the farm bill

The 2007 Farm Bill passed Congress on July 27. Unfortunately, the bill mostly maintained the status quo, with a few cosmetic changes that are mosty ineffective.

The problem with the mostly-unchanged 2002 version of the farm bill is that it ties the amount of subsidies farmers receive to the amount of crops they produce--mostly a few favored crops such as corn, wheat, and soy. Farmers who produce more crop receive more subsidies, no matter what the actual price of the crop is in the market. So when there's a glut in the market and the price of corn drops, it's still more beneficial for farmers to produce more corn so they can receive more subsidies--creating an even greater glut in the market. The result is that the market price of corn is pushed lower and lower as more and more corn is pushed into the market and sold, enabling American farmers to undersell family farmers overseas (especially in NAFTA markets like Mexico) and driving local farms there out of business. In addition, this subsidy system makes it unprofitable to maintain a reserve in case of a bad year--with the result that the current U.S. grain reserve holds only enough food for three days.

Another problem is that most of these subsidies go to farmers who need it least--big agribusiness farms instead of local, family-owned ones. The new bill lowers the cap on income for a farmer receiving subsidies, from $2.5 million to $1 million, but come on--that's still way too high an annual adjusted gross income to be receiving government subsidies. The top 75% of subsidies under this bill go to the top 10% highest-income farms; isn't there something wrong with giving most of a need-based subsidy to the highest income levels?

And yet, despite encouraging glutting of the market, the bill does little to keep food prices down--something that will become more and more important as transportation becomes more expensive and the big crops are wanted for biofuels as well as food. The more that our system encourages monoculture agribusiness farms, the more we will deplete our soil and add unnecessary costs of packaging and transportation to our food.

The good news is, the bill goes to the Senate next. So there's still time to write your senator. You can't say you don't care about this issue; this is one that affects everyone who eats.