FARMERS (CONT)

At that point the Reagan Administration moved to practice its economic theories on rural America. The 1985 Farm Bill decreased government subsidies. Prices for crops fell almost overnight by as much as 46 percent. Processors and international exporters experienced a financial boom. The farmers' money went into the pockets of the multinationals.

To secure their gains, these corporations lobbied hard to have the changes written into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As a result, 600,000 family farms failed before the end of the decade, their land consolidated into corporate mega-operations hundreds of thousands of acres in size.

In 1990, George Washington University reported in its Intergovernmental Health Policy Project that this social engineering had taken a heavy human toll: collapse of farm-related businesses and rural communities, unemployment and underemployment, substandard housing, hunger, mental illness, child abuse, substance abuse, anxiety disorders and depression. By 1989 suicide was the leading cause of death on family farms, three times the rate of the general population. And that didn't include the "accidents."

Buy local, buy often

Those in positions of power consider the collapse of rural America as a necessary and inevitable result of a global economy. From their point of view it would be counterproductive to reduce the suffering or mitigate the effects, let alone reverse the policies.

Multinational corporations assume that we won't make the effort to buy food directly from local producers or look for retailers who do so. Without competition, the corporations can pay farmers as little as they choose and charge us whatever they want. By the time we decide prices are too high and start looking for the farmers, they may be gone.

Jody Aliesan is the Director of the Farmland Fund

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