Policy Matters... As In, It's Important

As a run-of-the-mill citizen who cares about the food I eat and with some understanding of and interest in the policies that affect how and what I eat, the Farm Bill has always struck me as this massively important piece of legislation that gets almost no attention outside of the world of those who actively support sustainable farming and those, like many members of Congress, who take pleasure in giving billions in subsidies to huge agribusinesses so they can grow more corn and soybeans and sugarbeets and the like.

For some reason the Farm Bill is only revisited every 5 years, and the sustainable/small farm community fights its little heart out and gets little scraps of improvement here and there, while the supposed true believers in the free-market system and protectors of the mythical "family farm" in Congress continue to prop up the agri-giants who, one would think, don't need the help. "How are we going to ensure Americans can afford to buy food?" they argue. "They're not all East Coast liberal elites who can afford to pay $8 for organic chard!"

Translated into non-politician-ease: "How can we ensure we continue to get big donations from ADM and Monsanto if we don't waste billions in tax payer dollars to ensure Americans can get cases of Orange Crush and Coke for the same price as 4 or 5 apples?"

In any case, the Farm Bill will be rearing its head once again in the next Congress. And some folks want to stop, or at least drastically slow down, the cycle of the overwrought influence of the big boys and their deep pockets on this important piece of legislation. You can read a little about it on Simple, Good, and Tasty, and then you can stay tuned to the effort through Facebook (even for a reluctant FB user like me, this seems like an apt use of this particular form of social media).

Good luck, and may the $8 organic chard be with you.

Two Good Reads

Some good reading for your enjoyment.

First, local organic farmer Don Kretschmann waxes, well, organic about the "booming" local farm economy...

The willingness of the consuming public to pay a fair price for food reflects a fundamental change. They see that this nutritious food is actually a bargain when compared with purchasing cheap food which is deleterious to health, or food which is shipped astronomical distances incurring hidden costs of environmental degradation and energy dependency. (Is there a parallel in the auto industry?)

Although he acknowledges that are serious challenges for family farms...

Several factors can impede this unfolding ag revolution and opportunity. One is the loss of local, small-scale food processing facilities -- slaughterhouses and butchershops, particularly. And the other is the loss of young people to enter the field (no pun intended) who've had the experience of growing up on farms.

I have to wonder if everybody would agree with Mr. Kretschmann about the "booming" business thing. Has this translated into more stability for their farms, particularly those that make their living raising cows, pigs, and chickens for beef, pork, and... uh, chicken? From what I've read and seen, this may not be the case.

I've read posts on message boards about grass-fed operations selling a cow or two 'cause they can't afford to maintain them all, and over at the Ethicurean the other day there was an excellent discussion about how family farmers are struggling to pay for health care, driving some out of business and preventing younger wanna-be farmers from fulfilling that particularly wish.

In other words, I just don't know if the increased demand for more local, and in most cases, more sustainably produced food, is translating into more financially secure family farmers.

Meanwhile, the semi-famous Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson take to the pages of the Gray Lady with a call for a 50-year Farm Bill to, among other things, address the tremendous damage that's been inflicted on the soil.

Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.

Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. The last line is killer.

Compare and Contrast

Last word on the Farm Bill, I swear. But here is something terribly indicative of the subsidy problem and the lack of priorities in Washington.

First, a classified from the January/February 2008 issue of Passages, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s newsletter.

FOR SALE – Organic, 100% grass-fed cows. Traders Point has a unique offering: Nature is not always the nurturer and the summer of ’07 will attest to that. The combination of unseasonably warm temperatures and half of the normal rainfall has exacted its toll on the farm. We really have no other choice (emphasis mine) than to sell off a portion of our herd. Traders Point remains one of the only creameries in the nation to have a year round 100% organic grass-fed herd. USDA certified by Indiana Certified Organic. Care has been taken to find high protein levels as well as higher fat content. The Brown Swiss heritage is also foremost in the field of health nutrition with the highest CLA. Call or email…

And a repeat from an earlier post, from a farmer commenting on the Washington Post’s Web site on a Farm Bill story.

My farm is bordered on one side by a river. The bank on my side is between 20 and 30 feet high, and my property never floods in the fall rains and none-too occasional hurricane. The bank on the other side is only about 5 or 6 feet above the average water level, and it routinely - I could even say reliably - floods in the fall. The land on that side of the river amounts to about 200 acres, and every spring, my neighbor plants it in corn. He gets paid to. It doesn't matter the floods ruin the crop every year, that the floods leave all the ears mildewed and unfit even for cattle feed. He gets paid to plant his 200 acres in corn, and so he does. I'd hazard to guess that he gets paid for the loss, too, by federal crop adjustment insurance.

One dairy farm, pursuing the most sustainable approach, has to sell one of the cows that produces its end product, because of conditions far beyond their control that have eliminated the cows source of food and nutrients.

The other knowingly plants corn that nobody will eat -- at least not in the form of actual corn -- in a field that will very likely flood, thus ruining the crop, and gets paid for it. Twice.

(Sigh)

The Inevitable Farm Bill

After all this time, the Farm Bill has passed the House by a veto-proof margin, so the President’s threats to veto the bill are meaningless. He’ll veto and it will go back to the House, get the requisite two-thirds vote and, poof, it’s law. The Times offers up a pretty good summary.

While I’m nowhere near a Farm Bill expert, and from what I’ve read there are some good things about this behemoth, the subsidies still render this bill a stinker on par with worst CAFO waste pond. This sums it up well:

Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said: “Sometimes here in Washington, we tend to drink our own bath water and believe our own press releases. And to hear some of the debate here, you would think this is the best bill in the world and that everybody out there has just got to support it.”

This comment on a Washington Post story about the Farm Bill – from a real farmer, no less – is even better.

Government incentives are calculated against planting (no one can forsee harvests). My farm is bordered on one side by a river. The bank on my side is between 20 and 30 feet high, and my property never floods in the fall rains and none-too occasional hurricane. The bank on the other side is only about 5 or 6 feet above the average water level, and it routinely - I could even say reliably - floods in the fall. The land on that side of the river amounts to about 200 acres, and every spring, my neighbor plants it in corn. He gets paid to. It doesn't matter the floods ruin the crop every year, that the floods leave all the ears mildewed and unfit even for cattle feed. He gets paid to plant his 200 acres in corn, and so he does. I'd hazard to guess that he gets paid for the loss, too, by federal crop adjustment insurance. Nevertheless, the incentive to plant various crops adds a weight to the base cost of seed, and this cost is distributed in the yield. That means the price of this fellow's 200 acres of sacrificial corn seed gets figured into the cost of seed for crops that are actually harvested - driving my costs, and your food prices, ever higher.

A Losing Battle

I’ve been entirely remiss lately with the frequency of my posts. There’s been so much going on that it’s been difficult to pick which ones to devote some time to, and, in the end, indecision and laziness prevail.

Well, that, and when you write as part of your day-job, sometimes the thought of banging away on a keyboard into the evening—after you’ve scrambled to get a child to tae kwon-do; made, scarfed down, and cleaned up dinner; given kids baths; put kids to bed; made kids’ lunches for the next day; done a little laundry; paid some bills; and who knows what else—offers little appeal.

Anyway, I guess you could say that there’s a theme to the two following stories. And that theme would be: Our government stinks. When it comes to food policy in this country, legislators and the current administration will pay lip service to things like good nutrition and supporting “family farmers,” but where the seeds meet the soil, they almost uniformly side with the powerful interests working against these important objectives.

For example, there was a great op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times by Jack Hedin, who runs a small organic farm in Minnesota. Mr. Hedin explained how, to meet increased demand for his organic fruits and veggies, he rented some land from another farmer who raised only commodity crops.

But the arrangement ran into some problems with the Feds, namely the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, which manages the massive U.S. farm subsidies program:

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.) [emphasis added]

In one sense, I can understand where the Feds are coming from. The farmer from whom the land is being rented is, I guess, double dipping: getting paid by the government to grow only corn or, worse yet, nothing on his land, and then renting out that land and getting paid again.

The problem, however, is the same: No incentive to grow fruits and vegetables, but you get paid to grow corn and soy and other crops so that mega-corporations like Tyson or Pepsi have access to cheap feed for chickens or high fructose corn syrup for soda.

And it gets worse. Mr. Hedin?

The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables.

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.

Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply processors, with some relief from the penalties that I’ve faced — for example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other penalties. However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as a tiny pilot program.

I’m sorry. I thought Congress worked for the people, not big companies. Silly me.

Or, in an absolutely expected development, President Bush’s final budget of his reign of terror administration has eliminated the funding for Pasture Systems and Watershed Research Unit at Penn State.

This is a big deal for research into things like sustainable farming, keeping waterways safe from runoff, etc. As a letter from the researchers about the situation explains:

Unless Congress acts to restore the $4.42 million allocation in support of the University Park location, the entire research program will be terminated and all 45 scientist and support staff positions will be abolished.

The research program at University Park seeks to develop profitable and sustainable animal, crop, and bioenergy producing enterprises while maintaining the quality of ground and surface waters. The loss of this research unit would end cutting edge research on nutrient management, forage and grazing land management, water quality, integrated farming systems, and bioenergy cropping systems for the northeastern U.S.

I believe Sam Fromartz, proprietor of ChewsWise, summed it up best:

In light of the growing demand for grass-fed meat and pasture-based dairy farming in the northeast, I find it incredible that this program is being killed. We need more research into sustainable agriculture, not less.

But then we wouldn’t be able to offer $5.1 billion more in commodity crop subsidies, would we?

Excuse me while I go vomit.

Scrapin’ Up the Bits: Bah-Humbug Style

I can’t really do it any justice, because I’m just not as familiar with the ins and outs of the Farm Bill as I’d otherwise like to be. But, I believe I can sum up the recent activities surrounding the Farm Bill in one sentence:

The Democrats are a bunch of craven, corrupt pieces of rotten (overfished) tuna who turned their backs on family farms and sustainable agriculture practices.

The Democrats failed to:

• Place a meaningful cap on subsidies paid to already rich individuals who happen to operate a farm
• For that matter, enact any sort of meaningful subsidy reform whatsoever
  
• Prevent big meat packers from manipulating cattle prices
• For that matter, enact any sort of meaningful reform to reign in Big Meat
  

What was it Dianne Feinstein said on the floor at one point after Democrats took majorities in both chambers? "Elections have consequences." Yes, apparently they do. Meaningless ones.

Let’s see, what other good news is there to report. Well, gee, wild salmon are headed toward extinction, clearly a positive development. And bluefin tuna — the tuna sashimi and nigiri so many sushi-eaters, including myself, love — aren’t far behind.

Been meaning to get to this, but Unbossed has THE LIST, that is, the list of members of the heretofore mysterious Labeling Advisory Committee convened by Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff to support his already-decided decision to force certain dairies to remove helpful language from their milk labels.

At some point, I’d love to dig into this list a little more, but, with the holidays upon us, the time just isn’t there right now.

I did notice that one committee member, Dr. Terry Etherton, has a blog on agriculture and biotechnology (he's clearly an unabashed proponent of the latter). His most recent post discusses the milk labeling issue. I wanted to leave a comment, but, alas, the “comment” function is disabled. This could be a Penn State-wide policy, since the blog appears to be hosted on the university’s Web site. But it isn’t real conducive to providing a forum for a discussion of the issues Dr. Etherton raises, including his criticisms of “countless [advocacy] groups who don’t care about the facts” because “[t]heir first priority is their agenda and raising funds to continue their campaigns of propaganda and false attacks.” Nice ad hominem attack there, Dr. Etherton.

Well, after all of this pleasant talk, the very least that can be done is to imagine something delicious, like chocolate truffles!

Scrapin' Up the Bits, Gnocci style

One of my favorite meals growing up was gnocci, or, what we incorrectly called cavatelli (which is made from flour- or ricotta-based dough, not potato-based). It was a little chewy, but not gummy, and had far more personality than plain-old dried pasta. It also seemed to elevate my mother's red sauce to new flavor heights.

I know for a fact that my mom makes her gnocci with instant potatoes, which might cause some bona fide foodies and Eye-talians to curse loudly and then cross themselves over and over again. This approach by Paula Wolfert sounds like a lot of work, but she swears that it's worth it. I’m game.

The Farm Bill ain't goin' nowehere any time soon, it appears. I think this may be a good thing. All reports I've read is that there is still way too much money in the form of subsidies for big agribusinesses and others who don't need it, not enough for conservation and for promoting diversification of crops, instead of just a gajillion acres of corn and soy. Maybe this will open up a new avenue to getting this stuff fixed?

We’re all going to be paying a bit more for our Thanksgiving dinners this year. Which isn't good news, especially considering how many people are struggling to feed their families.

This is what it means to get pastured eggs from a local provider. I’d pay an extra $5 to get one of those notes!

Stephen Hedges at the Chicago Tribune continues to do an excellent job of reporting on meat safety. His latest stunner: the sale of “cook-only” beef. Reassuring, eh?

Finally, I don’t like to hear these kinds of things about beer. I already spend quite a bit on beer, and we seriously don’t even drink that much! A hops shortage? Now we HAVE to do something about global warming. This just isn’t right.