Currently browsing posts about: Farm-bill

I haven’t said anything recently about the current status of the farm bill, mainly because it is too early in the political process to know what is going to happen.

On April 26, the Senate Ag Committee voted to pass the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012.

The bill still has a long way to go.  It must be passed by the Senate.  The House has to pass an equivalent bill.  The two bills must be reconciled.  The final bill must be signed by the President.

Otherwise, the current farm bill expires on September 30.

As is always the case with anything having to do with the farm bill, the devil is in the details.  The number of programs covered by the bill is vast, and the details even more so.

In efforts to align agricultural policy with health policy, the current proposal makes a little headway. The proposed bill funds:

• $150 million annually for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program
• $50 million per year for the Defense Department Fresh program, which provides fresh fruits and vegetables to schools and service institutions
• $70 million annually for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program
• $25 million annually for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, to go to $50 million by 2017
• $60 million in 2013 up to $65 million 2017 for pest and disease management programs
• $200 million annually for The Market Access Program and $9 million for the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops program
• $100 million over 5 years for the Hunger-Free Communities Grant Program for fruit and vegetable SNAP incentives
• $100 million over 5 years for the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program
• $406 million annually for Section 32 specialty crop purchases

This looks like a lot—and from the standpoint of incremental change it is a lot—but these numbers are millions, not billions, and in farm bill terms can be considered “mere rounding errors.”

The farm bill currently costs taxpayers $85 billion a year, with $72 billion of that going for SNAP (food stamp) benefits.

The rest of the big money goes to the Big Agriculture growers of commodity crops, mainly in the form of crop insurance.

Here too, the proposed bill includes one small but significant measure.  For the first time, it provides for crop insurance for diversified farms—those that grow a variety of  “specialty” crops (translation: fruits and vegetables).

Even the most critical commentators think the current proposal, despite its evident flaws, represents the best that can be expected given current political realities.

Let’s hope the good parts of the proposal survive the rest of the legislative process.

Addition, May 24: A reader points out that another bright spot is that the Senate bill also included $125 million for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

According to an account in last week’s New York Times, the federal government could save about $1 billion a year by reducing the subsidies it pays to large farmers to cover much of the cost of their crop insurance.  Crop insurance subsidies are expected to cost $39 billion from 2012 to 2016, or about $7.8 billion a year.

The Times based this statement on a new report from the Government Accountability Office.  This report explains that the billion-a-year savings would occur if the government applied the same limits to subsidies for crop insurance as it applies to other farm support programs.

The report raised the prospect of the government’s capping the amount that farmers receive at $40,000 a year, much as the government caps payments in other farm programs. Any move to limit the subsidy, however, is likely to be opposed by rural lawmakers, who say the program provides a safety net for agriculture.

Get this:

Under the federal crop insurance program, farmers can buy insurance policies that cover poor yields, declines in prices or both. The insurance is obtained through private companies, but the federal government pays about 62 percent of the premiums, plus administrative expenses.

And that’s not all.  The Environmental Working Group says many of the crop insurers are foreign companies.

Twenty insurance companies in Bermuda, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and the U.S. were paid $7.1 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds from 2007 to 2011 to sell American farmers crop insurance policies, an Environmental Working Group analysis shows. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency paid these companies for administrative and operating expenses for the federally subsidized crop insurance program.

We talked about crop insurance subsidies in the class on the farm bill that I taught at NYU last fall.   My class thought all of us should immediately go into the crop insurance business.  The government pays most of the premiums and administrative expenses and also covers most of the risk.  This is a really good deal for Big Ag and the lucky few insurance companies.

You find this difficult to believe?  Take a look at two of the readings for the course:

Shields DA.  Federal crop insurance: background and issues.  Congressional Research Service, December 13, 2010.

Insurance policies are sold and completely serviced through 16 approved private insurance companies. Independent insurance agents are paid sales commissions by the companies. The insurance companies’ losses are reinsured by USDA, and their administrative and operating costs are reimbursed by the federal government.

Smith VH.  Premium payments: why crop insurance costs too much.  American Enterprise Institute, 2011.

Since 2007, government subsidies for crop insurance have averaged about $5.6 billion per year, representing over one-third of total expenditures on income transfers and other government payments for programs targeted directly to farmers.

However, about 58 percent of those expenditures have ended up in the hands of agricultural insurance companies and agricultural insurance agents.

In fact, since 2005, on average, the agricultural insurance industry has received $1.44 for every dollar farmers have received in crop insurance subsidies.

No wonder Big Ag wants crop insurance subsidies continued.

Will the 2012 farm bill fix this?  I’m not optimistic but will stay tuned.

The spring 2012 issue of Dissent is devoted in part to food politics.  It includes my article Utopian Dream: A New Farm Bill.

In this same issue, Sarah Leonard offers Nature as an Ally: An Interview with Wendell Berry.

The legal advocacy group, Public Health Law and Policy, has produced two useful resources on the farm bill:

• Growing Change: A Farm Bill Primer for Communities:  This is a basic guide to farm bill provisions related to nutrition and prevention of obesity.
• ‘Complete Eats’ Legislation: The Farm Bill and Food Systems Planning: This article in Planning & Environmental Law (subscription needed for anything past the first page) describes specific policies and programs that affect food system planning at the local level.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy is doing a series on What’s at Stake in the Farm Bill.

Oxfam America has a report and infographic on what the farm bill needs to do about international food aid.

And don’t forget:

• Daniel Imhoff’s, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill, Watershed Media, 2012: This is the stunningly illustrated second edition of Imhoff’s lucid explanation of the farm bill and the vast number of issues it covers.

It’s spring and the books about food and farms are flooding in.  I’ll start with these.

Daniel Imhoff, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill, Watershed Media, 2012.

Michael Pollan and Fred Kirschnmann introduce this new, gorgeously illustrated edition of Imhoff’s lucid explanation of the farm bill and the vast number of issues it covers.  I’m not aware of anything else that comes close to explaining this most obscure and obfuscated piece of legislation.   Congress is fussing with the bill right now.  If you want to understand what your elected officials are fussing about, start here.  I will use this book in my NYU classes and will borrow the stunning illustrations for talks.

Jim VanDerPol, Conversations with the Land, No Bull Press, 2012.

This is a book of personal reflections on farms, farming, and farmers.  VanDerPol talks about the weather, people and communities, and better ways to produce food and to live.  From his base in Minnesota, he gives his thoughts  about the way agriculture has changed and what can be done to make it better.

Adam Davidson in the New York Times Sunday Magazine asks how come dairy farmers have such a hard time making a living?

His explanation: Dairy farmers thought they were in the business of raising cows.  Wrong.  They are in the business of betting on feed prices.

…in the last decade, dairy products and cow feed became globally traded commodities. Consequently, modern farmers have effectively been forced to become fast-paced financial derivatives traders.This has prompted a significant and drastic change.

For most of the 20th century, dairy farming was a pretty stable business…at base, dairy-farming economics are simple: when the cost of corn and soybeans (which feed the cows) are low and milk prices are high, dairy farmers can make a comfortable living.

And for decades, the U.S. government enforced stable prices for feed and for milk, which meant steady, predictable income, shaken only by disease or bad weather.

…[But] by the early aughts, to accommodate global trade rules and diminishing political support for agricultural subsidies, the government allowed milk prices to follow market demand.

…Animal feed, especially corn and soybeans, became globally traded commodities with all the impossible-to-predict price swings of oil or copper.

Davidson points to the 1% of dairy farmers who have figured all this out and are big enough to hire derivative traders to manage their feed stocks.

Farm bill politics, anyone?

Dairy farmer readers: comments please.

Sales of organic foods continue to increase at a faster pace than sales of conventional foods.  This alone makes people suspicious of the organic enterprise.

Another reason is confusion about what organic production methods are, exactly.  If you are part of the food movement, you probably want your foods to be organic, local, seasonal, and sustainable.  You might also want them produced by farm workers who have decent wages and living conditions.

Unfortunately, these things do not necessarily go together.

• Organic means crops grown without artificial pesticides, fertilizers, GMOs, irradiation, or sewage sludge, and animals raised without hormones or antibiotics.  Certified Organic methods follow specific rules established by USDA.
• Local means foods grown or raised within a given radius that can range from a few to hundreds of miles (you have to ask).
• Seasonal refers to food plants eaten when they are ripe (and not preserved or transported from where they were grown).
• Sustainable means—at least by some definitions—that the nutrients removed from the soil by growing plants are replenished without artificial inputs.

That these are different is illustrated by a recent article in the New York Times about industrial organic production in Mexico.  The story makes it clear that organics do not have to be local, seasonal, sustainable, or produced by well paid workers.

While the original organic ideal was to eat only local, seasonal produce, shoppers who buy their organics at supermarkets, from Whole Foods to Walmart, expect to find tomatoes in December and are very sensitive to price. Both factors stoke the demand for imports.

Few areas in the United States can farm organic produce in the winter without resorting to energy-guzzling hothouses. In addition, American labor costs are high. Day laborers who come to pick tomatoes in this part of Baja make about $10 a day, nearly twice the local minimum wage. Tomato pickers in Florida may earn $80 a day in high season.

The cost issues are critical.  Dairy farms in general, and organic dairy farms in particular, are entirely dependent on the cost of feed for their animals, and the cost of organic feed has become almost prohibitively expensive.  This has caused organic dairy producers to cut back on production or go out of business.  As another New York Times article explains,

The main reason for the shortage is that the cost of organic grain and hay to feed cows has gone up sharply while the price that farmers receive for their milk has not.

While the shortage may be frustrating for consumers, it reveals a bitter truth for organic dairy farmers, who say they simply need to be paid more for their milk.

Why is the price of feed rising?  Simple answer: because 40% of feed corn grown in the United States is being used to produce biofuels.

Why do farmers grow corn for biofuels?  Because the government gives them tax credits and other subsidies to do so.

But in a small step in the right direction, the ethanol tax credit program was allowed to expire last week,”ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product.”

One person quoted in the article connected the dots:

Production of ethanol, with its use of pesticides and fertilizer and heavy industrial machinery, causes soil erosion and air and water pollution. And it means that less land is available for growing food, so food prices go up.

Organics do not exist in isolation.  Their production is connected to every other aspect of the food system.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a food system that promoted organic, local, seasonal, sustainable agriculture and paid farm workers a living wage?

Wouldn’t it be nice if the 2012 Farm Bill supported that kind of a food system if not instead of than at least along side of the one we have now?

I will be watching to see what Congress does with the Farm Bill.  Stay tuned.

My monthly Food Matters (first Sunday) column in the San Francisco Chronicle takes out a crystal ball…

Q: What’s on the food politics agenda for 2012? Can we expect anything good to happen?

A: By “good,” I assume you mean actions that make our food system safer and healthier for consumers, farmers, farm workers and the planet.

Ordinarily, I am optimistic about such things. This year? Not so much. The crystal ball is cloudy, but seems to suggest:

Political leaders will avoid or postpone taking action on food issues that threaten corporate interests. Sometimes Congress acts in favor of public health, but 2012 is an election year. Expect calls for corporate freedom to take precedence over those for responsible regulations. Maybe next year.

Something will happen on the farm bill, but what? Last fall’s secret draft bill included at least some support for producing and marketing fruits and vegetables, and only minimal cuts to SNAP (food stamps). Once that process failed, Congress must now adopt that draft, start over from scratch or postpone the whole mess until after the election.

SNAP participation will increase, but so will pressure to cut benefits. With the economy depressed, wages low and unemployment high, demands on SNAP keep rising. In 2011, SNAP benefits cost $72 billion, by far the largest farm bill expenditure and a tempting target for budget cutters. While some advocates will be struggling to keep the program’s benefits intact, others will try to transform SNAP so it promotes purchases of more healthful foods. Both groups should expect strong opposition.

Childhood obesity will be the flash point for fights about limits on food marketing. The Lancet recently summarized the state of the science on successful obesity interventions: taxes on unhealthy foods and beverages, restrictions on marketing such items, traffic-light front-of-package food labels, and programs to discourage consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and television viewing. Expect the food industry to continue to get Congress to block such measures, as it did with U.S. Department of Agriculture school nutrition standards (hence: pizza counts as a vegetable).

The Federal Trade Commission will postpone release of nutrition standards for marketing to children. Although Congress asked for such standards in the first place – and the standards are entirely voluntary – it just inserted a section in the appropriations bill requiring a cost-benefit analysis before the FTC can release them. Why does the food industry care about voluntary restrictions? Because they might work (see previous prediction).

The Food and Drug Administration will delay issuing front-of-package labeling guidelines as long as it can. The FDA asked the Institute of Medicine for advice about such labels. The institute recommended labels listing only calories, saturated and trans fat, sodium and sugars – all nutrients to avoid. Although the institute did not mention traffic-light labels, it did recommend check marks or stars, which come close. The food industry much prefers its own method, Facts Up Front, which emphasizes “good-for-you” nutrients. It is already using this system. Will the FDA try to turn the institute recommendations into regulations? Maybe later.

The FDA will (still) be playing catch-up on food safety. The FDA got through the 2011 appropriations process with an increase of about $50 million for its inspection needs. This is better than nothing but nowhere near what it needs to carry out its food safety mandates. The FDA currently inspects less than 2 percent of imported food shipments and 5 percent of domestic production facilities. The overwhelming nature of the task requires FDA to set priorities. Small producers think these priorities are misplaced. Is the FDA going after them because they are easier targets than industrial producers whose products have been responsible for some of the more deadly outbreaks? Time will tell.

On the bright side, the food movement will gather even more momentum. While the food industry digs in to fight public health regulations, the food movement will continue to attract support from those willing to promote a healthier and more sustainable food system. Watch for more young people going into farming (see Chronicle staff writer Amanda Gold’s Dec. 25 article) and more farmers’ markets, farm-to-school programs, school meal initiatives, and grassroots community efforts to implement food programs and legislate local reforms. There is plenty of hope for the future in local efforts to improve school meals, reduce childhood obesity, and make healthier food more available and affordable for all.

And on a personal note: In April, University of California Press will publish my co-authored book, “Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.” I’m hoping it will inspire more thinking and action on how we can change our food system to one that is better for people and the planet.

Happy new year!

Grist and Food and Tech Connect have excellent reports on last week’s Farm Bill Hackathon.  This event brought together farm bill experts and designers to try to produce materials that make farm bill issues accessible.

The terrific winning entry: A Clean Farm Bill of Health slideshow illustrating the contradiction between USDA dietary advice policy and that for farm supports.

I could not participate in the Hackathon but having just taught a class on the farm bill I know what I’d like to have: a complete text of the farm bill annotated to include all of the relevant information.

The 663-page 2008 farm bill is readily accessible online, but it is unreadable (by me at least).   This is because it refers to previous bills and other Acts of Congress, which in turn refer to previous bills and Acts, in some cases going back to 1933.

You don’t believe me?  Try this entirely typical section, chosen at random:

SEC. 12001. DEFINITION OF ORGANIC CROP.
Section 502(b) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C.
1502(b)) is amended—
(1) by redesignating paragraphs (7) and (8) as paragraphs
(8) and (9), respectively; and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (6) the following:
‘‘(7) ORGANIC CROP.—The term ‘organic crop’ means an
agricultural commodity that is organically produced consistent
with section 2103 of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990
(7 U.S.C. 6502).’’.

It would be so nice to have a text that gives the relevant information in one place: what the Federal Crop Insurance Act says, what paragraphs 7 and 8 are all about, and what’s in section 2103 of the 1990 Act.

Hackers: anyone want to take this on?