Goals:
• Implement NFFC campaign(s) to change current federal farm policy.
• Amplify campaigns prioritized by member organizations.
• Collaborate with allied organizations to promote national/international
policy priorities.
The Farm and Food Policy Task Force addresses specific domestic policy proposals,
and deals with national and international
food
security and
food
sovereignty issues.
The billions currently spent on taxpayer-financed farm programs and emergency
payments create a false impression that farmers receive
a sufficient income. In fact, those billions, while paid to farmers act as
subsidies to livestock factories, processors, and exporters that buy commodities
at low prices. Taxpayers unknowingly fund the demise of the nation's diversified
family farms.
NFFC challenges the ideology of expanding production and exports. NFFC promotes
a sustainable federal farm policy that works for family farmers through a system
of price supports (not income supports),
food security reserves,
conservation programs, open competitive
markets, and the development of new consumer-farmer
market options. NFFC seizes important opportunities to dispel the myths that
support current farm policy and offer alternative effective solutions. Activities
include grassroots legislative campaigns, hearings, and coalition-building.
In fall 2002, a NFFC Dairy Subcommittee
formed as part of the Farm and Food Policy Task Force to address the growing
crisis in the dairy sector.
Current Priorities:
1. Continue to implement the long-term NFFC campaign to change current
federal farm policy, working with NFFC member groups
and partner organizations.
2. Build support for our comprehensive policy proposal, the
Food from Family Farms Act (FFFA) (NFFC-authored
alternative Farm Bill), among farmers, politicians, consumers,
environmentalists, and other constituencies.
3. Continue to develop materials to illustrate how
corporate agribusiness benefits from the current farm policy and how it
harms family farmers, consumers, and the environment.
4. Continue to develop presentations on
alternative farm and trade policy and present them to a wide spectrum of
audiences, broadening support for a new farm/food/trade policy agenda.
5. Support efforts to eliminate the pork, beef, dairy
and other check-off programs, and to combat factory
livestock confinement operations.
6. Link domestic policy with the international focus/agenda of
multi-national agribusiness corporations
Farm and Food Policy Task Force Leadership
George Naylor, Co-chair
Paul Rozwadowski, Co-Chair
(Dairy Subcommittee)
