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Take Action: Support a Better Farm Bill
I believe nothing is as central to our well-being as food — who grows it and how. When produced with the interests of the eater in mind, food makes our bodies strong. When produced with the dream of passing the land on to the next generation, food strengthens local communities. And when produced with a long view of the planet's health, food keeps our environment intact, even thriving.
Family farmers have always understood the direct connection between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people — that's why they take great measures to improve and protect their soil. The key to strengthening this fabric that holds our country together is to keep family farmers on this land, from coast to coast. It's a solution to many of today's most important concerns — climate change, fossil fuel dependence, childhood obesity and dwindling biodiversity.
In the coming months, Congress will seal the next farm bill, legislation so broad in scope that it touches each of us in many ways. When you hear "farm bill," think beyond the farm. Think food bill, renewable energy bill, nutrition bill, environmental stewardship bill, anti-hunger bill.
Over the past several decades, the farm bill has served the interests of large-scale industrial agriculture with policies designed to produce cheap food and lots of it. This cheap food policy, however, comes with incredibly high external costs: a depleted countryside with fewer farmers, degraded soils and waterways, and public health disasters. A new farm bill — one that serves the interests of all Americans — with a vision toward sustainability, can help reverse these trends.
Instead of countless dying small towns across rural America, imagine the countryside dotted with thriving communities, all of them contributing to strong local economies. Imagine clean waterways, protected for generations to come. Imagine farmers markets in every community with fresh, locally grown food, free of chemicals and additives. Imagine powering your home and automobile with energy from renewable sources produced close to your home. Imagine your child's school serving fresh, wholesome food from your neighbors' farms. Imagine young people returning to the land to carry on the great tradition of farming. These dreams aren't futile. They are possible with a farm bill that serves your interests over those of giant corporations.
If you want your grandchildren to inherit a nation with healthy soil, clean water and nutritious food, pick up the phone today and call your representatives in Congress. Tell them you want a farm bill that assists young people who want to start farming; one that restores fairness in the marketplace so family farmers can compete with giant food companies and factory farms; one that puts better food in our schools and rewards farmers who transition to sustainable methods. Let them know you want a farm bill for all, because the farm bill belongs to all of us.
For Congressional contact information, visit www.congress.org. You'll find helpful tips and talking points at www.capwiz.com/bread/home and www.ucsaction.org/campaign/2007_farm_bill. To keep up with farm policy news, visit www.farmpolicy.com. You can sign up for e-mail updates from Farm Aid at www.farmaid.org.
© 2007 Mother Earth News
10 Comments so far
Show All"the next farm bill, legislation so broad in scope that it touches each of us in many ways."
How true. The farm bill needs to respond to MANY challenges and among them is what is grown in the US. The present law is primarily aimed at five commodities, cotton, wheat, corn, rice, and sugar. To meet the challenge of adulterated fruits and vegetables that are being imported (and China is not the only transgressor by far), we need to increase dramatically our own production. The next farm bill absolutely needs to find ways (plural) to increase the production of our own fruits and vegetables so that sufficient, healthful, fresh food gets to our tables and to enable all of us to purchase it.
Couple negligent policy makers with the population explosion and we are casting the foundation of the next plague.
The biggest weapon in the hands of policy makers should be information. Make careful farming more profitable to more people, not desecration of the earth vastly profitable to a few. But when filling your pockets is the only thing that matters to policy makers, why should'nt they rape our lands, in the name of God?
Go to the site for The American Farmland Trust to find information on this very important subject. Something CAN be done.
And what about Ron Paul's bringing up the HEMP bill? Now I know Willie supports hemp but was a bit disappointed that he didn't mention it in his article. And NO, hemp is NOT marijuana !
We still have farms in the USA? I am surprised they have not been all outsourced.
Willy should be promoting organic gardening and foods.
Of course if the corporations and gov. have their way-the standard will be lowered. They will also farm in some corner of the world where fertilizer and other posions do not matter. Think of the poor dogs and cats. If they don't know where the food is coming from no one can be held accountible.
We need safe healthy food and a higher standard.
Willie's insights are EXTREMELY insightful and should be taken to heart by every breathing American, taken to the streets by rural communities all across America. Restoring American agriculture by wrestling it from the hands of ADM and other fascist entities would help to restore the foundation of our country. His dream is my dream and I tend to believe the dream of almost all Americans. A dream worth fighting for! There are not many voices in this land who have hit on this issue with such clarity and resolute passion. I would suggest we back him to the hilt and see what happens!!
It's a National Security Issue!
It is pure harnessing energy from the sun through photosynthesis, to produce food locally.
It's a National Security Issue!
It seems to me that Americans are in a Catch 22 regarding farm & immigration policy. Much farm produce requires manual labor to get it out of the field or orchard. Unless we want to recreate the Victory Garden spirit or purchase through Community Supported Agriculture, we will have to overcome our xenophobia.
Regardless of how food comes to our table, a living wage for farm workers is required.
Research the links below for Terra Preta 'technology' for potential to alleviate climate change and aid sustainable development of food and fuel.
Terra Preta is Portuguese for black earth. "Rich black soil – terra preta – was created by humans up to 4000 years ago in infertile regions of the Amazon. The high nutrient content of terra preta is recreated today by low-temperature slow burning pyrolysis of biomass. The resulting product, black carbon, known as bio-char, reduces the need for fertilizers. It can also be used as a fuel." (1.)
"Inspired by the fascinating properties of Terra Preta de Indio, bio-char is a soil amendment that has the potential to revolutionize concepts of soil management. While "discovered" may not be the right word, as bio-char (also called charcoal or biomass-derived black carbon, recently in context of agricultural application also named agri-char) has been used in traditional agricultural practices as well as in modern horticulture, never before has evidence been accumulating that demonstrates so convincingly that bio-char has very specific and unique properties that make it stand out among the opportunities for sustainable soil management.
The benefits of bio-char rest on two pillars:
1- The extremely high affinity of nutrients to bio-char
2- The extremely high persistence of bio-char
These two properties (which are truly extraordinary - see details below) can be used effectively to address some of the most urgent environmental problems of our time:
1- Soil degradation and food insecurity
2- Water pollution from agro-chemicals
3- Climate change
'Soils with bio-char additions are typically more fertile, produce more and better crops for a longer period of time.'" (2.)
"Important lessons can be learned from the recalcitrance of black carbon and its effects on the biogeochemistry of soils. Given the apparent ubiquity of black Carbon established by several authors (Schmidt and Noak, 2000; Skjemstad et al., 2002), refinements of global Carbon models and sequestration estimates may be necessary. Further, the potential for enhancing sequestration by active management of black Carbon could be established with important linkages to energy production and land use." (3.)
"Eprida offers a revolutionary new energy technology for sustainable fuels and sustainable income while producing co-products which also allow us to remove greenhouse gases from the air. We mimic nature's methods for biomass conversion and build a sustainable food and energy production." (4.)
(1.) http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/February/20020601.asp
(2.) http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/biochar/Biochar_home.htm
(3.) http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/terra_preta/TerraPretahome.htm
(4.). http://www.eprida.com/home/index.php4
Add immigration to the list of issues entwined with our farm policy.
Our farm policy works with our trade policy to destroy small farms here and in Latin America. The destruction of agricultural economies in Latin America in turn drives mass migration.
Subsidies for the industrial cultivation of soy, wheat, sugar, and corn create artificially low prices that small producers can't compete with. Trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA force countries to remove tarriffs and quotas on food imports, flooding the markets with cheap food, causing the economies of entire nations to collapse and forcing people to leave rural communities to work for urban sweatshops in their own countries or in the fields, factories, restaurants, hotels, and warehouses of the U.S. The primary exports of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and the southern states of Mexico are now their own young people. Their primary sources of income is now remittances from the U.S.
Most of the young Latin Americans coming to our country to find work would rather be back home. Families and communities are torn apart when a generation is forced to migrate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIDs5Vjbj7w
Kucinich on NAFTA and Immigration. No explicit connections to the Farm Bill and agriculture in this video, but Sean gave an excellent explanation on their interconnectedness.