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All Over The Map
550 Editorials Call For Farm Bill Reform
This interactive map developed by the Environmental Working Group shows where more than 550 U.S. newspapers since 2007 have published editorials demanding reform of the farm bill.
Few issues garner as much editorial page criticism of Congress, whose skewed farm bill priorities channel billions of taxpayer dollars to large, highly profitable farming operations, while programs that protect the environment and promote healthy food go begging. Congress is at it again this year. The Senate agriculture committee’s version of the farm bill would curtail the widely criticized direct payment program, which costs taxpayers about $5 billion a year, but would plow 75 percent of the savings back into new entitlements that guarantee business income for roughly the same beneficiaries. Meanwhile, programs that provide food assistance to needy children and environmental protections for soil, water and wildlife are on the chopping block to meet deficit reduction targets.
The newspapers’ clamor for change reflects the public’s desire for a very different farm bill. A 2011 national poll showed that 78 percent of Americans believed that one of the farm bill’s top priorities should be making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible. Yet the 2012 bill is poised to deliver the opposite.
(Click here to continue reading the editorial map analysis.)
*Editorials added since May 2008 are green.