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May 2007 |
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Volume 2
Issue 5 |
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2007 Farm
Bill Our food system
is broken. Free globalized markets encouraging cheap imports like what
sparked our current food safety debacle will not respect the needs of the
land, rural culture, or our health. Congress is responsible for writing
legislation that will ensure a stable food supply and we have a unique
opportunity in the current drafting of the 2007 Farm Bill to stop outsourcing
our national food security. Fighting for a
fair price, family farmers are leading the way to reclaim control of our food
system by achieving food sovereignty: the right of peoples, countries, and
nations to decide their own food and agricultural policies, the right to
produce food for their own domestic markets, and the right to protect those
markets from being destroyed by the dumping of cheap imports sold below the
cost of production in the country where they were grown. The National
Family Farm Coalition’s position on the farm bill is to assure a fair price
to farmers and a fair wage to workers. NFFC’s
proposal, the Food from Family Farms Act, empowers communities, allowing for
local control over production and markets, respects the rights of farm
workers, the environment, and the consumers’ need for healthy, local,
culturally appropriate food. Check out our farm bill proposal, the Food from Family Farms Act: the model farm bill to create a democratic food system. Be a foot
soldier of the farm bill revolution! Contact us to learn how to get involved. We
seek to achieve food sovereignty through everyday actions to reclaim control
of our food system. Join us in working towards a fair food system that
ensures health, justice, and dignity for all. Please share this resource to
empower others to celebrate food sovereignty with every forkful! Click here to subscribe to the Food Sovereignty E-Newsletter. |
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What’s on the Table in this
Issue: 2007 Farm Bill Growing Momentum for Food Sovereignty The Farm Bill Impacting Food
Sovereignty Chewable Policy Pieces Heard on the Hill Take Action Working in Partnership Resources for the Farm Bill Upcoming Food Sovereignty Events June 27-July 1 More details
coming soon on Food Sovereignty workshops, but until then visit the USSF website! Share your food sovereignty events! E-mail Deb 3 Basic Principles
of a Fair Farm Bill
7 Basic Principles
of Food Sovereignty 1. Food: A Basic Human Right 2. Agrarian Reform 3. Protecting Natural Resources 4. Fair Trade 5. Ending Global Hunger 6. Peace 7. Democratic Control For More Information on Food
Sovereignty National Family
Farm Coalition What You Can Do Donate $5 to $10 per month to directly improve our food system! You can fund projects
like sending dairy farmers to DC to defend the integrity of the definition of
milk. Click here to make your contribution! |
The Farm Bill Impacting Food Sovereignty
By family farmers across the nation Passed by our
elected officials approximately every five years, the farm bill is a giant
piece of legislation that forms the foundation of our food system. It sets
policies and budgets for everything from crop subsidies and country-of-origin
labeling to food stamps and conservation programs. Basically, the farm bill
directly impacts what and how you eat and as a taxpayer, you are footing the
bill. While there are
ten sections, or titles, in the farm bill, it has been the position of
progressive farm groups like the National Family Farm Coalition, that unless
Title I, the commodity title, addresses the fundamental question of the price
level of farm commodities, every other aspect of farm policy that may try to
deal with environmental problems or the encouragement of sustainable
practices on a wide scale are doomed to failure. The 2002 Farm
Bill failed to address the primary problem farmers
face year after year: market prices below the cost of production. Under
current law, taxpayer-funded payments keep the farm economy limping along
while the giant grain and livestock corporations make record profits and
expand their control of the international farm and food system. The 2002 Farm
Bill, like Freedom to Farm (the 1996 Farm Bill), represents a cheap grain,
cheap livestock, fencerow-to-fencerow excess production farm policy. So basically
Congress has shifted the cost of our food, fiber and energy from
agribusiness’ balance sheet to your pocketbook. It is time to make the real beneficiaries
pay, i.e. Cargill, Monsanto, Archer Daniel Midland, etc. The same corporations who benefit domestically buy commodities at
undercut prices internationally, deepening the state of crisis faced by rural
communities everywhere. Meanwhile, millions of displaced farmers
migrate north into exploitative, inhumane working conditions (often in the
agricultural sector), further intensified by oppressive immigration
laws. The Farm Bill is policy for a global food system in need of
repair. Check out our
farm bill proposal, the Food from Family Farms Act: the model farm bill to create a democratic food system. |
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Chewable Policy
Pieces
To digest the farm bill in
reader friendly terms, view these three articles: What
We Need in the Farm Bill by George Naylor: “Large, multinational
corporations count on the farm bill to ensure that they can buy Iowan: Farm Program Works
Against Growers, Environment: Interview with George Naylor: "We need a sustainable
agriculture system, not just a few sustainable farmers.” You
Are What You Grow by
Michael Pollan in the NY Times Magazine on April 22nd: “Enlightened eaters also
recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill
that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live
in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn’t hurt the world’s
farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.” Other
excellent reader friendly materials on the farm bill: §
Institute for Agriculture &
Trade Policy o
A Fair Farm Bill for America o
A Fair Farm Bill for the World o
A Fair Farm Bill for Renewable Energy o
A Fair Farm Bill for the World's Hungry | ||||||
