Dear Speaker Pelosi,

This morning I dispatched a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the 2007 Farm Bill.  I've been calling it the 2007 Food & Farm Bill but based on the legislation that is now moving to the House floor it is inappropriate to refer to it under that new moniker.  The current version of the bill is a sham and our elected officials need to know it before they cast their votes.

Luckily, Blog for Rural America is one step ahead of me (as usual) and has set up a method for us to alert the House Speaker about our concerns.  This Link takes you to a double-paned web-site that both guides you through talking points about the message we need to be sending as well as lets you type an email to the Speaker.

Below is mine.  I encourage you to send one as well.

Speaker Pelosi,

I have been faithfully following the work of the House Agriculture Committee related to the 2007 Food & Farm Bill for several months now in hopes that Washington will recognize the need for change in this significant legislation.  I believe that the legislation passed in 2002, as well as in many prior years, favors a system that results in food arriving in supermarkets unrepresentative of the true cost of production, including the costs transportation, the damage done to the environment, and the risk of contamination.  In addition, and perhaps most importantly, I believe that the Farm Bill, in its current form, is the prime reason America is overweight and suffers high levels of diabetes and cancer.  Those costs, while real, are also not factored into the costs of the food this system produces.

Many Americans, myself included, have come to believe that the evidence of this position is overwhelming.  That a failure to change the current system is a failure to honestly represent the health and well-being of Americans.  Our hope has been that the Ag Committee would see the light of day and present a Food & Farm Bill to the House floor  filled with sweeping reform.  That legislation needs to be much less biased toward subsidy payments for a small amount of crops and much more biased toward nutrition, rural development, conservation, and local food systems.

Clearly, this is not the direction toward which we are moving.  The proposal put forward by Chairman Collin Peterson is a complete sham that does not reform anything but only allows political allies on both sides of the issue to "claim" victory.  Through the piece of legislation coming to the House floor, there will be no material change in the way America eats or the impact we have to our environment.

First, I plead with you to ensure that when this legislation gets to the House floor all voices can be heard and that it is not protected from amendment.  Second, I plead with you to consider, prior to this legislation coming to the floor, how important it is to act now for real reform.  This system continues to support massive corporate farms at the expense of American farm families.  If the resulting health and safety of America were stronger due to this system it would be one thing, but the evidence indicates the opposite.  Instead America eats food that is highly unhealthy and it is killing our country's children.  And the farms we create in this system are destroying our environment as well.

I am late to this discussion, and wish I had been writing this letter, and the one I wrote directly to my representative (Steve Cohen) several weeks ago, earlier.  I believe the votes that are taken on this legislation, and the state of that legislation, will be landmark decisions on the part of elected officials in the House and Senate this year.  I also believe that the concern among Americans is growing on this issue, and that where our officials stand on it will begin to impact their re-electability in coming elections.

Please use your position to be accountable to the American people on the 2007 Food & Farm Bill.  It's the right thing to do for our children and our earth.

Respectfully,

Remember what Gandhi said, "We must be the change we wish to see."  Practice participatory democracy and be the change.

Comments

[Matt]

I read in the paper yesterday that the House passed a rule attached to the bill that farmer's who make more than $1M in income don't get subsidies. I know, it's a strange concept, not to subsidize millionaires, but it's something possibly.

[Jessica]

Have you gotten a response to your letter to Steve Cohen? I'd be really interested to hear his response to your concerns and his position on the farm bill as he is also my elected rep.