Sound issues silenced most of Michael Pollan’s introduction to the Food Fight: A Teach-in On the 2007 Farm Bill panel, but I got to hear the end — in which Michael announced a special guest: George Lakoff, famous linguist and author of Don’t Think of an Elephant, among other books.

First, a few panelists are giving short talks. Kicking off: Dan Imhoff, author of Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill.

Imhoff explains where the money from the Farm Bill goes:

• Roughly half goes to nutrition programs such as food stamps and school meals, which act as a safety net for about 12% of the US population
• 1/3 goes to commodities, the big five being corn, cotton, wheat, rice, and soybeans.
• Less than 1/10 goes to conservation programs, such as land idling, habit cost share incentives, and efforts to mitigate or remediate bad farming practices.
• The final 1/10 goes to other programs like rural development, research, marketing regulations, renewable energy, food safety, organics, farmers market. “Insignificant things like that,” says Dan, sarcastically.

Dan points to the link between diseases like obesity, and the farm bill subsidies: “The hunger lobby has actually made an unhealthy alliance, propping up sugar and fat intensive foods, meat and dairy products, that can ultimately hurt the very people they are trying to protect.”

How does the Farm Bill come to be? Dan’s explanation points to 3 parts:

1. Budgeting (happening now): Budget committees will give senate and house agriculture committees the amount of money they’ll be able to apportion in the next years for the Farm Bill.

2. Authorization (happening now): Senators and congresspeople create a set of promises and plans to shape the next 5 years of Farm Bill-related programs. The resulting legislation becomes the Farm Bill.

3. Funding: This yearly process is when the agricultural and appropriations committees sort through the promises made in the farm bill and decide who actually gets the funding. These decisions are highly influenced by the ag-business lobby.

Dan ended on a more positive note, calling for the public to get educated and politically involved with the Farm Bill.

[Read about what lunch lady Ann Cooper, Director of Nutrition Services for the Berkeley school system, and Carlos Marentes, Director of Sin Fronteras Organizing Project had to say.]

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