Farm Bill Responses

Ken Cook over at Mulch has posted a long list of mainstream media responses to the 2007 Farm Bill that was passed in the House a couple of weeks back.  His question:  Has anyone seen any articles, outside of Ag trade publications, that do anything but criticize the final legislation?  Looks like the consensus is that Washington sold the possibility of reform out in the interest of Big Ag.  From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already has made her scandalous choice with support for the subsidy-larded Farm Bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee. There's no apparent reason other than a desire to protect some of the freshman Democrats in farm states who helped the party take control of the House.

From the Oregonian:

The payments to the dead are far from the only waste and abuse in the farm bill. Last year, a Washington Post investigation of farm subsidies found more than $15 billion in wasteful or redundant spending in farm payments, including $1.3 billion to people who do not even farm.

And the New York Times:

Reducing an outrageous cap to a lower outrageous cap is not exactly our idea of reform. The $1 million limit is also five times the $200,000 cap proposed by the Bush administration, which Ms. Pelosi is constantly accusing of catering to the rich.

Let's not forget the Baltimore Sun, in an article titled "Hush Money":

The farm bill makes gestures to the reformers. Crop subsidy and conservation payments are limited to individuals with adjusted gross incomes below $1 million a year; fruit and vegetable crops would be eligible for benefits along with corn, grain and cotton; and funding for nutrition programs would grow.

But each of these gestures, much like the new bay money, seems intended primarily to quell resistance to a program that would continue to underwrite factory farms that are making record profits at the expense of family operations and the environment.

Or the Winston-Salem Journal:

It's a policy that pumps most national farm aid to a select group of farmers, leaving well more than half of all American farmers without any aid at all. And the largest 10 percent of farmers rake in more than two-thirds of all the subsidies.

And the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The farm program has reached such absurd heights - despite repeated attempts at overhaul - that this now passes for reform: A House version of this year's farm bill imposes a means test so that farmers will not get subsidies if their gross income exceeds $1 million. That qualifies as reform because the current cap stands at $2.5 million.

I'll stop.  Cook does a much more thorough job on the site and you can read the complete extract of the articles here.  The point he, and I, are making is that nobody who is looking at the legislation in its final form actually believes there is any significant reform at play here except those individuals in whose best interest it is to act like it's reform.  And acting is all that this is:  you're in theater class, and Pelosi has been asked to method-act the reformer.  The quality of her performance has no relation to the accuracy of her role.

So onward to the Senate.  Yesterday I received the online newsletter Food Chain from Slow Food USA which points out that this story hasn't been put to print just yet:

There were a few small steps made in this version of the bill, including some money doled to farmers of specialty crops (fruits, nuts, etc.) and an expansion of the food stamp program.  To pay for these changes, the bill proposes a tax on U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, a move that might provoke a veto from President Bush.  For an in-depth explanation in the Des Moines Register, click here.

As you can see, the story isn’t over yet; it’s not too late to send a message to your Senators emphasizing the work you think still needs to be done to put your need for good, clean and fair food into the Farm Bill.  You can vote with your fork by supporting local farmers and food producers in your community and by attending local Convivium events that raise awareness about these important issues.

Which we will do.  And we will continue to keep you up-to-date on the Farm Bill, whether it be the Senate or the President's potential veto, at More Deliberate Every Day.

 

Comments

[Queen Whackamole]

Thanks for these updates... I really appreciate all the work you're doing to gather information and keep us informed. Thank you!