Copyright 2001 The Omaha World-Herald Company Omaha
World Herald (Nebraska)
December 30, 2001, Sunday SUNRISE
EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. 1D;
LENGTH: 959 words
HEADLINE: Did
you hear the one about the farmer's subsidy? A Web site listing government
payments is no laughing matter to some of the farmers who are named.
BYLINE: By Bill Hord
SOURCE: WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: UNADILLA, Neb.
BODY: County worker Dean Speth thought he would kid
around with his farming friends, so he printed out a list of their government
subsidies and took it to the coffee shop.
Not funny!
The buzz saw that Speth ran into that Saturday morning a
few weeks ago is still the subject of coffee-shop talk in Otoe County in
southeast Nebraska.
"I thought we were going to have a
war around here," said retired railroader Ernie Schmucker, 68, as he sat
drinking coffee last week with farmers at the Unadilla co-op. "It was all over
town."
The source of all the fuss - and the source of
Speth's information - is a Web site (www.ewg.org) available to the entire world.
It lists the amount of payments that each farmer has received from the U.S.
government in the last five years.
The spicy details
have put the spotlight on a farm program that propped up a weakened farm economy
with $ 71.5 billion in subsidy payments from 1996 through 2000.
The Environmental Working Group created the subsidy data base to stir
up sentiment against traditional farm programs as Congress works on a new farm
policy to replace the Freedom to Farm bill of 1996 when it
expires in September 2002.
The page has been visited 11
million times, according to information on the Web site.
Never before have so many people known so much about what individual
farmers get from the government. Newspapers, including The World-Herald, have
published lists of top recipients from their readership areas.
What Speth didn't count on with his good-natured ribbing is that many
farmers are just plain sensitive about having people know so much about their
finances.
The free flow of names and dollar amounts has
caused some pretty raw feelings in small towns like Syracuse, Unadilla and
Palmyra in Otoe County, where the average annual payment to 2,172 farmers in the
last five years was $ 5,142 apiece.
"I was told it was
none of my blank, blank, blank business," said Speth as he relayed his
experience from a seat in the backhoe he was operating near the county road
maintenance shop at Palmyra.
Interviews with farmers
indicate that while most will joke over coffee about the proliferation of
subsidy information, their opinions are split about whether public access to the
details of farm payments is a good thing.
"I think it
stinks," said retired Otoe County farmer Tom Royal at a Syracuse coffee shop. "I
guess I was raised that way. My business is my business, and anybody else's
business is their business."
Royal's son, Gary,
averaged $ 17,327 per year in government payments from 1996 to 2000, ranking him
147th among Otoe County farmers.
Others interviewed,
especially smaller operators, were pleased that people can now see how some of
the largest farm operations benefit from the farm program.
"It doesn't bother me, but I'm at the bottom of the list," said Glen
Schweppe, 65, who was in Syracuse for coffee with his wife, Eunice, after
milking cows at 3 a.m.
"It's probably a good deal to
expose some of these people," said Schweppe, whose small farm of 160 acres and
49 milk cows took in an average of $ 1,609 a year in government payments from
1996 to 2000.
Many small farmers have complained that
the government payments under the 1996 Freedom to Farm bill
encourage large farms to get even larger by basing the amount of payments on the
size of the crop, rather than on the financial need of the farmer.
The Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., think
tank that opposes traditional farm programs, points out that the largest 10
percent of farmers received two-thirds of the commodity crop money.
John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said
farmers are taking an unfair public beating as a result of the Web site
information.
"Even though we are getting plagued with
the public perception that we are getting rich," Hansen said, "the bigger
picture is that a lot of our guys are in worse financial condition than they
were before."
The farm payments in the last five years
have not been enough to make up for drastic reductions in commodity prices,
Hansen said.
"The reason farmers got larger was so they
could have enough net income to feed their families," he said. "Even then, they
need an off-farm job."
Some farmers interviewed in
coffee shops said that people who read the subsidy details won't know how to
interpret them. In some cases, one subsidy total could be supporting the
business operation of numerous families, making it appear extreme.
It could drive a wedge between farmers and their "city
cousins," said Royal. "They think we're getting rich," he said.
Said Dunbar farmer Marvin Heiser, whose payments under the farm program
have averaged $ 18,593: "I guess they don't know what you have to go through to
get that money."
Wayne Schomerus of Syracuse, who
received farm payments averaging $ 22,801 a year, said: "If it wasn't for the
government payments, there wouldn't be a farmer left."
Bill Farmer, a Syracuse auctioneer, said the public disclosure of
subsidies infringed on farmers' privacy.
"There's too
much information out there," he said. "It's a little personal."
As for Speth, he said his attempt to joke with his farming friends had
nothing to do with being opposed to farm payments.
"If
the government payments are out there, they would be foolish not to go after
them," he said.
Instead, Speth said, he was getting
even for some good-natured ribbing that he takes.
"As a
government worker, whenever I have a doctor's appointment the first question I
get is, 'Why aren't you working?'" Speth said. "I was just trying to turn it
around a little bit."
GRAPHIC: Color Photo/1 Eunice and Glen Schweppe, who have a
dairy farm near Syracuse, Neb., don't object to the publication of government
farm subsidy payments. Their farm of 160 acres and 49 milk cows took in an
average of $ 1,609 a year in government payments from 1996 to 2000., Color
Mugs/3 Dean Speth, county worker Tom Royal, retired Otoe County farmer Bill
Farmer, a Syracuse auctioneer; PHIL JOHNSON/THE WORLD-HERALD/4sf
