Commodity programs and sustainable cash grain farming

Excerpt

REDWOOD County, in southwestern Minnesota, is primarily a cash grain-producing region. Corn is the predominant crop, with corn-soybeans the predominant rotation. Not surprisingly, the sign-up for government commodity programs is very high in Redwood County. Program payments have helped relieve the economic difficulties that plagued farmers throughout the 1980s. But looking to the coming decade, many farmers and farm leaders see economic issues making way for environmental issues as a major influence in agricultural decision-making.

Cash grain farmers in the area no doubt will be encouraged to adopt more sustainable farming practices. Two questions arise quite naturally from this. The first is simply, “What options do cash grain farmers have for becoming more sustainable?” The second concerns the incentives (or disincentives) that current commodity programs provide farmers who wish to become more sustainable.

After conducting a series of informal interviews with farmers in the county, we found that most cash grain farmers saw their options as being relatively limited. Furthermore, there was a consensus that straying from commodity program guidelines would be financially unwise, to say the least. One farmer talked of the “vise grip” in which programs held his farm planning …