ETHANOL  (CONT)

The United States has had such a system, with the New Deal price supports that lasted into the early 1970s. In its proposal for how to shape the 2007 Farm Bill, the National Family Farm Coalition has proposed a similar system of price supports (along with complementary programs).

If we as a nation care about family farmers as much as we claim to, we ought to take the NFFC's advice: scrap the subsidy system, which only perpetuates the vicious cycle of farm-level booms and busts, and replace it with a predictable system that growers can rely on. If we do that, perhaps the ethanol boom will turn out to be a godsend for family farmers: not because it gave them a quick windfall of profits, but because it awakened the rest of us to how vulnerable the current system has made them - and spurred us to do something about it.
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Lisa M. Hamilton is a writer and photographer who focuses on food and farming. She's currently writing a book about the changing place of farmers and ranchers in American life, and a new movement to restore their leadership role in the food system.

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