Northwest Farm Bill Action Group

(Courtesy of: Food+Tech — By Danielle Gould on May 2, 2012 4:43 pm)

While consumer demand for information about where our food comes from and how it’s grown is increasing, thus far there has been relatively little interest in the people that actually harvest it. Commonly used labels such as ”natural,” “free range,” “genetically engineered,” “heirloom,” “organic” and “local,” indicate nothing about how the farmworkers who pick these foods are treated, which is not great.

But brands and retailers should take notice – it is only a matter of time before socially conscious eaters in the United States begin demanding information about farmworker conditions.

The grassroots groundswell has already begun. The foundation arm of Bon Appétit Management Company, which operates more than 400 cafés for companies including Twitter, Yahoo! and eBay,  is already working to educate businesses and consumers of the issues and opportunities to change the status quo through TEDxFruitvale.

While not perfect, many eaters look for a “fair trade” label when purchasing coffee and chocolate products. The new Food Justice Certification, a third party certification for social justice in agricultural and food jobs from the Domestic Fair Trade Association, has yet to make it mainstream, but certainly foreshadows what’s to come.

“It creates a point of comparison for the rest of the food system,” writes Grist Food Editor Twilight Greenway of the new Certification. “We live in a time when consumers don’t have to dig too hard to find examples of really terrible farm labor practices. From documented cases of slavery and other human rights abuses in Florida’s tomato fields, to workers dying from heat exhaustion on California farms, and new data about the plight of women on farms and people of color in the food system at large, the national picture is pretty grim.”

How can we change the system and stop these injustices? Transform the grocery industry, says award-winning documentary film maker Sanjay Rawal.

Rawal’s latest film project Food Chain, explores labor practices within the United States agriculture sector and how the role the policies of large buyers, particularly supermarkets, play in perpetuating these practices. The Food Chain Team have collected over 400 hours of interviews with farmworkers, as well as with food justice thought-leaders such as Eric Schlosser, Bobby Kennedy Jr., Dolores Huerta, Barry Estabrook, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and the UFW.

Now, they are trying to raise post-production funds through Kickstarter to turn their footage into a 70-80 minute film. If you like the short, yet illuminating clip below, you can support the project here.

Courtesty of “The Hill” blog – By Erik Wasson - 05/02/12 05:00 AM ET

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, in an interview with The Hill this week, said demands by the House GOP for deep cuts especially for food stamps now constitute the top obstacle for passage of a 2012 farm bill by September when current farm programs expire.

Vilsack offered some praise for the version of the farm bill that passed out of the Senate Agriculture Committee last week, even though it contains about $9 billion less in deficit reduction than President Obama had sought in his latest budget.

He said the differences with the president pale in comparison to the differences with the House.

“This is still a long way from where it needs to be,” he said. “It isn’t so much what I want to see different as what you need to get the votes you need to get it through the process.”

Vilsack noted that southern senators on the committee had voted against the committee bill, authored by Chairman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and ranking member Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) because they felt the safety net for rice, peanuts and cotton were not enough.

“So obviously there is still a little work needed there,” he said, before turning to the key problem.

“Perhaps the larger barrier and the greater challenge will be finding that common ground between the Senate proposal, the president’s proposal –which are pretty much aligned—and the House which has proposed up to $200 billion of cuts in both commodity, conservation and nutrition programs,” he said.

The House-passed 2013 budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calls for the food stamp program to be block granted to the states, resulting in massive spending cuts.

Vilsack said these cuts would not only harm the poor who use food stamps, but farmers could lose $20 billion in direct income from cuts to the program as well.

“That’s obviously just not going to happen,” he said.

“If that’s what it takes to get House votes to get this bill through the process, that’s obviously a problem,” he added. Because of this, the heads of the House Agriculture Committees Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) “may have their work cut out for them,” he said.

The agriculture secretary criticized related attempts by the House GOP to replace automatic cuts triggered to defense spending with cuts to food stamps. A budget reconciliation bill including these cuts is slated for a House floor vote this month.

“If you basically take the Defense department with the size of its budget off, if you take it off the playing field, that really puts a disproportionate burden on everyone else,” he said.

In contrast, Vilsack praised the Stabenow-Roberts farm bill for ending the system of direct payments, which sends cash to farmers even if they no longer produce anything.

“The fact that we are getting away from direct payments, getting to a system that is much more defensible out in the countryside, is certainly something the president has called for and certainly a positive,” the secretary said.

He noted that when he announced two years earlier that direct payments were not going to be backed by the administration going forward, he was met with skepticism.

Now, direct payments are being supplanted by new forms of crop insurance meant to guard against shallow farm losses.

Vilsack said that this new proposed system is an improvement.

“I think this system is much easier to defend than the direct payment system. People just do not understand direct payments in the face of high commodity prices. They do understand the purchase of insurance,” he said.

The secretary did say more work may be needed on a proposed cotton program that has been newly criticized by Brazil. Traditional cotton subsidies have been ruled against in the World Trade Organization and Brazilian opposition to a new revenue insurance scheme could lead to sanctions, Vilsack noted.

Vilsack would not say he is hopeful about passing a farm bill by September but instead he stressed the dangers of not doing so.

“In September of last year, all of the disaster programs expired. Which means that if we have a tornado, a fire, a flood, a drought, those farmers absent crop insurance have little or no protection unlike what they had the last three or four years with livestock indemnity, the forage program and the SURE program,” he said.

He added that waiting until after the election will not likely make it easier to pass a bill that spends money on commodity subsidies.

“The situation is not going to get any easier. Time is not on our side,” he said.

Overall, the USDA head said that President Obama has been good for agriculture. Among other things, he said there has been record investment in rural communities, support for biofuels and stepped-up trade enforcement and trade promotion for agricultural goods.

“The last three years, there probably have been no better three years in terms of ag exports, ag income, ag investment, than in the history probably of the country,” he said.

This May 15, USDA will be celebrating its 150th anniversary, an occasion which allows Vilsack to draw comparisons between President Lincoln’s creation of the department during the Civil War and Obama’s investment in rural areas.

The secretary said there will be no lavish party, such as the $800,000 Las Vegas training extravaganza that roiled the General Services Administration last month, however.

“It’s going to be in the cafeteria so that tells you a little about it,” Vilsack said.

April 26, 2012 – (Courtesy of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition) Contact:  Ferd Hoefner, 202-547-5754

NSAC Comments on Senate Farm Bill Markup and Passage

Washington, DC – The Senate Agriculture Committee voted a new farm bill out of committee today by a vote of 16-5.  The committee bill saves $23 billion over the next ten years according to budget estimates.

The committee bill includes historic reforms to commodity subsidies.  In addition to replacing automatic direct payments with a shallow loss revenue-based payment, the bill limits payments to not more than one farm manager per farm operation.  Under current law, mega farms collect multiple payments worth millions of dollars through passive investors and landowners who are counted as farm managers.

“We applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee for including common sense rules to commodity payments and ending years of abuse by closing program loopholes,” said Ferd Hoefner, Policy Director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.  “Thanks to Senator Grassley’s (R-IA) tireless leadership, the Committee was able to make sure that hardworking farmers – not mega farms and absentee investors – are the key beneficiaries of farm programs.”

The Committee also enacted a nationwide “Sodsaver” provision to protect native grass and prairie lands.  The provision reduces crop insurance premium subsidies and tightens program rules in a manner that will reduce the taxpayer-funded incentive to destroy important grassland resources.

“By agreeing to a nationwide ‘Sodsaver’ provision championed by Senators Thune (R-SD), Brown (D-OH), and Johanns (R-NE), the Senate Agriculture Committee made sure that taxpayer dollars are not subsidizing the destruction of native grass and prairie lands,” said Hoefner.  “These lands are diminishing at a rapid rate and protecting them provides ranching opportunities and economic, environmental, and recreational benefits to rural communities.”

While the Committee made progress on these commodity and crop insurance issues, there are several outstanding gaps in the proposed changes to the farm safety net.

“By failing to place limitations on crop insurance subsidies and to re-attach soil erosion and wetland conservation requirements to crop insurance programs, the Committee has failed to do the full reform that is needed.  We intend to continue to press these issues as the bill moves forward,” continued Hoefner.

The Committee also made progress on critical programs that underpin economic growth.

“The leadership of Chairwoman Stabenow (D-MI) and Senators Brown (D-OH), Leahy (D-VT), Harkin (D-IA), and Casey (D-PA) ensured that programs that spur economic growth in rural communities built on gains from the 2008 Farm Bill,” noted Hoefner.  “The Committee reauthorized critical local food and organic programs, such as the Farmers’ Market and Local Food Promotion Program and National Organic Certification Cost Share.”

Despite progress, there were glaring shortfalls and omissions in the Committee’s draft.

“Sens. Harkin (D-IA), Johanns (R-NE), Casey (D-PA), and Nelson (D-NE) championed various beginning farmer provisions, but the bill lacks a cohesive strategy to assist the next generation of American farmers,” said Hoefner.  “Most noticeably, the Committee failed to provide adequate funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, thus limiting critical resources that new farmers need to succeed.”

The Committee did not fund the rural development title, nor did it make needed improvements in farm to school programs.  It also limited the funding for programs targeted to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

“We regret the Committee’s decision to limit funding for minority farmers in the new bill, and will work to see that funding restored,” said Hoefner.  “We also echo Sen. Brown’s (D-OH) concluding statements: without a strong investment in rural development programs we will miss the opportunity to truly make this bill a jobs bill,” said Hoefner.

“Overall, the bill released out of Committee is an improvement over last year’s draft bill,” said Hoefner, “but there is a still a ways to go to produce a bill that expands opportunities for family farmers to produce good food, sustain the environment, and contribute to vibrant communities.  We look forward to working with the Committee and the full Senate to ensure further progress toward that end.”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities.