Public benefit

Occasional columnist John Griffin took local land-conservation policies to task in a column here two weeks ago, and conservationist Hope Porter defended the initiatives — as she has done so ably for many years — in a rebuttal letter last week.

We were taken by the argument's similarity to the cyclical Farm Bill debate.

Congress is trying to wrap up the overdue Farm Bill, and, as always happens when the five-year legislation comes back 'round, there is a lot of talk and a heap of hand-wringing about subsidies.

The talk, of course, centers around those rich farmers who are feeding greedily — and unnecessarily — at the public trough, the “welfare queens” of the ag sector, we suppose.

They are just as rare out in the fields, we also suspect, as they have proved to be in the inner cities.

The farm lobby puts a different spin on programs that support farm prices, noting that it's the American consumer who is being subsidized at the grocery store. Crop supports help farmers, to be sure, but the real recipients of the largess are strolling the aisles of Giant and Safeway and Bloom, trolling for some of the cheapest food in the world, current price explosions notwithstanding.

There is some significant merit to the argument, though in a global economy there certainly seem to be some places where a review is warranted.

Sugar is often mentioned. Sugar subsidies, critics contend, provide a double whammy. They drive up prices for consumers because sugar is produced so much more cheaply in so many other parts of the world. Our propping up sugar producers elevates the cost of a can of cola while underpinning the livelihood of a grower struggling elsewhere.

Sugar makes a strong case for the need for farm policy review, but the generalized hue and cry over farm subsidies is far too simplistic.

The Griffin/Porter discussion is deja vu all over again for those familiar with the Capital Hill debate.

Griffin would eliminate — or at least dramatically curtail — “farm subsidies” — in this case by cutting back on conservation tax benefits, paring down the Purchase of Development Rights programs, giving what he claims is a more honest assessment of land-use tax values.

Ms. Porter insists that these “farm subsidies” benefit us all, much as real price supports benefit shoppers.

The Times-Democrat has devoted countless pages and paragraphs to this discussion for many years, with good reason.

He makes a good point.

She does, too.

We have a tight and constricting economy, and need to quit subsidizing the rich, he says.

We're not subsidizing a portion, she replies; we are subsidizing the whole, all of us.

Local land conservation is about 40 years old, as Ms. Porter pointed out last week. Farm Bills have been around much longer. It's likely both could benefit from a little tinkering

But it is absolutely critical to tweak an tinker with this in mind: We all live in Fauquier County because we love it. And what we love is its distinctive dissimilarity from Loudoun, from Prince William, and from the morass further north and east.

The Farm Bill subsidizes farmers so that we all pay less at the grocery. Conservation measures subsidize landowners so that we all pay less in terms of the physical and emotional wear and tear that urbanization entails.