“I am so excited that there is an organization out there that is helping moms – and dads – vote how they want to eat. And this Farm Bill that we’re working on now is such an important aspect of it …. That we can have children in this country who go to bed without food – it’s unacceptable. We have to do everything in our power to help change that. And not just any kind of food – vote for food that is nourishing for them.”
Many of you might remember the “Schoolhouse Rock” song, “I’m Just a Bill,” about how a bill goes from an idea to legislation to the President’s desk to be signed. This process happens for every piece of legislation. And for something as big and complicated as the Farm Bill and its many sections – called “titles” – you can only imagine how many places things can go wrong or get stalled, given the complexity of creating and reauthorizing so many federal programs for so many different interests. The Farm Bill is reauthorized every five years. The House approves its own version, and the Senate their own, but often through this process their versions end up different and they go into a negotiation process called a conference committee that makes a final version to send to the President to be signed. ! ! !
This pie chart at left shows how much money, over the course of ten years, the federal government expects to be spent through the Farm Bill. Notice the big orange section – this is largely for funding federal food assistance programs for vulnerable, low-income individuals and families in the nutrition title. And even though this orange section may look so huge, keep these two things in mind: - One, more than 40 million people in this country live in households struggling with hunger. This problem would be far worse if not for the nation’s very effective anti-hunger programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps). - Two, SNAP-type programs are needs-based programs, which means people must qualify for the benefit, they have to sign up for it and they have to prove that they need it. Still, as you can imagine, with this much money in one program, it is looked at as a place to find funding for other programs.
The second slide shows the budget without the nutrition title , which basically shows you where the rest of the money in the Farm Bill goes. Primarily for commodity farmers – by that I mean farmers who grow corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice and cotton – in the blue section, and crop insurance on the left. These programs, as you can imagine, tend to overly support big agribusiness farms. The $24 billion in conservation programs goes to protect healthy soil and clean water, and you can see this tiny, tiny little sliver on the bottom left that’s funding for local and regional food programs and for organic farmers. This chart right here helps to explain why we really need to rebalance our Farm Bill so that it supports healthy, safe affordable food for all.
The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic ! provides deeper expertise into these ! critical Farm Bill programs. ! ! ! The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance ! Program (SNAP) is the largest anti- hunger food and nutrition program – it accounts for around 80% of the Farm Bill expenditures and it affects up to 13% of the population. This program represents the first line against hunger. It started from the commonly known paper “food stamps”, but now the program uses an Electronic Balance Transfer card that allows participants to go to a grocery store and swipe to purchase food. It is meant to provide sufficient nutritious food, and 2/3 of SNAP recipients are children, the elderly, or disable persons, so it’s vital that they can get healthy food. There are other nutrition programs within the Farm Bill that target these groups, but SNAP is the largest one.
! Millions of Americans have experience food ! insecurity throughout the year. By food insecurity, we mean a difficulty providing enough food for all family members because they just don’t have enough resources. Children are actually more likely to be food insecure, and food insecurity that impacts children is particularly troubling because of how it negatively influences development and school performance. Very small children with food insecurity may suffer from cognitive delays, and young school-age children who are food insecure experience lower reading and math performance. That’s why the Farm Bill is such an important program when it comes to making sure children have adequate food for a healthy life.
! ! Healthy and local food access programs in the Farm Bill are really important. And you may remember from earlier slides, we’re talking about an almost invisible piece of the Farm Bill that goes towards local and regional food systems. But the 2014 Farm Bill actually made the biggest investment yet in local and regional food, with about $429 million over five years. And while it may not seem like much, it is actually the largest amount we’ve ever put in local and regional food systems. This goes towards healthy food access, helping farmers sell directly to consumers, helping farmers add and keep more value in their products, and building infrastructure like food hubs, which helps smaller farms sell into bigger markets, like universities, schools, or hospitals.
The last Farm Bill made a lot of progress, and it’s really critical that we build on the momentum. One of the most visible programs that’s helping bring healthy, local food to your door is the Farmers’ Market and Local Food Promotion Program , which is actually a combination of two different programs with the goal of connecting producers and consumers to healthy local food. These are largely competitive grants that support farmers markets, other direct to consumer markets like CSA’s, road side stands, and go towards training, expansion, and improvement of your local farmers’ market . If you go down to your local farmers’ market on Saturday morning to buy produce, there is a good chance your farmers’ market is using federal dollars that come directly from the Farm Bill to do some of the behind the scenes marketing, or training, or the infrastructure that’s making those markets work. The bad news is that the program’s funding is in danger. ! As was mentioned earlier, a lot of Farm Bill programs receive funding every year once the Farm Bill is passed, no matter what happens in the budget process, but programs like this don’t. So this is the time that it’s really important for advocates who care about the progress we’ve made in local and regional food systems to really go to Congress and make their voices heard that these programs need funding in the next Farm Bill – and not just to get funding, but as these programs have proven to be so successful, to hopefully get increased funding. ! !
We’ve heard that a lot of you are interested in and concerned perhaps about the state of organics. I’ll highlight three programs in the Farm Bill that directly support organic production. The Organic Cost-Share program helps cover some of the costs that farmers must pay every year to bring out certifiers to their farms to make sure that they are following organic practices. This is limited to only $750 a year, so we’re not talking about a lot of money but it can make a huge difference for farmers who are trying to get off the ground. Organic Research is only funded at $20m per year for all of the research and all of the extension training and assistance for the whole U.S. So we’re not talking about a lot of money, but that’s also at risk in this next farm bill. Don’t go to sleep on me! I want to talk about why crop insurance is important for organic farmers. The same way you wouldn’t drive your car around town without car insurance, farmers face similar risks, some of which are within their control and some of which are not. But the expense – or unavailability at all – of insurance for organic farmers compared to conventional or commodity farmers can be a real barrier. There are provisions to the crop insurance portion of the Farm Bill that we want to protect progress on, so that organic farmers can continue to protect their own livelihoods as they undertake to grow food in a way that’s better for the health of the soil, the water, our health, and the health of the farm workers who would otherwise be dealing with all of the pesticides and non-organic fertilizers. So as you go forward, keep in mind the small but important ways that the Farm Bill is supports organics.
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