- Is the Agriculture Industry
Getting Paid Not to Quit?
- By Joe Herman
Orchardist and Grape Grower
- “This is great!” yelled my neighbor Skip Dabull. “Farming has finally gotten so bad they’re going to start paying you not to quit!”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s called development rights. People are so scared that you’re going to quit farming, they’ll actually give you money for not quitting and selling to developers. It’s fantastic!”
Skip was getting excited.
“They passed it up in Traverse City already, where guys were threatening to quit growing cherries and sell to developers. Now they’re thinking of passing it all over the place.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said. “Aren’t we drowning in excess cherries? And these guys are going to get paid to keep growing more?”
“You’re missing the point, man! You’re not farming fruit; you’re farming city people. Suburbanites are the crop of the future!”
“Where’s the logic to this,” I argued. “This is like walking in to a bank, holding a gun to your own head and saying ‘Give me all your money or I’ll shoot!”
“Exactly!” cried Skip.
“And city people buy this?”
“Lock, stock and Volvo!”
“It doesn’t make any sense. What about supply and demand? What about the fact that we’ve got way more farm land than we know what to do with? What about letting things find their own level? Seek the highest bidder and all that free market stuff? What about ending all these farm subsidies that congress is talking about?”
“Au contraire, my friend,” said Skip. “You have much to learn about the world. There’s one thing city people hate worse than farm subsidies...”
“What’s that?”
“Other city people! When they move out into the country, the last thing they want is for other city people to move out next to them. They want to live next to rubes like you and me. We’re what you call ambiance.”
“You know, I had a Chicago guy build a log cabin next to me just last year,” I recalled.
“You lucky stiff. Go over there and tell him if he doesn’t pay you, you’re going to quit farming.”
“And he’ll fall for that?”
“Hook, line, and Range Rover.”
“What about the next generation? How are they going to make a living?”
“You can’t farm without an angle. If they want to farm, they’ll have to find their own angle,” said Skip. “It may be heartless, but this is tough business. Besides, we haven’t even touched on subterranean rights or air space yet.”
“So, you’re going to sell your development rights?”
“Yup, and I’m pushing out all my orchards and signing up for the CRP program.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s a program where the feds pay you not to grow anything in order to avoid a huge surplus.”
“So the feds will pay you not to grow anything, and the city people will pay you not to quit doing it?”
“Isn’t this a great country!”
“What are you going to do all day?”
“Just what we’ve always wanted to do…the wife and I bought a condo in the city!”
Joe Herman and his wife, Sue, operate vineyards and orchards in the Benton Harbor, Mich. area.
