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December 13, 2001 By Janelle Holden Montezuma County’s farmers have pocketed more than $7 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidies since 1996. And one of the top subsidized farmers in neighboring La Plata County is state Sen. Jim Isgar (D-Hesperus). Those are just two pieces of information one can glean from a new database published by the Environmental Working Group in November. The non-profit, environmental-research organization’s database names 2.5 million farmers and landowners who received federal farm payments for crops, weather-related disasters, and conservation projects in the five-year period from 1996 to 2000. The list is searchable by state, county, and name. Of the 28,268 farms in Colorado, 32 percent are receiving farm subsidies, and 434 recipients are in Montezuma County. The county’s top crop-subsidized farm is the Ute Mountain Ute Farm & Ranch Enterprises, which received a total of $237,739 in payments between 1996 and 2000. Second place went to Cortez-area farmer Rodney Oliver, who received $57,000 in payments for the five-year period.
The database did not rank farmers in the county based on the total amount of payments they’ve taken in from the USDA, but you can click on a farmer’s name to find out that amount and what type of payments he or she has received. For instance, Steve Chappell would have ranked first in the county for total USDA support with a grand total of over $300,000 for crop disaster, acreage enrolled in conservation programs, and crop-assistance subsidies, but only ranked third for crop-assistance subsidies. The county’s major crop, hay, is not subsidized and neither are pinto beans, which are considered a vegetable crop and not eligible for subsidy. The top crop-subsidized farm in La Plata County is Long Hollow Company in Hesperus, which took in $124,881 during the same period. The last Farm Bill, signed by Congress in 1996, overhauled crop-subsidy programs that have been around, in one form or the other, since the 1930s. In 1996, eligible producers were allowed to sign what is called production-flexibility contracts, and enroll wheat, barley, oats, or corn crops in a federal program entitling them to fixed annual payments for seven years. "It’s the heart of the federal subsidy program," said Paul White, Montezuma County’s executive director with the Farm Service Agency. Congress has tried to wean farmers off price- and income-support programs for many years, but lower commodity prices and disasters have brought further emergency ad hoc funding to farmers. Nationally, nearly $36 billion has been paid to farmers through just the production-flexibility program since 2002. "All farmers would rather receive better prices, but we’re in a situation where we’re not receiving prices adequate, in most cases, to keep the people on the farms," said Isgar, who ranked second in La Plata County for the more than $41,000 he received for crop subsidies. In total, Isgar received $168,576 in USDA program funding for the 1,500 acres he owns near Hesperus and other leased land over the five years between 1996 and 2000. Isgar said he’s seen some tough times during the droughts of the past few years, and the disaster payments have helped. "I think the disaster payments have really kept people from going broke. I know it has sure helped us," said Isgar. "1996 was one of the driest years we’ve had, and then 2000 was another real dry year. And we’re in an area that has irrigation, but since we don’t have storage on those years, we have almost no irrigation. We ran out early June this year, and we were out earlier last year," he explained. Isgar also has 500 acres of crop land in the Conservation Reserve Program, in which the government pays farmers to set aside land for conservation. "The CRP is effective because it does reduce production. It’s the government paying people to take land out of production, and if we take the land out of production that should help prices, plus serve a conservation need," said Isgar. Crop-subsidy payments are determined by established acreage and yield, not need, a point that Ray Christensen, the executive vice president of the Colorado Farm Bureau, thinks is important to point out. "The Farm Bill is not necessarily geared or based to just help only the small family farms. To my understanding the Farm Bill is not a law that is based on need, necessarily, it’s based on acreage that you enroll — there’s no income test." Also, producers can pledge their stored crop as collateral in exchange for marketing-assistance loans. Farmers who don’t take out a loan are eligible for loan-deficiency payments, which are equal to the difference between the original USDA loan rate and the farmer’s repayment rate. Add up all of the programs USDA offers and individuals are eligible for up to $265,000 a year in subsidies. That raises the question, why is the largest subsidized farm in Colorado, owned by the Cure Brothers in Burlington, receiving nearly $1 million a year in subsidies? According to the Farm Service Agency, it’s probably because there are many partners involved in the farm, and each individual partner could claim the full amount of subsidies a year. If the farm were incorporated, however, it would be treated as an individual entity. A new Farm Bill is currently being debated by the U.S. Senate, and the Environmental Working Group hopes Congress will provide more federal assistance, in the form of conservation-program support, to all types of farmers, regardless of what they grow. "We’re not against farm subsidies at all, we’re in a farm crisis, and we think that farmers need assistance, but there is a much better way to go about this than writing checks to people who don’t need them, to agribusinesses that are turning profits of millions, and we’re leaving out the people we say we’re helping," said Sarah Feinberg, the group’s spokesperson. The Farm Bureau Federation supports lifting all the individual caps of subsidies, because according to Christensen, farmers are facing a crisis and subsidies are low compared to other countries. "The average farm payment per acre in this country is $49. In Europe it’s well over $4,000 per acre," said Christensen. "We’re at a crossroads in agriculture where I think most farmers want their true income from a true market, not from a government subsidy, but in the short term there are going to be some payments to help farmers get through these rough times." And by rough times, Christensen means commodity prices, which he says are at historically low averages, leaving farmers to face bankers they’ve promised to pay. "Remember that while these payments may seem big, and they are, there’s no question that $4 million is a lot of money, the scales of operation for agriculture is high, and it’s based on the amount of acres you have enrolled in a particular program." Christensen said that he has not seen farmers reacting negatively to the web site, but other farmers feel their "privacy" has been violated. "We’ve had quite a few farmers contacting us who are angry, and who are glad that we put it out there. I’d say it’s about evenly split," said Feinberg. The group’s data was obtained from the USDA after a 1996 court decision forced the department to release the information. For years, the department refused to release the names of subsidy recipients, citing privacy concerns. But the information has caught quite a few people’s attention. According to Feinberg, there have been 8 million searches of the web site so far, initiated by 200,000 different users, since it was opened to the public Nov. 6. The Environmental Working Group’s subsidy site can be found at www.ewg.org/farm
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