Irony of Bush veto on Farm Bill

In a rapid rebuke of President Bush’s efforts for fiscal restraint, the House voted to override his veto today of a $307 billion farm bill and the Senate was poised to follow suit Thursday.

Only hours before the House’s 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was an unnecessary gift to midland farmers at the expense of taxpayers and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high.

The veto was the 10th of Bush’s presidency. Congress so far has overridden him once, on a water projects bill. (In quick vote, House overrides Bush veto of farm bill, SF Chronicle)

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Empty Shelves at the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington DC. CAFB has seen a 37-percent increase over last year in the demand for the ‘Hungar Lifeline,’ an emergency food assistance program. At the same time the bank is facing a 25-percent decrease in produce donated during the 3rd quarter of this year versus 2005. 

“On behalf of the 25 million Americans that we serve, I commend the House of Representatives for its leadership in taking one more step to enact a Farm Bill that will help hungry Americans,” said Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive officer of America’s Second Harvest—The Nation’s Food Bank Network. “There is nothing more important right now to low-income Americans and the nation’s food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens than bringing a strong nutrition title in a new Farm Bill to every community nationwide.”

In a recent survey of 180 food banks, respondents reported an increase of 15-20 percent on average in the number of people turning to their food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens for help. More than 90 percent of respondents reported that increasing food and fuel prices are primary driving forces in increasing demands. Further, more than 80 percent of food bank respondents reported that they are unable to adequately meet the needs of increased demands for emergency food assistance without reducing the amount of food available to agencies or clients or cutting back operations. ( America’s Second Harvest Applauds House Override Of President’s Veto)

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Taken from the Community Food Security Coalition listserve on May 21, 2008

The Irony of a Bush Farm Bill Veto:

Katherine Ozer – National Family Farm Coalition

 President Bush’s veto of the 2008 Farm Bill further adds to the bewildering debate around it, confusing advocates for progressive policies that support sustainable family farmers instead of factory farms and corporate agribusiness.  He has been quoted as saying “…lawmakers were not doing enough to limit payments to wealthy landowners, many of whom don’t farm”.  This message comes from an Administration that has championed payments and programs benefiting not only wealthy landowners but corporate agribusiness, exporters, the livestock industry, food processors, and grain traders at every step.

 We agree that loopholes for those who don’t farm – whether land investors or McMansion developers – should be closed, but limiting which farms can participate in farm and conservation programs due to off-farm income is not the answer. The Bush Administration is virtually silent on the real bad actors contributing to our broken industrial food system; they get a free pass. Why don’t they care that owners of mega-dairy and -livestock operations can tap up to $300,000 in taxpayer subsidies to clean up their pollution through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)? Or that Bush’s “Justice Department” appears poised to approve the pending JBS-Brazil acquisition of two of the top five beef packing companies in the U.S. that will make a Brazilian company the largest beef packer in the U.S. and the world, which threatens the livelihoods of virtually all America’s ranchers.

 The Bush Administration, while touting an anti-subsidy line for wealthy farmers, has irresponsibly and continually ignored what would be responsible measures to stabilize commodity prices for farmers:  an effective government policy that includes a strategic food reserve to help stabilize volatile food prices for consumers, a price floor reflecting the true costs of production for farmers, and meaningful conservation and land stewardship programs.  Without policies that ensure farmers receive a fair market price – not just in times of crisis or through misguided demand-driven policies like ethanol production – taxpayer-supported payments or subsidies become essential to cushion low prices and to avert widespread foreclosures and rural community shutdowns.  For these reasons the National Family Farm Coalition does not support the commodity title of this farm bill.

 The Administration has opposed the decade-long efforts of Senator Grassley and others supporting real structural market reforms and to restore competition in livestock markets to provide independent family livestock operators fair access to their markets.  This competition is being blocked by increasing market concentration with four companies controlling 80 per cent of the meat slaughtered in the U.S.

 Responding to questions on the rise of global food prices during an April 29 White House press conference, President Bush stated that we should “…buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also…to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting…” This is the correct position on international food aid and one with which we agree yet it is ironic that the Bush Administration’s continued support for free trade and the WTO has contributed to the crisis by dismantling the domestic food production in many of these countries.  On May 2, President Bush advocated lifting restrictions on exports and concluding the Doha round of the WTO to help solve the world’s food crisis.  He further stressed the cultivation of genetically engineered crops under the false pretense that they resist extreme weather conditions and increase yields.

 This message in the midst of the farm bill negotiations helps explain the Administration’s position on the bill:  they truly care more about completing the Doha round than enacting sensible domestic farm policy.  It is ironic that the direct farm payments most criticized by the San Francisco Chronicle, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post are the payments explicitly allowed under the World Trade Organization (WTO), i.e., payments that are decoupled and delinked from production.

It has never been more critical to the survival of millions around the world that we define the problem correctly and pursue a solution that builds food sovereignty.  While higher prices for grain, seed, and fertilizer fueled by speculative trading practices contribute to escalating food prices, the significant role of diesel fuel prices in both the farm production and distribution systems must be addressed at domestic and global levels.  The excessive corporate profiteering of oil and grain companies must be exposed and curtailed.

We need to re-establish programs and policies that authorize farmer and country control over agricultural production systems, including the right to limit low-cost imports that destabilize local, agrarian-based economies.  This is an essential step to stabilizing the farm and food economy globally. It must start with the people and the communities on the ground – not with corporate agribusiness, misguided free trade agreements, oil companies, and GE-seed representatives

 

What do you think?  Should the Farm Bill be vetoed or not?  Below I’ve listed a couple of websites that might help you figure out what you think…

Click here to read to presidential Farm Bill veto message.

Other articles about the Farm Bill

Siding with the Bushies? from Grist

Ag Observatory Farm Bill website

Food Banks Urge Passage Of Historic Farm Bill To Help Hungry Americans

 

Congress (almost) passes a farm bill; Bush vows to veto

As you probably know, a House-Senate committee agreed on a final version of the Farm Bill on May 8. Next week it goes to the full House and Senate, and after that to the president’s desk — and the USDA secretary has already vowed a veto. A debate is brewing in our circles about whether the sustainable-ag/food-justice should support the veto, or push for an override.

Read this great article I found on the community food security listserve

How should sustainable-food advocates respond to the latest farm bill proposal?

 

Found on Grist

Posted by Tom Philpott at 4:59 PM on 08 May 2008

For months now, the 2007 farm bill has been in limbo, tied up in reconciliation negotiations between the House and the Senate.

On Thursday, the bicameral Farm Bill Conference Report agreed on a final proposal. The latest version will go to the larger House and Senate next week for approval; if all goes well, it will finally go to President Bush’s desk.

But since this wouldn’t be the 2007 farm bill without a final dose of drama, negotiations seem far from over. “The President will veto this bill,” USDA chair Ed Schafer bluntly declared in a Thursday afternoon communique.

The sticking point is subsidy reform, or lack thereof. “This legislation lacks meaningful farm program reform and expands the size and scope of government,” Schafer stated.

Many sustainable-ag and rural advocates would cheer a Bush veto. On the Center for Rural Affairs blog, Dan Owens recently laid out their case:

We will have the opportunity to fight again, and … I have real hope that we can do better, that we can win more, that we can get a farm bill that is better than the one about to pass Congress. And we can try again in 2009. But if the bill becomes law, we will have to wait until 2013.

Others, however, disagree. They argue that the bill contains valuable provisions that need to be passed — small victories that will be surrendered if farm policy reverts to the 2002 farm bill.

Below I’ll try to sketch out what this latest version contains. I’ll also be trying to get movers and shakers in the sustainable-ag/food-justice world to give their perspectives.

The most controversial bit in this farm bill is the commodity title — the program through which the government ostensibly tries to smooth out the financial uncertainty of farming. The title has evolved over the years into a funnel that delivers the great bulk of the title’s cash to the largest farms, doing little to balance out swings in supply and demand.

Bush wants to cut the subsidies because they have become a sticking point in global trade deals, and presumably because of Iraq-related budgetary concerns. Most sustainable-ag advocates would like to see them replaced with more equitable and effective ways of smoothing out supply and demand troubles — ones that benefit farmers and consumers, not the few agro-industrial corporations that dominate our food system.

This Associated Press piece digs into the details of the current commodity title, and how the limits it places on subsidies fall short of what critics including the Bush administration had wanted. In an emailed communique (Word doc), the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition summarized the title like this:

Comprehensive payment limitation reform was not included in the bill.  … the net result is no change in the highly skewed status quo on payment limits for direct and counter-cyclical payments.

The latest version also includes a controversial “permanent assistance fund” worth $3.8 billion. A couple of months ago on Gristmill, Britt Lundgren and Jason Funk of Environmental Defense Fund called this provision a “a disaster for taxpayers, most farmers, and the environment.” They say it encourages farmers to cultivate disaster-prone land. Bush, too, has sharply criticized this provision.

If the commodity title and the disaster fund are considered a disappointment, other provisions — ones that, unhappily, involve far less money — have drawn support.

The Community Food Security Coalition reported in a Thursday email that the new version contains funding for Community Food Projects — vitally important programs designed to bring fresh, healthy food to places that now have little access. Writes acting policy director Steph Larsen:

The great news is that Community Food Projects (CFP) is in the final language, and we have $5 million in annual mandatory funding for the next 10 years! As you may recall, this year we started out with no money due to new congressional budget rules that cuts the funding for small programs. New language for CFP should fix this problem so that for the next Farm Bill, CFP will be able to build on the $5 million instead of starting from scratch with zero dollars. And with mandatory funding, we will not have to fight for these dollars every year.

Larsen added the bill also allows public schools to favor local farms in bids for school food. “This change will eliminate [a major] barrier for schools to support local agriculture and will make Farm to School programs easier to establish.”

(Before anyone gets too excited, the bill does not add any funding to the miserly National School Lunch Program budget. Now schools can theoretically buy local; but they still have $.70-$1.00 to spend per day on ingredients for each kid’s lunch.)

The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition also points to several victories, especially with regard to the Conservation Title. This title tries to balance the produce-as-much-as-possible thrust of the Commodity Title by giving farmers incentives to manage their land in ecologically sound ways.

The SAC declared the Conservation Title in the current version an overall “win,” since it delivers “$4 billion net increase in mandatory spending, combined with $2.5 billion in savings from Conservation Reserve Program, for total new funding of $6.5 billion, and a continued rebalancing toward working lands conservation.”

SAC also points to several “wins” in boosting funding for organic agriculture, including a “nearly five-fold increase to help cover the costs of organic certification,” and a “a seven-fold increase” in funding for organic farming research and extension.” It should be noted, though, these outlays amount to sums in the tens of millions over five years, while the cash devoted to industrial-scale farming runs to billions every year.

As for my beloved “packer ban,” which would have forbidden meat packers like Tyson and Smithfield from owning livestock — well, that didn’t survive negotiations.

So, should the sustainable-ag community support a presidential veto — or fight for a Congressional override?

Check out the comments of the Grist article, there’s some great ones!

 

More general farm bill links…

IATP Ag Observatory

My article about the farm bill