The 2008 Farm Bill: Food & Fuel

I'm no policy analyst, but I do eat and I try to give my child as many organic foods as we can afford, starting with organic milk (at $3.19 $3.49 $3.99!! a half gallon). For a lot of moms, organic milk is the "gateway drug", so to speak, that leads to more organic food in the overall family diet.

And I try to keep up with all the movements that have made me more politically aware about food, and eating: slow food, the organic food movement, locavores/eating locally (aka the 100-mile diet). It's our family's way of trying to eat more nutritiously, support local farmers, reward the use of fertilizers and insect control by means other than dangerous pesticides, and reduce the carbon footprint (miles traveled, for one) of the way our food gets produced.

Where individual consumer habits intersect with policy is the government's USDA Farm Bill (final version of the bill posted here, a summary of commentary here).

Michael Pollan, a writer and activist on American food systems, articulated why the everyday citizen should be concerned with the Farm Bill in a NYT Magazine article, "You Are What You Grow," nearly a year ago:

The public-health community has come to recognize it can't hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can't be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

And then there are the eaters, people like you and me, increasingly concerned, if not restive, about the quality of the food on offer in America. A grass-roots social movement is gathering around food issues today, and while it is still somewhat inchoate, the manifestations are everywhere: in local efforts to get vending machines out of the schools and to improve school lunch; in local campaigns to fight feedlots and to force food companies to better the lives of animals in agriculture; in the spectacular growth of the market for organic food and the revival of local food systems. In great and growing numbers, people are voting with their forks for a different sort of food system.

When I put questions to Senators Obama and Clinton way back in April, I was hoping that one or both would address the ways the Farm Bill will have an impact on our rising food prices (and explain what part it'll play in the global picture of food shortages). At that time, neither one responded, though as recently as this past week Senator Clinton has been spending time talking to South Dakotans about the Farm Bill, which she and Obama support. Yet because the Farm Bill is renewed every five years, it'll have implications that the president who takes office in 2009 will have to live with throughout Obama's or McCain's first term.

The current Farm Bill has been about 1.5-2 years in the making. Activists argue for amendments addressing rural poverty/rural development, or reducing hunger and food insecurity via the Food Stamp program; they seek policies protecting the environment and land stewardship, and water rights. The Farm Bill must also address the needs of small family farmers as well as agribusiness. It is shaggy and overgrown with interests, and some would say, pork-barrel politics.

And now, just as the Iraq war taught us that our energy policy IS our foreign policy, and vice versa--in turning to biofuels as one sustainable energy source, we're starting to realize that our food policy IS our energy (and foreign) policy too.

For example: corn-derived ethanol has been viewed by many as the best stopgap biofuel we've got. But shifting agribusiness production of food-grade corn to feed-grade or corn-based ethanol, both of which enjoy corn subsidies, has had unintended consequences in the global meat market, the global market for grain, and the lack of incentives given to growing cellulosic ethanol (grass-based) which is a more efficient source of sustainable fuel.

The House and Senate started working on the Farm Bill in 2007, and now in 2008, the bipartisan committee has finally hammered out what they think they can get passed. It's almost done, and though Bush has threatened a veto, Congress has decided it can force-feed the bill to the lame duck president. The House passed their version on May 14, 2008.

While some facets of the gigantic bill have been celebrated--$8 billion budgeted for food stamps and an updated definition of eligibility guidelines for the program, now renamed the Secure Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SSNAP), the bill has inevitably garnered criticism from the left and the right. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

The overwhelming House vote quashed hopes by food, conservation and taxpayer groups that the Democratic-led Congress would seize a period of record farm prosperity to shift U.S. food policy from a 1930s model that subsidizes industrial food production to a modernized approach that could aid more farmers and address new public health and environmental goals.

The same article listed numerous examples of how the Farm Bill is freighted with too many goals and interests, and how supporters have cooled or warmed to various parts of it as it has changed in committee.

For example, the Farm Bill addresses not only subsidies for grain farmers, but contains a provision allowing for the sale of parklands to a Vermont ski resort, and the use of midwestern prairie:

The National Wildlife Federation, which had supported the bill because it increased conservation funding, urged its defeat after seeing changes to grassland and wetland protections that were made behind closed doors.

"What has come out ... is entirely unacceptable from a climate change and a wildlife standpoint," said Julie Stibbing, legislative counsel for the group. "We think we have created a perfect storm for both carbon releases and destruction of our last remaining prairie habitat."

The Senate passed a veto-proof version of the Farm Bill just yesterday. Probably the most credible Republican critic of the bill's $300 billion cost is Senator Lugar, of Indianapolis.

“The 2008 farm bill contains many worthwhile polices, including valuable investments in conservation and nutrition programs,” Mr. Lugar said recently. “However, it fails to provide meaningful crop subsidy program reforms that most Americans would support.”

Regardless, the Farm Bill we have now is likely the one we'll be living with for the next five years.

We know that green technologies and specifically biofuels are the centerpiece of a Democratic agenda to revitalize the heartland and also wean America from foreign oil dependence. But it looks like there could be great deal of overlap (if not areas of outright conflict) between those policies in Obama's Blueprints for Change, and what's contained in our massive Farm Bill. That was in part why I asked the question I did. I'm at best a layperson's part-time wonk, and I don't doubt that Senator Obama and his aides have digested this far more thoroughly than I have. But I, like many more Americans, am doing my part to try to get up to speed and pay attention, just like Michael Pollan suggests.

So what I could really use is integration of Obama's plans with the pieces of legislation that have passed or are pending that will anchor his platform. Help us sort it out--starting with the Farm Bill and how that'll affect what goes on my dinner plate and into my car's gas tank.

Cynematic is convinced 3 square meals and two snacks a day would bring about much peace in the world. She votes with her fork and her chopsticks, and blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

 

Comments

[Donna]

Thank you for explaining the farm bill in a way that illustrates why this affects us all. You're right -- we need to pay attention.

[cynematic]

Glad you found it useful, Donna. Consider it thinking aloud in public.

[Jozet at Halushki]

Well-written and informative post.

Thank you!

[Daisy]

I live in Wisconsin, so the Farm Bill always gets a lot of press here. It has a direct impact on people I know as well as on all of us who need -- well, all of us who eat. Your explanation is complete and understandable. Thanks for making the connections!

[PunditMom]

This is a wonderful piece. As the daughter of parents who are small family farmers and do count on a a couple thousand dollars a year from the farm bill, I hope that the public will make a distinction between the large agri-businesses who benefit and those, like my parents, who grow healthy food and raise animals with no anti-biotics.

[Maria Niles]

Terrific post, Cynematic. Thank you!

I've railed against the farm bill for decades mostly because the subsidies which encourage the over production of commodity crops. I'm encouraged that Michael Pollan's work seems to be bringing long overdue attention to this piece of legislation which impacts not just how and what we eat but a range of issues including poverty, energy, the environment and world hunger relief.

[ilinap]

Organic milk where I live is $6 a gallon! We also eat mostly organic food and have signed up for a local organic farmer's CSA. Boy does his lettuce taste better than anything in the grocery store! We are working hard to be healthy, eat well, and support local food sources/farmers at the same time. Not an easy task.

Thanks for an eye-opener.

[Lawyer Mama]

Great post, Cyn! And Pundit Mom makes an excellent point. We keep hearing railing against farmers in such a prosperous time, but family farmers are still struggling, in large part because of our current policies.

And man, do I wish it was easier to eat organic and local everywhere. Grocery stores in this area do NOT make it easy on us. We have to visit a farmer's market 30 minutes away and get milk from a dairy at 4 times the price. It tastes a hell of a lot better though!

[cynematic]

Everyone, thanks for the props! So glad you took the time to read the piece. My overall concerns about the Farm Bill are that maybe it has to accomplish too much all in one bill, and the five-year gap between revisions may be too long. After all, climate change, crop yields, and shortages or bumper years in various crops can vary widely from year to year.

Maybe all of us who are starting to pay attention will be able to have a say about parts of the next Farm Bill. But will it be too late then? What kind of waste or redundnacy might there be if we can't course-correct more flexibly?