Sunday, June 1, 2008"And the thing about my jokes is, they don't hurt anybody. You can take 'em or leave 'em - you can say they're funny or they're terrible or they're good, or whatever, but you can just pass 'em by. But with Congress, every time they make a joke, it's a law! And every time they make a law, it's a joke!" Will RogersI find it hard to believe that it has been so long since my last post. During this time, a lot has happened, including writing several columns about farming issues and bio fuel. I am also working on events for the fall to spread awareness of global poverty in conjunction with the United Nation's Millennium Campaign's
Stand Up.
Finally, after continued delays, the Congress has a poor 2007 US Farm Bill to present to the American people, although farmers with small or family farms will not be happy. This bill, expected to pass through the Senate and House last fall, has been delayed until a few weeks ago.
President Bush threatened to veto the 289 billion dollar farm bill, but it passed with such an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives that the legal debate should end for another 5 years as the Senate votes as we go to press. However, the controversy is far from over.
According to the US Deputy Agriculture Secretary, Chuck Connor, the bill is a missed opportunity to end payments to wealthy farmers. He said, “The president has stated time and time again that he would not accept a farm bill that fails to reform our farm programs, at a time when the farm income and crop prices are setting records.”
The Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, said, “The bill passed today is a farm bill in name only. It does not target help for farmers who really need it, and it increases the cost and size of the government.”
The big controversy is over the subsidies paid to huge corporate farmers. The new bill appears to limit subsidies by stating that business with more than $500,000 adjusted gross income (AGI) will no longer receive support and those people with $750,000 AGI farm income will not receive direct payments. It also states that people with more than one million dollars AGI are not eligible for land stewardship payments unless two-thirds of their income is from farming.
Loopholes in the bill, including waivers, allow for many of the rich to benefit, leaving the struggling farms behind and, for most farmers in Maine, these figures are absurd.
Discouraged with the new bill, Michael Vermette, of The Highlands, a farm in St. Albans, Maine, said, “If you have a $250,000 profit, you have no business getting subsidies.”
The bill increases our public nutrition programs by about one billion dollars each year over the next 10 years, including 7.9 billion dollars for food stamps. Over one billion dollars will go to public schools, supplying fresh fruit and vegetables and the Emergency Food Assistance Program will receive 1.25 billion dollars for food banks. This just may make up for the rise in food costs due to the ethanol program.
The bill reduces ethanol tax credits by six cents per gallon. The large meat packers Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc. favor these reduced credits. They say that the subsidies for crop-based fuels pushes up the price for corn used for feeding their stock. While large corporations have the ability to ride out the inflated grain market, the tax credit hardly compensates for the hardship that many farmers and ranchers deal with every day.
The bill provides 320 million dollars in loan guarantees for construction of commercial sized plants providing bio fuels, 300 million dollars in mandatory funding for payments to support production of bio fuels, and 250 million dollars in grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy and energy efficient systems for agriculture and small rural businesses. Indeed, this reads more like an energy bill than a farm bill.
With a growing concern of the global food shortages, this bill does little to encourage developing countries to produce food for export as it limits the amount of foods coming into America from foreign sources.
A colleague from Thailand said that many farmers in her country stopped growing rice, as they want to convert their farms into producing bio fuel crops - a decision that contributes to the global rice crisis. Remember, there are alternative crops - not used for food - that leave a negative carbon imprint,
which corn does not.We have created a monster through both greed and governments that, although pretending to address environmental issues, put all of us at risk and is extremely detrimental to those struggling to survive in developing countries. Rather than meeting the goals of ending extreme poverty by 2015, the subsidies and food for fuel initiatives have set back progress and caused more death and starvation.
However the bill does provide 84 million dollars in aid over five years for the McGovern-Dole program for school lunches in developing countries. For most students, this is the only meal they have every day,
served only during the school year.
With the farm bill debate behind us, we can do little other than focus on the growing season just beginning in Maine and northern New England. As shipping costs rise and large corporate farms continue to receive subsidies and waivers, make a commitment to buy at least $10-$20 in local foods each time you shop.
Better yet, support your local farms and farmer’s market. By working together, we can help to counteract the damage done by this new bill and support small farming endeavors as well as fair trade. By paying attention to our local and national concerns, we also help farmers throughout the world. We must change the current trend and work to undo the damage of this latest, so-called farm bill.
Keep yourself educated on the global food crisis, energy crisis, fair trade, and the damage caused by growing food for fuel rather than people. Remember, we have all the resources to solve these issues, but we must look at the big picture.
Peace -
Bonnie
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NEIDEEP at 10:11 AM
