A super-informative article in the New York Times on why the Farm Bill needs massive revisions.
The article, written by Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, has many California-specific details:
the real cost of milk is hidden in places like California, with its heavily subsidized irrigation system; if Western dairy farmers had to pay the real cost of the irrigation-dependent alfalfa fed to cows, New England’s milk prices would be more competitive. And if those cows ate a variety of grasses as they were meant to, instead of just alfalfa, “Got Milk?†would be more “Got Rich, Delicious and Affordable Milk?â€
Dan effectively quashes the arguments of those who call organic farming passe, ineffective:
Some people argue that the desire to promote smaller, family-run local farms is gratuitously effete and nostalgic. That’s just nonsense. It’s the agriculture industry’s mind-set — high on capital, chemistry and machines — that is actually old-fashioned. Just as the Industrial Revolution of factories with heavy machinery and billowing black smoke is yesterday’s news, so too are our unsustainable farming operations.
So what to do? Dan points out some specific changes that need to be incorporated into the farm bill, which are well worth reading!
One thing I’m still wondering. So what can we readers of the NYT and general citizenry do to make those changes happen? Who are the legislators who might support pushing the necessary changes into the new Farm Bill? Who are the ones against, who should be named and shamed?
I guess I’m saying I’d like others who’re more informed than I am about the farm bill to speak up about what they think need to be done — and what practical, real-life steps we can take towards that goal. The USDA has a whole section of its site dedicated to “Farm Bill Forums,” but most of the info on it is transcripts and analyses, not action-oriented steps. Anyone have suggestions for this kind of action-oriented work being done around the Farm Bill?
Update, 1/23/07: Tom at Grist’s gonna devote lotsa time to the Farm Bill! For those who read my rather stressed post about the difficulty of finding solutions for this farm bill problem, Tom’s like, awesome. This first post, however, simply establishes that farm subsides aren’t necessarily a bad idea considering all the farming variables. Tune in to future posts for more deets.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Ahh. I remember tackling milk politics for a term paper back in college. Those were the days.
This dealt with state dairy policies, which are just as twisted as federal policies.
The problem with tackling the farm bill at the federal level is that there are two well-entrenched camps that are jockeying for favor in Congress, and none are beneficial for “green farming.” One group seeks to maintain subsidies, and the primary beneficiaries of these are factory farmers with notoriously un-green practices. The other group is the “free-traders,” who want the “free market” to work its magic (read: let commidities trading set the prices). So it’s either sustaining unsustainable practices or turning over governmental regulation to commodities traders.
Firing squad or guillotine. Take your pick.
The problem at the state level is regulations that price out out-of-state milk producers. Regulations set in the early 20th century, including not recognizing refrigerated transport, continue to be enforced today. Moreover, milk cannot be discounted by retailers.
It’s still Sisyphean for green farmers, though. Economically, dairy and other agricultural products are monocultures produced at massive, unsustainable scales. Second, green farmers can’t make inroads with merchandisers because the largest markets and stores’ demands cannot be met by organic farming techniques. And organic farmers are going to have to play the money game in order to get some viability.
January 21st, 2007 at 7:52 am
I come from mainly dairy farming country. Where farming is not organic. But it is mainly family run small operations that are far from factory operations (150 cows would be a lot). I was chatting to one of my mates about this. Anyway his take on it was that the farmers have very little say in what price milk is. Even though milk is distributed mainly by local co-op’s that farmers more or less own. The self life of milk is only about a week or two from cow to table. So this means that the farmers are not in the best bargaining position as they have to get rid of their product quickly.
Most of the farmers rely on money from Europe (Agricultural subsides are by far the EU’s largest expenditure) to survive as they simply don’t make ends meet purely on economic grounds.
But there is an argument to be made about the Free market. Often when subsides are to high on one product it makes more sense for the farmer to farm the subsidy. The subsidy disrupts the market. Where as the market might say have patoto barley and lettue the subsidy says corn. So you get corn and to get rid of it people put corn surup in everything. (seems alot worse in America then Europe other then chickens nothing is raised in these large barns you have just in fields)
One thing I would like to see is that there is a kind of animal husbandry quality mark. I know that you say organic is it. But organic can be a bit exclusive and the meeting of the criteria hard.
There is many farmers out there that take excellent care of animals producing food on par with organic producers yet because they did not jump through the hoops they are labelled with all the rest of the corn feed crap. Because it is the care not the organess that gives organic it’s taste.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:11 pm
simon — Organic laws in the US are in general much, MUCH weaker than they are in many European countries. I hear you with the difficulties that farmers over there may be facing — I’ve read about the difficulties with the regulated milk prices in supermarkets, etc., in Wales — but while these difficulties may have some few commonalities with the US dairy farmers, they have many, MANY differences.
In fact, the bigger problem with organic standards — in terms of the milk products — in the US is that the standards are way too weak (big factory farms can still get through the loopholes).
Wad — What was your major? Anyway — Maybe you can answer a Q I have — I’ve often wondered about those lil notices on un-organic milk that says something about how un-organic milk has not been shown to be any more harmful than organic milk. I’m paraphrasing here, so I know the exact wording must be v. different. But I do see these lil notices often on milk cartons at Trader Joe’s. What’s up with that? Is it govt. mandated?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:12 am
This may have been mentioned in the NYT article, but according to the Urban Sprouts School Garden Blog, http://urbansprouts.blogspot.com/2007/01/food-system-news.html
a new book will be out in March entitled Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill by Daniel Imhoff and Roberto Carra.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Here’s a link to the NYT article about Specialty Producers’ platform in the 2007 Farm Bill:
http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=5626
January 24th, 2007 at 9:42 am
For daily analysis of farm policy issues check out the recently launched blog by Environmental Working Group president, Ken Cook.
http://www.mulchblog.com/
January 24th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Wad — What was your major? Anyway — Maybe you can answer a Q I have — I’ve often wondered about those lil notices on un-organic milk that says something about how un-organic milk has not been shown to be any more harmful than organic milk. I’m paraphrasing here, so I know the exact wording must be v. different. But I do see these lil notices often on milk cartons at Trader Joe’s. What’s up with that? Is it govt. mandated?
My major was journalism with a minor in political science. The milk paper was for one of my California politics classes to fulfill my minor.
As for the latter question, those notices probably came about because of a lawsuit. There is no appreciable nutritional benefit of organic food versus non-organics, and the statement was part of a settlement.
However, some farmers markets (Hollywood, for sure) have been selling “raw” (non-Pasteurized) milk. These have a high risk of illness due to milk-borne microbes, though.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Thanks to all you wonderful people for the links! I will be busy checking those out after I write this!
Wad — I thought about journalism for a while — I was in the “Media Fellows” program in undergrad — until I decided to bail and just graduate early instead.
I’ve been a bit scared of raw milk — for which I think are legitimate reasons. Still, we have people selling the stuff at the SM farmers’ market every week, and they seem v. healthy. Still haven’t tried it, but I get an earful from raw milk proponents once in a while (I’m a bit lactose intolerant, and the proponents say that if I drank raw milk, the intolerance would go away).
January 28th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
The Barber article, Tom at Grist,and EnviroBlog are all doing a good job at starting to cover the issue.
It’s clear that massive subsidies that favor Archer Daniels Midland and the food processing oligopoly are bad, and corn ethanol subsidies are double-plus bad. It’s not clear to me yet what a good policy would be.
When there are obvious things to advocate for, it’s not clear where to go to support those things, or who the allies are. The political landscape seems tough — both Republicans and Democrats are influenced by the ADM lobby.
There was a strong outpouring of activism around the last round of organic standards, and that battle was organic vs. agribusiness. But the interest of the agro-oligopoly in maintaining its huge subsidies is stronger even than its desire to enter the double-digit organic market.
Not sure what the answers are.