| Rural America Needs Help
Between 1970 and 2000, consumer food prices skyrocketed about 262 percent. During the same period, most farm prices remained flat or declined. The exceptions are beef and dairy, meat rising 31 percent and milk up 42 percent. When adjusted for inflation, corn prices paid to farmers dropped more than 75 percent during this period.
Rural America has been hurt badly. Farmers and ranchers in rural American now must cultivate an increasing average number of acres or raise more livestock if they are to stay in business.
Our goal at MY RURAL AMERICA is to highlight policy debates that lead to wise decision-making on issues that can bring a resurgence in the economic health of rural America while stimulating the long-term prosperity and security of all of America . Family farms and ranches, long the backbone of rural America , have supported their nearby communities and offered an affordable, reliable food supply for our nation and the world. Tragically, they have done so to their own financial detriment.
We believe it's time for rural America 's families to share the wealth. The business of agriculture offers food, fiber, shelter, and, more recently, the key to energy independence. But the rural families who work long hours to produce these commodities have been left out of the prosperity and security that food, fiber, shelter, and renewable energy provide America and portions of the rest of the planet.
MRA supports new investments and new strategies for restoring prosperity to rural America 's main streets and working families. This means trade must be fair to all the sectors of the economy, in America as well as in the rest of the world; farm policy must provide the opportunity for farm and ranch families to receive a fair return for the fruits of their labor; and investments must be made in rural broadband, renewable energy, education, and health care.
On the farm front, MRA asks why today's special interest-driven agricultural food policies have forced a bitter harvest for farm families, laborers, and their communities at the same time consumers and environmentalists are asking tough questions about the healthfulness and sustainability of America's food supply. We believe America 's producers need a trustworthy safety net for times that prices fall, a price support program that covers at least the cost of production, strategic reserves of all storable farm commodities, tools to help manage overproduction, and a standing disaster program that can be relied upon year after year in times of drought and other weather-related disasters. |
