The Farm Bill Debate Heats Up
By Dan Imhoff
Unraveling the Farm Bill—the unwieldy set of laws and policies Congress passes every five or so years to govern American agriculture—is no simple task. It is a tangle of contradictory policies, programs with crazy acronyms, and dollar figures that boggle the mind. But the more you tug at that string, the clearer it becomes that the Farm Bill is attached to just about everything: poverty, 
environmental conservation, economic development, human health, and animal welfare.
There is a groundswell of popular support for many positive reforms that could reshape this bill, which is due for renewal by September 30. Platforms include helping family farmers, boosting local food production, improving access to healthy foods, and restoring watersheds inundated by agrochemicals and animal waste.
Unfortunately the specter of severe spending cuts looms over this year’s debate. Thirty-seven such programs have no budget allocated after 2012. Will they survive in the next Farm Bill? Here are three key issues to keep your eye on.
* Who gets the money? Crop and farm subsidies are in the crosshairs, in particular, $5 billion in direct payments that provide guaranteed income to owners whose property has been designated as historic “base acreage.” Most Farm Bill watchers are convinced that this program will be eliminated. What happens to that money?
Fiscal conservatives want to pay down the deficit. Commodity crop lobbyists argue it should be transferred to crop insurance programs, a.k.a. the “farm safety net.” Crop insurance is already heavily subsidized: taxpayers now cover at least 60 percent of the cost of these policies that pay out in the event of crop failure. New proposals want additional coverage against floods, droughts and plagues of beetles, as well as depressed prices.
Farm bill reformers want insurance subsidies to come with some strings attached—particularly land conservation practices. With insurance offsetting so much of the risk, they worry that farmers will more aggressively till land they shouldn’t, such as erosion-prone native grasslands or flood plains.
Reformers would rather see that $5 billion, or a sizable chunk of it, be invested in developing a next generation of farmers and ranchers, green payments that reward sustainable practices like pastured livestock operations, and infrastructure for processing food locally, including small-scale slaughter plants.
* Shaping public health. Obesity is prevalent among all age groups and sectors of our population—and the related health costs are escalating. It is also a precursor to more life-threatening illnesses, such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease and even forms of cancer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2010 US Dietary Recommendations suggest that half of our plates should consist of fruits and vegetables. And yet fruits and vegetables get little financial support from the Farm Bill. Some argue that Farm Bill programs should do more to address what is becoming a worldwide nutritional epidemic.
If there is a causal link between crop subsidies and obesity it is complex and debatable. But crop subsidies are heavily slanted toward corn, soybeans,- and cottonseed—feed for concentrated livestock production rather than foods for human consumption. When feed is cheap, so is meat, high-fat dairy,- and eggs—the same foods that the USDA tells Americans to eat in moderation. Can the subsidy priorities be more aligned with the dietary guidelines?
2012 Farm Bill programs could improve conditions for growers of fruits and vegetables (“specialty crops” in the lingo of the Farm Bill) with more local processing and distribution facilities, loans for specialized equipment, insurance that addresses the needs of organic producers, and support for farmers markets or other programs, like farm-to-school produce sales. Continuing programs to help school kids eat well and develop lifelong healthy eating habits should be an absolute Farm Bill priority.
* Conservation programs need to be defended. Over the past 25 years, conservation programs have become increasingly important in Farm Bill negotiations. The Conservation Title may, for the first time, be larger than the Commodity Title. But this is only because, with market prices as high as they have been, crop insurance has emerged as the new preferred form of subsidy payments.
What we won’t hear is that conservation programs are typically the first on the chopping block when budgets need to be cut. For example, USDA conservation programs lost $500 million in 2011 and $1 billion in 2012. In addition, conservation budgets have been heavily pillaged by concentrated animal feeding operations.
Hundreds of millions of “conservation” dollars every Farm Bill cycle pay for the horrendous pollution problems that are endemic to
concentrated poultry, dairy, beef, and hog operations.
And nothing is more counterproductive than the disconnect between commodity crop subsidies and conservation programs. On the one hand, subsidies encourage farmers to maximize acreage, and disaster bailouts encourage plowing even marginal lands. Meanwhile, the USDA directs less than 7 percent of its overall spending to conservation, much of that to clean up problems stemming from over-farming. It is high time that the green payments program known as the Conservation Stewardship Program becomes a principal form of farm support, as it rewards diversified agriculture, agrochemical reduction, energy saving and habitat protection on the farm.
The central challenge to reforming the Farm Bill is to make certain we are investing in a viable future for our food system. Used correctly, the Farm Bill can incentivize an agriculture and food system that remedies rather than perpetuates many of today’s problems. Right now, public opinion is racing far ahead of leadership. When the public learns to dig in politically and vote with our forks, this all important food fight will be a fair fight.
Dan Imhoff is the author of Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill, completely revised and updated for the 2012 Farm Bill debate.
Photo courtesy Eamon Curry
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