Cornerstone Festival- Part 4

The last seminar I was able to attend did an excellent job of explaining the Farm Bill. Annie Gill-Bloyer led the seminar and is the ONE Campaign Faith Outreach Organizer for Bread for the World, a nationwide Christian movement that seeks justice for the world's hungry people by lobbying our nation's decision makers.

Every five years the government looks at the Farm Bill. They will look at it this year and then it will not be discussed again until five years from now. This is a policy that got started in 1931 in response to the Great Depression. 25% of the country were farmers, so they started subsidies, which was meant to be a temporary solution for an emergency situation. Subsidies are given for about two dozen crops, but the five main ones given are for corn, cotton, wheat, rice and soybeans. 16 billion dollars are given to farmers from the government with 2% of the population farmers today and two thirds of those farmers get no money from the government at all. 10% of farmers get the largest monies. There is a cap of $360 000 that one can get from the government.

Due to these circumstances, young farmers cannot get into farming because of the expenses. There is a loss of ingenuity because they have to grow only one of the crops listed above or they could lose their money from the government. These crops are then artificially sold at a very low price in the World Market and other countries cannot compete with this price. Africa cannot compete and sell their cotton. Columbia cannot compete and sell their corn because the U.S. sells their crops so much cheaper. If all of Africa could recoup even 1% of the world trade, the ninety billion would give three times as much as what they get in foreign aid. Three to four million could go to cotton farmers, which is twice what the U.S. currently gives to foreign aid.

There are ten different sub bills within the Farm Bill up for discussion, including the food stamp program, conservation of land, and agricultural development. Broad reform of the Farm Bill involves many components, but the four main points can be summed up in the acronyn FARM:

Food Stamp and nutrition programs need to be strenghened by increasing the money benefit and increasing the participation.

Alternative forms of support for U.S. farmers is needed, which provides more equitable support that target small and mid-size producers and free up funds for conservation and rural development.

Rural communities can be strengthened by providing programs for rural entrepreneurs and small business development, and by investment in telecom and broadband internet.

Market access needs to be opened for farmers in the developing world so that they can make an income by redesigning commodity support programs so they they do not artificially lower prices and prevent poor farmers from providing for their families.

One of the alternative forms of support up for debate is to have a Farmer's Savings Account where every five years they would put money in an account and put less in every year. Farmers would only have access to the money if they have a bad crop. If they take away subsudies, this would provide some support for farmers accustomed to getting this money. This is the only area I have concerns about. I worry about the farmers used to receiving subsidies as the money is redistributed. I am not sure if a savings account is the only thing that should be done. I do not have other alternatives though at this point because I am just learning about all of this myself.

This is a basic overview of what I learned but there is much more information on the Bread for the World site and also an interesting blog post here.. One way to be involved in this process is to write a letter to Congress advocating for broad reform of the Farm Bill. The slogan going around is called "Seeds for Change" to help farmers end hunger.