and more livestock. If they don’t spend it, it gets taxed.

It’s like a dance. Books show not much profit over time, but some how they have nice cars and kids go to college, etc.
you really have to look at expenses and profit over time. If my income vs taxes were like theirs, I’d be walking. Yet they seem to live pretty good. They do handle a lot of money and and reinvest it in good years, so it doesn’t show. Most of their wealth is tied up in land ownership that can be passed down in the family.
I’m not saying that is good or bad, but that is how it works. Here in the MidWest, I think most family farms might only show a profit a couple of years in a decade. That is mostly due to taxes and how they have to structure it. Yet they dive newer pickups and the kids go to college or inherit part of the farm. Looks like land is the family’s bank account. While they may show a low profit, they live much better than others with the same income. They also love what they do.

They also get paid for farmhands by the state. Again needs to end.

...it still doesn't get the crops picked. The rest of us will continue to pay higher prices for fruit and vegetables.

You should spend some time on a farm on an actual farm, working the hours farmers work, doing the hard labor they actually do.

I grew up on a farm. My father has been out of farm debt once in his life - and he's 93. The first year I taught I earned $10,500. I didn't know how much money we made growing up (other than that we applied for free lunches and were always close enough to the line that it made it worth it to fill out the forms every year. I learned that year that it was the first year my father had ever made that much money.

We always had used cars, and not very fancy ones at that. My father's pickup (any I can remember) was a Ford. We ran them into the ground, and then bought another used one. No cable TV. Our phone was a party line (shared with 6 other nearby families). We went out to eat 5 times a year - once for each kid's birthday. We got a few more sugar snacks - they were tied to performing well in school. If our report cards were good enough, we got to have a can of house brand cola or some ice cream. I never had a steak growing up - any cow capable of producing steak was sold; we got what was left - mostly ground up into hamburger, or an occasional round steak pounded to death so we could chew it - barely. We had one small box TV in the basement.

And my parents did not vote for Trump, nor did the cousin we were in business with. That farm business was formed in large part to allow my father and his cousin's wife to spend some portion of each year doing "cause" work (anti-death penalty, civil rights, anti-war, world hunger, etc.) They have never voted for a Republican for national office in their lives. (In local races, there aren't always Democratic choices - and some races are non-partisan.)

Right through farm country. It’s no good denying it- they own this fucking shit lock stock and barrel

They literally voted away half their customers (China) for soybeans!

A huge chunk of the US soybean market is gone and bailouts aren’t going to change that. Especially when Trump does whatever he can to support the lost cause of Bolsinaro and alienate Lula even more (thereby making the China embrace even tighter). Then there is the labor supply, which Steven Miller is doing his best to destroy. None of these issues were on the table for Bailout I. Farmer support for Trump is turning out to be a massive self-inflicted wound.

100 percent anecdotal and completely irrelevant. I couldn’t be less interested in a serial contrarian’s romanticized childhood on the hardscrabble farm from 50 years ago. The CURRENT REALITY is rural America votes for Trump including the overwhelming majority of farmers. It’s okay to call them out on their bullshit.

It's not a broad brush. I've worked farms early in life and I know farmers today. Farmers overwhelmingly voted for trump, period. Yes mom and pops. Your sob story is not just a farmers story, it's my story and a good majority of America's story. You can counter almost everything i said with an opposite like ford trucks or you got no sugary foods and you had to walk12 miles to school in 6 feet of snow uphill both ways but it does not change the fact that most of the farmers (some I know) in my area drive DENALI and CADILLACS and never more than two or three years old. So yeah maybe I didn't bring up farmers like yourself, that's because you're a small, small minority.

Last edited Fri Sep 26, 2025, 05:02 PM - Edit history (1)

As if every farmer voted for Trump. The divide in our country will never be repaired.

They made their bed lie in it.

And not a sob story. Just a point by point counter to your broad brush slam against all farmers.

But sure. 🙄

At least you’ve stopped defending the sadistic dentist for a few minutes.

... running million dollar operations. They have accountants and lawyers to stay on top of these things so they can apply and receive these big money payouts sooner and with greater certainty than your father's farm.

I was in our family farm about a month ago, as well as spending time with other farmers in the area. It bears virtually no resemblance to your description.

When someone writes "few" it does not mean "none". The world "few" means "less than many" and probably less than a majority but does not mean zero.

The existence of a family farm like yours is encapsulated by the words "few exist".

At least one family farm exists, namely your family farm. That shows that my statement "few exist" has not been disproven.

And since you didn't respond as to how recently you've been on a family farm - or even had real life conversations with people who are currently farming I suspect you know far less than you think you do about how modern family farms are run.

I'm driving clear across the country from west coast to east coast. I'm not a key board junkie waiting to respond to every post. Some people just love to spend all day on the computer. I'm sorry that some people don't understand the point I was trying to make which was like someone pointed out SARCASM. Why can't the single mom get a bailout?Why can't blue collar workers get a bailout? Why can't the person who unfortunately has a big pile of medical bills get a bailout? Why can't small businesses get a bailout? And on and on and on without jumping through hoops if they can get one at all

And making assertions about what any population goes through to get government assistance.

Are you aware that in response an effort under Biden to encourage investment in multi-year green farming changes, farmers made multiple-year personal loan own commitments - commitments no family farmer would have been able to make on their own - and that Trump has now terminated those subsidies? Farmers are still in the hook for repayment of those loans, even though they were taken out to make changes to benefit society - not the individual farmer.

Historically, many farm subsidies are made to benefit society. To make ends meet, farmers typically have to use every inch of their land. This results in tearing down windbreaks (put up during the dust bowl to minimize the damage done by windstorms), because the profit margin is so low farmers cannot afford to have non-productive land. So while it may feel like payment to do nothing - it is a payment to allow farmers to farm in a way which preserves the land.

I grew up in a rural farm area but my parents weren't farmers. All of the "deprevations" you suffered, I can probably one-up you on them. If you grew up in the 50's like I did most farm families lived exactly as you describe. You can't compare today's farmers with farmers of the 50's. I don't remember any of our neighboring farmers ever getting a bailout. They just took everything with a grain of salt with the understanding that this was just how farm life was.

It was just thewT life was - and still is for many farmers. I was back there about a month ago, checking in with the farmers who are farming our land (once my dad dies, my brother and I will be taking over managing the farm assets (and figuring out if/when) to stop the them.)

My post wasn't a woe is me post. Just counting point by point what the OP imagines farm life.

WIC or food stamps. You know, what they say about people who can't pay their medical bills.

It is easy to similar to many other posts I've seen slamming farmers .

For getting me. Gotta hit the road while you guys hash it all out

I’m familiar with dairy farms. Those that are milking at least 40 cows tend to do ok. Not rich, but able to leave a decent inheritance to the kids. Smaller farms aren’t as lucky and usually either mom or dad have to have an outside job to make it.
No two family farms are the same and most struggle. Do you have any brothers and sisters still farming? Bless their hearts if they are.

Dad is still activelyengaged in farm management, although not much hands on at 93.

My brother and I went out to the farm with dad about a month ago to tour the farm and chat with the tenants (elementary and high school classmates of ours). Once he passes on, I formally get the reins - although, as a practical matter - we'll be working together to manage it. We'll probably stick with the current arrangement (one pure lease, one a crop share written to benefit the tenant for good stewardship) as long as the two families are still interested in farming the land.

You really have to love farming to stay in it with a small family farm.
To stay in it, best to use you ag extension services. That’s about half of what my did. Half of his work was in research and the other half was advising farmers. A lot of them weren’t interested in new methods and better ways of doing their work.
It is very hard for small farms to invest in better methods and technology.

My father couldn't invest much in better methods while he was actively farming (no time/no money). But when he turned the active farming over to our former classmates, he was able to spend his time on projects that would better conserve the land. He was able to section the pasture land so that the cattle could be rotated and fully graze each section - rather than picking and choosing their favorite bits of food. That meant that 3 quarters could recover while one was being grazed. He did one of the (if not the first) prescribed burns in Nebraska to clear the meadow across from our house of invasive species and replant with native plants, and helped experiment with non-toxic means of controlling musk thistles (an invasive species). He's long been involved in social and economic justice issues (including combatting food insecurity).

But you're not going to survive as a family farmer if you're not in it for love - and even then it's tough. His brother and nephew both went bankrupt and lost pieces of the ancestral farm.

More for me and none for thee

Last edited Fri Sep 26, 2025, 02:54 PM - Edit history (1)

Large corporate farmers receive the majority of subsidies. Mom and Pop not so much. I used the zip code search and found a few old neighbors who had benefited since 1995. All small farmers with modest subsidies during some years. Some years they had no subsidies.

them and they voted for it anyway.

Why should we bail them out? This is the plan from 2025. Get rid of the family farms, make corporate farming the only deal.

I get your point but farming is not as easy as it looks. Many farmers deal with debt and long hours while crop prices are out of their control.

The government steps in to keep the food supply stable so the rest of us don’t end up paying even more for food. People vote based on their own situations and experiences and we may not agree but we can still try to understand each other’s struggles.

Blew up in their faces. I have a little less sympathy for them this time around? but regardless of how they voted, they worked very hard to deliver to these markets and develop them and they just started getting ahead again and this stupid blowhard comes with his hare-brained ideas, I can definitely empathize with that. even though I resent them completely for their vote, they made poor choices, but I don’t think they should lose their livelihood completely. Plus, farming affects every person who eats food

If they stopped voting for evil people.

Have said the same thing and gotten feedback about how farmers work so hard for so little pay.

My response to this is, the farmers I see seem to be driving around in $50+ trucks, have fancy lobbyists arguing their case in the M$M, sit on lots of collateral and don’t seem to be showing up at food pantries.

I don’t begrudge farmers but there are a HELL of a lot of other people working hard, sometime at multiple jobs, for too little pay. So what makes these folks so special they can collect socialist payments just because they have (self inflicted) hard times?

After all, it's corporations that will buy up the farms when they go bankrupt and then lease the land back to the original farmer so he can work his ass off for their profits. See? Everyone wins, right?

This is sarcasm of course.

pure and simple, so that red states will continue to vote for their Republican Congressmen to keep that gravy train running. Hey, free money! Next year we won't have to plant anything, we can pile into the RV like we always wanted to do and see America (except for the cities, they're scary).

OK, this is an unfair exaggeration, but they will plant less and stay home to care for any livestock. They'll take it easy after this year's bumper crop is either fed to animals or left to rot since Bumhole destroyed USAID, one of their overflow markets that kept the price right.

I just hope there isn't a big backlash as these stupid tariffs hurt us all while farmers are collecting their loot.

It’s absolutely fair to be outraged about taxpayer-funded bailouts being handed to people who consistently vote against their own economic interests — and against the basic rights of others. The hypocrisy is glaring: working-class people are told to tighten their belts, skip luxuries, and work harder, yet the same logic evaporates when it comes to bailouts for Trump-voting farmers driving $70,000 trucks.

But the real issue isn’t farmers vs. the rest of us — it’s the system that has conditioned entire communities to vote based on fear, cultural resentment, and misinformation rather than policy that actually benefits them. Decades of right-wing propaganda have turned economic victims into loyal foot soldiers for corporate power.

So yes — before another cent of taxpayer money goes toward bailouts, there should be accountability. Not just financial, but moral. You can’t demand help from a government whose very foundation of equality and inclusion you reject every election cycle.

Until that changes, the rest of us have every right to call it out.

Better than I did. Thanks

Welcome! We're glad to have you.

The farmer bailout will be just a small fraction of of the money borrowed from China and other countries to help republicans obtain total power and destroy democrcy in the USA.

And they’re supposed to be thankful when he throws them a pittance.
C’mon farmers, don’t put up with Trump’s crap!

This… 👇🏼
#bluesky

— Anti-Fascist Collective… (@wtafc.bsky.social) 2025-09-26T17:17:39.505Z

I'm a farm owner....and I don't live "close to" farm country, I'm smack dab in the middle of it. The last thing farmers want is to have to be bailed out. But you don't understand the importance of agriculture to a society if all you can do is disparage farmers.

They can have their bailout. I honestly don't care. What I'm saying is why when an individual needs help they're sponging off the system or getting entitlements, or taking advantage, or they should pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Can't anybody that needs help just get it without having receive a bunch of bullshit.

How many of your colleagues voted for fascism?

nt

ran for agricultural commissioner of North Carolina AND makes excellent videos on YouTube that are really educational for anyone interested.
Here is one that explains a LOT about some of the real reasons farmers (at least in North Carolina) voted for Trump... some amazing stuff especially the issue of SLAVERY!
She's no crackpot, and she has LOTS of good videos on YouTube.
]

Fuck them. If you did not vote for Kamala you are worthless.
End of line.