There is an old saying about farmers who were doing well – that they were “living off of the fat of the land.” Now thanks to federal funding, this saying has taken a different turn. Consumers and large corporations are getting fat off of the land, while most farmers barely eke out a living.
Interest in federal farm funding has usually only come from corporate farms and their supporters as well as special interest groups promoting conservation. But this year more groups are showing an interest.
A diverse coalition is seeking to turn the 2007 Farm Bill into a Food Bill. This coalition is made up of groups and individuals representing consumer, anti-hunger, and health issues as well as organic and family farming.
The Farm Bill comes through Congress every five years, and its constituency has changed over the years. The Farm Bill was first developed during the Depression to help bolster the income of small, family farms. In the last few Farm Bills, the majority of the farm funding went to large, corporate farms to overproduce ingredients for unhealthy food in ways that harm consumers, communities and the environment.
While 39 percent of all U.S. farmers and ranchers received subsidies in the last Farm Bill, very little went to fruit and vegetable farmers. Washington state is the nation’s third-largest fruit and vegetable producer, but only 20 percent of our farmers received federal help.
Between 1985 and 2000 the real price of fruits and vegetables increased by 40 percent, while the price of soft drinks and sugary and high-fat foods declined by 20 percent, thanks to massive federal subsidies for corn and soybean producers. Corn and soy are in nearly all processed foods and drinks.
While most farmers producing healthy food were left out of the annual $19 billion farm subsidies, much of this money went to our waistlines. Obesity has been increasing at alarming rates across the country.
In Washington state, obesity more than doubled in the last 10 years, from 9 percent to 21 percent. Obesity in children has also been increasing at a similar rate. Due in part to funding the wrong kinds of food, we are paying more than $100 billion a year in obesity-related medical costs in the U.S.
Because federal funding supports ever-larger farms, we are also losing rural communities. It is a tragic irony that so many rural farming communities in the U.S. heartland have shrunk to the point where they can no longer support a grocery store. Also, the U.S. counties with the highest percent of food stamp recipients are places where real food once grew. Now most of the plains and Midwest states produce only raw materials for industrial food processing, cattle feed and bio-fuel, while many rural people go hungry.
And lastly, because farm subsidies are tied to the amount of crops produced, its recipients are encouraged to overproduce. So they mine topsoil, apply millions of pounds of pesticides, and use vast amounts of water and fossil fuels.
Farmers using more environmentally benign production methods receive little to no assistance for their more costly production methods. Organic farmers have to pay extra to market their goods as organic.
Not all of the money from the Farm Bill goes to make us fat, depopulate our countryside or foul our land. There is a little funding to develop connections between healthy food and communities. One example is Community Food Project grants, which have enabled eight communities in Washington to develop solutions to their food and agriculture problems.
But with only $5 million available annually, there is not enough to meet the needs. The Food Bill coalition wants to see these types of programs grow while weeding out reckless and “waistful” corporate welfare.
Current Farm Bill drafts from Congress largely maintain the status quo. However, it is not too late to make a difference. Citizens need to call their congressional representatives to support research, education and financial assistance for farmers markets, fresh produce in schools, organic and sustainable agriculture, small farms and ranches, local food production, rural micro-enterprise and other worthy programs.
Steven Garrett of Tacoma is a food systems researcher, geographer and nutritionist.
learn more
Check out these Web sites: www.sustainableagriculturecoalition.org and www.foodsecurity.org.
