Nebraska Farmer Refuses Gov't Subsidies

PAWNEE CITY, Neb. - Boyd de Koning is proud of his newest tractor. He starts it up and listens to it purr. It is a 1962, 1963 or 1964 Oliver 1800. They quit making Olivers more than 25 years ago.

"You can get a lot of work out of one of these," said de Koning, 46, climbing down from the green cab on a mild winter day to walk around the place where three generations of his family have made a living since 1923.

Neat and orderly, the 283-acre Pawnee County farm a mile from the Kansas border has everything needed to grow and harvest corn, oats and milo, to raise chickens, to raise hogs from birth to slaughter, to graze 30 cows and to keep a family warm and fed in the winter.

What the de Koning farm does not have is farm subsidies. Boyd and Karen de Koning don't believe in them. Neither did his father and grandfather before him. De Koning said people are wrong to say farmers need subsidies. "I'm living proof that it isn't true," he said.

The de Konings are among a small percentage of farmers (the government doesn't know how many) who turn down thousands of dollars that would be theirs for the asking if they would only go to the county U.S. Agriculture Department office and sign up.

In 2000, the government subsidies to farmers in Pawnee County were $11.3 million. Nationwide, they totaled $23 billion.

These massive subsidies are under the spotlight as Congress debates farm policy and the public peruses a Web site where the Environmental Working Group lists every farmer's government payments for the last five years.

De Koning is an outspoken, but soft-spoken, critic of what started as government relief for farmers after the Depression and has snowballed to the point that, in 2000, government payments made up more than half of farmers' net income.

"If I was going to be speaking against subsidies, I didn't think that I should be taking them," said de Koning.

Unlike the Amish, who resist government benefits because of religious beliefs, the de Konings are moved by conservative political convictions and a proud, independent heritage.

To understand the de Koning attitude is to hear family stories of Dutch grandparents who came to the Pella, Iowa, area in the early 1900s and finally settled in Nebraska in 1923.

It is to understand a family that remembers well grandma Stella de Koning's reaction in the 1930s when informed that she could get free clothing from the government - "I'll sew gunnysacks before I'll take dresses from the government."

Or her son and Boyd's father, the late Neal de Koning, saying that government ought to be regarded as a watchdog to be fed, not as a cow to be milked.

As Congress gets closer to adopting a new farm policy to replace the Freedom-to-Farm program that expires this year, Boyd de Koning has written congressmen and told whoever will listen that farmers could make do without government money.

"I have neighbors who are good farmers," de Koning said. "I don't buy the idea that they would get out of farming if they didn't have government payments."

De Koning said he has a good relationship with neighbors who don't necessarily agree with his views. But with characteristic candor, de Koning says: "I can't help what they think. I need to think what I think."

He says government payments help big farmers bid up the price of land, raising his property valuations and therefore his taxes.

If the de Konings accepted government payments, their total would be small, probably less than $5,000 a year, even in the recent bad years for farm prices. But a little bit of money goes a long way on the de Koning farm.

They raise 183 acres of corn, milo and oats each year, using all of it for feed for the livestock they raise. They sell 400 to 500 hogs per year for about $100 each and 30 calves for about $500 each. In a normal year, their gross revenue would not be more than $60,000.

Neither Boyd nor Karen works any other job, satisfied with their net income of less than $20,000 a year.

"We don't have a problem with people having more than we have," said Karen de Koning, "if they get it on their own." The de Konings raised two children without health insurance, or for that matter, crop insurance.

A look around the de Koning farm is evidence enough of how they manage a no-frills life that would not suit most modern-day Americans. They take pride in keeping an orderly place, a farmstead that hasn't changed much since de Koning grew up there with his six brothers.

There are various old buildings, other older tractors, the chicken coop (the oldest building on the place, except for the 118-year-old house), two combines that de Koning bought for about $1,700 total and Rip, the coon hound.

Noticeable around the yard are neatly stacked piles of cut wood. The house had no running water until 1983 and is still heated by a wood stove that stands in the living room.

The small frame home, paint peeling on the outside, is neat and cozy inside with 1950s, or earlier, decor. A TV set gets only three channels because lightning took out the antenna's booster box.

The de Konings are still paying the six brothers for the land that their mother had when she died in 1991. Otherwise, they have no debt.

For relaxation, the de Konings swim in a neighbor's pond, hunt deer during season (butchering it themselves in their meat house), ride their 1971 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, visit family and listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. A stone at the driveway entrance is engraved with an American flag and the words: "Rush Is Right."

Rob Robertson of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation, which lobbies for assistance for farmers, said that by surviving without subsidies, the de Konings are the exception, not the rule.

"With prices so low, there has to be some level of safety net for farmers," Robertson said.

Brian Wolford, state executive director of the USDA's Farm Service Agency in Lincoln, which administers government programs, said it is unusual, but not unheard of, for farmers to decline subsidies.

"Most people can't afford not to have those payments," Wolford said. "But there are people whose beliefs are such that they don't want anything. You've got to respect them."

And he enjoy's listening to Rush. Ironically, all farmer's benefit directly or indirectly. For example, in Iowa a farmer doesn't have to pay road taxes for their grain carts, combines, tractors etc., but they get the use of the road. If you don't believe me, come to Iowa in the fall.

I'm not anti-farmer.

$20,000 a year goes a long way in Nebraska, especially when you don't have to buy any groceries. Their effective income is more like $30,000 per year I think.

That's the way the slavemasters in the Us Capital want the american farmer to live, without running water and with wood stoves.

Means they are closer to the land.

Peta would definitely be upset and so would the eco terrorists of ELF.

That's the way the slavemasters in the Us Capital want the american farmer to live, without running water and with wood stoves.

No,you have it wrong. The slavemasters in Washington want to overtax people to give their money to farmers so the farmers can buy more expensive equipment, go further into debt, and produce so much food that the prices drop and the farmer can't make the payments on the equipment so the farmer gets more subsidies, the government buys the surplus food and gives it away,further depressing prices, and then Ted Turner gets government farm subsidies to raise buffalo.

A stone at the driveway entrance is engraved with an American flag and the words: "Rush Is Right."

Rush has had a huge effect on America.

In many states farm equipment is exempt since it is usually just used once or twice a year, for harvest and marketing. As compared to say a delivery truck which could use the road 5 days a week.

"That's the way the slavemasters in the Us Capital want the american farmer to live, without running water and with wood stoves."

Don't knock it until you've tried it. We have lived like this, and believe me, it is without a doubt, the most SATISFYING lifestyle you can imagine. We drove our own well, heated our house with a wood stove, had chickens and a team of draft horses. If we weren't so old, I'd still be there. I'd choose it over EVERY other "lifestyle" anybody would care to name.

what do you mean they don't have to buy groceries? I don't think they raise sugar cane, or grind their own wheat, make their own electricity. Good grief things here in Nebraska cost money too. We have one of the highest gasoline taxes in the union, our property taxes are high, I heard at one time 5 times higher than Colorado. Don't think things are free or cheap here. They aren't. And our average income in this state is just under 20,000. There are alot of us that just don't think it's the government's job to provide for us.

Didn't knock it.

Just find it interesting that here was a farmer living the Yeoman farmers life and the AG business type finds it is unusual.

Shows how far farming has been industrialized.

You're right. I stand corrected. It's still a wonderful lifestyle. I live in central MN, and I don't know of a single farmer who DOESN'T take subsidies. I DO know a couple, however, and they are both millionaires. They don't mind taking the little handouts.

You know why the brim of a farmer's baseball cap is shaped like that, don't you? It's from checking in the mailbox...

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