Is anyone following the farm bill that’s limping through Congress? We’re not and we doubt that you are, either. In our opinion, the farm bill is pretty much a way to pass buckets of cash on to giant farms that are lucky enough to have powerful friends in Washington.
In spite of all that, some conversations we’re having with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis are changing our thinking on the farm bill. They recently called us about a project they call “Beyond the Farm Bill.”
Basically, they are saying that just because the current farm bill is a bust as far as most of us go, it doesn’t have to be that way. If we back off and talk about a farm and food bill, for example, we in organized labor all of a sudden have lots to talk about.
For example, we all know that farm workers, packing plant workers, and food service workers are among the lowest paid in our entire economy. Many of them have dangerous jobs and no one to look out for them. What does our current farm bill have to say about these vital workers in our food system?
Nothing.
Well, almost nothing. The farm bill still provides food stamps, but the drumbeat to cut those benefits is louder than ever this year. Either way, we all know that workers deserve wages and dignity, not handouts.
No wonder we haven’t been impressed.
But what if a new farm and food bill had provisions for minimum wages, worker safety, and organizing rights for all food system workers in it? Now that would get our attention and support. Yours, too, I’m sure.
We’ve also talked with IATP about the issue of political access. Massive corporate lobbying drives our farm bill just like it does everything else in Washington these days. IATP would like to see Citizens United repealed so the rest of us could have our say on food issues that affect us all. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Something else we discussed was how competition is being erased in our food system just like it is everywhere else in our economy. A handful of global corporations with names like Cargill, ConAgra, Smithfield, Tyson, and Wal-Mart tightly control food processing and food retailing. IATP would like to see restoring competition taken seriously in a farm and food bill. So would we.
We want our food to be safe, affordable, and produced by brothers and sisters who are treated with dignity.
Is that asking too much of our food system? We hope not. The food system provides a new and powerful way for us to reestablish organized labor’s position in our economy.
We want to end by asking a favor of all our brothers and sisters in the labor movement. Let us know what you would like to see in a farm and food bill. Then let’s talk about how we can use our muscle and organizing skills to, as IATP says, move “beyond the farm bill.”
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Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture on Flickr via Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)