Oak, when I google "wool subsidy" the third link is to the site I posted, but then something goes wrong when I click on it. So going the google route, here's what I find:
"Farm Bill Reinstates Wool Subsidies
Date: 05/24/2002
Contact: Rhonda Skaggs, (505) 646-2401,
[email protected]
Contact: John White, 505-525-6649,
[email protected]
Suggested Anchor Introduction
The new Farm Bill models its wool subsidy program after a similar program for grains and cotton. D'Lyn Ford explains.
Story
Click to Listen:
Wool and mohair subsidies have been reinstated under the 2002 Farm Bill. However, Agricultural Economist Rhonda Skaggs with New Mexico State University says the new program differs from previous subsidies that rewarded New Mexico's fine wool producers for top-quality fleeces.
"New Mexico producers benefited from earlier policy, because they produced a very clean, consistent, high quality wool product, very different from the wool produced, say, in the southeastern or the other parts of the United States. Western wool was generally perceived to be of higher quality and of greater value to the manufacturing community. It was one of the few government programs that had a direct incentive for producing high quality product or high quality wool. And so the way the 2002 legislation is written, it will be quite different from the way it operated under the 1950s legislation."
The previous wool subsidy program ended during the early years of the Clinton administration. Skaggs says new wool subsidies will be similar to those for farm program crops.
"And it appears now that the current policy as of the 2002 Farm Bill is going to be designed in similar fashion of grains and cotton. It will involve a guaranteed or a target or an ideal price, and producers will receive the difference between that price and what the market is actually paying them."
New Mexico producers sheared 255-thousand sheep in the year 2000, producing one-point-four million dollars' worth of wool. That year, New Mexico had about 20-thousand angora goats, with mohair valued at 260-thousand dollars. For N-M-S-U's College of Agriculture and Home Economics, I'm D'Lyn Ford."
Here's the google results:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wool+subsidy&btnG=Google+Search
