With 2007 being the Chinese year of the pig, there is plenty for food lovers to go hog wild about. This year will be an important and influential year for the agriculture industry as the 110th US Congress drafts and votes on the 2007 Farm Bill, one of the most costly and hotly debated pieces of legislation to prance across Capitol Hill.
Every five years, congress votes on a new Farm Bill, a piece of legislation that determines the functioning of the entire US food system, created to help America’s farmers, via subsidies and loans, to grow food, farm certain produce, and protect profits from environmental crisis or unforeseeable crop failure. The 2007 Farm Bill will replace the 2002 Farm Bill, which allocated over $190 billion for agricultural subsidies, conservation, nutrition programs, agricultural research and other ventures. With an ever-diversifying agricultural sector, funding for the programs housed under the Farm Bill need to be reassessed.
With California being one of the largest agricultural producers in the nation, generating over $32 billion in 2004, local farmers and concerned citizens are gearing up to make sure the money allocated for farmers gets put in the hands of the people who need it most.
In the last 10 years, American agricultural subsidies have danced to the tune of about $16 billion per year. With qualifications for subsidies based primarily on acreage, small farmers often don’t qualify for the grants, loans and subsides offered under the Farm Bill. Many small farmers are calling for reform as they ask that the 2007 Farm Bill bridge the inequality gap between small rural farms, and corporate farms. Moreover, questions of efficiency and wastefulness have colored the debate as taxpayers, small farmers, and environmentalists argue that many of the programs and funding intended to help farms in time of trouble, are not being used for the crisis-type situations they were initially intended for.
A wide variety of groups and organizations are campaigning for changes in the current system. Health and environmentalist groups are uniting over increased funding for farms that practice organic and environmentally friendly production methods. Hunger and poverty organizations are calling for a renewed focus on funding allocated for vital nutrition programs including food stamps, soup kitchens, and emergency food assistance programs for America’s poorest.
"The Farm Bill reauthorization provides a genuine opportunity to strengthen the Food Stamp Nutrition Education and Food Stamp program to reduce food insecurity, which is a real problem in our state of California, to increase healthy eating and support the achievement of dietary guidelines for Americans"
-- Desiree Backman, The California Five-a-Day Campaign
With a vote on the bill only a few months away, a consensus on the California perspective is beginning taking shape. Contact your local representative for their views on Farm Bill reform. Go a bit farther and ask the farmers at your local market how they’d like to see the new 2007 Farm Bill be formed, and if they will be participating in the dialogue at the California Farm Conference this upcoming March.
