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Farm Bill 
Wed Nov 16, 2011 at 11:16:41 AM PST
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The farm bill, as you likely know, is an enormous piece of legislation passed every five or so years that governs a lot of our food system. This year, as the Supercommittee deadline looms, lawmakers are trying to pass a "secret farm bill" through that process. That is, they are trying to bypass the year of hearings and deliberation that normally proceeds a farm bill and instead cram an entire farm bill into the Supercommittee budget.
This is scary, unnerving, and antidemocratic. However, I feel that I should point out that it's not as if we were going to get an awesome farm bill even if they didn't do this. Don't get me wrong: I oppose the Secret Farm Bill. I oppose the entire Supercommittee and the budget cutting B.S. I would like to see us INCREASE spending to get the economy back on track, and then once the tax base has increased and entitlement spending is down, THEN address the deficit. I'd like to see us raise money by taxing millionaires and billionaires and corporations and save money by ending our wars and cutting back on our military spending. I think we can still be safe even if we don't spend more than every other country in the world combined on our military.
That said, the farm bill will likely suck no matter what. I'm getting my way on roughly none of my wishes. They are cutting the budget, ridiculously, and continuing down the same path they are on, one way or another, as far as agriculture goes. What we in the local food movement can hope for is a few pennies - very significant pennies, as far as we're concerned - via grant programs and such for young and beginning farmers, local food, organics, etc. A $5 million program here or there would do us a lot of good. But that's nothing compared to the billions in the entire farm bill that props up the system we oppose. What I fear for in the Secret Farm Bill is that, without time to lobby, we won't even get that.
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Tue Oct 25, 2011 at 11:25:41 AM PDT
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Both big ag and sustainable ag groups around the country are gearing up for the 2012 farm bill debate... but it might not happen. That's because the whole thing could be over and done with in 2011, as Tom Laskawy points out in his piece Quick and dirty: Congress may rewrite the Farm Bill in two weeks. It all has to do with the supercommittee nonsense that Congress is up to. The supercommittee is charged with cutting the budget by a certain amount and having their cuts passed by an up or down vote in both houses of Congress. If they fail, then mandatory cuts take place across the board, with a few exceptions (hunger programs won't be cut, for example).
Since the supercommittee would essentially make all of the farm bill's big decisions for it - i.e. where the money goes - that means the actual 2012 farm bill might be anticlimactic. So what will the Ag Committee do about that? As Laskawy points out:
Earlier this week, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the House and Senate Ag Committees suddenly announced that they would write the entire 2012 Farm Bill in the next two weeks.
Umm, what? Even the big commodity groups are only just now coming out with their own proposals for what they want in the farm bill. The thought of having the whole shebang over and done in two weeks is somewhat unimaginable, and a real assault on democracy as well.
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Wed Apr 27, 2011 at 15:15:26 PM PDT
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It's great to see so may younger people, (I'm 58,) getting involved in farm and food justice and sustainability issues. It brings great hope to long time family farm activists, who have been beat down over the years.
I also understand that, when there's a hot vocational path like this, competition gets tough. Several decades ago, my brother got into the field of environmental work in the northern woods of Wisconsin, just before the glut of job seekers hit. His career was set for life, and he saw many others who never made it. One strategy they used was internships, and he worked with young people on this track repeatedly. They were sponsored by organizations or the DNR, or part of academic field experience programs.
More recently we saw 562 applicants for 14 lucrative Food and Society Fellowships.
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Thu Apr 14, 2011 at 12:31:33 PM PDT
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(FYI, LDC = "Least Developed Countries" - promoted by Jill Richardson)
We farm and food activists in the US have a unique responsibility to advocate for solutions to the global food poverty crisis. We, here in the US, better know some key facts about that crisis, facts that are not as well known in other countries for important historical reasons.
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Tue Apr 12, 2011 at 14:58:24 PM PDT
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Back in March, Tom Philpott, a blogger at Grist, wrote that Tim Wise of Tuft Universities Global Development and Environment program had said that farm commodity subsidies cause low farm prices. The operative quotation was that, ""... by putting downward pressure on corn and soy prices, federal subsidies..." gave below cost gains to CAFOs.2 Philpott's blog was soon picked up in various places around the internet. In a google search, on about 11/20/10 I found 32 hits on this quotation. This quotation is not an accurate reflection of what Wise wrote, as I show below.
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Thu Jan 06, 2011 at 07:57:56 AM PST
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Collin Peterson (D-MN), the outgoing House Ag chair, made some news the other day in an interview he gave to the show AgriTalk. In a recent interview on that same show, the new House Ag chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) said he wanted to put off writing the 2012 farm bill until 2012. This is a change from Peterson's plan to get started in 2010 (which he did) and continue working through 2011. When asked what he thought about the plan to delay it, Peterson said he agrees with Frank. Why is that? Well, first of all, he said, the committee will have a number of new members who need to get up to speed. But probably more importantly, the new House Republicans are looking for money in the budget to cut. Why put the Farm Bill on the cutting board now while their knives are sharp? Wait a year until they are a little less zealous about cutting and THEN bring it up.
Peterson's got a great point here. Besides, although he didn't say it outright, there's a chance that delaying work on the 2012 Farm Bill will push it into 2013... AFTER the Congress elected in 2012 takes office. That might give us a friendlier Congress. (On the other hand, it might also give us a worse Congress. Hard to tell this far in advance.)
Peterson was also asked his thoughts on Lucas' idea to potentially cut the number of acres in conservation programs. Peterson said he was against this. (YES!) He noted that these programs, which pay farmers to NOT farm on sensitive land, were originally intended to reduce the supply of commodities on the market, but now they are truly environmental programs AND that many of the lands enrolled in the programs should NOT be farmed on. Hallelujah! Let's hope he puts up a good fight on this when the 2012 farm bill debate actually begins.
UPDATE: Frank Lucas has posted his priorities for the Ag Committee on the Ag Committee home page.
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Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 23:27:24 PM PST
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The 112th Congress starts tomorrow. Democrats out, Republicans in. In the House, at any rate. The Senate, which still has a Democratic majority, will continue to be subject to Republican filibusters on everything unless the filibuster reform proposed by Senators Merkley and Udall fixes that.
Over in the White House, Obama's looking for a new Chief of Staff, and one name that has been floated is Tom Vilsack, although most people think he's going to pick a Wall Street crony instead. If, for whatever reason, Vilsack leaves USDA, the name I've heard floated to replace him is Blanche Lincoln. Obviously, neither of these scenarios are good.
Getting back to Congress, we're now really getting close to the 2012 farm bill debate. It's here. Congress actually began working on the 2012 farm bill in 2010, but now that we've all got food safety and child nutrition behind us, we can all begin focusing on the farm bill as well. However, Frank Lucas (R-OK), the new House Ag committee chair, says he wants to put off really working on the 2012 farm bill for a while so he can first engage in oversight hearings.
I'm pretty sure that the EPA is going to be a target of those hearings. For whatever reason, Big Ag suddenly thinks that the EPA is going crazy and overstepping its bounds. The likely reason they say this is the EPA's action on carbon emissions. Big Ag has a major tendency to say "A (which doesn't bother me) leads to B (which I don't like), so I'm going to fight A." In this case, they are worried that if the EPA goes after emissions from power plants now, they might go after ag in the future
Another bit of bad news I've heard is the proposal to decrease the acreage enrolled in conservation programs. Several conservation programs involve paying farmers to NOT plant on areas with grasslands or wetlands, etc, to preserve wildlife habitat and to protect waterways from farm chemical runoff. Traditionally, conservation programs are underfunded, so planning to cut them seems absolutely insane.
The basis for their logic is an ongoing fight we've seen between sellers of commodities like corn, wheat, and soy, who benefit from increased commodity prices, and buyers of those commodities (like factory farms), who hate when commodity prices go up. I've watched this fight - which often centers around ethanol, the assumed cause of commodity price increases - for a few years with amusement. But it won't be funny if they settle their differences by taking acres out of conservation programs, which means plowing up grasslands and wetlands and planting them in MORE CORN.
Meanwhile, over at USDA, Vilsack has called for "coexistence" between conventional, biotech, and organic farmers. He doesn't like to see farmers suing one another, nor does he like one farmer dictating to another how to farm. And those are nice sentiments, really, but how do you propose to "coexist" when one farmer's GE corn blows pollen into all of the neighboring fields, some of which might be organic? Or when pesticide from a "conventional" farmer drifts onto a neighbor's organic crop? There's no easy way out here if you're looking for a way to coexist.
If you're hoping to reform the food system, here's what I think needs to be done now. I would expect roughly NOTHING from Congress. Nothing good that is. I think we need to keep our eye on Congress and make noise if they try to prevent the Obama administration from implementing any good policies. We also need to make noise if Congress puts forward very bad ideas in any upcoming legislation. I doubt we'll get much change for the positive in the farm bill, but we should advocate loudly for conservation programs.
I think we need to focus on making positive change in two areas. First, let's concentrate on the Obama administration and see if we can push USDA, the FDA, and EPA in good directions. You might also work within your own state for political change. And second, let's work on non-political reforms to the food system because that's probably where we'll make the most progress right now. Volunteer in your kid's school garden or in a local gardening group. Get involved in your community. Even just inviting friends over for a meal of fresh, ethically produced food is a great way to take action. Before people get active politically, often they need to get involved by falling in love with fresh food, or their farmers' market, or gardening. We need to engage more people like that, so that more people have a real stake in our movement. Then, when the political situation changes, we'll have more people on our side to speak out.
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Sat Nov 06, 2010 at 06:32:37 AM PDT
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Here's where you can sign on to the main policy solution to cheap corn. We must do this now, well in advance of the next farm bill, as I explain below.
Those who have read my blogs and comments here and elsewhere will know of my concern that there is a major barrier to winning our policy fight against cheap corn and other farm program crops, against most of the main problems identified in the new food books and films, from high fructose corn syrup, to CAFOs and the global food crisis. That barrier is a misunderstanding of just what the real policy cause is.
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Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 21:46:26 PM PDT
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It's officially started! The ink is long dry on the 2008 farm bill and we're now starting to gear up for the 2012 farm bill. The House held a hearing April 21 with Tom Vilsack as the witness who testified. The next hearing will be May 3 in Fresno, CA. And House Ag Committee Chair Rep. Collin Peterson (DINO-MN) is already giving interviews on the 2012 farm bill and what to expect. You can see one story by Environmental Working Group here (but please note that EWG's ideas on good subsidy policies are rather different from what I'd like to see - and what many farmers would like to see) and from Reuters here. Here's the key part of the Reuters article to read:
"I've told people we should put everything on the table," said Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson. "My interest is in providing the best, most rational, safety net for the average commercial farmer in this country."
With a two-year lead time, the House Agriculture Committee chairman is opening a review on Wednesday of the U.S. farm subsidies that date from the Depression era and are subject to myriad calls for reform -- or total replacement.
A number of political headaches from farm supports to trade issues, should be treated in the new bill.
Cotton subsidies must be revised to settle a trade dispute with Brazil. Dairy farmers say milk supports failed to stop a ruinous price plunge. Crop insurance costs are exploding. The Obama administration wants to cut subsidies to big farms.
To get there, Peterson invited a debate whether crop supports should be remolded, perhaps into a system that assures overall revenue for a farm. Supports now are paid mostly on the basis of past production of subsidized crops and whether farm-gate prices for them are below targets set by Congress.
Calling the subsidies "Depression-era" makes them sound outdated, but they are really about as outdated as financial regulations. That is, we ought to go back to something much more similar to what FDR gave us, rules that have been changed and dismantled beyond the point of recognition in the past several decades. I'm glad Peterson thinks that everything's on the table, but I am also positive that whatever Peterson thinks the outcome of the 2012 farm bill debate should be is nowhere near what I think it should be. Ditto to Blanche Lincoln, who will hopefully no longer be a sitting U.S. Senator by the time the bill ultimately passes.
If you'd like to make a statement about the hearing on May 3, you can do so by emailing your thoughts to agriculture at mail.house.gov during the 30 days FOLLOWING the hearing (i.e. until June 2).
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Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 11:38:33 AM PST
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I've been working at some reviews of food books and films. The other day, while working though Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, I think I finally figured out just where Michael Pollan ends up in his analysis of the Commodity Title of the Farm Bill.
I'm picking on Pollan here (ie. folly) in the spirit of Noam Chomsky, who often chooses the strongest opponent or argument to debunk. Pollan clearly is doing a lot of things right. That's a given for me which I rarely expand upon. He almost gets this issue right. Bottom line? Pollan just ends up siding with Cargill and ADM (see quote below, and then my analysis) as a sort of default policy position. He leads most others in the food movement, bringing a huge load of folks way up, almost to the peak of the mountain, . . . but then he fails to take the final step and, like Sisyphus, it all goes rolling back down to the valley and down into the depths of the dark canyon (as in food movement, mainline church, progressive positions on the 2008 farm bill) of inadvertent support for multi billions for the giant agribusiness beneficiaries.
Now, Pollan can often be quoted against himself. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a 450 page book in which he talks briefly about the farm bill here and there, and here and there, and here and there. He'll talk one way for a while and then say, well, actually that's not really true the way it sounds. That's usually good. These are dilemmas that are either reconciled fairly well (as I'm arguing here and elsewhere) or that digress into negantropic vicious circles, as in the 1996, 2002 and 2008 farm bills, or that do the latter in a "green" way, as also in those farm bills.
Actually I spoke to Pollan about this very matter when he was in Iowa City a year or two ago and I thought he was on board. I must have been wrong, according to the evidence, (the quotes,) I've presented below.
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Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 04:53:35 AM PST
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We've all heard that bloggers are interconnected. We hear that the lead is being taken by bloggers these days in breaking stories or fact checking them, since the blogs are rooted in such a wide diversity of people. We hear how blogs can quickly get right to the bottom of an issue.
We've heard similar things about video. A video from an ordinary person can suddenly go viral.
Recently someone suggested to me through my YouTube channel that Twitter was the place to be: "I recently came across your zmag blog .... Much of the way that discussions about food/ag are getting moved into the mainstream is via twitter.... the tech has shifted." It's hard to keep up.
Of course, we've also heard that information on the internet can be unreliable. It doesn't have the standards of scientific scholarship, or even of the mainstream media of the past. Information can go viral AND be false, half true and/or technically true but misleading.
So how does this all play out for farm and food justice work within these domains?
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Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 14:43:33 PM PST
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Michael Pollan (as quoted and cited below) has argued that passing a farm bill has long been some sort of a dull, number crunching task with little drama. Then suddenly along came (the food movement?) environmentalists, the public health community, and the development community, and suddenly it's highly contentious, high drama.
As a result, Pollan predicted, like many others, that the 2008 farm bill process might well be different, as a result of these important new players becoming involved, along with that very important group, "eaters." (He leaves out that "quaint" group, farmers.) Pollan's statement reminds me of the North Carolina "Water Keeper" who came into Iowa some years back predicting that some how shot lawyers were going to get rid of hog factories in short order.
Well, it didn't turn out that way (in either case), which certainly didn't surprise me, because Pollan's views of both the farm bill and the movements were way off the mark. That's how it looks from where I stand.
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Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 14:37:32 PM PST
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To reform the farm bill, it is best to avoid mystifying it. In the lead up to the 2008 farm bill, it was common to hear the farm bill described as an enormous "omnibus" piece of legislation with a large number of "titles." That is virtually incomprehensible.
Imagine bringing city folks into that kind of movement work? (Oh, you are city folks, 'er people? Congratulations for sticking with it this long.) The great organizers usually say that you build an organization with people who are directly affected, not with sympathizers. Take, for example, the farm credit cases of the 1980s. They were at risk of losing all they'd worked for in their adult lives and often the lives of their ancestors. People like that will put up with a lot to win.
But in any case, I think the farm bill can be easily explained.
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Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 10:55:09 AM PST
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Ok, the *"Farm" Coalition Group. Which side are you on folks?
Did you support the Senate Bill? House? Kind/Flake? Grassley/Dorgan? Ok, what you supported, did it include supply management (production controls) for wheat and other grains? None of the bills above included supply management for grain.
Did you support farm bill principles from one group or another? Did you write any letters? Make any phone calls? Was there anything about supply management?
No? Well, that's great, says the "Farm Coalition Group." (You're for farms, right?)
Here's a vintage letter (also footnoted in Al Krebs book, The Corporate Reapers.
"*Farm Coalition Group
1750 K Street, NW #700, [oooops, they moved, probably to Crystal city?]
October 24, 1985
Dear Senator:
For many months now, the organizations listed below have been working with Congress to develop a viable, long-term food and agriculture program for this Nation.
Given the current economic and credit situation within the farm community and its related industries, we recognize the necessity and importance of government involvement in the 1985 Farm Bill. However,
we believe that a gradual transition toward a long-term market-
oriented agriculture program is in the best interests of all -- producers, suppliers, processors, consumers, and taxpayers.
It is for these reasons we urge your support in removing the mandatory wheat referendum provision in S. 1714, the Agriculture, Food, Trade and Conservation Act of 1985. We are opposed to this provision because:
1) mandatory production controls weaken U.S. agriculture's ability to effectively compete for export markets while it encourages our competitors to increase their world market share; and,
2) higher domestic costs will exacerbate the current farm
income situation as the other segments in the food distribution chain (farm input industry, processors, livestock feeders, etc. all the way through to the consumer) modify their domestic purchases as a result.
We urge that you support the amendment to strike the referendum provision for mandatory government production controls. We would also appreciate your opposition to any other amendments establishing such a referendum.
Sincerely,
American Bakers Association, National-American Wholesale Grocers Association, American Cotton Shippers Association, American Meat Institute, National Broiler Council, Biscuit & Cracker Manufacturers' Association of America, National Confectioners Association, Chamber of Commerce of the U. S., National Fertilizer Solutions Association, Chocolate Manufacturers Association, Farm & Industrial Equipment Institute, National Food Processors Association
Florida Phosphate Council, National Pasta Association, Food marketing Institute, Potato Chip/Snack Food Association, Independent Bakers Association, Millers' National Federation, Ralston Purina Company, The Fertilizer Institute"
Which side were you on? Did you advocate for supply management?
Fortunately for the "Farm Coalition Group," they don't have to worry about such things these days. Supply management hasn't been in the farm bill since the 1990 farm bill! Everybody is all worked up about farm subsidies instead. No need to worry.
Ok, that was 1985. Krebs listed "Most Profitable US Consumer Food Companies, 1988," (chart p. 41, The Corporate Reapers, from Wall Street Journal, 11/7/88): Kellogg, H.J Heinz, Hershey Foods, RJR Nabisco, Quaker Oats, General Mills, Borden, Pillsbury, Kraft, General Foods, Sara Lee. More recently the National Farmers Union of Canada published "The Farm Crisis and Corporate Profits," http://www.nfu.ca/new/corporat... Lots of record profits in 2004!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, yes! "*Farm" Subsidies!
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Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 20:25:17 PM PST
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Since some people here show interest in knowing how farm subsidies really work, here's a closer look at how they're calculated for real farms. For an Iowa farm, similar calculations for soybeans could be added. Some of the remaining tillable land might be in permanent pasture, and most probably in soybeans, but depending upon the farm. A hilly farm may have much more pasture, and also CRP.
So, here's an example of the farm program for four Iowa farms. It's based upon two of our farms (which have different historical numbers, and other typical examples). I've rounded off the numbers and given identical (example) farm sizes.
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