This is the second and final portion of my interview with Dan Imhoff, the author of Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill, a book about the outcome of the 2008 Farm Bill and what we can do to effect change despite business as usual in Washington. He will be taking part in Slow Food Nation’s Food for Thought panel series, and is co-author of the Vision Statement for Agriculture and Food Policy for the 21st Century, being presented at SFN August 28th.

Part 1 of this interview can be found here.

Paula: What would a different, better version of the Farm Bill look like?

Dan: First of all, farmers would have to be enrolled in some kind of stewardship program before they can get anything at all, and they should be rewarded for how well they farm, instead of how much in commodities that they are putting into the pipeline. And why direct giveaways [for things like waste mitigation]? I mean these are big corporations, why can’t they be loans, why don’t they have to be paid back? I mean they are just complying with the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act, these are things that, if they are treated as industries, which they really are, they would have to be doing with there own money. There has to be some kind of responsibility. Are you helping to preserve the land, maintain it so that we can pass it on to the next generation? Are we doing research, finding beneficial ways to grow crops, for when we are not going to be able to afford petroleum-based fertilizers? Are we starting to build the infrastructure for a regional food system we are going to desperately need when oil tops off at $500 per barrel? Are we rewarding farmers for growing a diversity of crops, actually contributing to producing healthier food that can be fed to the kids in our schools?

Paula: Do you see agribusiness lobbyists as the main obstacle to a fairer Farm Bill and a better system?

Dan: Agribusiness lobbyists and the inability to enforce the anti-trust laws that we already have on the books are two huge obstacles, absolutely. I would say there is a real lack of a vision, getting back to what you asked earlier about the objectives, I don’t think there are clear objectives for a healthy food and farming system like you might think, that there are “ten principles” that everyone who walks into the USDA looks at on the board and goes, “better food, better farmlands, healthier future for America.”

Paula: You discuss the industrial agriculture system as unsustainable in your book, Food Fight. Do you think it is possible to feed as many people that are on the planet without the use of industrial agriculture?

Dan: Yeah, I think increasingly, you see that there are some pretty good studies that say that it is the small, diverse systems that can either equally produce or out produce most industrial systems. I think we will increasingly see that the cost of maintaining those industrial systems, the fertilizers and long distances and all the chemical inputs [becoming] unaffordable. I would hope that regions all across the country are starting to have meetings to say that this is the kind of food system that we want, so in three years time, they can go to their elected representatives. Because that was really a big part of what was absent in the discussions this time, long term planning, region by region. I think extremely quickly we are going to have to have a far more regionally based production capacity. And I don’t think people are aware of just how quickly things can change. How quickly the cost of energy [and] severe storm events can influence the food and farming sector.

Paula: You are producing the Vision Statement for a new Food, Farm and Agriculture Policy, being presented at Slow Food Nation. Could you give us a taste of that proposal?

Dan: We will try to make the point that a healthy food and agriculture system is the basis of a secure country and a secure world. And the current system that we have is not sustainable, it is out of balance and it is breaking down. We can see that in the food riots, escalating food prices, and in parts of the country where they’ve re-plumed the hydrology to industrially farm corn so that [the land] can no longer absorb water in huge flood events. And I think that what we need is, I hope, some kind of vision that says it’s our duty, as citizens, as parents, as farmers, as eaters, to try to make the healthiest food system we can, that we can pass on to the next generation. One of the things that was severely absent in this Farm Bill was the voice of the medical community. The medical cost of the obesity crisis is four times what we are spending on the commodity programs. Just think if we started to think differently, if we started to think of healthy food as preventative medicine. Ultimately it’s going to save us costs in other areas. We should be investing in our health, first and foremost, because I think in the long run it will save us money and it will do so much more to help us to feel healthy as a nation.

Paula: What can the average citizen do?

Dan: Just learn as much as you can. Don’t let your representatives off the hook. Vote with your fork, eat like an activist, and just try as best as you can to bring your goals for the planet in line with your diet and how you vote and how you live your life.

Photo by Jan Tik

Dan Imhoff is the author of Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill, a book about the outcome of the 2008 Farm Bill and what we can do to effect change despite business as usual in Washington. He will be taking part in Slow Food Nation’s Food for Thought panel series, and is co-author of the Vision Statement for Agriculture and Food Policy for the 21st Century, being presented at SFN August 28th.

I spoke with Dan recently and asked him some questions about his work and his upcoming participation in Slow Food Nation. This is Part I of the interview. Part II will be posted tomorrow.

Paula: Congress just recently passed a five-year Farm Bill, why is it such an important piece of legislation?

Dan: The Farm Bill determines what crops we grow, where we grow them, under what conditions, how cheap different types of foods are in the marketplace, how well we take care of our land and waterways and wild habitats, and it ultimately determines our health and our nutrition.

Paula: What was the original purpose of the Farm Bill, and did that original version of the Farm Bill work?

Dan: It started out of desperation. Our soil was blowing away, literally, and we were also witnessing, I think, the end of the agrarian era in American history and we were massively moving towards cities and an industrialized economy. Then we had the Depression, and there were lots and lots of people out of work and hungry. The farmer had only one way to try to get ahead in this new economy and that was to plant as much as possible, but the irony was that the more that they planted, the less it was worth. And ultimately they planted so much, so radically, in places that have never been plowed, that they created the Dust Bowl. The early programs were designed to try to compensate farmers fairly to give parity, and they tried to peg the value of any given commodity, whether it was peanuts, cotton or rice, with a real value in an urban environment. And for decades, the rural versus urban parity was just way out of whack. So they tried to set some price floors, and give a fair price so that the farmer could actually get his or her money back. A lot of these programs were loan based, and if you couldn’t pay back your loan at the end of the season because the price was too low, you just gave your crop as payment, and so the government got into the grain storage and distribution business. This goes all the way back to Confucian times, and Biblical and Egyptian practices.

Paula: When and how did it change?

Dan: For many decades, in order to be eligible for programs, you had to put a certain percentage of your land aside in conservation. And this encouraged you not to plant marginal land, and it restricted the supply somewhat to try to [keep] prices at a certain level, [so as] not to over saturate the market. In the 70s, I think that we just had this idea that we were going to become the grain exporter of the world and that we just needed to expand and produce as much as possible regardless of how we produced it.

Paula: Do you think that the policy objectives of the Farm Bill are still relevant?

Dan: The policy objectives definitely don’t seem to be aligned with the problems that have really started to surface in 2008, and by that I mean escalated petroleum costs, escalating food costs, unpredictable climate events, and the nutrition epidemic that seems to be really gripping the country.

Paula: The bill was passed overwhelmingly in congress, are there some positive elements to it?

Dan: Well there are always some positive elements, but I really feel like we are being held hostage, and that our leadership is at fault. Millions and millions of citizens came into the Farm Bill debate. They were mainly asking for reform of the commodity titles, the 30 – 40% of [Farm Bill] spending that goes for direct or indirect payments (subsides) for crops.

Paula: I assume by what you are saying that you think these positive elements of the bill are not enough to make a real difference?

Dan: No, you’d have to be out of your mind to not be angry [at] how little reform actually took place. All you can hope is that we are going to have a new secretary of agriculture, and maybe we’re even going to have a whole new envisioning process in the USDA, and that the first thing that they are going to do is come in and say we need a 21st century food and agriculture policy. It needs to affect every decision that we make, every policy that we sign.

Paula: So those benefiting from the Farm Bill are those larger farms that own the most land and are producing the most, and getting the most in subsidies?

Dan: Well that one tier, definitely. The people who make out the most are the people who are buying the commodities in markets that are completely saturated. Those who are buying the raw materials, the cotton, wheat, rice and soybeans, and especially the corn. And if you look at the Farm Bill, the main beneficiaries are big feedlot operations, because they get the low cost feed. They are paying sometimes 20% less than they would without the subsidies, and it’s keeping them going. There should be no subsidization without social obligation. I think that’s what the taxpayers and the concerned citizens were trying to say. You want money from us, there has to be some kind of social benefit in return.

Photo by topherous