As someone interested in food issues for extremely personal reasons (I eat food, drink water, and breathe air, and so do all of my friends and loved ones), I've done about as much as I can go advance my issues all by myself. I've been waiting and waiting for THE moment when I could finally spring into action and get all the Congresscritters in DC to do something sensible about our food system on a large enough scale to really make a difference. NOW is that time. Specifically, TODAY and through June 4.
The 2007 Farm Bill (which is really the "Food Bill" in terms of what it effects, in case farming sounds distant and irrelevant to you) must be passed by September 30. Alternatively, Congress can also vote to extend the 2002 bill for a bit (and the 2002 bill was a real winner, you can be sure). But either way, something's gonna happen, and it's happening RIGHT NOW.
Fellow rabid lambs, your talking points and action steps are on the flip.
This past week, I also attended a panel discussion that included Michael Pollan and went over the importance of the 2007 farm bill to the healthcare community. You can see my notes on that here.
At the Pollan event, the panelists shared a vision with the audience (who were mainly doctors, nurses, and dieticians). What if all of us city folk and suburbanites, people who set foot on a farm once a year, if that, to go apple picking or buy pumpkins and go on hayrides, suddenly made a LOT of noise about the farm bill?
What if your local paper suddenly got a bunch of LTEs about the farm bill? If you're not near farm country, they probably have no clue you're even interested in the farm bill debate. If they know people care, maybe they'll even cover it. And the same goes for your representatives in Washington - why should they bother much over it if they don't think you care?
Talking Points
I am including some talking points from an email I received this week, but they are pretty wonky, so here are a few simpler points first. As an urbanite, I care about the Farm Bill because:
- I want access to fresh, healthy food.
- I want to enrich my local community.
- I care about the state of the environment where I live. The air here is filled with smog, and I'd rather not drink water contaminated with pesticides if I have a choice.
- I'm scared shitless about global warming, and I'd prefer to reduce the amount of oil used on my behalf by buying local goods.
- I don't think it's fair - or beneficial to our country - that healthy food is the luxury of the rich.
- I want to be able to buy food from local farmers so I can avoid being affected by national food safety problems.
If you don't feel comfortable getting into the specifics of the farm bill, just call up (or write your local paper) with simple points like those above. If government policies make it easier for small and mid-size farms to stay in business, then you personally will have better access to fresh, locally-grown food because less farmers will be driven off the land near you. The land that is preserved as farmland can potentially provide habitat for all kinds of animals and remove CO2 from the air.
There are a million more reasons why you should tell your representative that you care - please post your own personal list of reasons in the comments so we can all share with one another. The fact that you even care about the farm bill will be news to your newspaper and to your congresscritter, so if you communicate nothing more than "I care," that's already good.
OK, now for the wonky specifics. Here is what I received in the email I got:
- Call for reauthorization of mandatory annual funding in the amount of $30 million dollars for assistance to Community Food Projects.
- Call for strengthening of local food purchase in Child Nutrition Programs, including reference to "encourage geographic preferences" for local or regional food procurement (no cost but high impact).
- Call for support of the "Healthy Food Enterprise Development Act" in the Blumenauer Bill ($35 million in HR 2364) for your representatives in the US House of Representatives and in the Brown/Clinton Bill ($42 million in S 1432) in the US Senate.
Other provisions that you can call for in these two Bills with sections promoting healthy foods:
- Urban Agriculture Promotion Program ($5 million in Blumenauer Bill).
- Farmers Market Promotion Program ($25 million in Brown/Clinton)
- Farm to Cafeteria Program ($20 million in Blumenauer and Brown/Clinton)
- Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program ($300 million in Brown/Clinton)
- Food Stamp Nutrition Education ($100 million in Brown/Clinton)
- Value Added Grant Program ($60 million in Blumenauer)
- Direct Farmer to Consumer Marketing Assistance Program ($25 million in Blumenauer)
- WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (up to $75 million in both bills)
- Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (up to $75 million in both bills)
- School Preference Study (no cost – Blumenauer)
- Food Stamp Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program (no cost – Blumenauer)
- Evaluation of USDA Commodity Distribution (no cost – Blumenauer)
Action Steps
Here's the text of the email I received this week (the same one as above). Use the info in this letter here as your action steps to shape the next phase of ag policy - do it today if you can!
As many of you know, there is a lot of action happening on Capitol Hill right now related to the Farm Bill. House Chairman Peterson is releasing parts of his "mark" as the subcommittees meet to write their own parts of the Farm Bill. The first two subcommittees will release their ideas next week. A number of bills have been introduced in both the US House and Senate that promote access to healthy foods for all people in the United States and create new, profitable markets for small and mid-sized family farmers and ranchers.
The healthy foods sections of these bills work to increase the availability and affordability of healthy and fresh foods through existing nutrition programs, increasing fruits and vegetables in schools, promoting urban agriculture, removing barriers that have kept local farmers from selling products to schools, and supporting value-added agriculture and farmers markets.
Two bills that were introduced on May 17 are more focused on healthy, local foods: Local Food and Farm Support Act, H.R. 2364 introduced by Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR, 3rd) and FOOD for a Healthy America Act, S. 1432 introduced by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Talking points for various issues in these bills are below.
Your voice is critical – here are a few simple things to do before June 4:
- Call or visit your members’ district office during the week of Memorial Day, when legislators will be in their home state or district. Your legislators have a voice! Ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 2364 and endorse the healthy food provisions of S. 1432 and to tell the Agriculture Committee to include the healthy foods provisions in the 2007 Farm Bill.
- Ask your Senators to sign on to the attached Feingold-Brown Dear Colleague letter, the deadline for sign-on is May 29th. There may be a House equivalent coming soon, so keep your eye out for that!
- Obtain your organization’s endorsement to the sign-on letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees supporting these provisions (same as the language in the Feingold-Brown Dear Colleague). Sign-ons received before May 29th will be included in the Feingold-Brown letter to Senate Agriculture Committee leadership.
- Write an op-ed or a letter to the editor for your local paper. We have attached a sample of each, and you can tailor it as you want. Media on healthy food issues is also great to take to your legislators’ offices when you visit. [Note: Email me if you want me to forward you the sample letters.]
To obtain the direct number for your representative, call the US Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. For more information, call Steph Larsen at 202-543-8602 or email at steph at foodsecurity dot org . For more details, see http://www.foodsecurity.org/...
More reading:
There are several diarists who are FAR more knowledgeable than me about this stuff, and I encourage you to check them out. Natasha, Compass Rose, and Farm Bill Girl are my favorite sources about any sort of ag policy question. And never forget Elfling and Farmerchuck. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone here... The folks I've listed here are truly experts and we're lucky to have such fantastic resources available to us. I hope their diaries in the next few months shed more light on the 2007 farm bill than I can, and I hope enough Kossacks read and rec their stuff to really get the word out.
OK, rabid lambs. We've all got our marching orders. Let's show once again how powerful our community can be when it comes together to support a cause!