm, or lost it in a divorce, and is just a little bitter now.
Monkeyhawk, I could sell more than four times what I produce now on my little acre market garden. We havent even scratched the surface for real farm food, be it eggs, or meat, or veggies and fruit. Even out here, the demand is almost overwhelming.
I just need a YOUNG woman to help me out. With benefits, if you know what I mean, and I think you do….
Roberts proves once again why we say Kansas voters…as dumb as you think….
Wink, you need to cut back on the kookaide. It isnt the small farmers breaking the bank on subsidies. It’s the big, republican farmers who get the subsidies. Dont believe me?
Go to the environmental working group site and look it up.
I SW Kansas 10,000 acres is a small farm.
How about orgasmic farming? I would think the profits are greater and the it create a greater feeling of self worth.
There wont be ANY farms of ANY size in SW kansas pretty soon when the water runs out.
Ironic that Wink says he’s a water advocate, and then shills for the guys who waste the most water.
Just an obvious clue. It isnt the SMALL farmers that are draining the aquifer…
beber
I grow heirloom tomatoes. Cherokee purple are the best.
Thanks you pat Roberts for giving us such great ammunition against farm subsidies. Lets see now, according to Roberts they go either to mega-corporations or retired airline pilots. Sounds like something to vote against to me!
As for REAL small farmers I have seen many fairly close to Chicago who found themselves a god business niche. Truck farming and direct sales to consumers who would drive to their farms. Then in autumn ‘harvest your own pumpkins’ for families while selling more produce to the parents. A smart business model IMO.
“ANTI” reveals an amazing grasp of the obvious –
“I[n] SW Kansas 10,000 acres is a small farm.”
Because the land is *WORTHLESS!* you dolt!
Zebulon Pike told us that 200 years ago: “The Great American Desert.”
So with some technology and by sucking up all the subterranean water some people might be able to eke out a living ’til the next Dust Bowl.
“But as long as I can write off my $40,000 SUV and run it on tax-free “farm gas,” and can get $2,394-per-acre to not grow kumquats on the south forty… I’ll vote for Pat Roberts because I hate welfare cheats f@ggots who love each other.”
“ADDICTS
(in unison)
Hi, Monkeyhawk!”
Heheheheh. I’ve heard of that group, but it also reminds me of what one of my friends said yesterday as he was digging a beer out of the ice chest.
“Rehab? Rehab? You do know, dont you, that rehab is for quitters, and in my family, we are NOT quitters”.
Christopher Titus lives!
Hee hee heeeeeee Monkeyhawk.
Yeah, half the state is running out of water, but no one’s worried. It’s all good because we are STILL safe from gay marriage.
Kansas… as kansas as you think….
“Then in autumn ‘harvest your own pumpkins’ for families”
I dont encourage people to visit my garden. They can carry disease on their shoes, and when they try to do “pick yer own” they trample and ruin more produce than they buy. It’s a good thing to be so far out in the boonies as I am. Discourages tourists.
I’d rather suck it up and do the harvesting myself and transport it either to their front doorstep or the Farmers Market.
My good customers are invited to visit, but only the best customers. And they really only come for the brisket and beer…
KFG: why don’t you tell us how an Austin political junkie came to be living on a “farm” near WaKeeney.
Uh, because I wanted to? Because it was my dream?
Because I could?
Ok, so I answered your question. Why dont you answer mine. How come you arent farming anymore?
Or does having sex with children just pay better?
Farm = only what beber says it is.
Because the land is *WORTHLESS!* you dolt!
——————–
Really??
Is that why the majority of the damn economy is based off of what the land produces??
Ignorant Easterner.
It’s all good because we are STILL safe from gay marriage.
====================
Yeah, that’s it…..Jeebus!
“Delilah” announces –
“I grow heirloom tomatoes.”
I will marry you.
Tonight.
If you’re already married I’ll stalk you. I’ll camp out on your porch.
You’re simply not dealing with a rational person when it comes to heirloom tomatoes.
I will do anything — anything! for heirloom tomatoes. Need someone bumped off? I’m your guy and should never have to worry about BLTs for the foreseeable future. That’s my deal.
I want the heirloom tomatoes my poor deluded grandfather thought were poisonous. I’ll submit to eating them off the vine with my hands tied behind me.
If you want to be cruel and really leverage your power over me, I’ll crawl in your heirloom tomato patch naked, by hands tied behind me, and I’ll sing ABBA songs.
I am powerless over heritage tomatoes.
Don’t get me started….
No, because your parents had a legacy quarter near WaKeeney, KFG.
I see beber still has no answer as to why he is not farming anymore. And I have more than a quarter.
You?
This is why we need to oust ALL incumbents. What an oaf. He must have gotten a pretty good kick-back from Farmland for that one.
Sounds like Roberts loves the corporate farmer.
I think any kickback comes from the bankers. The reason small farms arent failing as fast as big farms is we dont have to FINANCE tractors that cost one third of a mil, or those ten thousand acres.
It’s borrowing money that kills farms.
Farmgrrl may only be 5′2″, but she’s much taller in person.
And I’ve had tomatoes at her place, and fresh eggs, and chicken. Yum!
Roberts gets back in, and immediately craps of the family farmer. Too funny.
It’s borrowing money that kills farms.
———————–
Tru Dat.
Banks own those acres and equipment and it’s put up every year to operate.
My maternal grandfather only kept 40 acres back during my youth, but it was sufficient to keep all of his relatives supplied with ‘canned goods’ and use the rest for bartering or selling. He also raised chickens, had a couple of milk cows and the occasional hog.
During the day, he worked as a wholesale grocer warehouseman. His father, a Veterinarian, also kept a subsistence farm.
The big crop farmers were on my grandmother’s side who were wheat growers. The land where the wheat grows is in Oklahoma and is still owned by a relative; 4.5 sections of farm land.
Just to put it in context –
ANTI
Posted January 26, 2009 at 8:51 am | Permalink
Because the land is *WORTHLESS!* you dolt!
——————–
Really??
Is that why the majority of the damn economy is based off of what the land produces??
Ignorant Easterner.
“Easterner?” As in “Eastern Kansaser?”
Okay. Ya got me there.
And just how has the economy been going, lately?
And just how has the economy been going, lately?
==============
Tolerable
Better for some, worse for others.
It’s too much borrowed money that kills farms. It’s the same thing that’s killing the entire economy.
However, the per-acre cost of mega-tractors is much less than the per-acre cost of fertilizer. Fine brick homes and big-assed Dodge pickups killed more farms than big tractors ever did. Remember, a big tractor depreciates very slowly unless it’s used heavily, in which case it pays rather than costs.
Ha TOM!
And if you come visit again, there will be more bounty to share!!!
P.S. Say hello to “the nice one” for me!
hee hee heeeeee. That still cracks me up!
Regular,
Just so all these city folks understand acreage, your relative’s 4.5 sections doesn’t come close to 10,000 acres.
Don’t forget the cost of diesel to run those tractors, Beber. Then there’s the cost of seed, machinery repairs–unlike cars, farmers don’t buy new tractors/combines every three or four years. Add hiring help, feeding everyone, and then maybe a few can recognize that farming isn’t sitting on your porch with a beer in hand, watching your wheat grow.
MH, I envy you having the fresh milk. I do miss that much.
What’s insane is that people who bought houses on developments from farm land still get the checks on their land.
#
Predestined
Posted January 26, 2009 at 10:10 am | Permalink
Regular,
Just so all these city folks understand acreage, your relative’s 4.5 sections doesn’t come close to 10,000 acres.
————————
Never said it did?
It’s 640 acres per section. It’s prime farm land in Grant County, Oklahoma – adjacent to Kansas on this southern border – just south of Caldwell, KS on Highway 81 is it? (can’t remember)
Robets has no use for the 80 acre farmer unless it’s election time. If he’d only received political support from those mega farms, he’d be looking for another job.
Regular,
Please read again. Just so all these city folks understand acreage 4.5 sections to some could mean just about anything.
I hadn’t intended a putdown. If you want to turn it into one by being defensive, that’s your choice.
I haven’t been in Caldwell since my kids were little and played in a softball tournament. Yeah, it probably is 81, but driving there was a loooong time ago.
Like Kansas, there’s a lot of good farmland in Oklahoma. It runs straight up from Texas to Canada.
Looks like the Obstructionist in the senate got nowhere, Geithner voted in. Hadn’t checked but I’m guessing our Senators voted against.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Timothy Geithner won confirmation as U.S. Treasury secretary on Monday as the U.S. Senate set aside misgivings about his past income tax problems in light of his experience battling the financial crisis.
Geithner, 47, was expected to be sworn in quickly to help lead President Barack Obama’s efforts to stabilize a worsening economy. The Senate approved his nomination on a 60-34 vote.
With the U.S. economy in full-blown crisis, Geithner’s experience in dealing with the past year’s rapid-fire rescues of key financial firms trumped the taint from his late payment of $34,000 in self-employment taxes when he worked at the International Monetary Fund earlier this decade.
The new Treasury chief is expected to soon unveil reforms to the United States’ $700 billion financial bailout program to provide more support for housing and credit markets, and possibly a new effort to absorb troubled assets from banks.
“I would rather have a battle hardened veteran at the helm who knows the shoals and whirlpools than a neophyte who has to wade into these churning waters for the first time,” Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said during debate on the nomination.
But some lawmakers were disturbed enough by the tax lapse to vote against Geithner even though they thought him well suited for the job otherwise.