Farm Bill 2012: Thinking Ahead
May 31st, 2011 By Twilight Greenaway
When the last farm bill passed, small farmers and sustainable food advocates had a few things to celebrate, but not as many as they’d hoped for. The bulk of the funding for agriculture went to subsidize industrial-sized commodity farmers (producing corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice) in a big way. Congress voted to continue a pattern that, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), has allowed ten percent of the nation’s farms to collect 74 percent of all farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009, a total amounting to over $150 billion. Those subsidies are delivered in the form of direct payments, crop insurance, and something called counter-cyclical payments (for a primer on some of the wonky terminology in this article, try EWG’s Farm Subsidy Primer).
The 2008 bill did, however, include some bright spots. There was a rural microenterprise program, support for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, grants for value-added agriculture, and several strong conservation programs (incentives for farmers to be good stewards of the land, water and air). As it turns out, however, the implementation of these programs is dependent on funding that Congress (more specifically, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee) then chooses to award—or not to award—on an individual basis every year. (You can see where this is going, can’t you?) Read More

