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A 'Visionary' Proposal for Farmers
| Article
# : |
13250 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
1,877 Words |
| Author
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Rudy Boschwitz
Rudy Boschwitz is a Republican senator from Minnesota. He
serves on the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European
Affairs. |
On July 6, 1987, President Reagan laid down in Geneva the most ambitious agricultural subsidy reform plan ever proposed. Agriculture, now protected by a dazzling array of barriers, tariffs, and subsidies, would have those trade impediments totally phased out over a 10-year period or by the year 2000.
Unlike manufactured goods, for which trade restraints have been dramatically reduced in the postwar years, agriculture has become more protected. It is a time for boldness. Reagan's proposal is the "zero option" of nuclear arms negotiation applied to agriculture.
The plan has been called everything from "pie in the sky" to "visionary." Assessing the viability of the proposal depends as much on whether one is an optimist or a pessimist as it does on the specifics of the plan. Being an optimist, I believe that the plan is ambitious but achievable. Even if only half is accomplished, it will nonetheless be of historic proportions.
American farmers, Western Europe, and the developing world all have much to gain from a world in which food is produced, sold, and consumed more freely than it is today.
For most major crops, the American farmer is as efficient as any in the world, despite low land and labor costs found elsewhere. U.S. farmers - contrary to the popular notion - have not been subsidized to the degree that European farmers have and therefore are more in touch with production technologies and marketing strategies needed in a market-oriented environment. Moreover, the agricultural infrastructure in the United States, which employs more people than there are farmers and which would be immeasurably helped by this proposal, is second to none. Indeed, this infrastructure provides the decided edge for U.S. competitiveness. This country has good roads, rails, an extensive river system with locks and dams, deep-water ocean ports, unit train-car loading and unloading facilities, and grain storage facilities that extend all the way from farms to ports. No other system compares with this, and it makes movement of farm commodities to ports competitive with any in the world.
Undergirding American farmers and agribusinesses is a stable political and financial system and an economy that generally reflects the working of free enterprise. No other single agricultural producer and exporter can boast the efficiency of our farmers, the vastness of our agribusiness infrastructure, and the soundness of our political and economic
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