“4/09/2008, 1:11pm EST”
Conservation program suffers as farmers cash in on rising food prices →
Thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government’s biggest conservation program, which pays them not to cultivate. They are spurning guaranteed annual payments for a chance to cash in on the boom in wheat, soybeans, corn and other crops. Last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
Money quote:
Kerry Dockter, a rancher in Denhoff, N.D., has about 450 acres of grassland in the program. “When this program first came about, it was a pretty good thing,” he said. “But times have definitely changed.”
The government payments, Mr. Dockter said, “aren’t even comparable anymore” to what he could make by working the land. He plans to devote some of his conservation acres to growing feed for his cows and some to grazing. He might also lease some land to neighbors.
Look at his paradigmatic inability to see beyond himself. He uses the word “good” as though it must certainly imply “good for his bottom line.” There is no other good to consider. No other interests matter when there is a dollar to be made.
Never leave home without it.
