Well Fed Network

Posted by Marc Rumminger on Growers and Grocers.

The House Committee on Agriculture is preparing to draft parts of the Food and Farm Bill next week in the various subcommittee. A post at Gristmill explores the schedule for the bill, explains how citizens can influence Congress, and reveals that four titles will be worked on next week: Conservation (Title II), Credit (Title V), Energy (Title IX), and Research (Title VII). A press release from the House Agriculture Committee has additional details.

The plan to work on four titles of the legislation means that now is the time to write or call your representatives telling them what you think about the Food and Farm Bill. Congressional websites have addresses and phone numbers for Representatives and Senators. Various organizations, like Om Organics also have action pages.

The current situation for the Food and Farm Bill in the House appears to be the following:

1. Rep. Peterson (chairman of the Agriculture Committee) wants to write the bill in the Agriculture Committee and avoid any amendments from the floor. In other words, he wants to maintain tight control of the content to avoid too much input from lawmakers from urban and suburban districts. Thus, if your representative is on the House Agriculture Committee, it is especially important to contact him or her. More commentary from me at Ethicurean, Ken Cook of EWG, and Dan Owens of the Center for Rural Affairs.
2. The overall budget for the Food and Farm Bill is more or less locked in at a level set by the Congressional Budget Office. A “reserve fund” of $15-20 billion was authorized in the budget process, but the funds need to be taken from another program or found through new revenue. A column at Ag Web points out that $190 billion in “reserve funds” are in the budget in other areas, so the reserve fund is probably not going to materialize. Therefore, changes in funding levels will be achieved by shifting funds between programs.
3. Subsidy programs for commodities are sacred. They will not be cut, and might even be increased, despite the record high price of corn and soybeans, and pressure from other nations about unfair trade policy.
4. Conservation money might be shifted around from fund to fund, e.g., from the Conservation Security Program to the Wetlands Reserve Program.
5. Funding for smaller programs, like Farmers’ Market promotion, organic farming research and farm-to-schools programs, have not been mentioned much in the sources I read. Since they are essentially “crumbs” compared to the giant “loaves” of the commodity subsidy programs. For example, The Farmers Market Promotion Program received an appropriation of $1 million in FY2006, which is two hours of annual corn subsidies or three hours of annual cotton subsidies (source: page 5 of Congressional Research Service Report RL33037 Previewing a 2007 Farm Bill).

The Senate is planning to work on their version of the Food and Farm Bill work at a later date. Here is a list of the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Photo by Gary Kramer, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, photo NRCSCA01029. Caption: “Lettuce crop in central California.”