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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] How the Supercommittee Could Kill New Farmers Markets
  • Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:55:23 -0600


How the Supercommittee Could Kill New Farmers Markets
—By Tom Philpott Wed Nov. 2, 2011 3:00 AM PDT
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/11/farm-bill-supercommittee

Remember the farm bill, that monstrously complex, twice-a-decade omnibus
legislation that shapes US agriculture and hunger policy? You know, the one
that Michael Pollan and other sustainable foodies wrote so much about four
years ago? Well, it's back, earlier than expected (the last one doesn't
expire until 2012). And it has found itself caught in the crosshairs of DC
budget hysteria—in a way that will likely reinforce the worst, most
agribiz-friendly elements of US ag policy and defund the best parts,
including programs that help farmers transition to organic and help
communities start new farmers markets.

What gives?

In a story two weeks ago, Politico's David Rogers laid out what's going on.
The House and Senate ag committees have created a joint panel of four who are
working furiously to do in a matter of days what usually takes more than a
year: craft national food and farm policy for the next half-decade. They want
to get it done in time to submit it to the budget-slashing "supercommittee,"
whose work is scheduled to be done by Nov. 23.

The ag panel seeks to cut farm bill spending by $23 billion over the next 10
years, Rogers reported. The panel hasn't submitted its proposal to the
supercommittee yet—it's expected to do so early this week—but Rogers wrote
that broad outlines have emerged:

Nothing is set in stone, but the leadership anticipates that $14 billion
to $15 billion would be cut from commodity supports—or roughly 24 percent
from the baseline now projected by the Congressional Budget Office. At the
same time, conservation programs would face a $6.5 billion reduction, or a 10
percent cut, and nutrition programs like food stamps would be asked to come
up with $4 billion to $5 billion in savings, a less than 1 percent cut.

On the surface, given the austerity fever plaguing Washington, this
distribution of cuts might seem to make sense: The commodity programs take a
big cut, conservation takes a smaller one, and anti-hunger take a relatively
minuscule one.

But in reality, the commodity cuts won't change the incentives that push
farmers to plant millions of acres of farmland with just a handful of crops:
corn, soy, cotton, and wheat. That's because the plan appears to be to
replace the current system of direct payments—which pay commodity farmers $5
billion a year based on their acreage historically devoted to subsidy
crops—with one based on government-funded revenue insurance that holds
farmers' incomes steady when prices drop.

Like the old system, the new insurance scheme would apply only to farmers who
grow those subsidized commodity crops. The new setup would be cheaper than
direct payments—projected to cost $3.5 billion per year versus $5 billion—but
it continues to ensure that corn and soy will continue to blanket millions of
acres: agribusiness as usual, in other words. Indeed, the National Corn
Growers Association—the agribiz-linked voice of the nation's industrial-scale
corn farms—has vigorously endorsed the switch.

While the commodity cuts won't affect the industrial-agriculture juggernaut,
the cuts to conservation programs could have real ecological impact. And
paring back food stamps at a time when a record 45 million Americans rely on
them seems unconscionable.

Moreover, a whole slew of small farm bill programs designed to help farmers
transition to organic, communities roll out new farmers markets, AND new
farmers with start-up costs, could see draconian cuts. These programs, the
result of years of lobbying work from groups like the National Sustainable
Agriculture Coalition and the Community Food Security Coalition, have been
grouped together by USDA deputy secretary Kathleen Merrigan under the banner
of Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food. Ferd Hoefner, policy director at NSAC
and a veteran of farm bill fights dating to the '70s, told me that such
programs could lose as much as half of their funding under the current
process.

All of that aside, the most egregious thing about the backroom farm bill
being slapped together is that it completely shuts out grassroots
participation in crafting national food and farm policy. The public farm bill
fervor that rose up in 2007-08 has slammed up against a brick wall enclosing
secret congressional hearings.

Now, it's true the supercommittee's efforts to cobble together a debt deal
could fail. If that happens, what becomes of the backroom farm bill now being
put together? I put that question to Hoefner. "Anyone's guess," he said. But
the deal being made now will likely be the "starting point" for negotiations
going forward, he added. And that, I think, is bad news for those of us who
would like to see significant food policy reform.

Tom Philpott is the food and ag blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his
stories, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here. Get Tom Philpott's
RSS feed.




  • [Livingontheland] How the Supercommittee Could Kill New Farmers Markets, Tradingpost, 11/02/2011

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