Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 21 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 2/23/17

Wall Street Sodbusters

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   1 comment
Message Jim Hightower
Become a Fan
  (45 fans)

From Other Words

Big-money speculators are buying up farms, charging tenants to farm it, and boxing young, real farmers out of the market.


(Image by Photo by Eva Verbeeck/Young Farmers)   Details   DMCA

I love the names: Bobcat Farm, Golden Eagle Ranch, Long Prairie, Ten Mile Farm. They conjure up Americana, the old homestead, and our rich rural culture.

Less bucolic, however, is the fact that all those farms are part of a massive Wall Street investment scheme called Farmland Partners Inc. It's run by a couple of slicks trained in mergers and acquisitions as executives at the investment powerhouse Merrill Lynch.

Rather than sodbusters, Farmland Partners are taxbusters. They're using a legalistic plow called the Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT, to get enormous tax breaks to subsidize their scheme.

With this special subsidy, the partners have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors to buy up farms and ranches. They now own 295 farm properties covering 144,000 acres in 16 states.

Of course, the Wall Street plowboys don't soil their own soft hands by actually farming. No, no -- the syndicate hires tenant farmers to do the sweaty work of plowing, planting, and nurturing the crops.

This tenant system produces a double-line cash flow for the faraway owners. Farmland Partners charges the tenants rent for tilling the corporate soil, then they harvest a sweet share of any profits from the sale of crops the tenants produce.

Meanwhile, the young farmers America desperately needs -- those who actually want to, you know, farm -- are having a hard time finding affordable land to get started. This new generation of farmers can easily be out-bid for good land by Wall Street speculators who have the cash flow from tenants and the subsidy from taxpayers to underwrite their financial contrivance.

To prevent the money schemers from literally walling off young farmers, and to fight this insidious Wall Street takeover of agriculture, connect with www.YoungFarmers.org.

Must Read 2   Well Said 1   Valuable 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Jim Hightower Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Jim Hightower is an American populist, spreading his message of democratic hope via national radio commentaries, columns, books, his award-winning monthly newsletter (The Hightower Lowdown) and barnstorming tours all across America.

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat -- against us!

Trump Hates the American Public -- Here's How He Reveals His Disdain

The Post Office is not broke -- and it hasn't taken any of our tax money since 1971

The plutocrats who bankrolled the GOP primaries -- and what they want in return

Citizens United Against Citizens United: A Grassroots Campaign to Restore Democracy

The Audacity of Greed

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend