When the young “future farmer” portrayed on today’s #stampoftheday gazed over the bucolic farm and valley shown on the stamp do you think he was thinking that many decades later the owners of those fields would receive record amounts of politically motivated federal aid?
That’s the question that comes to mind when I examine today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on October 13, 1953 to honor the 25th anniversary of the Future Farmers of America, a group founded in 1928 when 33 farm boys met in a Kansas City hotel to discuss the future of farming in America. The organization they founded provided support for agricultural education and leadership training for high school students. The organization, which in 1988 changed its name to FFA to recognize that its member included students interested in more than just farming, has 669,989 members in 8,630 chapters. Its alumni include a host of well-known musicians including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Taj Mahal, Taylor Swift, Lyle Lovitt, and John Mellenkamp, among others.
The organization’s official motto is “Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve.” But that motto – and the training FFA offers – don’t touch on the many ways that geopolitical forces and crass political calculations shape the lives of America’s farmers. Sunday’s New York Times highlighted this fact in an article headlined: “Trump Funnels Record Subsidies to Farmers Ahead of Election Day noting that “federal payments to farmers are projected to hit a record $46 billion this year as the White House funnels money to Mr. Trump’s rural base in the South and Midwest ahead of Election Day.” The article added that farmers need this aid because they “have been hit hard by the double whammy of [President Trump’s] combative trade practices and the coronavirus pandemic” – forces that have led to increases in farm debt and a rise in farm bankruptcies.
On the campaign trail, Trump and his allies have touted these efforts. Speaking in Wisconsin in September, for example, the president said: “I’m proud to announce that I’m doing even more to support Wisconsin farmers.”
And although the desire to help struggling farmers is bipartisan, Democrats and critics of the aid programs contend that such statements underscore the fact that the aid is being distributed in uneven ways designed to curry favor with a politically important constituencies in swing states. Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, for example, told the Times that “this is an authoritarian power grab used to buy political support from voters who are essential to his re-election.”
That, unfortunately, is the future that the young boy in today’s stamp didn’t see when he gazed out on that bucolic scene in 1953.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.