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The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committeelast week (April 20) falls far short of the providing farm and foodpolicies Americans want. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable andaccessible should be a top priority in the farm bill. They regoing to be sorely disappointed. If it passes, thisagribusiness-as-usual proposal will largely perpetuate our brokenfood and agriculture system, leaving in its wake a long legacy ofpoor health and degraded soil, water and habitat, especially in theindustrial agriculture heartland. Without the efforts of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair ofthe committee, the bill would have been even worse, but as it is,the proposal will continue to give away tens of billions oftaxpayer dollars in subsidies to the nation s largest, mostprofitable and environmentally damaging farm businesses. To pay forthis giveaway, the Agriculture committee s proposal would slashprograms for conservation, nutrition, rural development andbeginning and socially disadvantaged farmers. That s exactly what the majority of Americans polled said they don t want. An All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet for the Subsidy Lobby The committee could simply have ended the widely discredited directpayment program and redirected the money to healthy food orconservation programs that benefit the public and save money in thelong run. Instead, legislators created an expensive new entitlementprogram (called shallow loss ) that guarantees nearly 90 percentof the income of farm businesses already enjoying record profits.It also leaves untouched a bloated $9-billion-a-year crop insuranceprogram that pays about 60 percent of farmers crop insurancepremiums, no matter how large the farm, and sends billions to cropinsurance companies and their agents. Most of the benefits of these proposed programs would flow to thebig five commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice, and wheat) thatprovide feed for livestock, raw material for processed food andcorn ethanol fuel for our cars. Not only would these proposals behighly inequitable and wasteful, but the new revenue guarantees,combined with unlimited insurance subsidies and high crop prices,will create powerful new incentives for growers to plow up fragile wetlands and grasslands and erase many of farming s recent environmental gains. Table Scraps for Good Food With most of the savings from ending direct payments being pouredinto even more wasteful programs, there is little left for anythingelse. When it comes to promoting better food, the bill wouldprovide a few new important scraps. There s $20 million a year forpromoting local food; $10 million for Community Food Projects; and$20 million for the Hunger-free Communities Program to createincentives for SNAP (food stamp) recipients to buy healthy food atfarmers markets. But the committee also cut $4 million fromorganic research funding (to $16 million a year and cut funding tosupport Beginning Farmers in half, to $10 million. Never mind thatwe have a serious shortage of young farmers and the average age ofall farmers is hovering around 57. The fruit, nuts, and vegetable sector is generally happy with theirscraps, which add up to an extra $75 million a year, mostly formarketing and research. Yet few of the no-cost policy changesoutlined in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act –introduced recently by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) andSen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)–which would help build local foodsystems and expand access to healthy and sustainable foods, made itinto the bill. Modest Trims to Lavish Subsidies Could Easily Pay For Good Food With the full Senate expected to consider the bill later this year,the only real hope for redirecting the ill-considered spending cutsto conservation and healthy food programs will be to persuade othersenators that there are smarter policy options if they are willing to pry the needed resources out of the hands ofwealthy farm operators. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report , simply capping crop insurance premium subsidies at $40,000 perfarm could yield as much as $10 billion in savings over 10 years.This would be nearly enough to spare conservation and anti-hungerprograms from the proposed cuts while affecting just four percent of the subsidy recipients , who currently collect more than 30 percent of the total! According to the same report, reducing the average crop insurancepremium subsidy by 10 percent might save another $10 billion over10 years. This would be more than enough to significantly pay down the deficit and cover the modest $200million annual cost of the Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher bill. A portion of that subsidy savings could also be used to not justrestore but actually double funding for organic agriculture,reinstate funding for the socially disadvantaged farmer program cutby the committee and double the number of low-income schoolsparticipating in the Fruit and Vegetable Snack program. None of these modest cuts to the crop insurance subsidies wouldharm the integrity of that program or leave farmers with inadequatecoverage. Watch for the Budget Deficit Smokescreen In spite of the committee bill s major flaws, outrage from goodfood advocates has been muted thus far, in part becauseexpectations were exceptionally low. The overriding message from Congress, meekly accepted by too many,is that the current budget-cutting climate makes it impossible toexpect new money for nutrition, conservation, local, organic andhealthy food, no matter how valuable (and oversubscribed) theseprograms are. All we can hope for, they say, is to hold ontocurrent funding or minimize cuts. But the nation s difficult fiscal situation shouldn t get all theblame. The main culprit is the farm lobby s stranglehold on themajority of Senate and House Agriculture Committee members and theunwillingness of those who would prefer a reform-oriented farm billto seriously challenge Congress to do better. Disregard the Coming Spin As the farm bill moves to the Senate floor, there will be a lot ofspin-doctors proclaiming that this is the best that can be expectedin the current fiscal climate. But if the goal is really to savemoney and invest wisely, it makes no sense to give away unlimitedcrop insurance premium subsidies to wealthy farm operators at theexpense of feeding hungry people, protecting our water, andinvesting in healthy food. It will not be easy to break the farm lobby s long-standing gripon Congress. But it is certainly not going to happen if we staysilent. It s time to pick up the phone and let your representativeand senators know that you want a fair farm bill that invests in ahealthier food system for you and your family. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your senators' and/or representative'soffice. Tell them you think the Farm Bill should invest inhealthy food. Tell them to cut crop insurance subsidies instead ofnutrition, conservation and healthy food programs . Originally published on AgMag Kari Hamerschlag is a Senior Agriculture Analyst working in theEnvironmental Working Group's California office. Prior to workingwith EWG, Kari worked for many years as a sustainable food policyconsultant in the Bay Area, including a year long stint running aFarm Bill campaign for the California Coalition for Food andFarming. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Aluminium Bottle Caps , Plastic Bottle Lids Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit Cosmetic Glass Containers today!
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