The Latest from AgMag

One of the big challenges facing the globe in the next century will be access to clean water. In America, federal agriculture policies are putting drinking water used by millions of people at risk. Perverse incentives such as farm subsidies and ethanol mandates have ushered in an era of fencerow-to-fencerow planting of chemical-intensive commodity crops, even as funding to protect water sources has been repeatedly slashed.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Environment

Water

Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group vice-president for government affairs, penned an op-ed in today’s Washington Times that asserts that with record profits, farmers shouldn’t be reaping larger subsidies. Some excerpts: More and more farm payments are being delivered as premium subsidies for farm insurance policies. As more farm businesses purchased government-subsidized insurance, the cost to taxpayers has exploded: from $2.4 billion in 2001 to nearly $9 billion in 2011.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

For too long, funding provided by the United States’ most far-reaching food and farm legislation -- the farm bill -- has primarily benefited agri-business and industrial-scale commodity farms that aren’t growing food. 

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Food

Local & Sustainable

Healthy Eating

America’s water, soil and wildlife habitat have never been under greater assault from the ravages of modern industrial agriculture. And since industrial crop production is exempt from most federal regulations, farm bill conservation programs and policies like the conservation compact are often our only line of defense against erosion and water contamination by toxic agrichemicals.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Environment

Senate Agriculture Committee leaders are planning to draft their version of a 2012 farm bill by the end of April, a legislative aide told The Hagstrom Report. We hope they produce a proposal that produces a fair, equitable and fiscally responsible safety net for working farms and ranches, protects clean water and the environment, and increases affordability of and access to healthy food.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Farm Policy

Water

More than 1 million Americans are now on record demanding mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods so that consumers will know what they’re buying. The Just Label It campaign has submitted the signatures on a petition calling on the Food and Drug Administration to require labeling. Today (Tuesday) is the deadline for the FDA to respond.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Farm Policy

Food

“You learn something every day if you pay attention.” ~Ray LeBlond

And that happened this morning, when in an online dialogue, a farming friend popped in, talking about his trip to DC for the “Corn Congress.”

“What’s a ‘Corn Congress’?” I asked, never having heard the term.

Key Issues: 

Energy

Biofuels

Farming

The Environment Working Group today released startling new research showing that companies owned by foreign insurance companies are paid billions in tax dollars through the U.S. crop insurance program. Most of the testimony from farm groups in yesterday’s Senate farm bill hearing centered on the heavily subsidized crop insurance program.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Critics of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (previously known as food stamps) claim some recipients are wrongly receiving benefits after winning lottery jackpots. SNAP fraud is serious. Those who are not in need and improperly receive benefits are taking precious resources from people desperate to feed their families in our slowly healing economy. Thankfully, according to the US Department of Agriculture, SNAP fraud is limited.

Key Issues: 

Farming

Subsidies

Healthy Eating