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THE 2007 FARM BILL
As spring rolls northward across America, the nation's three
million farmers tug at their baseball caps, fire up their tractors,
and begin to plant. Farmers decide which crops to plant based on
a complex set of factors and pure intuition, but one of the most
powerful influences is the agriculture policy of the federal govern
ment. The Farm Bill comes up for renewal only once every five
years, including 2007.
This year's Farm Bill will be a massive piece of legislation;
the 2002 Farm Bill ran to 421 pages and 10 titles. For the next
five years, the Farm Bill will wield a powerful influence on what
Americans eat, how many family farmers go bankrupt, how well we
conserve our farmland, and even how we fuel our cars. The bill's
influence reaches around the world: stoked by massive government
subsidies, the American agriculture industry smothers the farming
industries of poor countries.
As the bill plows through the
halls of Congress this year, an
array of progressive groups,
free-trade advocates, and cor
porate lobbyists will wrestle
for the soul of American agri
culture for years to come.
FARMING THE
MONEY FIELDS
American farm policy was
originally intended to support
family farms. But over the
years, farms have consolidat
ed into larger units. Between
1948 and 2002, the number
of American farms fell from
5.8 million to 2.1 million
(according to www.stateline.
org); these farms now produce
2.6 times as much food as
in 1948. Although farmers
produce more food per acre,
their share of the American
food dollar has fallen, from 37
cents in 1954 to 19 cents in
2000, says www.foodfirst.org.
The bi^ winners from ag
ricultural reconstruction have
been food processors and the
giant trading companies, such
as Archer Daniels Midland.
Federal farm subsidies have
encouraged the consolida
tion trend, with 74 percent
of subsidies now going to 10
percent of farmers and two-thirds of farms receiving no payments
at all, according to a September, 2006 article in The Economist.
Agriculture Department statistics show that as subsidies and mar
ket forces relentlessly drive prices ever lower, most family farmers
are now forced to hold an off-farm job to make ends meet.
A CORN-FED COUNTRY
Before 1972, farm policy held prices up by restraining produc
tion. The federal government would pay farmers to hold land out of
cultivation, which had environmental benefits as well. If the na
tion's farmers still produced too much food, which they frequently
did, the government would buy up the surplus and distribute it
to low-income families and as foreign aid. The aid helped many
hungry families around the world, but sometimes had the perverse
effect of driving prices down in the recipient countries, and so dis
couraging local farmers from growing their own food.
The farm strategy was reversed in 1972 by President Nixon's
agricultural secretary, Earl Butz. Instead of holding back produc
tion, farmers would now be paid direct subsidies and encouraged
to grow as much as possible. The subsidies go to only five crops:
corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and wheat. As America's farmers began
to flood the market with subsidized crops, food scientists searched
for something, anything, to do with the surplus production. One
fateful answer to this dilemma was high-fructose com syrup, which
now appears in practically all your canned goods and processed
foods (unless you buy organic). The American obesity epidemic has
been propelled by, among other factors, a flood of high-fructose
com syrup. Vegetables, organic foods and other nutritious foods
are not subsidized, so that junk food is cheaper than nutritious
food. In this distorted market, only yuppies and hippies feel they
can afford to eat a healthy diet.
THE GLOBAL POLITICS OF FOOD
Growing up, I was taught to be proud that "American farmers
feed the world." It is ironic and disturbing to learn that American
farmers may now be smothering other countries' ability to feed
themselves. American farmers can sell corn at less than the cost of
production because subsidies make up the difference. Farmers in
poor countries, without subsidies, cannot compete at these prices
even with lower labor costs.
In Mexico, corn is the primary crop of millions of poor farmers,
the most vulnerable segment of society. Their meager livelihoods
were dependent on tariffs protecting Mexican corn. These protec
tive tariffs have been gradually lowered each year by NAFTA, ex
posing Mexican farmers to direct competition from the subsidized
corn growers of the American
grain belt. Oxfam America
argues that the resulting eco
nomic devastation has been
the single laigest factor pro
pelling the wave of Mexican
immigrants into the United
States.
A similar situation ex
ists for cotton. The west
African country of Mali, one
of the poorest nations in
the world, can produce cot
ton more cheaply than the
United States can. One third
of Mali's population is depen
dent on the cotton industry.
But because farm subsidies
allow American cotton to be
sold well below its cost of
production, Malian cotton is
not competitive on the world
market. The federal govern
ment pays $3.4 billion in cot
ton subsidies each year, more
than all of our aid to Africa,
according to Oxfam.
In 2004, the World Trade
Organization (WTO) ruled
that American cotton sub
sides were in violation of our
obligations under free-trade
agreements. (Yes, the WTO
does get it right sometimes!)
Since that time, the cotton
subsidies have continued, in
defiance of the WTO. However,
major corporate players such
as Archer Daniels Midland are
beginning to accept that eventually, if they want to continue reap
ing the benefits of open markets elsewhere, American agriculture
must bite the bullet. Expect a major catfight over phasing out
subsidies in the Farm Bill debate, with the probable outcome of
"Not yet."
THE PROGRESSIVE ALTERNATIVE
A cluster of anti-hunger and environmental groups, including
Bread for the World, the One Campaign, the American Farmland
Trust, and Oxfam, has been developing proposals for the Farm Bill.
These groups face a moral conundrum: agricultural subsidies have a
devastating effect on farmers in poor countries, but removing the
subsidies would devastate our own rural communities.
At this point, the progressive agricultural agenda is twofold.
First, we should return to a policy more like the New Deal policies
of price supports via setting farmland out of production and gov
ernment purchases of commodities. This would avoid flooding the
world market with artificially cheap food. Second, the farm budget
should be redirected to support communities, not commodities.
One way of doing this is to offer "green payments" for land conser
vation, wildlife preservation and carbon sequestration.
To learn more or to get involved in the progressive campaign
for farm reform, visit the websites of the organizations mentioned
above.
Dan Everett
Dan Everett teaches computer science at UGA and is active in the Green Party.
He can be reached at drdan@uga.edu. This article was reprinted from "The
Radish,” the bimonthly newsletter of the Daily Groceries Co-op in Athens. To
learn more about Daily, visit www.dailygroceries.org.
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