Tom Harkin: “I said a couple of years ago, when that so-called Freedom to Farm bill passed, it was a triumph of ideology over…”

“I said a couple of years ago, when that so-called Freedom to Farm bill passed, it was a triumph of ideology over experience--the experience of thousands of years; the experience we have had in our own country since the 1930s. Yet there was this ideology that said, no, we have to get the Government out of everything; no price supports. But I submit to my friend from South Dakota that the so-called Freedom to Farm bill probably is working just as it was intended. During high-price years, like we had when the Freedom to Farm passed, it offers large-scale farmers the ability to take advantage of opportunities that they might see in the marketplace. Now, does it help the smaller farmers a little bit? Sure, but only because those payments were high in the first years. As the Senator pointed out, those initial payments are coming down, so the large-scale farmer, better able to weather 1 or 2 or 3 years of low prices, is left to sail on through. The smaller farmer is left to go broke, and that is what Freedom to Farm was intended to do.”