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TechnoratiAfter Bush Abuses, We Need New Farm Policies
One of the first and most fundamental changes that must occur when a new presidential administration takes charge in Washington is the reform of the Department of Agriculture.
The Cabinet-level agency with responsibility for farm and food policy has operated during the Bush years as a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate agribusiness. Invariably, when left to its own devices, the department has opted against the interests of working farmers.
Consider the deliberate misinterpretation of the 2008 farm bill, which was enacted by Congress earlier this year over a veto from President Bush.
Bush thought the bill was too generous to working farmers, even though the overwhelming majority of the money that is allocated goes to hunger programs and environmental initiatives.
Congress thought differently.
Congress was right.
Still -- as it has done with presidential signing statements in other cases -- the Bush administration is seeking to override Congress, and the rule of law, by having the Department of Agriculture interpret a smart provision in the farm bill in a manner that harms some of America's smallest and hardest-working farmers.
The farm bill provision in question denies support payments and other forms of federal aid to so-called "hobby farms" and to housing developments on former farmland.
This appropriate limitation, which was designed to end past abuses, says that properties of less than 10 "base acres" are not eligible for federal money that is available to larger farms.
But the Department of Agriculture is interpreting the limit in a manner that denies payments to small farmers who own or rent several small parcels of land. This sort of farming is very common in the upper Midwest, where family farms often rent parcels of land adjoining property they own or buy parcels on opposite sides of a country road.
In Wisconsin, there are 37,000 parcels of farmland with 10 or fewer base acres. All these parcels, and the thousands of Wisconsin farm families that work them, have the potential to be affected by the USDA's misinterpretation.
At the urging of the National Farmers Union and other groups that represent working farmers, the U.S. House voted last week to temporarily suspend the 10-acre provision.
At the same time, Wisconsin Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl joined 20 other senators -- Republicans and Democrats -- to demand that Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer interpret the farm bill as Congress intended.
The senators noted that, in its misinterpretation of the farm bill, the USDA has used draft language that was not even included in the final measure.
"The USDA is relying on language that wasn't even part of the final farm bill to deny small farms this important safety net," argues Feingold. "Congress' intent was clear -- farmers who have more than 10 acres of land, regardless of whether or not it is connected, should be entitled to these payments. This bipartisan effort is aimed at stopping the USDA from cheating small farmers out of critical assistance."
Feingold is spot on.
Farm and food policy in the United States can and should be constructed to help small, efficient farmers stay on the land -- in order to ensure that this country has diverse sources of quality, locally produced food products. There are also tremendous environmental benefits that come from having working farmers act as stewards for small parcels of land.
Corporate agribusiness, with its one-size-fits-all approach that seeks to develop sprawling factory farms, threatens food quality, competition and environmental protection. Family farming, often on small parcels, keeps the balance right.
By deliberately misinterpreting the farm bill, Bush's ag department is throwing the nation's farm and food system out of whack. That's bad for farmers, consumers and communities. That's why, in the short term, the department must stop deliberately misinterpreting the farm bill. And it's why, in the none-too-distant future, we need a new secretary of agriculture and a new approach at the USDA.
10 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is it good policy to subsidize only farms bigger than 10 acres? Regardless of how many plots go into making up those 10 acres?
If a thousand acre farm is going to get a subsidy, the 2 acre farm should be able to draw, proportionately, as big a subsidy. Otherwise the small farm is on an even more tilted playing field. Which so often causes small farmers to go out of business therein being bought up by massive corporate farming.
In reality though, no farms should be subsidized. Less taxes should be taken out of paychecks, probably no taxes would be best, then the people would have the money to spend on food and the farmers would surely get what's fair.
I'm guessing a bigger percentage of the "profits" from farming goto the Owner where the farm is huge. Were the owners profits less than obscene the operation would go on smoothly without Federal subsidy.
How can it be argued that a product that provides the very basis for life would need to be subsidized? OBVIOUSLY people are going to buy food. Food has gotten far easier to come by using modern agricultural practice. Food gets easier to grow, buy, store... Yet for the first time the government finds an excuse to pay toward growing it...? If farmers were able to operate profitably for 10 millenia without National subsidy, why would they need it now?
rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
www.lamegame.name
Daniel Vincent Kelley
Someone from San Francisco California came to Iowa last winter and asked if Iowa farmers had "any risk." She apparently thought, as in this post, that profits were "obscene." There is much false information behind such statements. Google "Commodity Costs and Returns: U.S. and Regional Cost and Return Data" and look at the data for corn, with full costs (for 1975-1995 see " Residual returns to risk and management," not "Total, cash expenses." For 1996 onward see "Value of production less total costs listed." Corn lost money every year in the marketplace, 1981-2006 except 1996. The obscenity is in the losses, which translate into export losses for the U.S. as a whole.
Farms are subsidized to make up for these free market losses. The subsidy approach is a terrible system, as Nichols knows. America needs price floors and supply management so as to keep prices above costs and export at a profit. See nffc dot net Then subsidies can, and should, be eliminated. Then giant exporters (ie. Cargill), food and feed mills (ie. Kelloggs), processors (ie. ADM), and livestock factories (ie. Tyson & Smithfield) would have to pay a fair price and not be subsidized ("obscene,") at the multibillion dollar level by below cost commodities.
Farmers have long struggled to survive. The free market has not worked for 140 years in the U.S., with a few exeptions (ie. 1910-1914, part of 1970s, 2006-2008). Google "price responsiveness," "APAC," and "Daryll E. Ray."
Even small family dairy farms use corn "sh##"
Not true. They let the animals roam on the pasture freely.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Sioux Rose
Well, I see the makings of a most excellent Saturday Night Live parody. Instead of "Leave it to Beaver," it should have an oversized child-man playing the role of "Leave it to Bush." This imbecilic boy-man wants as much $ as he can muzzle out of congress to buy more blow-up toys, except sane persons regard these as quite real weapons with quite dire consequences. Anything that helps anyone from the farmers this nation relies upon (Yeah! Willie Nelson!) to feeding the hungry just doesn't pass snuff with "Leave it to Bush." While I have fasted on occasion by choice, I have never known hunger; thus it's of little comfort to speak to those who DO know hunger and a poverty they have not learned how to barter against to say Bush will have much to answer for...
First, get rid of Big Government's oversubsidization of Big Agri especially Big Corn. For 50 years, America has been CORN-FED with factory farm shit. At least Ron Paul and Ralph Nader are for returning small/family farms since they provide for grass-fed milk and diary. And to all you so-called "vegetarians" out there, if you think that telling us to eat meat will cut down on global warming or obesity, you too have been CORN-FED ! The fault lies not with the meat eaters but with Big Agri, PERIOD !
This comment about "Big Corn" is misleading and false. First, what is this "Big Corn." I assume it is a reference to larger commodity growers. That was been the focus of progressives in the 2007-8 farm bill debate. Behind it was false information (ie. at Oxfam, Church World Service, California Coalition for Food and Farming, and also mainstream media as in editorials posted at the Environmental Working Group). I refer to a false history of the commodity title of the farm bill. The factory farm problem, however, is much newer than 50 years, is mainly in giant animal factories and feedlots, and is primarily caused by low, below cost, corn (and other) feedgrain prices. Farmer subsidies for growing corn have been as compensations for market losses, not "oversubsidization." They've often still left farmers below cost, below zero. Commodity subsidies were substitutes for fair market prices, and a bad idea. Hidden behind the subsidy issue are the Big Corn processors and livestock factories that get below cost raw materials. They get gains, from deregulation of farm markets (which lack price responsiveness and are typically low, below full costs, so we usually export at a loss under free markets, ie. 1981-2006).
While I agree AgriCorporations are the primary culprit in wasteful food acquisition, your finger pointing certainly makes you no less guilty.
5000 gallons of fresh water are required to produce 1 pound of beef. It's about 20 gallons per pound of wheat.
16 pounds of wheat are required to make 1 pound of beef.
We could have had 16 times the amount of food by eating the wheat rather than feeding it to cows...
It's enormously wasteful, eating our friends. Knowing how wasteful it is, you'll probably keep right on eating what had emotions. You're then at the apex of your guilt which you'll maintain as many years as you live. Which will reduce the total guilt held by the megalomaniacs in Big Agri Corporations.
You're willing to knowingly gluttonize product that wasn't JUST wasteful but required suffering? The Emperor will have a field day with you, make you watch while he smokes your whole family.
rocyahsoul@yahoo.com
www.lamegame.name
Daniel Vincent Kelley
The main problem is oversupply due to deregulation of farm markets. Supply management programs (along with price floors, price ceilings and commodity reserves) in the Commodity Title of the Farm Bill were weakened for years and then ended in 1996. That's been true for many decades. It caused the poverty behind the food crisis, as most of the world's poor live in rural countries and areas, or recently did. Below cost corn subsidized Big Livestock with below cost feedgrains.
Without livestock, more fragile lands get plowed up for crops. With livestock more stays in grasses and legumes and goes into resource conserving crop rotations, with hay and small grains, which reduces the need for harmful pesticides and fertilizers (ie. clover gets nitrogen from the air, rotations manage weeds and insects).
U.S. farmers and the world's poor need fair livestock markets so they can capture this value added and, through economic multipliers, revive their struggling (or devastated) local economies.
At present we have a price spike on feed and food grains. That's an exception, not the rule.
Don't forget the impact on food supply caused by the mandate to provide 10 percent ethanol. SC used to have a large variety of crops as you drove from end-to-end...cotton, soy, tobacco, wheat, fruits, vegetables...now it's all corn. all corn. this ethanol mandate forces up the price of corn, so farmers switch, which in turn reduces the supply of other goods and drives all prices up. it's clear: BigGovernment is to blame.