I am very deeply grateful to MissLaura, OrangeClouds115, Elfling, Natasha, Farmerchuck and others who have drawn attention to our broken food systems.
The netroots offers one of the rare beacons of hope for family farmers swimming against the current tide of corporate control and industrial agriculture that has given us e.coli spinach, dead pets, poisonous Chinese catfish, rGBH-milk, GMO crops, factory farms destroying rural America/farmers, along with obesity, and all the other ills so urgently and eloquently documented by Michael Pollan that even my non-farm bill obsessed friends have read:
Michael Pollan on the Farm Bill
The question is, do we want to preserve what's left of our sustainable family farms and Rural America, or do we want factory farms and cheap imports from China and Mexico to be the future of our food system?
I think most Kossacks want the former, not the latter. The question is what is the best solution, and how do we deal with such a huge and sprawling subject as the Farm Bill, which is really your food bill.
This article brought me grave concerns:
Reformers to Use Netroots on Alternative Farm Bill
As well as this diary by Rep. Blumenauer:
Rep Blumenauer
The Farm 21 "reform" proposal that Kind/Blumenauer and Flake are offering represents nothing less than privatization for farmers with its "risk management accounts". I don't think Kossacks support health savings accounts as a solution to our health care crisis, but it seems because there is less knowledge about ag policy, but deep and legitimate frustration, that many liberal bloggers may be tempted to support such a proposal. I am hoping to provide some information so that progressives can start joining our family farmer movement and not buy into the Farm 21 approach, esp since Farm 21 backers seem bent on coopting the netroots.
I've noticed that there is a real divide within the family farm groups i work with and the netroots--neither side much has anything to do with one another, or awareness of each other, despite the fact that we have a lot of the same values and goals. I hope we can begin to bridge some of that here.
I think most folks on here know why the Farm Bill is important. it's a food bill impacting public health. it's a urban planning bill since the disappearance of family farms has led to increasing sprawl and mini-mall development. it's an immigration bill because our dumping of agriculture goods is what fuels illegal immigration from Mexico and Central/Latin America. It's an energy bill because 10% of global warming is caused by agriculture (the bad factory farmimg type) and ethanol is now such a political hot potato, blamed for high food prices (i will write more on this later, but ethanol is not the problem behind food prices. However, $4 corn is NOT a bad thing! unless you are a factory farm who wants cheap feed or Archers Daniel Midland who processes the corn into high fructose corn syrup...ethanol as an alt. energy resource--that is legitimately debatable as well as pesticides and fertilizers which have caused a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.).
I have been meaning to post for sometime as I think there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding the role of subsidies and agriculture markets. I hope to answer some of those. Some folks have commented on here that they wished they had more farmer participation other than farmerchuck and a few others. The fact is, farmers are not the most techie-people. there is the digital divide, plus the fact that many work sun up to sun down. a "blog" is a foreign word to them. they tend to be more socially conservative too than most liberal blogs. I am heartened by the anti-Animal ID movement though. that is one of the first instances i have seen of farmers really utilizing technology as part of a movt. And i do believe folks here support family farmers and not corporate agribusiness and are one of the few groups of support to be found for farmers, since many of our other progressive allies seem to be offtrack here, which is why I post to try and shed some light on what farmers think and to comment on what i think is a very flawed proposal by Blumeneauer-Kind that misleads the netroots into supporting proposals that will only further agribusiness's power.
I have worked for several years now with farmers around the world and here in the US. I can tell you they are all suffering from the same problems, whether they are from Iowa or Mali or France or Bolivia or Mexico. And the root of that problem is corporate consolidation of agriculture, where a few agribusiness companies dominate global trade markets (i.e. ADM/Cargill for corn, Smithfield/Tyson for livestock, WalMart and various other corporations who dominate supermarkets in Europe, the US) to the misery of all farmers suffering from low prices that never meet their costs of production. You also have the rising trend of farmers as "serfs"--essentially robbed of all autonomy, as they are under contract to agribusiness for hogs or chickens, given all the supplies as well as all the risk, by these companies. Contract farming now dominates 90% of the poultry sector, and increasingly more of the hogs too. there is huge abuse in this industry with companies screwing growers on their contracts.
So when US politicians bitch about how much Japan or the EU subsidizes their farmers vs. the US, it really is moot to family farmers. they are ALL getting screwed by the current system, it's just the US and EU are able to afford some welfare payments to help their farmers and poor countries do not have this option.
What farmers are also suffering under (like workers, consumers, the environment, etc) is "free trade globalization" that encourages and pits farmers around the world against each other in a "race to the bottom" and also favors industrial export-oriented agriculture instead of truly sustainable, diversified family farms. All in the name of "progress" and "efficiency." Anytime you see someone (whether it's Oxfam or Bono or Ron Kind or Blumeneauer or sadly now, Sojourners, a group i have long been part of) talk about how if only developing countries could "export" their way out of poverty, or if only they could get more "market access" through "liberalized trade" if we could stop subsidzing our own farmers, life would be so much better for poor Africans, be suspicious. for most farmers in the third world, "market access" is NOT THE POINT. sheer survival on the land is. most farmers (both here in the US and abroad) never produce for the export market. huge commerical farms or factory farms may, which is why they push for the "free trade" line. thanks to encouraging export oriented development, we now get flowers from Ecuador/Colombia (never mind the slave labor used) or palm oil from Indonesia (for the EU). all of which is quite environmentally devastating and harm the domestic food security of these countries who can't feed themselves, but can produce energy for the Rich World's consumption in their SUVs or flowers for rich Westerners demanding exotic flowers for their weddings. Small wonder why Third world farmers say free trade to them is just neocolonialism.
i want to say, the community food security grants, local markets, farmers markets, WIC, food stamps, etc, are all very well and good programs. but they are tokens in a fundamentally BROKEN system dominated by corporate agribusiness. even if we got the money for these programs, they would do virtually nothing to stop the hollowing out of rural America, the dumping of our commodities on foreign markets, or help our family farmers.
With China food scandals and concerns of e.coli and factory farming and "eating locally," I am quite gratified by the amount of interest in the Farm Bill by outsiders. My fear is, however, is those groups are failing to listen to farmers when proposing reforms, or even worse, blaming farmers, as is popular in the elite press and among some folks here. Contrary to myth, family farmers are not wealthy and living high off the government dole. many are barely eeking out a living, in huge amounts of debt, working two or three jobs. Meanwhile, groups like the Environmental Working Group and its database makes out subsidies to be the root of the evil of our systems. Subsidies represent a symptom (not the CAUSE) of a fundamentally broken system that is premised upon letting the "market" set prices for commodities, and then using subsidies when those prices are driven too low. Subsidies do barely keep rural America afloat. Ken COok deliberately distorts his database to look like it's all going to "millionaire farmers" and that 66% of farmers never receive farm payments. Well, most of that 2/3rds are "rural residence" farms, meaning a lot of wealthy landowners with their hobby farms, not real farmers. for Full time farmers, most do receive some sort of subsidy, and farmers i know that are family farmers are in the top 10% of that database, receiving about $20,000 a year (remember though, this was when prices collapsed after 1996. this year, those numbers will be significantly decreased becuase of the higher prices). also, most payments are going to districts like North Dakota and South Dakota and Iowa and Nebraska (Scott Kleeb's district he ran in). what do these have in common? they're not known for millionaires. they're known for tough economies where young people are leaving in droves and no one young goes into farming. So clearly, subsidies are going to places that need it, but they clearly aren't doing much to keep these places alive or growing. See this study by Tufts.
How Farm Statistics Mislead
Do subsidies cause overproduction? Are they what cause the devastating dumping of our commodities into third world markets? This is the crux of the debate and the controversy now. so here is a brief history lesson. the booms and busts in agriculture in the nineteenth century, combined with corporate monopolies in grain elevators, railroads and banks were what led to the rise of agrarian populist movements, including the Farmers Alliance, the Populist Party, and fueled the candidacy of Democratic standard bearer William Jennings Bryan. Why did Bryan give his famous speech about crucifying mankind on a cross of gold? Becuase farmers were blaming Eastern bankers on the scarcity of gold that was leading to depressed agriculture prices, which was leading to widespread bankrupcies. So remember, even in the era of NO SUBSIDIES, overproduction has been a problem that has plagued agriculture since farmers are price takers of a commodity. they cannot set their prices, nor pass on their costs for increased fuel, feed, etc. So finally agriculture prices approach zero. farmers can't sell their grain anywhere. the Great Depression is upon us. FDR institutes a system under the New Deal that mirrors many of the proposals of the Populist Party. it creates the Commodity Credit Corporation to stabilize prices, institute a price floor for commodities (akin to a minimum wage for farmers) and reserves to put oversupply into, to be released if prices get too high. In 1921, the Packers and Stockyard Act had been passed (under Harding no less!) to try and break up the 4 big meatpackers who controlled over half the market. and this also greatly helped out farmers/ranchers with depressed cattle prices. Right now, 4 meatpackers control over 80% of the market!! (Tyson, Swift) There is more consolidation in the packing industry now than in 1921!! and USDA continues to ignore the Packers and Stockyard Act. Ron Kind and Earl Blumeneauer completely ignore corporate control of uncompetitive markets. AFter all, the farmers should just manage all the risks themselves! Just like health care consumers with health savings accounts!
Ok, so we institute a price floor and supply management under FDR. who hates this? wall street. big business. it's attacked as socialism and communist (sound familiar to the arguments against Social Security?) it keeps too many "inefficient" farmers afloat when business wants more workers and to industrialize and less farmland and farmers. so the farm programs are attacked for decades, under "free market" ideology, and in 1996, under Freedom to Farm, we get rid of what's left of our supply management and price floors (which had already been attacked under Nixon, Reagan). not surprising, what happens? again, prices collapse. farmers whine, Congress gives them subsidies as a bailout instead of a true price floor (called parity in the New Deal days). This makes agribusiness happy. they will still get cheap corn, soybeans, etc to feed their factory farms. they don't mind taxpayers footing some of the bill. Farm Bureau gets to act like it did something for farmers, when really, they just answer to corporate agribiz. SO it's really off-target for Ken Cook to say Scottie Pippen is what's wrong with the subsidy system when it's really Smithfield and ADM who are the real welfare queens. See this great article by David Moberg, one of the rare labor reporters who also discusses rural issues with the same insight.
Whose Subsidy Is it Anyways?
Subsidies DO do all the bad things progressives think it does: fuel agribusiness, fuel factory farms, dumps on third world. but it does NOT cause overproduction. It's the pricing system we need to look at. If farmers got a fair living wage for their product, there would be NO NEED for subsidies. right now, it's like the govt. letting the "market" decide wages for workers, so let's say WalMart decides to pay a worker $2/hr, which we all know is ridiculously low, so then the govt says, ok, we'll kick in another $2 to try to keep them afloat, even though that $4 wage (half funded by taxpayer subsidies) is STILL inadequate.
Also, another thing to look at w/ regards to "subsidies cause overproduction" myth, is coffee. Coffee is not grown in the First world. there are no subsidies for it. yet there is a surplus on the global market and record low commodity prices for farmers from mexico to Brazil to Ethiopia. In the 60s, an international supply management agreement was put into place to help coffee farmers get a fair price, since the US was so terrified of "Castroism" spreading in Latin America. Reagan (not surprising) destroyed the International Coffee Agreement in the 1980s.
So farmers, because they aren't price setters, keep producing more to make up for the low prices. when prices are high, they also produce more to make money. ever since the 1970s, when Nixon's Ag Sec Earl Butz told farmers to "get big or get out", it's been told to farmers you have to get bigger and bigger to survive. so farmers will try whatever Monsanto sells--BT corn, rGBH for cows, in a desperate attempt to stay alive. USDA and (corporate)university agriculture research tells them biotechnology and free trade is the only way forward!
Here is an awesome flash video that is the single best introduction i have seen for folks to understand the perspective of the farmer and agriculture economics. It is about Canada, and refers to Canadian farmers, but is completely applicable to the US, EU and other countries. It deals the impacts that NAFTA and trade deals have on farmers. basically, agribusiness gets access to cheaper and cheaper commodities, while consumers pay more for finished goods. Farmers now receive less than 20 cents per consumer dollar spent on food. a decade ago, it was 33 cents.
Flash Presentation on Farm Economics
Here is also a very perceptive William Grieder article from a few years back in The Nation which describes how agriculture models what is happening in other sectors of our economy (media, banking, telecomm, energy, etc) with increasing corporate consolidation.
Last Farm Crisis
So now, what is the answer? what does a true "progressive" farm policy look like?
basically 1. institute a price floor 2. institute reserves (farmer owned or humanitarian, akin to a Strategic Petroleum Reserve) 3. address antitrust and monopoly issues.
Geez, sounds like the New Deal proposals huh? i am always amused when people say, but no one farms anymore, we live in a different era and farm programs are "outdated." is the SEC outdated? social security? FDIC? Public Utilities Holding Act? (well they got rid of that, unfortunately).
Farmers (the honest ones) don't want subsidies from taxpayers. they want a fair price from the MARKETPLACE and for ConAgra and Cargill to pay full value so they can meet their costs of production.
More conservation, more organic research/transition money, more nutrition money, more farmers markets, those are all good things, but they will still only make a dent in our broken system and structure. a grain farmer in iowa can't just convert to organic tomorrow, or start growing strawberries, because the entire system, (grain elevators, processors, banks and credit--all highly consolidated and never mentioned by Blumeneauer) is geared toward commodity production. US politicians keep saying we want more fruits and veggies to be grown, but how can we since free trade agreements means fruit growers are now being devastated by cheap imports from China and Mexico and Chile and elsewhere? the only fruit/vegetable growers able to survive are the plantation folks who hire cheap illegal (and exploitable) labor and even they can't compete with Chinese labor at 20 cents an hour.
Here are some stories that discuss a price floor/supply management approach to the Farm Bill:
Excellent Column on Grist
Here are some great backgrounders that truly have a progressive slant on the Farm Bill and give a brief history of our Farm programs:
Food and Water Watch Farm Bill 101
IATP has a series of wonderful booklets on the Farm Bill that you can find here: they address competition and public health.
Institute Agriculture and Trade Policy
For a real long backgrounder but excellent study by Darryl Ray, an economist who actually looks at things from the farmers perspective, not just agribusiness's profits:
Rethinking American Agriculture
I will be blogging on different subjects as the Farm Bill progresses, esp. regarding a Competition Title, Trade/Globalization/Food issues, ethanol, and how we must destroy CAFOs and factory farms. Thank you to all who have read this far. The netroots could be a powerful force in support of family farmers, and i hope it will be.
And since this is a Democratic blog, I must say the number one most emotional issue in Rural America these days ain't gay marriage. It's CAFOs and if Dems could show themselves better than the GOP in taking on corporate agribiz, they would win. Unfortunately, many of our folks are not (see Collin Petersen). I will be talking about how to use these issues politically in 2008 (i.e. did you know Tim Johnson won in 2002 largely because of what is called the "packer ban"? or that Wellstone was the last best Senator we ever had for family farmers and that was how he won?).
Passing Farm 21 though, won't make rural voters anywhere very happy.