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Policy Plate: Fertilizer's Role in Climate Change

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

In a new study reported in the April issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from the University of California-Berkley have found that fertilizer use is responsible for a huge increase in potent green house gases. From UC Berkley’s News Center: University of California, Berkeley, chemists have found a smoking gun proving that increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide, which is a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change.

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Policy Plate: Record Profits and Larger Subsidies

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

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.

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Policy Plate: Farm Bill Editorial

Monday, April 2, 2012

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch weighed in on the 2012 farm bill debate in an editorial headlined, New farm bill has growers lining up at the trough.

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2012 Farm Bill: Crop Insurance - The Secret, Flawed & Expensive Safety Net

Sunday, April 1, 2012

The cost to taxpayers of the current crop insurance system has soared from $2.4 billion in 2001 to nearly $9 billion in 2011 as a result of high commodity prices and the generous premium subsidies that lead farmers to buy the most expensive insurance available.

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2012 Farm Bill: Conservation and the Environment

Sunday, April 1, 2012

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.

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Food and Nutrition

Sunday, April 1, 2012

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.

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: Glickman, Veneman: Renew Conservation Compact

Friday, March 30, 2012

Former Agriculture Secretaries Dan Glickman and Ann Veneman have sent a letter to House and Senate leaders urging them to renew the 25-year conservation compact between taxpayers and farmers, DTN’s Chris Clayton reported (subscription required).

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Policy Plate: Farm Bill Markup Set

Thursday, March 29, 2012

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.

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Policy Plate: Gulf Dead Zone Update

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

A coalition of environmental groups including the Gulf Restoration Network, Prairie Rivers Network and the Iowa Environmental Council are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency to force it to set state water quality standards and tighten pollution limits on wastewater treatment plants.

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Policy Plate: Just Label It

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

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.

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Policy Plate: Farm Subsidies and Local Food

Monday, March 26, 2012

The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D reported this morning that Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.) are making legislative efforts to curb government subsidies distributed inequitably to highly profitable mega farms. An excerpt: Sen. Tim Johnson’s bill to limit federal farm subsidy payments might be the prelude to a far more ambitious effort to impose similar caps on the popular federal crop and revenue insurance programs.

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: The Recap

Friday, March 23, 2012

The most troubling news this week was a report from Stephanie Paige Obgurn of High Country News, which took a comprehensive look at the alarming conversion of native prairie grassland to intensive row cropping (subscription required).

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Local & Sustainable

Policy Plate: Senators Aim to Cut Mega Farm Payments

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Senators Tim Johnson (D-SoDak.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) continue their quest to steer farm program money into the hands of struggling ranchers and farmers who actually need government support. Yesterday they introduced new legislation to place hard caps on farm subsidy payments and close loopholes.

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Policy Plate: Reaction to Ryan budget

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed to cut $30 billion from federal farm subsidy programs, targeting the discredited direct payment program that sends checks out every year regardless of need.

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An Earful: Corn Congress and the Cash Crop

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

“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.

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Policy Plate: The Ryan Budget

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The chairman of the House Budget Committee Chairman, Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), is proposing to cut $5 billion a year from the farm subsidies commonly referred to as “direct payments” and an additional $30 billion over 10 years from the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance programs.

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Policy Plate: EWG Prez and Ag Pollution Editorials

Monday, March 19, 2012

The Marin Independent Journal has published an in-depth interview with Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook about the upcoming farm bill.

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Policy Plate: Billions Go To Foreign Companies

Friday, March 16, 2012

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.

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Policy Plate: Senate Ag hearing on farm subsidies

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The highlight of the Senate Agriculture committee’s hearing on farm subsidies and crop insurance was when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Michael Scuse, the Acting Undersecretary For Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture whether he considered people who participate in only two farming-related conference calls per year to be actively-engaged farmers.

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Policy Plate: CBO Farm Bill Estimate

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released its estimates of farm bill program spending over the next ten years. The Hagstrom Report, a by-subscription news service, caught up with Jim Miller, a top aide to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who said the rising cost of crop insurance – $11 billion over ten years –was due to “both to the value of crops and timing shifts stemming from decisions made in the 2008 farm bill.”

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