A tear came to my eye when I read the big print in Title VI of the $290 Billion Farm Bill. It sounds nice. When you read the excerpt, your heart goes out to all those disadvantaged farmers, barely scraping by.
Expands opportunities for locally grown, organic and small producers
Provides $15 million for the Value-Added Agricultural Product Market Development Grant program, which offers planning and working capital for marketing value-added products
Ok, it's only $15 million. It's a drop in the bucket. But it's a piece of a larger chunk of rotten fruit. It's too early to tell who is going to get the money for what over the next five years. But I can safely predict that it will all be spent.
I took a look back at how this grant money was spent in 2002. I wanted to see who was getting all this payola.
One needy grower was the Diamond Walnut Company of Stockton, CA. It received $345,000 to put their product into snack foods for domestic retail outlets. I buy Diamond brand walnuts all the time. I don't consider them "socially disadvantaged". It's a freaking walnut.
Perhaps the country needs more Georgia-branded pecans? Georgia Agricultural Commodity Commission for Pecans in Atlanta got $25,000 to "conduct marketing research to determine feasibility of establishing a branded 'Georgia Grown' pecan." When I eat a pecan pie, I really don't care where the cook got the nuts.
It gets more nuts. Arizona Pistachio Association of Tucson, Arizona received $64,500 to " Conduct feasibility study and prepare business plan in order to develop a processing facility and direct marketing strategy for Arizona's Pistachio production."
Midwest Nut Producers Council, Owosso, Michigan got $74,605 "to assess the feasibility of marketing products produced from small and broken peeled chestnuts." I guess they were too small to roast over an open fire.
A peanut is technically a pea and not a nut. But that doesn't stop Concordia, LLC of Ashburn, Georgia from spending $15,000 to "determine feasibility of collectively marketing peanuts by cleaning, grading, and segregating the peanuts according to variety and grade." Thank you, U.S. Taxpayer!
Along with these nuts, there are some fruits, who can't do proper marketing without help from you and me:At half a million dollars, how "small" or "disadvanted" are these guys?
And then, you have the programs that don't really say what they're for, except for "marketing":
It doesn't end with the above. There are grants to pay the salaries for biodiesel and ethanol plant employees. With fuel prices this high, I don't want to give a dime that says anything with "energy" in it.
Maybe I should go easy on the bison beefy jerky marketing plan? Nah. Squeeze it, salt it, toast it, and I'll eat it. Research done.
One item that hurts close to home is the $349,000 grant to someone in Kentucky to start a wholesale nursery business. My grandparents were in the tree nursery business for 30 years, and never took a dime that wasn't owed them. They also didn't take credit cards. Now that's nuts.
©2008 Bob Nightingale, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Friday, May 16, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Bob Nightingale only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Bob Nightingale is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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