A week ago, I posted a diary that fell like a dud warning people not to support the Kind-Flake "reform" amendment to the Farm Bill and that while the House Farm Bill was bad, the so-called "Fairness" Amendment proposed by Kind-Flake would have completely deregulated and privatized our farm programs, devastating both farmers here and abroad.
Your Food Bill #3: Big Business Coopts the Left on Farm Bill
I discussed how big business and the likes of Club for Growth had co-opted progressive groups like Oxfam and ONE campaign to all be on the same side during the Farm Bill.
Today, I discover that these same groups will be hosting the "Global Poverty" session at YearlyKos. I had written in my first diary on this subject about how these "reformers" were targeting the progressive netroots. It is with deep disappointment that I see that these groups will be the ones to speak on behalf of the poor and the farmers around the world at YearlyKos. I hope Kossacks will read what I have to say, what the farmers i work with have to say, and treat skeptically the claims of who really speaks on behalf of the poor.
Here is the post about the YearlyKos Global Poverty panel.
Netroots Helping to Turn Pages of History
We’ve always known that ending poverty would be no small feat and we’ve been betting that a couple of strategic decisions - like bipartisanship and leveraging technology - will help us turn the pages of history a little faster. Later this week, a few of us from ONE, Weldon Kennedy, John Ryan, Aaron Banks, our CEO Susan McCue and I, will head to Chicago for YearlyKos, the annual superbowl for the progressive netroots.
At the conference, Susan, Bread for the World’s CEO David Beckmann, Rwandan turned U.S. citizen and AIDS lobbyist Anathalie Sugira and FireDogLake blogger Christina Siun O’Connell will speak on a global poverty panel (Aug 4, 9:15am) to urge the 2,000 new media-savvy attendees to become leaders of the cause.
We’ll keep you posted as the event draws closer.
Now of course I am thrilled that they are addressing global poverty. And much of the ONE Campaign's agenda and the work of Bread for the World is commendable in ending AIDS, hunger and poverty. I am a longtime diehard U2 fan and a Christian who has always been aligned with mainline denominations. So it pains me to have to criticize them. I do not question their intentions: i think we all want to end global poverty, we are all concerned about the plight of Third World farmers. We simply have very different views on the causes of the problem and the solutions, particularly when it comes to trade, subsidies and the Farm Bill. While I have nothing but contempt for the agenda of the Club for Growth, I have nothing but respect for what ONE and Bread for the World are trying to do. I am just deeply sad that they seem to be so misguided. And i am sad that it is they who will be speaking at such an event at YearlyKos, and not the heroic farmers I know and work with around the world.
I am sure that the panel will address issues like AIDS, the Milleneum Development goal, but as part of their global poverty platform, I am sure they will mention farm subsidies, and how our subsidies are causing overproduction which harms third world farmers. I addressed why i thought this line of thinking was flawed in previous diaries.
Oxfam, ONE and Bread for the World all advocated strongly last week that Congress should pass the Kind-Flake "Fairness" Amendment to reduce commodity subsidies to fund nutrition, conservation and other good sounding things. The Amendment failed miserably.
In that effort, the progressives were joined with the Cato Institute, Club for Growth and Business Roundtable.
Here was ONE's email to me today:
Dear ONE Member,
On Friday afternoon, the world's poorest people lost when the House of Representatives passed a version of the Farm Bill that contained the first step towards reform, but didn't go nearly as far as it should have and didn't include the Fairness Amendment, which we advocated for.
Yet, after seeing your letters to the editor in newspapers around the country and hearing the media—from the Washington Post to the Chillicothe Gazette—largely agree with our message of reform for the good of small farmers around the world, I am given a strong feeling of hope. I can not sum up this feeling any more eloquently than one ONE member who shared his or her thoughts anonymously on the ONE Blog:
Yes, it's now clear the cynical defenders of the status quo that have been preparing a well oiled, massively funded lobbying machine for years will get most of what they want. But not all. Because this year, the billions who live or die by the decisions made in Washington finally found a voice to echo for them down the corridors of American power. They found my voice. They found your voice. The[y] found our voice.
I don't doubt the ONE member had good motivations for wanting to pass the Fairness Amendment and thought she was helping small farmers here and in Africa.
But look at this other email, from the CLUB FOR GROWTH making the very same "FAIRNESS AMENDMENT" a KEY VOTE to be put on their obnoxious scorecards.
Club for Growth Fairness Amendment
While not perfect, this substitute amendment moves in the right direction, compared to the disastrous Farm Bill proposal coming out of the Agriculture Committee, which spends more tax dollars, creates more dependency on the government, and includes protectionist policies that stall the expansion of freer trade with the rest of the world.
Now given that it's Club for Growth, they have no pretense about caring for the poor. To them, it's about expanding "free trade." Gutting subsidies is what big business wants so it can advance more free trade.
Never mind also that agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Conagra and Cargill and Smithfield and ADM also stayed out of the Fairness Amdt fight--they don't care either way. either they get cheap commodities due to letting the "market" set the price, or they get taxpayers to make up for the low prices thru subsidies. either way, they don't lose. That is what the ONE campaign, Oxfam, and Bread for the World fail to understand. They may be pissing Farm Bureau off, but they're making ADM and Tyson very happy. And given that the ONE campaign has hired Bill Frist aides and other GOP aides, are they really going to stick their necks out and go against big business or Agribusiness?
Rev. David Beckman doesn't even pretend to be bothered by being in bed with Club for Growth. I think and expect Kossacks to know better!
Left-Right Coalition for Farm Bill "reform"
YOUNG: It's not often you see the Club for Growth teamed up with groups like Bread for The World. But Reverend David Beckman says his anti-hunger group finds common ground with conservatives who think that U.S. crop subsidies hurt farmers in developing countries. Beckman says cheap American grain and cotton flood global markets.
I have already documented extensively in my first diary about the fallacy of this thinking. And the fact that to address dumping and overproduction, you need a supply management system, a fair price floor and stop with the free trade madness of pitting farmers around the world in a race to the bottom.
Since there will not be too many farmers voices represented at YearlyKos, i leave it to a farmer to explain:
Interview with a Progressive Missouri Farmer
"There is going to be a move to get rid of subsidies, or at least cut subsidies, and of course our proposal says if you cut subsidies, which are now 60% of income, and you do not replace them with something that enables farmers to get a fair price from the marketplace, you are going to be destroying the infrastructure of the family farm system of agriculture in this country. I think policy makers understand that."
And this is the real pity, that the voices of those that the ONE folks (and the netroots) claim to represent will not be present at the forum, though the food panel does feature the excellent Tom Philpott of Grist and OrangeClouds. I said in my first diary how there is a distinct social/cultural/class divide between the activist farmers I work with and the netroots. These farmers, some of whom have been protesting since the 1970s, are oftentimes without internet access. they work sunup to sundown. they have no clue what a blog is. They're frustrated by both the Farm Bureau as it continually sells out the American farmer. they hate agribusiness for ruining their lives by not paying them a fair price and for controlling all the markets. Now the folks who should be on their side, are also going against their interests and in bed with the very people who are destroying family farmers. It's a very frustrating situation.
A lot of times, i hear from the farmers "How do we get our voices heard? how do we let the people and consumers know what is happening to farmers, rural America and our food supply?" the farmers i work with don't have deep pockets at all. they are in debt by the hundreds of thousands. they don't have lobbyists in DC. they hear themselves demonized as millionaire farmers hogging government welfare subsidies, when most of them would prefer NOT to get subsidies and instead get their income from the marketplace by having ConAgra and ADM and Smithfield pay a fair price for their commodity. They don't get invited to Netroots panels, while rock-star funded activists in bed with Cato and Club for Growth are.
Here is where a lot of them were: at the US Social Forum, a truly progressive, grassroots forum where the subject of food sovereignty for all farmers around the world was discussed and debated extensively. I hope folks keep that in mind that even within the progressive movement, you can have an "establishment" (i.e. better funded folks like SEIU, People for American Way and ONE Campaign vs family farm groups bereft of funding and lobbyists).
US Social Forum Panel
Here is what these progressive farmers vision of food sovereignty entails. i think it is in accordance with many of the values of most Kossacks.
Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances.
The global expansion of transnational agribusiness, promoted by governments and neoliberal free trade agreements, increasingly denies communities around the world their rights by undermining family farms that have traditionally satisfied communities’ food needs. U.S. agriculture and trade polices in large part shape and dictate these international policies. Thus, the U.S. Farm Bill and trade agreements like NAFTA have a dramatic impact on what and whether people eat, the health of the environment and rural communities, and the very existence of family farmers and peasants both in the U.S. and around the globe. As U.S. based organizations and members of the U.S. Food Sovereignty and Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaigns, we are convinced that bringing a global perspective on food and small producer issues to U.S. communities is critical to discussions about U.S. farm and trade policies. "Farm Policy is Foreign Policy!"
here is the ONE Campaign's approach to trade and poverty for developing countries, which says farmers need to be a part of globalization:
ONE and Trade Justice
"A fair trade system would give people in poor countries the chance to earn their way out of poverty by participating in the world economy."
"participating in the world economy??" you mean globalization will help save them? The farmers i know fundamentally disagree. they do not want to export. they want to be self-sufficient and sustain their own people. they don't want to produce biofuels for the rich world's consumption (sugar, palm oil). African cotton farmers, i am sure they would prefer to grow something else if they didn't need all that foreign exchange money. At the very least, they want a fair price.
And whenever you see the phrase "trade-distorting subsidies" that means a pro-free trade agenda.
here again is ONE:
Reform trade-distorting agricultural subsidies that play a role in depressing prices and distorting markets for poor farmers. These efforts should be taken through the U.S. Farm Bill in a manner that does not negatively impact small farmers in the U.S.
Now here is Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers (lovely people right?) arguing against the same "trade distorting" subsidies, only they want it to lead to more WTO trade deals, not so much about poor farmers.
Corporate America Letter on Farm Bill reform
As the Congress begins its consideration of a new farm bill, it has a unique opportunity to enact longneeded reforms that will achieve several critically important domestic and international objectives: (1) reduce excessive subsidies, (2) eliminate substantial market distortions, and (3) protect basic U.S. farm policies from WTO attacks. Congress should move forward with a reform-based farm bill that would reduce U.S. farm subsidies in a manner leading toward our WTO goals.
I cannot guess the motives or why the faith community, along with Oxfam have allowed themselves to be coopted like this. It may be because Oxfam is receiving millions in funding by the Hewlett Foundation to specifically lobby on the Farm Bill and their policies are thus, being coopted by others with an agenda. Oxfam in diff. countries does heroic work. They even fund farmers around the world. but for some reason, their policies now stink. And it's unfortunate that YearlyKos will be giving them yet another platform, with no dissenting voices, or anyone truly representing either family farmers here or abroad. I trust and hope Kossacks will be more discerning.
So finally, to see a real family farmer's voice, someone who has worked on these issues for decades, I point you to this great editorial that I will copy in full since the link is so wonky and hard to read. I believe it is these voices the netroots should heed the most.
Iowa OpEd Critique
Churches should work toward a just farm bill
Bread for the World is involving area churches in the farm bill. Unfortunately, the group builds a false context for the debate, claiming, for example, that the farm bill today is the same as 60 years ago, though the need for it has completely changed. This is doubly inaccurate.
Early farm programs were continually degraded starting in 1952, and then ended in 1996. Churches should study "Crisis by Design" and the "Fair Farm Bill" series, available online at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, on this. The purpose of the commodity title, to manage supply and price, which do not respond to supply and demand, has not changed. The University of Tennessee’s APAC site explains these issues.
Bread for the World claims that a few major commodities have been singled out for payment benefits. In truth, they were singled out for low market prices, and only partially compensated with subsidies, starting in 1973. To do the same for fruits and vegetables is to give Del Monte the kind massive de facto subsidies Cargill, ADM and Smithfield have reaped.
Bread for the World also is wrong that subsidies cause the dumping of commodities at below cost worldwide. Reducing and then ending both the loan rate for nonrecourse loans and supply management, 1952-1996, has caused that.
What’s confusing is that these price-lowering measures are considered free trade and are legal under WTO (World Trade Organization), even though, theoretically, dumping is illegal.
On the other hand, farm subsidies, which have never been mechanisms for lowering market prices, are sometimes, in some amounts, prohibited. These are compromises that U.S. negotiators won for multinational corporations in trade negotiations.
Commodity title price and supply management measures (or the lack thereof) represent the core of the farm bill. For decades, U.S. policy has been to export major commodities at below our cost of production. Subsidies partially compensate it. Corporate buyers are subsidized with below-cost prices on every bushel and pound.
Corporate profiteers slickly spin it as "efficient," "competitive," "free market."
This is the key question for the presidential and other federal candidates: Do you favor selling our farm products at below our cost, exporting at a loss, in order to destroy farmers around the world and subsidize grain buyers, including multinational corporations and foreign countries that buy our grain?
We should restore supply and price measures as a way to eliminate subsidies.
Any farm bill proposal calling for switching subsidy money out of the commodity title (ie. to rural development, food aid, sustainable agriculture and conservation) without these other measures is built on a foundation of injustice and contradiction.
Online, churches should read African American farmers’ statement, "Ensure that Farmers have Fair Living Wage."
They should support the National Family Farm Coalition, its farm bill and its work with Via Campesina, the largest network of peasant organizations in the world. In Iowa, they should work with the farmers of NFFC member Iowa CCI. Distributive justice requires more than pharaoh’s bread crumbs for the world.
My family has raised these issues for decades. We await informed regional church support.
Brad Wilson is a former farm policy specialist for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI). He is a writer and manages his family farm
in Springville.