Impacts of globalization in america
The current farm income crisis is unprecedented in times of economic prosperity and stability." Today, stock markets are booming, employment levels are fair, the weather is generally good and crops are average or better. "In the 1930's, it took a worldwide economic collapse, a stock market crash, mass unemployment, and a prairie-wide drought to drive net farm incomes to negative values. The NFU (National Farmers Union)-Canada reports sums up the current conditions this way: The truth is that there is a very severe farm crisis in the United States and it is on the verge of forcing most of the family sized farmers in our nation off the land. economy continues to grow, it is leaving rural America behind and it is at the expense of farmers and other workers in our society. Both groups use the money they receive from farmers' pockets to lobby for the industrialization of agriculture and other measures in the corporate interest. The American Farm Bureau Federation, which sells crop insurance to farmers, and the commodity groups, who tax farmers to "promote" the farmers' product, are two examples of groups that misrepresent farmers. farmers are misrepresented by groups within their own country who participate in many meetings and receive a great deal of media coverage. I know from my travels as President of the NFFC and from contacts with farmers from other regions of the world through Via Campesina, that many farmers think that all is rosy in the farm economy in the United States. The increasing role of the multi-national corporations in controlling both the inputs and the marketing of our commodities jeopardizes our very existence. It is global.Īs family farmers, many of the barriers to our profitability and survivability are the same - whether in Brazil, France, Canada, Mexico, or the U.S. The fight we are waging is not just local or national.
I also serve as the President of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center representing over 5,000 farm families who are fighting to preserve family farm agriculture. We raise soybeans, corn, wheat, hay and cattle on 2,000 acres. I am pleased to be here representing family farmers from the United States who are members of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC). This speech was presented at the RIAD International Forum July 5, 2000, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke.īill Christison is president of both the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and the U.S.
Bill Christison on his farm in Chillicothe, Missouri.