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Policy Plate: Good Food and the Farm Bill

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Now that Senate floor action on the 2012 farm bill is looking likely in early June, food policy reformers are weighing in. Grist’s Food Editor, Twlight Greenway, quotes Steph Larsen at Nebraska’s Center for Rural Affairs on the need for urgency on the part of good food advocates: "Say it’s 6 p.m. on election night, or the top of the eighth inning. Of all the moments to walk away, is that the one to pick??"

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Policy Plate: Subsidy Lobby Infighting Continues

Monday, May 21, 2012

David Rogers reports in Politico on moves by Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to smooth over the animosities between regional commodity groups dueling over the committee’s farm bill. Some excerpts: Having just taken over the Agriculture Committee in this Congress, Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan, is hemmed in herself by entrenched Midwest Corn Belt interests who see the farm bill’s new subsidy structure as payback after years of Southern dominance.

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Policy Plate: Shocker! Congress not Heeding Americans’ Farm Bill Needs

Friday, May 18, 2012

E&E’s Amanda Peterka reports (subscription required) on the sad state of reform efforts in the farm bill hearings held this week by the House Agriculture Committee: The new farm bill is unlikely to return to a policy from the late 1980s and early 1990s that required farmers to abide by certain conservation requirements in order to receive crop insurance subsidies from the government.

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EWG Wants You to Eat your Fruits and Vegetables

Friday, May 18, 2012

In June 1993, the Environmental Working Group released a report titled “Pesticides in Children’s Food.” In the very first line of the forward to that study, EWG President Ken Cook had this advice for parents:

Don’t toss out those fresh strawberries, mom. Don’t dump the lettuce, don’t pitch the tomatoes, don’t throw out the bananas, and don’t pour that apple juice down the kitchen drain.

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Chemicals in Food

Policy Plate: What Cuts?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Progressive Farmer editor Chris Clayton reports on the ongoing House Agriculture Committee hearings on the farm bill. After Wednesday’s session on farm subsidy programs, he notes that, “Farm Bill Austerity Not Quite Taking Hold.”

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Policy Plate: Time for Real Reform

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Witnesses at a House agriculture subcommittee hearing today had various ideas for replacing the discredited “direct payment” farm subsidy system. They ranged from raising crop price guarantees to beefing up revenue and crop insurance programs, and all could cost billions more than current farm programs. Lawmakers shouldn’t swallow these proposals as “reform.”

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: Sounding the Conservation Alarm

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Tri-State Neighbor, which covers agriculture in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota, reports that the Izaak Walton League of America convened a conservation forum for South Dakota ag officials, producers and conservationists.

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Policy Plate: “Why should prosperous grain farmers receive special treatment?”

Monday, May 14, 2012

Baylen Linnekin, writing in the libertarian-leaning Reason Magazine, makes “The Case Against Taxpayer-Funded Crop Insurance.”

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Policy Plate: A Deal Most Businesses Would Relish

Friday, May 11, 2012

The Los Angeles Times describes the Senate Agriculture Committee’s proposal to subsidize deductibles on crop insurance under the farm bill as “a deal most businesses would relish.”

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Policy Plate: Food Movement Litmus Test

Thursday, May 10, 2012

EWG president Ken Cook issued a ringing call to the good food movement to take a stand on the farm bill in a post this morning titled, “I Call the Vote: A Farm Bill Litmus Test for the Food Movement.”

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I Call the Vote: A Farm Bill Litmus Test for the Food Movement

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Here’s a simple proposition to test whether the food movement can stand up to Big Ag. We’re asking readers who care about providing healthier food to schoolchildren to take a stand by voting on our resolution - A Farm Bill for Healthy Kids:

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Policy Plate: Adieu, Lugar

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

National Wildlife Federation’s Lara Bryant, coordinator of the organization’s agriculture program, had a pointed op-ed in yesterday’s Memphis Commercial Appeal on why federal crop insurance should require good conservation practices by farmers.

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Policy Plate: Conservatives Wake Up to Farm Bill Largesse

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

While the farm country press continues to scoff at the Senate farm bill’s illusionary “reform” measures, fiscal conservatives are noticing the bill’s burden on taxpayers. Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, writes on the foxnews.com site, “It’s time for Republicans to stand up for the free market, including agriculture.”

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Policy Plate: More Editorial Scorn for Crop Insurance

Monday, May 7, 2012

Media in the heart of farm country continue to heap scorn on the Senate Agriculture Committee’s proposed farm bill. The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s editorial board had this to say today in piece titled, “Congress Should Rein in Crop Insurance:” The bill slashes at least $23 billion from some farm subsidies and other programs, meaning lawmakers are living up to their pledge to stop making direct payments to farmers for crops they don't grow.

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: Losing Ground

Friday, May 4, 2012

From the heart of Corn Country, the Des Moines Register editorial board weighed in today on the badly flawed Senate farm bill. An excerpt: "The Senate bill would also eliminate the link between crop subsidies and compliance with conservation programs that protect against soil erosion and field runoff that fouls rivers and lakes and contributes to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico."

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Policy Plate: More Scorn for Senate Farm Bill

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Bloomberg News editorial board published a humdinger of an editorial today criticizing the Senate Agriculture committee’s farm bill. An excerpt: "In place of fixed payments the committee added a new subsidy in the form of expanded crop insurance. Why this was needed is hard to fathom, because existing crop-insurance programs will cost taxpayers as much as $90 billion in the coming decade, according to the Congressional Research Service."

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Policy Plate: Farm Country Editorials

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Two newspapers in farm country editorialized on the Senate Agriculture Committee’s farm bill today. First, an excerpt from The Wisconsin State Journal’s “Better farm bill not good enough:” "But more scrutiny is needed of expanded insurance subsidies. Many growers already get heavily subsidized crop insurance. Now they could be protected against modest declines in yield or prices."

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Subsidy Buffet for Agribiz, Table Scraps for Good Food

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week (April 20) falls far short of providing farm and food policies Americans want. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible should be a top priority in the farm bill. They’re going to be sorely disappointed.

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: The Subsidy Buffet

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Kari Hamerschlag, senior food and agriculture analyst at the Environmental Working Group breaks down just how bad the Senate Agriculture Committee version of the farm bill is for the good food movement. Hamerschlag writes: "The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week (April 20) falls far short of providing farm and food policies Americans want."

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: What Would a "Healthy Food" Bill Look Like?

Monday, April 30, 2012

Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook and senior food and agriculture analyst Kari Hamerschlag penned an op-ed in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle: "If you believe the government ought to play an aggressive role in the nation's economic life, admit it: You're a liberal. But you're probably not as liberal as the average Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee."

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