This weekend, columnists called for farmer aid on the estate tax, a reduction in the chemicals used in commercial farming and relief from commodity-swap overregulation.
Click a link below to learn what they said, then share your thoughts on the AgWeb page on Facebook.
Farmers Need Death Tax Relief
By Blake Hurst, Missouri Farm Bureau president (via the Columbia Daily Tribune)
“But the person who owns 1,000 acres will be faced with a prospective tax bill of around $5 million. This is in addition to the thousands of dollars in legal and accounting fees these farmers have already spent to ensure their farm is protected and passes to the next generation. No farm in Missouri, nor anywhere else, has the wherewithal to stand that kind of financial tsunami.”
A Simple Fix for Farming
By Mark Bittman, The New York Times online
“It’s becoming clear that we can grow all the food we need, and profitably, with far fewer chemicals. And I’m not talking about imposing some utopian vision of small organic farms on the world. Conventional agriculture can shed much of its chemical use — if it wants to.”
Another View: Dodd-Frank Might Snare Agriculture
By Don Coursey, DesMoinesRegister.com
“The over-the-counter agriculture swap market has been running safely and efficiently for years without mandatory middlemen. No one — not even the regulators charged with implementing Dodd-Frank — claims otherwise.”
