Five Myths About the State of the American Farmer

Publication Date: March 1987

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): James L. Gattuso

Research Area: Agriculture, forestry and fishing

Keywords: Agriculture

Type: Report

Abstract:

In fashioning remedies for the acute problems of some farmers, policy makers must remember that farmers as a group are not generally poor. Some farmers are in deep financial trouble, but the vast majority are not. The decline in the number of farmers is part of a very long-term trend, but the family farm is not disappearing. And farm subsidies, however well-intentioned, are not going primarily to farmers who are in need. Carefully directed approaches, based on fact, are needed, not billions of federal dollars, based on fiction.