The best recent analysis of what’s happening with the farm bill comes from Tom Laskawy on Grist.

For one thing, it has a great title: “Undead farm bill: Everyone’s favorite legislative zombie shuffles on.”

For another, it makes a troubling point: if Congress fails to pass a farm bill, the good parts go out with the bad.

Actually, the question really is whether Congress will ever pass a farm bill again. For the first time, those close to the legislative process are starting to have their doubts. And that may be a really bad thing.

Bah, humbug, you say! The farm bill is larded with bipartisan subsidies for the largest-scale farmers who grow commodities like corn, soy, and cotton. It’s also the bill that authorizes the federal crop insurance program, which has grown like gangbusters over the last decade. Last year (thanks to the drought) farmers received over $17 billion in insurance payouts — almost all of which benefited large-scale commodity agriculture. A chicken pox on all their coops!

That not an unreasonable reaction. But also at stake in the farm bill are billions of dollars for conservation programs that help farmers mitigate the environmental effects of their work, and pay them to set aside marginal farmland as wildlife habitat. It also contains millions in federal funds that support organic farmers, help younger and “new” farmers get their start, and prop up local food efforts, organic research, and farmers markets.

What’s good in the current farm bill draft?  The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (which represents growers of fruits, vegetables, nuts) summarizes:

• Specialty Crop Block Grants funded at $72.5 million in fiscal 2014-2017 and $85 million in FY2018
• Specialty Crop Research Initiative funded at $50 million in FY2014-15; $55 million in FY 2016-2017; and $65 million in FY2018
• Coordinated Plant Management Program funded at $62.5 million in FY2014-2017 and $75 million in FY2018
• Market Access Program and Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops fully funded at 2008 Farm Bill levels
• Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program fully funded at 2008 Farm Bill levels
• Section 32 specialty crop purchases at 2008 levels
• DoD Fresh program fully funded at $50 million per year consistent with 2008 Farm Bill levels

Here are the bills:

• S 954 Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2013 (1150 pages)
• HR 1947 – Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 (576 pages)

This is all so disheartening.  Eternal optimist that I am, even I am having trouble with this one.

Michele Simon and the Center for Food Safety have just come out with a new report: Best Public Relations Money Can Buy: A Guide to Food Industry Front Groups.

 This report explains how how Big Food and Big Ag promote their agendas through organizations with consumer-friendly names such as the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, the Center for Consumer Freedom, and the Alliance to Feed the Future.

The report is guide to recognizing such groups for what they really are.

It’s great to have it.

Addition: Here’s Michele Simon’s discussion of her new report.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is funded by Title IV in the farm bill, currently under consideration in Congress.   It accounts for about 80% of the total farm bill funding, and costs taxpayers about $80 billion a year.

SNAP is an entitlement, which means that everyone who qualifies gets benefits—unless Congress changes that.  So far, all it is doing is trying to cut budget.

Although SNAP is under the Nutrition title, little about the program is designed to improve the nutrition and health of participants.  But the farm bill has plenty to say about nutrition—just not for SNAP participants.

Much of the Senate version of the Nutrition Title is about continued funding for food assistance programs other than SNAP:

• The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)
• The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) which mainly works through food banks
• The Department of Defense Fresh Program (fresh foods to schools and service institutions)
• Agriculture Marketing Service pilot programs in states for to source local foods
• The Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (coupon exchange at farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs).
• A new Pulse Products Program that encourages sampling of a variety of beans and peas for use in school meal programs (I suspect some lobbying here).
• A Healthy Food Financing Initiative to administer loans and grants to improve access to healthy foods in “food deserts.”
• The Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program to provide free fresh fruits and vegetables to low-income elementary school children
• Grants to eligible nonprofit organizations to improve community access to food through school gardens programs and urban greenhouse initiatives
• A new Service and Learning program funded at $25 million in which members work in K-12 schools to engage children in experiential learning about agriculture, gardening, nutrition, cooking and where food comes from. [Wow!  This one reads as if written to support FoodCorps—wouldn’t that be terrific!]
• Interagency taskforce to coordinate and direct programs that supply food to key nutrition programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program and National School Lunch Program.

And here’s another one about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans of all things [whose bright idea was this?]:

• Not later than the 2020 report [the Dietary Guidelines for Americans] and in each report thereafter, the Secretaries [of USDA and HHS] shall include national nutritional and dietary information and guidelines for pregnant women and children from birth.

The Senate bill does have one useful, if poorly funded, piece directed at the health of SNAP participants, and another aimed at retailers:

• Grants to expand the purchase of fruits and vegetables by SNAP participants through programs like “Double Up Food Bucks.”
• Requires retailers who accept SNAP benefit payments to stock a wider range of healthful foods.

The House bill does more or less the same with the addition of:

• Grants for eligible nonprofit organizations seeking and developing innovative ways to improve community access to healthy foods.

Small-farm activist Ferd Hoefner, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the quarrel over SNAP could rupture a long-standing partnership of rural and urban lawmakers who supported farm programs on the one hand, and public nutrition programs on the other.

“Is this the end of the farm bill coalition?” Hoefner said.

Is it?  I wonder if we will ever have a Congress that puts a little vision into this bill and writes legislation to solve some of our country’s agriculture, poverty, and health problems, interconnected as they are.

SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-–Title IV in the Senate and the House farm bills—is the elephant in the room because it takes up roughly 80% of the bill’s total cost to taxpayers.   SNAP benefits cost roughly $80 billion per year for 47.5 million participants.

Yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed its version of the farm bill with no amendments to its draft of  the Title IV Nutrition section.  The committee proposes more than $4 billion in cuts to SNAP over the next 10 years.

Joel Berg, Executive Director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger said of the vote:

Unfortunately…[the Senate Ag Committee] passed a bill that values foreign corporate welfare over feeding our children, seniors, and low-income working people. If this version of the Farm Bill becomes law, $4.1 billion in SNAP funding would be cut, and that would mean $90 less a month for 500,000 families already struggling to make ends meet.

For out-of-work American adults and their out-of-luck children, SNAP is a lifeline, the remaining survivor of the once effective safety net.

SNAP is an entitlement, which means that anyone who qualifies is eligible to receive benefits.  That’s how Congress set it up but with budget cuts the only issue of concern, the $80 billion annual cost of SNAP is a sitting duck.

Yes, most of these sound reasonable, although eliminating outreach seems like a really bad idea.  But do they represent the most serious problems with SNAP?

Where is congressional will to meet the needs of the poorest members of our society?  This is about cost-cutting and power politics.  It is not about taking care of the most vulnerable members of society, among them 23 million children.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the useful parts of this legislation—those focused on improving the health of SNAP participants—and why SNAP benefits are so contentious in this Congress.

In the meantime, the House Ag Committee does its version of the farm bill starting at 10:00 this morning.

The Senate and House released their versions of the farm bill last week.  By size (1102 v. 576 pages) and extent of budget cuts ($23 billion v. $40 billion), these are  incompatible. I’m guessing that getting them passed and reconciled will require major compromises—hard to imagine for this dysfunctional Congress.

The Congressional Budget Office, according to the Hagstrom Report, estimates that the Senate bill will cost $955 billion from 2014 to 2023, and the House bill will cost $940 billion—but roughly $100 billion a year for the next 10 years.   Much is at stake.

The Senate Ag Committee is discussing its bill today (click here for details).  The House Ag Committee does this on Wednesday (click here).

To get up to speed, here are the relevant documents on the Senate side:

• Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2013 (Senate version—1102 pages) 
• Senate Agriculture Committee, Title-by-Title Summary
• Senator Debbie Stabenow (Dem-MI) brief summary

And here are the parallel documents on the House side:

• Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management (FARRM) Act of 2013 (House Version—a mere 576 pages)
• House Ag Committee Titile-by-Title Summary

As a reminder of what the farm bill is all about, see my previous posts on the subject from November 14 and November 26 2012.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), ever optimistic, has produced a report, The Healthy Farm: A Vision for U.S. Agriculture, identifying ways that the farm bill could—if there were any political will—support an agricultural system focused on producing abundant, affordable, and healthy food and on protecting the environment (also see its interactive healthy farm and take action sites).

During the coming days, I’ll take a stab at interpreting key pieces of the proposed bills.  Stay tuned.

2:00 p.m. addition: Jerry Hagstrom says the Senate Agriculture Committee has approved the farm bill by a vote of 15 to 5. Senators Roberts, McConnell, Johanns, Thune and Gillibrand voted no.  OK.  Now let’s see what the House does tomorrow.

Addition #2: Follow the amendments on FarmBillPrimer.org: Senate and House.

The FDA has sent a warning letter to a supplement manufacturer, Europharma, to cease and desist making health claims for several of its products.  The company, says the FDA, is promoting these products

for conditions that cause the products to be drugs under section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act…because they are intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease.

What’s interesting about this is that the focus is on what the articles say, not what is stated on the website.  This is a new approach for FDA and it will be interesting to see if it works.

According to FoodNavigator.com, Europharma is filing objections, is not admitting wrongdoing, but has removed links to the offending literature from its website.

Progress?

Coca-Cola’s announced its new “global commitments to help fight obesity” in a full-page ad in the New York Times.

The company says it is committed to several actions in the more than 200 countries in which it sells products:

• Offer low- or no- calorie beverage options in every market;
• Provide transparent nutrition information, featuring calories on the front of all of our packages;
• Help get people moving by supporting physical activity programs in every country where we do business;
• Market responsibly, including no advertising to children under 12 anywhere in the world

The company’s press kit contains:

• Global press releases in English and Spanish
• U.S. press releases about “Shaping a healthier Georgia” in English and in Spanish
• An infographic on the global commitment (also as high res or printable PDF)
• A website where Coca-Cola commits to measure the scale and reach of its efforts.

As might be expected, the announcement has gotten a lot of press, most of it highly laudatory (see below).

How are we to interpret all this?  It sounds good if you don’t think about it too carefully.  Coke has made these kinds of promises before with not much to show for it.  And the company is still focusing on personal choice and physical activity.

It can’t advise people to drink less soda.  Business is already bad enough.  Sales of Coke are flat in the United States, or declining.  The company needs to sell more, not least to pay the salary of its President, Muhtar Kent, who earned $26 million last year.

This looks to me like a major public relations campaign to keep vending machines in schools and head off federal, state, or local soft drink taxes or soda caps.

The only way Coke can really help address obesity and poor diets is to sell less soda—the one thing its stockholders will not allow.  And the company is doing everything it can to fight city and state soda taxes, portion size caps, or anything else that might reduce sales.

It will be interesting to watch this one play out.  Stay tuned.

Here are some of the press accounts:

The Associated Press says Wrigley’s will temporarily cease and desist trying to market caffeinated gum (see previous post).

The company said Wednesday that it has stopped new sales and marketing of Alert Energy Caffeine Gum “out of respect” for the agency…”After discussions with the FDA, we have a greater appreciation for its concern about the proliferation of caffeine in the nation’s food supply…”

Temporarily?

FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine issued this statement:

On May 8, 2013, Wrigley (a subsidiary of Mars) announced its decision to pause production, sales, and marketing of Alert Energy Caffeine Gum. This announcement was made following a series of discussions with the FDA in which the agency expressed concerns about caffeine appearing in a range of new foods and beverages.

The FDA applauds Wrigley’s decision and its recognition that we need to improve understanding and, as needed, strengthen the regulatory framework governing the appropriate levels and uses of caffeine in foods and beverages. The company’s action demonstrates real leadership and commitment to the public health.

We hope others in the food industry will exercise similar restraint….

Congratulations to all concerned.  It’s good to see the FDA on the job.

For an instant explanation of what this is about, see the Wall Street Journal’s elegant illustration: