Rural Conservatives

One of our reporters received a critical e-mail for his on air comments that rural conservatives won the last election. The listener responded that the election was won by the Republican Party not conservatism. He went on to write that in conservative theory there are no subsidies for agriculture. It was his opinion that farmers who accept subsidies and vote republican are just big government welfare republicans. I thought my co-workers response to his e-mail was worth sharing. He said "Farmers are not welfare recipients. Welfare is for those who don't work and I don't know a farmer who doesn't work hard. Subsidies are simply a means of balancing out an unfair playing field in today's world economy. Having affordable safe food is just as important to our nation's security as subsidizing the UN. Subsidies allow US farmer to compete with foreign countries who also subsidize like Canada, and those that do not have fair labor, or chemical application laws that drive up our cost of farming. Whatever our government and farmers are doing, the results are astounding. We have the least expensive and safest food in the world." You know I couldn't have said it better. I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.