Job Opening: Blogospheric Change for Food Justice: No Pay

by: Brad Wilson

Wed Jan 13, 2010 at 04:53:35 AM PST

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?

How Subsidies are really calculated, sort of

by: Brad Wilson

Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 20:25:17 PM PST

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.

A Crunch of Jill's subsidy numbers

by: Brad Wilson

Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 15:11:05 PM PST

Ok, as a farmer, I start with cost of production per bushel (ERS full costs):
2008 -$3.68. (That's 54% higher costs than 2003, about 9% increase per year.)

Ok on corn a direct payment of 28 cents per bushel (same as 2003) to make up for the loss. (Well, a fraction of that)
2008: $0.28 x historical prog. yield (which might be 80% of real current yield) = $0.23
And then multiply by a percent of the acreage so it's reduced again.
2008: $0.23 x .833 = .19 (it was 85% in 2003, as Jill showed).

Ok, full costs vs income from direct payments.
2008 - $2.68 + $0.19 = - 2.49

So with a 50% rise in costs you get a slightly less in benefits 2008 vs 2003. Theoretically these are the "good" subsidies, "decoupled." (D. Ray: http://agpolicy.utk.edu/weekco... .) You're not "distorting trade." Everyone supports this, right. It's part of WTO philosophy, supported by Bread for the World and the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill. Of course, that means farmers get the subsidy even on a rare year above costs, like 2008. Green Box? So don't praise it then turn around and bash it? Ok, the idea is that farmers will almost always lose money, (ie. 1981-2006; ie. Ray, lack of price responsiveness) so it's no big deal, right?

Ok Counter Cyclical payments. You only get it when you need it. Bad!!!? Not decoupled. In WTO theory it distorts Trade. (but see Daryll Ray)

How much for corn? If the market price falls below the Target Price you get it, up to the limit.

Ok, remember the full costs above: 2008 - $3.68. Well if the price falls way down to the Target Price, then you get some compensation. Ok, below $3.68 when prices fall you get 19-20 cents to make up for a drop down to the Target price, a drop of over $1.00.

Target Price
2003: $2.60 2008: $2.63 (as costs went up 50%)

You get countercyclical subsidies down to the Loan Rate.
2003: $1.98 2008: $1.95

So the gaps are: 2008: $2.63 - $1.95 = $0.68 subsidy per bushel of corn?
Well, except it's based upon program historic yield (maybe 80%) and acreage rules.
2008 $0.68 x 80%? = $0.54 x .833 = $0.45 (As Jill showed, it was 85% of acreage back in 2003)

So, if prices crash ANOTHER 68 cents (they've already fallen more than $1.00 and you already got a fraction of $0.28), you get about 45 cents as compensation for the free market losses. If they only crash down to, say, $2.65, you get no countercyclical payment.

Ok, subsidy number 3, Loan Deficiency Payments. You only get them if prices fall all the way down to the Loan Rate. Then you get compensated based upon actual yields. If you don't have a yield, (ie. Crop failure) that's a problem.

Ok, but under some conditions, this is still better than the ACRE program, which substitutes for some of these subsidies.

Ok, if prices crash (there's no price floor or supply management to prevent it), then, on the way down you get some subsidies, here and there. I've translated it into per bushel terms, like 2003 or 2008 farming, even though that's not how it's actually calculated.

Here's another way I crunched it a while back:
http://www.iowafarmertoday.com...

Obama Admin Loosens Eligibility Requirements for Ag Subsidies

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jan 05, 2010 at 14:40:50 PM PST

Subsidies vs Price Floors in Farm Bill History

by: Brad Wilson

Sat Jan 02, 2010 at 18:39:51 PM PST

Some Brief History of Subsidy Politics

The policies in the gray box (price floors etc.) came out of the New Deal, Roosevelt, evolving through several farm bills and the Steagall Amendment 1941 (banking committee) for farm parity as an economic stimulus (like we need today, instead of losing money on farm exports and driving down world prices, hurting wealth and jobs creation in farm areas including LDCs).

Prior to Roosevelt, for decades farm prices were usually low with many "panics." Coming from Hoover into Roosevelt in the Depression, my family saw 7¢ corn and lost the farm.  During the 1980s farm crisis my mother recalled this time (young teen then):  " My Uncle Clyde wasn't able to get my dad a job in the creamery or anywhere else.  This was the summer of 1932,  and the depression got even worse.  We couldn't pay the rent, so in the fall we had to move up to Aunt Alice's and move into their upstairs!  I felt terrible that we had to move in with relatives.  Now I realize how my folks must have felt!  The most humiliating thing of all was that my mother had to get Stewart to drive her over to Uncle Bill's and ask to borrow some money!  I imagine he said, 'I told you so!'"  

New Deal policies take it through Truman, with no commodity subsidies except a few on cotton in the early 30s.  We had 100% of parity in agriculture overall 1942-52.  Program costs in one estimate were about $13 million in the black, meaning that the government made money on the program through interest on price floor loans.  So with price floors and effective supply management, and with international implementation as advocated by the Africa Group at WTO (and by EU in the 80s) it can work.  So no subsidies were really needed.

Under Eisenhower price floors were lowered, however, lowering market prices, as the NFO rose up to oppose the drops.  Price floors were lowered further decade by decade (Under Republican and Democratic Presidents, but pushed more by Republicans in congress for big business) until they were ended (dropped to zero) in 1996.  One exception was the price spike during the 70s caused by the secret Russian grain deal ("The Great American Grain Robbery").  

Introducing Subsidies

But in the mean time, subsidies were added to quiet down angry farmers. Subsidies compensated for farmer losses (which is rarely mentioned in most recent subsidy discussions).  

Subsidy compensations were part of Nixon/Butz policy.  With the 70s price spike costs raced upward.  Farmers won a rise in price supports (Carter) to address skyrocketing costs, but not back up to parity and not enough to prevent the 80s farm crisis.  The rise of the devastating crisis, in hindsight, occurred under the better farm bill than we've seen since.

Reagan greatly increased subsidies, but lowered price floors even more.  Farmers got more from the government for a lowering of farm income.  Bush senior continued this.

Clinton slightly raised the price floor, and vetoed Freedom to Farm once before signing it in the Gingrich era.  FtoF called for new "decoupled" (Direct Payment) subsidies for a few years, declining and ending for a free market (Hooverism/think 7¢ corn).  This was quickly seen as a way to destroy farming, and bankers joined farmers to win 4 emergency farm bills which added a second kind of (counter cyclical) subsidy.  I think LDP (3rd kind) was an administrative option that Clinton implemented to address the crisis.  So farmers ended with another big increase in subsidies and a total reduction in farm income, since market prices with no price floors, fell even more.  This was massive dumping on LDC farmers, not caused by subsidies, but by zero price floors/supply management.  So CAFOs and processors got the hidden benefits.

Another trend here is that many farm state Democrats continued to advocate for New Deal style programs over the decades of decline.  During the 1980s when farmers were again activated in a large number of groups such a farm bill was formulated and won quite a few votes in congress.  It was known variously as the Farm Policy Reform Act, The Save the Family Farm Act, and the Harkin-Gephardt Farm Bill (Harkin in Senate, Gephardt in House, both Democrats).  Today it continues as the National Family Farm Coalition's "Food from Family Farms Act."  The main groups supporting this bill or similar concepts include the National Family Farm Coalition and its members, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Food and Water Watch, the American Corn Growers Association (not the National Corn Growers Association), the American Agriculture Movement, and the National Farmers Organization.  

In 2002 when Tom Harkin became chairman of the Senate Ag Committee he switched sides.  He stopped advocating for price floors and supported a greened up version of the worst Republican Farm Bill since Hoover, a green Freedom to Farm.  That goes for 2002 and 2008 farm bills.  In 1996, however, Harkin and the other Democrats (ie. Gephardt, Daschle, Wellstone) totally rejected this kind of a farm bill.  But all of them followed Harkin in a Green Freedom to Farm.

During the 1980s mainline churches also supported this kind of farm bill.  Today they support some version of a Greened up version of the Republican Freedom to Farm, as do most other progressive groups including the food movement, environmental movement and sustainable agriculture movement.

Sustainable and Organic farmers are a special case.  During the 1990s in trying to stop Freedom to Farm, the family farm movement worked hard to bring in sustainable and organic farm coalitions (SAWGs, NCSA, SAC) but failed and they have consistently supported some version of Green Freedom to Farm (big subsidies, no price floors or supply management).  Their policies provide or would continue multibillion dollar below cost gains for CAFOs and even bigger gains for Cargill (beyond billion in CAFO gains) and ADM.  Sustainable/organic folks have won greener subsidies like organic EQIP and CSP, but at those costs.  Likewise, when Michael Pollan, in Food Inc. and Fresh, speaks of cheap junk foods, Green Freedom to Farm Policies, with no price floors, do not raise the prices on corn, etc.  So when Pollan speaks of "subsidized corn" it's misleading.  The low/no price floors caused the low prices and the cheaper high fructose cory syrup and corn/soy transfats, as can be seen historically.  The subsidies prevent the destruction of farmers.  The bigger the farm, the bigger the losses to be compensated by subsidies.  Again, this is rarely mentioned when bashing farm subsidies.  Of course there are some economies of scale with larger farms, which changes their need somewhat.

So ending, greening, and/or capping subsidies are not policies that address the biggest CAFO benefits, processor benefits, ethanol benefits, exporter benefits against LDC farmers.  By the way, "family farm" advocates and their friends (ie. La Via Campesina with 200 million members) lost over and over on the price floor issue (without much food/consumer/environmentalist/organic help, and still today without help).  So some of them invested in ethanol to try to raise prices (and end processor below cost gains, dumping on LDC farmers).  So they lose money on corn, but then make it on ethanol, or in 2008, made money on corn but lost in on ethanol.  No where have I seen this understood in the progressive community outside of NFFC related groups.

(Least Developed Countries are 70% rural.  The US  has long had huge export market shares of some commodities, bigger than the middle East in Oil, but our leaders tried to get low world prices, not high world prices with it's clout, (clout of well above 50% export market share for corn and soybeans, for example, or up to +80%, but less each decade).

Subsidies vs Price Floors for the 2008 Farm Bill

Today these issues appear to be almost totally unknown outside of NFFC and its friends.  EWG listed 477 mainstream media articles supporting their position in support of a Green version of the Republican Freedom to Farm Act.  The Kind Flake Amendment and probably all others amount to the same.

Sometimes Republicans support Hooverism instead of what we have had  since 1996, which is Hooverism (free markets and free trade) with subsidy protection for farmers in rich countries.  Low subsidy caps are a way to force large farms out of business or to force them to break up.  It would probably be a kind of land reform, like forcibly running them out of business or making them illegal.  Note that in the 90s we had a $50,000 cap and called for $25,000, while well meaning progressives have recently called $200,000 cap a good step.  But these measures have nothing to do with price floors, and do not solve any of the big problems.  

Cargill and DAM (and to a lesser degree, Tyson and Smithfield) are the huge beneficiaries of all the diversionary talk about subsidies, with no mention of price floors.  What they've bought in Congress is policy that blames farmers and leads to no mention that the policies are designed primarily to benefit them, even at the expense of America losing money on farm exports of the major commodities virtually every year for a quarter century.  If you look at the EWG 477 editorials, you'll probably find hundreds of criticisms of farmers (who are merely partially compensated for losses caused by the lack of price floors) for every criticism of these real beneficiaries.  Not also that Cargill, DAM, (processors and exporters) Tyson and Smithfield (poultry hog CAFOs) and the others (ie. Kelloggs).

You can find footnotes for much of this in my Zspace blog articles, as well as many links to online sources.  I am also one place that explores this movement crisis online.  I've seen NO other place online that writes much on these issues, especially in reference to mainline churches, hunger groups (Bread for the World and Oxfam are among the worst on the Commodity Title issues I raise), sustainable agriculture, and the food movement.  (I link a few things from IATP on myths and APAC's Daryll Ray on some media/etc. misunderstandings, however.)  

Further Reading and Links

From my blog see especially my "foodie" and food movement pieces, such as my comparison of the National Corn Growers Association with so called progressives that supposedly hold radically different views:  http://www.zmag.org/blog/view/...

My "Farm Bill FACTs: Commodity Title: A Family Farm View" briefly goes right down a list of the main things I hear in the food movement and among the other groups I see as similarly missing the real issue, and then proves them wrong with online links:  http://www.zmag.org/blog/view/...

If you look around at (http://www.zmag.org/zspace/bradwilson) you'll see where I have footnoted pieces.

New Years Eve Daryll Ray-a-thon

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Dec 31, 2009 at 20:37:37 PM PST

Below I've posted links to the Daryll Ray columns I found most interesting, and I promise they aren't PDFs.

Who Gets All the Subsidy Money

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Dec 28, 2009 at 14:23:21 PM PST

The results? 10 out of 21 members of the Senate Ag Committee comes from the top 10 farm subsidy recipient states. Go figure.

Also interesting is that the #1 rice and #2 cotton state's Senator, Blanche Lincoln, currently chairs the ag committee. Her policy advisor from 2000-2001 (Ben Noble) currently lobbies for the National Cotton Council and the USA Rice Federation. And Monsanto.

An Interview with Our Friend Blanche

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Sep 19, 2009 at 01:44:10 AM PDT

Swine Flu, NAFTA and U.S. farm subsidies

by: Farm Bill Girl

Thu Apr 30, 2009 at 22:20:42 PM PDT

However, the larger connections to U.S. farm subsidy policy, NAFTA have not been adequately understood and explored.  

UPDATE: Important if you're sending a comment on closing farm subsidy loophole

by: desmoinesdem

Mon Apr 06, 2009 at 12:55:16 PM PDT

Please send your comments to: Dan McGlynn via Mara Villegas at: mara.villegas@wdc.usda.gov
[...]
At this point you can do 1 of 3 things:

1. You can resend your comments to mara.villegas@wdc.usda.gov
2. Fax the letter in at: (202) 690-2130
3. Go to Regulation.gov and send your letter in using that website form.

http://www.regulations.gov/fdm...

If you go to Regulations.gov please realize that it is a several step process in order to submit your comments.

We have provided the proper steps to follow on our website.

http://www.fooddemocracynow.or...

Thanks again for all you do, we appreciate your continued efforts on this important subject.

Mr. rossl goes to Washington

by: rossl

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 22:13:54 PM PDT

It was a great trip.  I feel like I actually do have a bit of power in this corrupt, mangled political system of ours, and I'd love to tell you why.

Vilsack And Cookie Monster Meet, Differ Over Nutritional Value of Cookies

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

More on what Vilsack's been up to below...

Kids vs. Farmers? No! I Say It's Everyone Vs. Greedy, Immoral Corporations

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Mar 10, 2009 at 14:51:03 PM PDT

"We will do our best to frame this discussion..so that people understand: 30 million children, 90,000 farmers...It is a tough choice, but it's a choice that folks are going to have to make."

But is that really the question? Kids vs. Farmers? Even if the USDA has a finite budget and money for one program means money taken from somewhere else, let's consider the overall federal budget:

If we need more money for farmers or kids, let's take it from the bloated Pentagon budget instead of pitting farmers and kids against one another. Surely there's a Cold War-era obsolete defense program somewhere we could cut.

But beyond that, both kids and farmers are screwed by the very same companies. All the usual suspects - ADM, Cargill, ConAgra, Tyson, Monsanto, etc.

Progressive food policies

by: Ca-48 Steve Young

Mon Jul 28, 2008 at 10:11:34 AM PDT

A fundamental responsibility of our government is to protect the common good.  We take for granted, clean drinking water, protection of our national parks, and drug safety.  While the government falls short in all these areas, Americans have real expectations of their government.

Why don't our expectations extend to food?  I don't mean food safety (such as preventing the conditions described in "The Jungle" that prompted creation of the FDA), I am talking about government support of bad food.  An example -- government subsidies for "commodity corn."  Commodity Corn is inedible but is the raw material in processed foods.  The corn is turned into a variety of products like High-fructose corn syrup, or fed to livestock in manufacturing line slaughterhouses.  

Add the negative impacts of agribusiness -- pesticide runoff in our water systems, the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and other food sourced diseases, fertilizer contamination of our air, water and food, and the problems come into sharp focus.

I advocate a "Healthy Food Initiative" that will change the paradigm in America.  Imagine creating an infrastructure for a healthy, affordable food system by shifting massive subsidies from the pockets of Agribusiness to a system that rewards America's farmers, ranchers, fisherman, and others who feed us, for growing healthy food while protecting our environment.  We can do this with tax credits for farmers who reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides.  We can promote family farm ownership.  We can invest in community garden areas in urban areas.  These are some possibilities to change our food future.

Imagine a food future where food contributes to America's greatness, rather than just our GNP.  Imagine a food future that promotes healthy life styles and a clean environment.  Imagine a food future where environmental footprints is more important than shelf space foot prints for packaged food.  Imagine a food future where children learn to select foods for their value, not their sugary cartoon images.  It is time to stop imagining.  It is time to make this imagination of a food future a present reality.  It is time to be the change we want to be.  I feel that food is our future -- healthy food is our birthright.  Won't you join me in supporting my "Healthy Food Initiative"?  It is time for a fresh start.  It is time for healthy food.

Steve Young, Democrat for Congress, [Ca-48]
"For a fresh start"

Contribute to the Healthy Food Initiative.

Beware of Suspect Bedfellows When Battling the Food Crisis!

by: Farm Bill Girl

Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 21:47:38 PM PDT