By Sally Herrin, Ph.D.
The resignation of Vermont Senator Jeffords from the
Republican Party could change things for U. S. agriculture. Two
mighty farm state champions, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
(D-SD) and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin
(D-IA), have a chance to pass farm legislation which protects
national food security, the environment, and our small,
independent owner/operator food and fiber producers, the farm
and ranch families of
America.
Daschle’s Senate majority is as thin as that of Republican
Trent Lott before him, and everyone in Washington knows it.
Corporations with dogs in the fight pave the road to any Farm
Bill with enormous lobbying efforts. Food processors Cargill,
ADM, ConAgra and merging Tyson/IBP, banking and insurance
giants, and other beneficiaries of the "new global
economy" make campaign contributions to likeminded
candidates and party war chests. They also give to right-wing
commodity and producer groups that serve as Judas goats,
confusing farmers and legislators about the crisis of farm
income that is the result of more than a quarter century of
export-based farm policy.
A bipartisan, good faith effort could forge a new farm policy
to restore price-impacting tools to American agriculture
producers. Non-recourse loans set at profitable levels, a
farmer-owned reserve, meaningful market reform and anti-trust
enforcement, and production control incentives would give
farmers and ranchers a fair price in a competitive market for
what they produce.
But the House and Senate will have to puzzle their way past a
number of major red herrings. These are public policy traps laid
for Congress, and they are:
Business as usual
Export volume of major agricultural commodities has not
increased in 25 years, despite forecasts and promises of
increased exports by many presidential administrations. Value of
exports to producers, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has
declined by 30-40% for these commodities in that same quarter
century. Export-based farm policy has created a flood of cheap
product for the grain and meat traders, and stolen value from
producers.
And now, Bush’s Agriculture Secretary thinks exports will
increase as a result of new trade agreements! During the Nixon
administration, graffiti writers asked Why is the
government always lying? Look for this folk wisdom to
appear in bar bathrooms across rural America this summer.
Expanded role for insurance
This dog still won’t hunt. Subsidies for more disaster and
crop insurance enhance profits for big insurance carriers, but
nobody really believes that a large-scale system of income or
price insurance can work. Farmers and ranchers will tell you, if
they got a fair price in the market for what they produced, they
could buy their own insurance. Thanks very much.
Fast track authority for the President
No President needs or ought to have so-called fast track
authority. Congress has the responsibility to examine trade
agreements closely, to determine the interests of this nation
and others, and to approve agreements that benefit Americans and
uphold social and environmental standards for all parties. Fast
track authority will not save American agricultural producers.
It will only let George W. Bush help the grain trade drive
commodity prices down and speed up the race between farmers here
and around the world to the bottom of the economic barrel.
Counter-cyclical payments
This past year Congress approved about $22 billion in
emergency and other payments to farmers. President Bush wants to
cap next year’s payments at $5.5 billion. The surplus
evaporated as the dot.com economy tanked and the President gave
away the tax base. The truth is, the money to bail farmers out
year after year just won’t be there.
Welfare style payments to farmers are politically
unsustainable. Calling payments to producers
"counter-cyclical" confuses people into thinking that
commodity price is determined by forces outside anyone’s
control. Price is not the product of great cycles like weather
and seasons. A handful of grain traders in the U.S. set the
world price, in the absence of true commodity floor prices
established in farm programs.
Making the Farm Bill into a Conservation Bill
This most dangerous red herring trades on the power of good
people. Everyone these days likes the Conservation and Wetlands
Reserve Programs, and some would make them the centerpiece of
the next Farm Bill. These are the programs comedians love to
hate – paying farmers not to grow something – but it’s
no laughing matter. CRP and WRP protect America’s
environmental "capital" – our soil, water, critter
habitat and more. They discourage the farming of lands that,
thanks to technology, can be farmed, but which, environmentally,
ought to be left in cover, native or otherwise.
Farmers who lack basic economic tools to impact price see the
advantage of conservation programs to help curb overproduction.
Environmental groups are vocal and enthusiastic.
An aggressive coalition of church, consumer, environmental
and rural interests can shape America’s future to mean farm
and ranch families keep on producing the safe, reliable food
supply that is our heritage. Environmental groups should not let
themselves be used to highjack the Farm Bill. CRP and WRP,
without the other price impacting tools farmers need, won’t
stop the hemorrhaging in rural America.
Crane-lovers and tree-huggers are among my favorite people.
But the environmental community needs to know that no separate
peace is possible in this matter. Abandon family farming and
ranching now, and we secure the future of factory farming. Soon,
there won’t be much country left to save.
Want to help? Go to www.acga.org.
Read everything, then call the US Capitol switchboard at
202-224-3121, get staff or a Member on the phone, and start
talking about price. And conservation.
A good time would be now.