(SOME READERS OF A DIARY I POSTED RECENTLY SUGGESTED THAT I POST A BLOG ALONG THE LINES OF "ASK ME ANYTHING. HERE IT IS.)
The latest Farm Bill was passed early last year, but there are a number of reasons to do Farm Bill work now. Unfortunately, few peope know that.
Was that 2014 Farm Bill, in it's farmer portion, with it's emphasis on "Crop Insurance" (or revenue insurance) a good thing for farmers? Many people think it was, but it could be about the worst Farm Bill ever for farmers.
Who are the biggest benefidiaries of the "farmer" portion, of the new "Crop Insurance" provisions? Farmers? You already know Im answering no. Crop Insurance companies? They are big beneficiaries. Really, though, (given my specific wording,) the biggest beneficiaries of the "farmer" portion are surely the exporting companies like Cargill and ADM, and it has nothing (concrete) to do with farm subsidies. They benefit from what's NOT in the Farm Bill.
Is the Nutrition Title the biggest economic section of the Farm Bill? That's a no-brainer, right? Actually no, I argue that the biggest part is what's missing, what's not in the 2014 Farm Bill, and that's probably bigger than the Nutrition Title, especially if farm prices continue going down as they have since the bill was passed.
Is it true that the Farm Bill has had no major provisions for vegetable and fruit farmers, (only for grain etc. farmers)? No, there are major ways that the Farm Bill was designed to help vegetable and fruit farmers. These, however, have been allowed to deteriorate, and anyway, they don't show up in a Farm Bill spending pie chart. Like the biggest provisions for other crops, they're "off books," in the part of the Farm Bill that has essentially been left out of the Farm Bill paradigm in Mainstream Media and in the new Food Movement.
The key to understanding power relations with regard to the Farm Bill is to "follow the money," right? So the place to look is in the spending pie chart, right? Well, actually no, as I've been suggesting, there's a bigger part that's not in the spending pie.
What would an ideal, "Democratic Party" Farm Bill look like? Would it be a "subsidy reform" oriented Farm Bill? Well, no, it would be what it was in history, in the New Deal and in the work of progressive rural Democrats during the 1980s. It would be a Market management Farm Bill that eliminated the need for farm commodity subsidies.
But do the progressive Democrats of today know about that? How about Chellie Pingree? It doesn't appear that the progressive Democrats of today know much about the kind of Farm Bills that were supported by progressive Democrats of the past, such as Jesse Jackson? Those Farm Bills were supported by the Congressioal Black Caucus 100%. That's not true today. When I've heard Chellie Pingree (in 2011 in Oakland at the CFSC conference, and last fall at Growing Power) she did not indicate any knowledge of this ideal Democratic Farm Bill. Very possibly, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren also have little knowledge of it, and it's significance for today. A few years ago, Bill Clinton apologized for his support of the 1996 Farm Bill, in it's impact on Haiti. Unfortunately, his apology was factually incorrect. He apologized for the wrong things, for things that aren't what really hurt Haiti. Hillary may be similarly misinformed.
WHERE I'M COMING FROM
I'm an older guy, and I've been hearing about and working on the Farm Bill for quite a few years. I recall discussions at my grandfather's feet during the 1950s, as I was playing on the floor with my toy tractors. I did my first action (against cheap food) in the 1960s, while still a child. It was a milk dumping.
My father was a long time activist, starting with involvement with the National Farmers Organization. I didn't get involved much until 1985, during the depths of the "1980s farm crisis," a particularly trying phase of this chronic crisis. Out of that I started a campus "Farm Crisis" group at the University of Northern Iowa, (yes, I was back in school,) and created and led a course on "Farm Studies." (Think women's studies or black history.) I Then became a founding board member of the inter-campus group, Students Empowered for Rural Action.
During the 1990s I worked on farm issues for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a member of the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition (and currently a member of the National Family Farm Coalition). I first worked on Farm Credit Organizing and Sustainable Agriculture Education (i.e. bringing farmers to speak in agriculture education classrooms or with farm tours). Later this shifted to Conservation and Commodity policy work, where I created two Farm Bill training manuals, and served as a representative into the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and Natonal Dialogue for Sustainable Agriculture. After that my work for Iowa CCI shifted to a focus educational work on sustainable crop production, sustainable livestock production and alternative marketing. More recently I've served as a representative into the National Family Farm Coalition.
Over the past 8 years I've been doing independent work focused on studying various Farm and Food Movement sectors, especially those of the the new Food Movement. In some major ways, the Food Movement has been almost a miracle to farmers, as it has involved large numbers of urban fighting against "cheap food," "cheap corn," cheap farm prices.
Unfortunately, the Food Movement has also misunderstood the core farmer portion of the Farm Bill, especially Farm Subsidies, so while their goal and rhetoric has been to oppose cheap ingredients for junk food, cheap feeds for CAFOs and export dumping, they've unknowingly supported all three of these. Why? Because of that unknown, bigger part of the Farm Bill, "the Hidden Farm Bill" that doesn't show up at all when you "follow the money" to the Farm Bill spending pie.
IN SIMPLE TERMS, WHAT IS THE FARM BILL?
When the Food Movement teaches about the Farm Bill, it is often described as an arcane, omnibus, hopelessly complicated piece of legislation. In some ways that's true. For example, if you ask: "How, exactly, do they figure the new Crop Insurance subsidies?" the answer is incredibly challenging.
Unfortunately, to view the Farm Bill in this way mystifies the Farm Bill, and mystification takes away our power.
Another problem is that, in the biggest, most important way, we no longer have a Farm Bill.
My view is that, in general terms, the Farm Bill is fairly simple. There are two main parts (Nonspending, nonsubsidy) Market Management is the main part, the main economic reason that the Farm Bill was created. Then, in an ideal Farm Bill, spending is primarily for things that can't be addequately addressed by Market Management.
Market Management is like a Minimum Wage. Minimum wages are not government checks, paid for by taxpayers. They're standards. In the same way, the Farm Bill was designed with Minimum Price Floors, with no subsidies needed. With help from the Congressional Banking committees, Price Floors were set at a "Living Wage" level, (called parity,) from 1942-1952. We had a "Living Wage" Farm Bill, with corporations like Cargill paying $12 per bushel for corn (in today's dollars). There was no "cheap corn" then!
Unlike Minimum Wage and Living Wage, however, top-side and bottom-side supply management is also needed. On the bottom side, to suport minimum Price Floors, the Farm Bill featured supply reductions, as needed, to balance supply and demand from year to year. Reserve Supplies were used on the top side, to protect consumers and other buyers. They were put on the market during times of shortages, (when market prices hit maximum Price Ceiling levels,) to prevent price spikes.
Farm Subsidies are a bit of an anomaly, in my analysis of the Farm Bill. In general, they aren't needed if Market Management is adequate. They were only added some years after Congress lowered Price Floors (i.e. subsidies were started in 1961, while Price Floors began to be lowered, more and more, starting in 1953. Price Floors for most crops were ended in 1996, taking us back, in important respects, to the situation under Herbert Hoover, before the Farm Bill. Farm Subsidies, then, like other Farm Bill spending, have addressed problems that were not being adequately addressed by Market Management, (but only because Congress lowered and elliminated Price Floors.
The Nutrition Title is largely an exceptional case. In part, it was originally designed to fit in with the farmer portion of the farm bill. On the other hand, most of the Market Management related to the Food Subsidies of the Nutrition Title are located outside of the Farm Bill. These include the Minimum Wage, labor laws, full employment policies, and antitrust measures, (which are also part of farm-side) market management. If the Minimum wage were set at a Living Wage level, far fewer Food Subsidies would be needed, (much like we've seen on the farm side, where no subsidies were needed when Price Floors were adequate).
Various spending "Titles" address things not adequately handled by Market Management, and some other things as well. On the other hand, Market Management that eliminates cheap farm prices, if properly structured, can have a very positive impact on organic farming, local food, sustainability, public health, farm credit needs, rural development (and poverty), research concerns, the needs of disadvantaged farmers, issues of trade and food aid, etc.
WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT TO WORK ON THE FARM BILL NOW?
The current Farm Bill is extremely bad for farmers and others, depending upon market conditions, and is much more costly than it needs to be, at the same time. (For example, a return to a Democratic Party kind of Farm Bill could save about $100 billion for other uses.
If market prices go low, (as the few prices [i.e. corn, soybeans and rice] that have been much higher since 2007 are now doing,) and stay low, then we could face a crisis like we did during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s-90s, and after the 1996 Farm Bill (when we had the lowest farm prices in history, year after year).
If this happens, there will be a need for emergency Farm Bills, like we had after the 1996 Farm Bill, when we had 4 emergency Farm Bills (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,) prior to the 2002 Farm Bill (which also included the emergency provisions).
A second reason for doing Farm Bill work now is to train the trainers, (and train the trainers of trainers). The Sustainable Food Movement, in essentially leaving out Market Management from its paradigm, (from it's conferences, food books & films, web sites and short videos,) unknowingly supported agribusiness (cheap junk food ingredients, cheap feeds for CAFOs, export dumping on the global poor, who are mainly in rural areas, mainly farmers or ex-farmers). That happened in the huge amount of work on the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills.
To fix that requires that work be done this year (and last year, it's late!). Before the big Food sector groups (including Public Health, Environmental, Hunger, etc. groups,) begin writing their footnoted reports and preparing other materials for the next Farm Bill they need to be re-trained, so that they understand the huge role of Market Management, (the "Hidden Farm Bill" to them).
ASK ME ANYTHING
This is a little longer t han I had hoped, but I hope it will stimulate questions and comments here. Engaging in this discussion is what we need.