New Cash Crop - Quota

As it turns out the US government has been subsidizing peanuts for the past few decades. Peanut 'farmers' who were lucky enough to get a government peanut 'quota' were guaranteed a price of $610/ton where as their not so fortunate neighbors without a quota had to sell their peanuts on the open market for much less. Last year this was around $150/ton. Apparently this dates back to the Depression, so we can't blame it on a certain past President that happened to grow peanuts for a living.

The interesting thing, at least for me, is the way that the farmers think about the quota. They talk about it almost like it was a real crop. It's pretty hard to spread quota butter on your bread, but that's the way they talk about it. Strangely enough some of the quota holders live in places you wouldn't expect. Not many peanuts are grown in New York City, yet 84 of the quota holders live there. It must be a little hard for government officials to take other countries to task for farm subsidies and trade barriers when things like peanut quotas are still in operation in the US.

Yahoo! News - Many Benefit From Peanut Buyout from
- posted by tempusmaster @ 6:28 PM