Meanwhile, only meager public resources have been invested smartly to build the kind of dynamic local food economies that support agricultural diversification and help link small- and mid-sized family farms to local and regional markets.

With the 2012 Farm Bill fast upon us, Congress has an opportunity to make smart, timely changes to help  fix our broken food and farm system by embracing a package of policy reforms outlined in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill. This legislation was recently introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and is co-sponsored by 63 representatives in the House and 9 in the Senate.

The Pingree-Brown bill includes a comprehensive package of cost-effective policy reforms that would boost farmers’ and ranchers’ incomes by helping them meet the growing demand for local and regional food.  The legislation also aims to make fresh, healthy and affordable food-especially fruits and vegetables- more accessible to consumers.  Given our nation’s costly epidemic of diet-related disease, small investments now that increase access and affordability of healthier food will save us billions of health-related dollars down the road.

Trends show people want fresh, healthy, local food

Demand for locally grown, sustainable food is growing in every corner of the country, with more than 100,000 growers now serving more than 160,000 outlets (pdf):

• In 2011, 7,175 farmers markets were open for business, more than double the number in 2002.
• An estimated 6000 Community Supported Agriculture programs are delivering food directly from the farm to consumers.
• More than 2,000 farm-to-school programs are up and running, a five-fold increase since 2004.
• More than 300 universities are involved with the Real Food Challenge and sourcing sustainable food locally.
• More than 360 hospitals have committed to sourcing more nutritious, locally grown food through the Healthy Food in Health Care pledge.
• The number of restaurants purchasing locally-grown food has skyrocketed; For the fourth year in a row, locally sourced food is the top restaurant food trend in 2012.
• More grocery stores are carrying food produced locally or from farms within the state–and labeling it for customers!

In 2008, the USDA valued this expanding market for local and regional foods at nearly $5 billion. The total will likely surpass $7 billion by the end of 2012, when the current farm bill expires.

This growth is particularly remarkable considering the tiny amounts of federal funding that have been invested in local and regional food system projects. Since 2008, funding has almost doubled but EWG estimates that still just a measly $100 million dollars of taxpayer money a year is being channeled to projects supporting increased local food production, distribution and consumption.

Compare that to roughly $12 billion in subsidies annually that go to industrial-scale growers of commodity crops who are enjoying record income year after year.

Farm Bill must help scale up local and regional food systems

While the recent expansion is impressive, local and regional food markets represented a mere two percent of gross farm sales in 2008. We desperately need the new investments and policy reforms outlined in the Pingree-Brown bill to help this burgeoning market grow and remove the many barriers farmers face in meeting existing demand from grocery stores, restaurants, schools, universities, hospitals and consumers. The Local Food bill has a  $100 million a year price tag, a small sum compared to its potential benefits.

The Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill will improve our broken food system by:

• Increasing support for local aggregation, processing and distribution so that farmers can more easily sell healthy food, including locally raised and processed meat, directly to schools, hospitals, stores and restaurants.

• Enabling schools to use more of their federal food funding to buy fresh, local foods. Public schools could opt to use up to 15 percent of their school lunch commodity dollars for buying foods from local farmers and ranchers, instead of through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nationalized commodity food program.

• Improving the diets of food stamp recipients and low-income seniors by making it easier for them to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, community supported agriculture programs, and other direct food marketing services, putting more money in the pockets of local farmers and generating additional economic activity in nearby business districts.

• Diversifying and increasing the production of healthy and sustainable food by increasing funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grant program and increasing access to credit, crop insurance, and other support for organic producers, diversified operations, smaller-scale and beginning farmers.

Together, these modest but effective investments will yield important, much-needed economic benefits. Farms that sell locally through shorter supply chains often keep a higher portion of the retail dollar, increasing profitability and potential for expansion and job creation.

According to a recent USDA analysis, farmers producing for local markets generally provide 1.3 full time jobs compared to 0.9 for farmers who sell through traditional wholesale markets.  And local food farmers grow higher value crops that generate greater sales per acre—$590 per acre versus $304 for the average farm. Local food markets also provide a critical pathway for new businesses, with beginning farmers accounting for 48% of local West Coast food producers.

Tough road ahead

Despite proven economic and public health benefits, getting this bill through the House agriculture committee may be challenging, given the panel’s hostility to the “Know Your Farmer” Program, the USDA’s comprehensive local and regional food initiative.

Pingree’s bill presents both a major opportunity and challenge for the highly decentralized local food and farming movement to work together in a unified, focused way to transform its considerable success at the local level into the political power needed to win support in the House and Senate agriculture committees.

With the stakes as high as they are, we believe that local farmers and the more than 180 hundred organizations that have endorsed the bill are up to the challenge.

Originally published on EWG

The letter comes as big ag interests are working to short-circuit the 2012 farm bill process by pushing a secret farm bill through the deficit-reduction Super Committee.

The letter includes a petition signed by more than 14,000 Californians asking their 55 members of Congress to defend key farm bill programs that are critical to a state that generates more than $36 billion in agriculture revenue. The coalition letter demonstrates a broad consensus in California that top priority for federal agriculture funding should go to local food production, nutrition, research, specialty crops, organic agriculture and proven conservation programs. It also underscores the need to invest in local food infrastructure and to expand access to local and fresh fruits and vegetables in food assistance and school lunch programs.

As the nation’s largest grower of fruits, vegetables and nuts–as well as the home to the biggest organic sector–California stands to gain from policies that put more emphasis on production, promotion and consumption of healthy and sustainably grown foods. These kinds of proposals are included in a new Local Food Farm and Jobs bill being introduced by Rep. Pingree (D-Maine) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Supporters of the coalition warn that their healthy food reform ideas may be thwarted by a closed-door process being pushed by industrial agriculture lobbyists and their patrons in Congress. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Lochhead elaborated in a front page article Sunday (Oct. 30):

Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are attempting a breathtaking end-run around the democratic process. They are hatching their own farm bill in private and plan by Nov. 1 take it to the new deficit Super Committee to be enacted whole, without votes in their own committees or in Congress.

EWG’s Ken Cook issued a call to food policy reformers to stand up and fight the agribusiness lobbyists’ to hijack the farm bill debate with a backroom process. Long-time farm bill reformer Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) is circulating a letter to his colleagues objecting to this profoundly undemocratic process:

If the Joint Select Committee were to approve such a proposal, the Congress would have no opportunity to consider any amendments to whatever terms are agreed to by the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Agriculture Committees. The Congress would never even have an opportunity to have a separate up-or-down vote on the Farm Bill. Numerous media reports quote Senators and House Members saying that is precisely the reason the Agriculture Committees are pursuing this route.

If the California delegation wants a voice, their first job is to object strongly to this undemocratic scheme to craft the $300 billion farm bill entirely out of public view.

Unless the California delegation stands strong for the interests of their state’s producers and eaters, it is likely that the closed-door process will yield much of the same: a grossly inequitable system that puts tax dollars in the hands of largest and wealthiest growers of commodity crops such corn and rice, while shortchanging healthy food, small farmers and the environment.

Originally published on EWG’s AgMag

The goal of The HSUS is not endless campaigning or conflict with political adversaries, but to find a place where we can forge solutions that produce tangible and meaningful outcomes for animals and show a new way forward in society. And that means sitting down with people who see the world differently than we do, even sitting down with industries that we’ve had deep disagreements with in the past.

Yesterday, we put that principle into practice. I participated in a press conference that I thought could only occur many years into the future: a joint event with The HSUS and the United Egg Producers (UEP).

The UEP is the primary trade association for the egg industry, and we’ve been at war with them over the extreme confinement practices in the industry—specifically, the confinement of laying hens in barren battery cages. We’ve supported bills in legislatures, ballot measures in the states, and litigation in the courts to make our case and to demand better living conditions for laying hens. With more than 260 million hens caught up in extreme confinement systems, we knew there was a lot at stake.

Yesterday, with the leaders of UEP at my side, I announced an agreement between the two organizations to mark the beginning of the end of the era of barren battery cages in America. The agreement, by calling for a national labeling program for all eggs sold in commerce, also promises to provide consumers with more information on the production practices used by egg farmers. This historic agreement calls for a series of reforms to be put into place in the years ahead that will demonstrably improve the lives of laying hens.

There’s currently no federal protection for chickens used for food at all, and no protection for any farm animals during production (there’s a federal humane slaughter law only, and even it applies only to mammals and not to birds). With this agreement, I have great hope that may soon change.

In short, the proposed legislation that HSUS and the UEP will work to enact would:

• require a moratorium at the end of 2011 on new construction of unenrichable battery cages—small, cramped, cages that nearly immobilize more than 90 percent of laying hens today—and the nationwide elimination of barren battery cages through a phase-out period;
• require phased-in construction of new hen housing systems that provide each hen nearly double the amount of space they’re currently provided;
• require environmental enrichments so birds can engage in important natural behaviors currently denied to them in barren cages, such as perches, nesting boxes, and scratching areas;
• mandate labeling on all egg cartons nationwide to inform consumers of the method used to produce the eggs, such as “eggs from caged hens” or “eggs from cage-free hens”;
• prohibit forced molting through starvation—an inhumane practice that is inflicted on tens of millions of hens each year and which involves withholding all food from birds for up to two weeks in order to manipulate the laying cycle;
• prohibit excessive ammonia levels in henhouses—a common problem in the industry that is harmful to both hens and egg industry workers; and
• prohibit the sale of all eggs and egg products nationwide that don’t meet these requirements.

Some of the provisions will be implemented nearly immediately after enactment, such as those relating to molting, ammonia, and euthanasia, and others after just a few years, including labeling and the requirement that all birds will have to have at least 67 square inches of space each. (Currently, approximately 50 million laying hens are confined at only 48 square inches each.)

Recently, Tree and I discussed the recently-passed legislation which officially legalized urban agriculture in the San Francisco. His project is primarily concerned with food access for low-income communities and creating collaborative, non-commercial projects. Tree does not see a benefit in gaining the legal right to sell city-grown food because he wants food to be free. How, Tree asked, is the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance (SFUAA–the main civic group pushing for the passage of the legislation) going to work for those who want to see volunteer-based, collective, and non-commodified forms of urban agriculture?

As mentioned in my previous post, the SFUAA worked on this new legislation out of a need expressed by one of our members, Little City Gardens, and an opportunity presented by members of city government. But my conversation with Tree has brought to my attention a rift forming in the San Francisco urban farming scene.

The other side of the rift is expressed by Iso Rabins, Founder of ForageSF and the Underground Farmers Market, who said in a recent review of his market:

“The feeling in the food community is that if you’re making money, it’s not something you’re passionate about,” Mr. Rabins said. “But if we actually want to change anything—dedicate our lives to it—we need to make money doing it.”

I have two reactions to this. My skeptical response is to ask what sort of “change” Rabins is talking about making here. The Underground Farmers Market, in my experience, is a bacchanalian celebration of homescale food preparation, not food system change. To be sure, eating homemade pickles might be a stepping away from the corporate food world. But, as a student of international food systems issues, I’ve never seen the political economy of food shift due to slightly expanded networks of boutique prepared foods. That the Underground Farmers Market has also been skirting the law by allowing producers to circumvent health and safety rules (In fact, the market was recently issued a cease-and-desist notice by the California Department of Public Health) does not mean that it is challenging, or “changing” the food system in a substantive way.

My less skeptical response is that, yes, Rabins is right about something. No matter how anti-capitalist your values might be, we still live in a capitalist society, with capitalist realities like rent (which here is San Francisco is a brutal reality indeed). Some people can choose to live a low-income lifestyle, and spend their free time volunteering to grow and give away organic food. But many people cannot.

Many marginalized communities are not as focused on creating a world free of capitalism as they are creating a way to survive and thrive within capitalism. A model that promotes what some call “social entrepreneurship” then, is more appropriate than one that asks that we all volunteer our time, in service of grander values and long-term goals. With the exception of Little City Gardens, no San Francisco farm has people who are paid to farm via sales of produce. Most rely on volunteers, plus grants, philanthropies, and government funds to pay any staffers who do exist.

When one considers one’s actions as activism, done for the purpose of creating social, political, or economic change, and not just personal fulfillment, it behooves one to have a “theory of change.” The “anti-capitalist” theory of change holds that solutions to market failures can’t come from the market (recalling Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”), and this is hard to square with a “green economy” theory of change, which believes that a capitalist economy can be reformed, through business, into one that is less destructive to people and the environment.

Though the anti-capitalist perspective can be seen as elitist (how can many people afford to live from this perspective?), a similar critique could be leveled against green economy proponents. After all, most of the current pathways sought to create a local economy from sustainably produced food lead to high-end restaurants and products (like those sold at the Underground Farmers Market). While there have been efforts to expand access to “good food”, like the Eat Real Market or Peoples Grocery sliding-scale “Grub Box”, these efforts are limited by two main problems: good food costs more to produce, and low income people must often prioritize other necessary expenses over food. Our options are thus framed between cheap foods accessible to all or small scale food products serving only the elite.

A social movement must have a vision of the world it wants to create. Anti-capitalists have this vision in spades, seeing a future economy based in developing and re-creating commons and not just markets, but have a rather unverified and (to many) an unconvincing path to get there. Green economy enthusiasts have a vision which seems more “realistic,” but strikes me as toothless in addressing longstanding legacies of economic inequality and the structural hurdles to sustainability engendered by endless-growth capitalism. With waves of greenwashing and the watering down of organic standards, green seems easily compromised.

Also, competition from cheap foods grown by still-existent industrial farming operations continually skew a green food economy, causing good food sources to seem expensive, even as good food farmers struggle to survive. So “opting out” of this global, corporate-controlled food system is not tantamount to challenging it.

There is another point that vexes both sides of this debate: How do social movements succeed? Is it more imperative that they are massive, unpaid, volunteer, collectively-organized, and values-driven? Or that they are organized (into hierarchical bureaucracies), paid, and supported financially by their work? Looking to the past, we see that both sides are at least part of the equation. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece about the inadequacies of social technologies like Twitter to create social change, pointing to the effectiveness of the Civil Rights movement, which was built by organizations with paid staff, but also through deep connections built between individual activists acting together, for free and for no other compensation than the hope for success.

A scary truth is that creating social change almost certainly requires sacrifice, if not of life and limb, then at least of time. To expect to get paid to create change is to deny that change has its own value that deserves effort outside of remuneration.

I hope that we can find “both/and” solutions to this potential rift among food and farming activists, but once again I feel like I find myself with more questions than answers. We who do consider ourselves as “activists” or part of a “movement” need to do a better job of defining what and who that movement is for. And we can’t allow ourselves to settle with self-satisfaction of “a job well done” without considering the true nature of the problem and the efficacy of our actions to solve them.

This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed one of the most progressive pieces of legislation for urban agriculture in the nation. The new legislation has amended the zoning code to allow agricultural activities in all parts of the city, as well as defining the parameters by which urban agriculturists can sell their products. It doesn’t address the touchier subjects of animal husbandry or marijuana cultivation, but has created opportunities for and the legitimacy of urban fruit and vegetable cultivation.

The legislation was the result of a rare combined and cooperative effort between city officials and urban agriculture practitioners and advocates. This was accomplished mainly through the work of the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance (SFUAA), an organization of which I am a member, which formed nearly a year ago to coalesce the various efforts and projects focusing on local food and agriculture into a cohesive political voice. The coalition is made up of over 300 individual and 40 organizational members, and its formation turned out to be very well timed.

The work of re-writing the zoning code came up early in SFUAA meetings, but became more pressing when one of our members, Little City Gardens, came up against the code in attempting to expand to a new, larger plot of land. Told that converting the empty lot into a garden would cost $3,000 in conditional use permit fees, LCG opted to petition not for a personal exemption, but for a rewriting of the code.

With support from key individuals in the department, as well as in the mayor’s office, the planning department immediately went to work on crafting a new code. In that process, they consulted a zoning working group of the SFUAA, which proposed certain zoning priorities and tried to limit potential negative impacts of new zoning legislation.

For the most part, our advocacy campaign worked. For example, the original drafts contained provisions (supposedly at the express behest of former mayor Gavin Newsom) that gardens be required to have fencing, and further, fencing that is qualified as “ornamental.” Seeing as ornamental specifies made of wood or wrought-iron, this would have meant any new garden project would have had hundreds, if not thousands, of extra dollars of start-up costs. The SFUAA pushed for the the fencing requirement to be removed for new gardens, and for gardens to be given more choices. Which means that, not only will less-expensive fencing be a possibility, but we have encouraged new spaces to use their fencing to grow something (kiwi? grapes? passionfruit?).

Sadly, another of the SFUAA’s proposed amendments was not adopted. We recommended that the “change of use” fees paid to the planning department for new gardens be waived. We argued that if the city truly intends to support the flourishing of many new food-producing sites, it would behoove them to remove potential barriers to entry. In the context of an economic recession where all governments are having a hard time making ends meet, it was argued that agencies cannot make such blanket fee exceptions, even for something acknowledged as beneficial like urban agriculture. But comparing $3,000 to the $300 it will cost to get a permit with the new code, this is obviously an improvement.

One issue that the code brings up is the question of sales-focused versus community-oriented production. Many of the urban farming projects that currently exist in San Francisco (Alemany Farm, Free Farm, and Hayes Valley Farm being the three largest examples) are all focused on growing food and giving it away; none sell any produce. So how will this legislation help these projects? While a large portion of the legislation regards legalizing production for local markets, by virtue of setting up designations for urban agriculture the legislation legitimizes agriculture’s place in the urban landscape. Food that is grown for personal use is not regulated in the code; if someone has a backyard garden, this legislation won’t effect them. Should for-benefit (i.e. non-profit) farm projects seek to raise some of their operating funds through sales, including of value-added products, this will now be allowed. This could also open the door for social justice-minded urban farms to create truly green jobs without requiring so much grant funding.

Impacts on neighborhoods were also taken into account by planners in writing the code. As a result, the regulatory parameters of the legislation are based on size (less than an acre is designated “neighborhood” vs “large-scale” for more than an acre) and not whether or not the food is grown for sale or not. Any new project (for profit or not) that occurs on a large site would be legally allowable, following the permitting process (including a vetting of water-wise irrigation practices by the Public Utilities Commission). This means that, once neighbors have been notified and a permit has been secured, no neighbor will be able to complain and get a project shut down. Before this code, non-residential gardens on private property had an unknowable legal status, and could theoretically be fought by neighbors.

All told, this legislation is proof that “the system,” as ossified and change-resistant as it may seem, can occasionally work, with the combined efforts of the right people in positions of power and aware, active community members. The SFUAA’s mission and work is ongoing and constantly being developed, and we welcome input and participation (see our website for details on our mission and other non-policy-related work). Our next steps will be up to our members to formulate. Having worked to allow fruit and vegetable production and sales in the city, what steps will we take to support our other members’ work? Will we agitate for “food sovereignty” like Sedgwick, Maine? Will we create pop-up resource centers for urban farmers to access compost, mulch, and plants? Will we petition the Recreation and Parks Department to replace purely ornamental landscaping with productive alternatives? These are just some ideas, since we know that there’s plenty to do to craft the urban landscape we know to be necessary for a sustainable and equitable future.

Alliances have a long tradition within U.S. civil society, and urban agriculture alliances can be at the forefront of new movements towards food system sustainability. With the 2012 Farm Bill fast approaching, my personal hope is to see urban agriculture alliances serve as platforms for advocacy and organizing; getting urban folks working together to reorient some of the huge levers of subsidy which so distort our food system.

If you’re interested in starting an alliance in your area, or would like more information on our work, feel free to write us at info@sfuaa.org, or to me at antidogmatist@gmail.com

Photo: Little City Gardens, by Caitlyn Galloway

On the heels of a Tea Party-fueled midterm election, House Republicans have pledged to use their new majority to rein in federal spending and decrease the size of the bureaucracy–a tough environment for any government agency seeking greater resources.  Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a fiscal conservative who will chair the subcommittee that oversees FDA’s budget, recently raised serious questions about the justification for the new food safety bill’s price tag.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new provisions will cost $1.4 billion over five years.

“I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out, but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant overreach,” Kingston told the Washington Post in late December.  ”We still have a food supply that’s 99.99 percent safe. No one wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn’t there.”

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told reporters on a White House media call Monday that she remains “optimistic” that the agency will be able to move forward and implement the bill, but declined to say whether the entire CBO estimate would be critical to carrying out all of the new responsibilities.  Those tasks include mandatory recall authority, increased inspection frequencies of high-risk facilities, and enforcing new requirements that growers and food facilities have food safety plans and that foreign facilities importing food to the U.S. must meet the same standards.

Shifting the federal food safety system, which haphazardly oversees a now global food system, from a reactive to a preventive system that enforces food safety regulations and inspects food facilities more than once a decade is no small feat.

“This is a major, historic piece of legislation … and it’s really Congress asking us to build a whole new system for food safety with all of the elements that you’ve been hearing about, some of those elements we’ve already been working on and will be able to put in place fairly quickly with existing resources.  Other components will require additional resources, dollar and human resources,” said Hamburg.   “We will be working closely with Congress and key stakeholders to try to really specify some of those needs.”

“Obviously the money that we have available in the annual budget cycle … ultimately impacts the way we are able to implement the bill,” said Hamburg, adding that FDA has been “very fortunate” to receive recent budget increases in recent years despite tough budgetary conditions.

When asked about Kingston’s comments about justifying the cost of implementing the bill,  Hamburg said that shifting the food safety system toward being preventive was “the appropriate way to go” and that the cost of not implementing the reforms would be “simply unacceptable.”

“We are very fortunate that we do have one of the safest food supplies in the world, however, every day we see preventable illness.   We see unnecessary hospitalization and too many people have died from foodborne disease that could have been prevented,” said Hamburg. “We are committed to taking on these new responsibilities and mandates given to us by Congress and we will work closely with Congress to implement this as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, also on the media briefing, called on Congress to fund the bill.

“The change won’t happen overnight and it’s still essential that Congress provide sufficient funding for these improvements to take shape,” she said.  ”Thanks to the legislation, we can seriously begin building the 21st century food safety system that we desperately need.”

Advocates for the new law, including consumer lobbyists and the leading food industry groups, are gearing up to fight for the funding.

“FDA is going to need the resources to enable this landmark new law to fulfill its promise.  The costs of not implementing this new law are staggering,” said Erik Olson, director of food initiatives for the Pew Health Group, citing a study last year that estimates the total health care costs for foodborne illness at $152 billion annually.

“Those costs dwarf any costs of implementing costs for this legislation,” added Olson. “That doesn’t even consider the costs to industry of these recalls.  A single company announced, back in 2009, that the peanut recall alone cost them $60-70 million.  This will save a great deal of money for consumers and industry.”

Olson said consumer, industry, public health, and foodborne illness victim lobbying groups are all set to “vigorously” make the case for funding the new provisions.  ”This is money that is extremely well spent.  It’s wise to spend money in order to save money in the long run.  We will be seeking to make the case to Congress that it is important to public health.”

Pam Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a strong supporter of the bill, said the food industry “has long recognized that strong government oversight is a critical and necessary part of our nation’s food safety net” and pledged GMA’s continued support for successfully implementing the new law.

Bailey said that the food sector expects the reforms will prevent contamination and “raise the bar for the entire industry.”

President Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act into law today after returning from a family vacation in Hawaii.

Originally published on Food Safety News

First and foremost, the leadership and composition of the Agriculture Committees will change dramatically. In the House, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) is next in line to assume the role of committee chair. Lucas has not been a champion of agriculture policy reform, and has been a strong supporter of direct payments to commodity producers. He will be joined by many new faces. Over half of the Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee lost their seats. This presents the opportunity for the sustainable food movement to court these freshman committee members to champion small but innovative pieces of legislation. The role of the Democrats will depend in part on whether Rep. Lucas manages the Committee in a partisan (or bi-partisan) fashion.

In the wake of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s defeat in Arkansas, Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow will most likely become Agriculture Committee chair. Agriculture in Michigan is driven by fruit and vegetable production, AKA “specialty crops.” Stabenow has more flexibility with regards to commodity reform than her Midwestern or Southern counterparts and has also been a strong supporter of local and regional food systems in recent legislation.

The elections have further polarized Congress. Half of the members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog wing of the Democratic Party lost their re-election bids in the House. As their power to block progressive legislation diminishes, the more liberal members of the House, many of whom represent “safe” Democratic districts, will likely see their power within the Party ascend.  The Congressional Progressive Caucus will represent 41 percent of the Democrats in the House.  This stands in counterpoint to the swollen ranks of the Republican Party in the House, with numerous newly elected Tea Party and conservative members. Both of these trends make a bi-partisan environment less likely.

Even before the election, Congressional and USDA leadership were projecting the next Farm Bill to be the stingiest one in recent history. They predicted that there would be no additional money for new or expanded programs. In fact, 37 existing programs totaling $8-$10 billion are facing extinction in the next Farm Bill. Further pressure comes from the threat of budget reconciliation, a process by which Congress mandates cutbacks to existing programs, including those with mandatory funding and applies these savings to deficit reduction. Innovation in food and farm policy can be especially difficult in this kind of financial environment, when interest groups are circling the wagons to protect their existing programs and spending levels.

How will these factors impact the Farm Bill? Let’s take a look at nutrition programs, commodity programs, and local and regional food system related policies.

Nutrition programs

Many sustainable food and public health advocates are looking for new approaches to promote the consumption of healthier foods and to support local and regional food systems. The recent request by New York City to remove soda from the list of approved food stamp items is one example of this approach. The election results may make such reforms more difficult. Why?

First, Republicans are perceived to be hostile to the food stamp program, and may seek to remove its entitlement status or cut back spending to pay for their budgetary priorities. (It is only fair to note that the Democrats have also raided surpluses in the SNAP program to pay for child nutrition and public education).  In response, the anti-hunger community will likely take a “do no harm” approach to preserve current benefits and regulations, avoiding debate that could open the door for cutbacks.

Health advocates may face other challenges to boosting the nutritional focus of federal food programs. Public health advocates are not the natural constituency for conservative Republicans, who, while gutting funding for the SNAP program may simultaneously frame any proposed limits on the use of SNAP benefits (such as restricting the purchase of soda or junk food) as actions of a “nanny state.”  Attempts to steer SNAP purchasing toward more nutritious foods would also be opposed by powerful players within the food and beverage industry, to whom the newfound majority in the House will likely be sympathetic.

Commodity programs

Historically, regional concerns have often transcended partisan politics in the Farm Bill. In 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refrained from pushing for commodity program reform because she feared it would imperil the Democrats’ majority in the House by making newly elected Democratic representatives from the Heartland more vulnerable in future elections. The question remains whether Speaker Boehner will have the same concerns. Will he put off deficit hawks who would like to kill commodity programs so that freshman Agriculture Committee members can bring home the bacon? The Senate, assuming Senator Stabenow wins leadership of the Agriculture Committee, offers better prospects for commodity reform.

Local and regional food systems

Until a few years ago, when local and regional food systems were under the radar of most Congressional members, advocating for them was as easy as selling mom and apple pie.  Now that the Administration has put this approach in the spotlight through Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, they have drawn opposition from Big Agriculture and a handful of Republican senators. Big Agriculture may feel threatened, and push the House leadership to oppose advances. Similarly, House Republicans may perceive local food to be the Administration’s issue and seek to politicize it.

Remaining questions

The final content of the Farm Bill will be shaped by numerous other factors, most of which will gradually become clearer over the next six to twelve months. Here is a brief rundown of some remaining questions.

Congress: Ultimately, will the Republicans and Democrats work together, both within the House and between chambers?  Will the highly partisan environment of 2010 continue?

The Administration: Will the Administration come out with a strong proposal for the Farm Bill, and will it invest political capital in its passage? How will the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative impact the Administration’s actions?

Funders: The foundation community is still identifying its strategy for the Farm Bill, which will influence what advocacy organizations are able to achieve. What will be their focus and financial commitment to Farm Bill organizing and education?

Advocacy Community: Most of the advocacy community has not yet identified its policy priorities nor have major new coalitions been unveiled. How will the development and content of this strategic analysis shape our collective efforts to bring about a more sustainable food and farm policy?

Timing: Will the Farm Bill be finished in 2011 or even 2012? Rep. Lucas has voiced his preference for a go-slow approach. The closer the Farm Bill gets to the 2012 elections the more likely an extension into 2013 becomes.

External events: How will climate change play a role in the Farm Bill, either through policy-related efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or through weather events, such as crop failures?

More than ever before, there is grassroots demand for a new food and farm policy based on principles of equity, health and sustainability. The question for those of us working in this field is: how do we translate the public’s interest into policy change?  How do we adapt our targets, strategies and tactics to meet this new power dynamic in Washington? Who are our allies and how do we work together toward collective goals? I urge us all in the movement to find common ground in broad, progressive and effective coalitions. Like the crisis and opportunity cliché, another one comes to mind: United we stand, divided we fall.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “hotlined” the bipartisan bill yesterday, notifying senators that the legislation is ready to be considered under unanimous consent, a critical step forward, if no one objects to the guidelines for debate and amendments.

But Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) made it clear yesterday he still objects to the bill, citing $1.4 billion in additional spending and “burdensome new regulations.”

Coburn’s objection means Democrats would need to invoke cloture, which requires 60 votes, to limit debate on the floor.  Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the committee that considered the legislation, told reporters last week he believes he has more than 90 votes for the bill.

This may sound like easy math, but cloture takes a lot of time and the upper chamber has a limited number of work days remaining before the contentious midterm election cycle.

“Right now it’s an issue of time,” Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said.  ”It would be a much better situation if we can get [a unanimous consent] agreement.”

“Our hope is that we can move this bill this work period,” said Lachapelle, who blamed the time crunch on Republican “obstructionism” and a bevy of other legislative priorities–including defense authorization, tax cuts, and a continuing resolution.

Coburn, however, blames the impasse on Reid.

“If the Majority Leader wants the bill to advance he should pay for it,” John Hart, a spokesman for Coburn, wrote in an email. “Dr. Coburn isn’t responsible for the Majority Leader’s failure to write offsets into the base bill.”

“As Dr. Coburn said last week, the American people should question the competence of any member of Congress who can’t find $1.4 billion of waste in a $3.5 trillion budget to pay for this bill,” added Hart.

Coburn’s insistence that the authorizing language contain a cost offset has many in food policy circles scratching their heads.

Ferd Hoefner, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition who has been working on the food safety bill extensively, called Coburn’s demand a “logical impossibility.”

“Like the vast majority of authorizing bills, [S.510] merely authorizes the possibility of later appropriations,” explained Hoefner.  ”The policies and programs authorized are then considered at a later time by the Appropriations Committees who determine whether or not to fund the authorizations. Some get funded, others do not.”

“It is not possible to “pay for” or “offset” a discretionary program in an authorization bill,” he added. “It is perfectly valid to debate the potential ultimate cost of passing a food safety bill.  It is not logical, however, to then morph into a debate about offsetting that potential cost.  That debate occurs in the context of a completely different piece of legislation, in this case the agricultural appropriations bill.”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act has been stalled since November, when it was unanimously voted out of committee.

Originally published on Food Safety News

Notably absent from the 225-page managers package are two hot button amendments: a bisphenol-A (BPA) ban championed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and a provision to ease the regulatory burden on small farmers authored by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and co-sponsored by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).

The updated bill also reduces the required inspection frequency as part of an effort to bring down the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate for the legislation. Though food safety advocates inside the beltway were encouraged by the bipartisan agreement, several expressed serious concerns about the reduced inspection frequency.

“We are extremely disappointed that the Senate, in order to reduce the estimated cost of the legislation, reduced the frequency of FDA inspections of food processing facilities,” said Consumer Federation of America. “Regular and frequent inspection is a basic part of prevention.”

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY), authors of The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Judd Gregg (R-NH,) and lead cosponsors Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Burr (R-NC)–who negotiated the manager’s package–lauded the landmark agreement.

“Any 100-year-old plus structure–like our nation’s food safety system–needs improvements,” said the lawmakers in a joint statement.  “With this announcement today, we aim to not just patch and mend our fragmented food safety system, we hope to reinforce the infrastructure, close the gaps, and create a systematic, risk-based and balanced approach to food safety in the United States.”

Though the agreement is a critical step, significant hurdles remain. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will increase spending by about $1.4 billion between 2011 and 2015, a tough sell considering the current fiscal landscape and looming midterm elections.

Feinstein also said yesterday that though she did not succeed in adding language to ban BPA in food packaging, she plans to introduce an amendment on the floor to ban the chemical from being used in baby bottles, sippy cups, baby food, and infant formula containers.

“BPA is linked to problems with brain and reproductive development in fetuses, infants, and children. It is critical we act now to protect the most vulnerable, our infants and toddlers, from this harmful chemical,” Feinstein said yesterday in a statement.

As Food Safety News reported last month, most insiders believe disagreements over BPA and the reducing the impact on small farmers will ultimately be resolved.

“I am pleased that one of the few pieces of bi-partisan legislation is moving forward,” said Bill Marler, food safety attorney, advocate, and publisher of Food Safety News. “When I meet with President Obama next week when he is in Seattle, I will urge him to put his full weight behind it. I look forward to watching him sign this landmark food safety legislation.”

The group of lawmakers who released the agreement said they intend to bring the bill to the floor “as soon as possible.”

As Matthew Madia at OMB Watch noted yesterday, this is not the first time senators have pulled the “as soon as possible” card.

“Of course, we’ve heard that before, with no results,” writes Madia. “If the Senate gets its act together and passes food safety reform by the end of the year, it will be a small miracle.

Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Institute remains optimistic about the bill’s chances when the Senate returns from recess in early September.

“It’s very important that [the Senate] got this bipartisan agreement out of committee when there is not a lot of bipartisanship happening,” said Tucker-Foreman. “I still think the chances are very good,” she added, noting that industry and consumer groups remain highly engaged.

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According to Chairman Harkin, the highlights of the manager’s amendment include:

Hazard analysis and preventive controls: Requires facilities that manufacture, process, pack, or hold food to have in place risk-based preventive control plans to address identified hazards and prevent adulteration, and gives FDA access to these plans and relevant documentation. These requirements do not apply to restaurants or most farms.

Imports: Requires importers to verify the safety of foreign suppliers and imported food.  Allows FDA to require certification for high-risk foods, and to deny entry to a food that lacks certification or that is from a foreign facility that has refused U.S. inspectors.  Creates a voluntary qualified importer program in which importers with a certification of safety for their foreign supplier can pay a user-free for expedited entry into the U.S.

Inspection: Gives FDA additional resources to hire new inspectors and requires FDA to inspect food facilities more frequently.

Mandatory Recall Authority: Gives FDA the authority to order a mandatory recall of a food product if the food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death and a company has failed to voluntarily recall the product upon FDA’s request.

Regulatory Balance: Achieves new requirements without being excessively burdensome.  The legislation provides training for facilities to come into compliance with new safety requirements and includes special accommodations for small businesses and farms.  It does not interfere with current organic farming practices and does not change the current definition of farm under the 2002 Bioterrorism Act.  Any farm that is not currently required to register with FDA will not be required to do so under this legislation.

Surveillance: Enhances surveillance systems to detect foodborne illnesses.

Traceback: Requires FDA to establish a pilot project to test and evaluate new methods for rapidly tracking foods in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak.

Increased FDA Resources: Increases funding for FDA’s food safety activities through increased appropriations and targeted fees for food facility reinspection, food recalls, and the voluntary qualified importer program.

Originally published on Food Safety News

In a surprise move yesterday before heading out for five weeks of recess, the Senate passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act with unanimous consent, which means all 100 senators agreed to pass the bill without an individual vote. The bill allots an additional $4.5 billion dollars over ten years to fund federal child nutrition programs including school lunch.

First Lady Michelle Obama supported the bill as part of her Let’s Move campaign to fight childhood obesity, writing in an op-ed in The Washington Post last week,”This groundbreaking legislation will bring fundamental change to schools and improve the food options available to our children.”

Though providing less than the requested $10 billion suggested by Let’s Move, this marks the first major step towards the most significant increase in funding on the child nutrition programs in 30 years. In a statement yesterday, the First Lady said, “While childhood obesity cannot be solved overnight, with everyone working together, there’s no question that it can be solved. And today’s vote moves us one step closer to reaching that goal.”

According to Jane Black at The Washington Post, the bill includes money for the establishment of school gardens and for sourcing local foods. In addition, the bill “would mandate that the Department of Agriculture develop nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools, not just what is served in the lunch line,” which could mean eliminating “competitive foods” like soda and candy bars in vending machines and a la carte lines. This won’t be so easy for schools to swallow, as the money from these purchases is often used to fund sports and art programs.

The pressure to pass the bill is now on the House, which is officially on August recess, but will be reconvening next week to work on a jobs bill. However, according to Black, the chamber is not expected to take up the bill until after the August recess. In order for the new funding to become law, the House will need to pass its version of the bill, which currently calls for nearly double the funding (and reconcile it with the Senate’s version), in time for President Obama to sign the bill into law before September 30th, when the original funding is set to expire.

The Senate has promised to pay for their version of the bill with monies from other programs at the USDA. On the chopping block, for example, are food stamp benefits, or SNAP. $12 billion in additional SNAP benefits were set to come online in 2013, and have been mentioned as a potential source of funding for the jobs bill, among others. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) claimed that since these funds were already being co-opted, they might as well be used to pay for child nutrition. “I think it’s appropriate if these tax dollars are going to be spent that they’re spent on healthy food for kids,” she said.

Advocates have for the most part thrown their support behind the bill, even though what it offers equals around 6 cents per school meal, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of an apple per child per day. However, the added absurdity of taking food from the mouths of hungry families to give to hungry kids has gotten some groups riled up. The Community Food Security Coalition, made up of around 300 organizations, argues that “programs should not be paid for by cutting food benefits for low-income and disadvantaged Americans, regardless of the merits of those programs. Congress should not be voting to increase hunger.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) agreed more or less with the sentiment in a statement released yesterday:

The legislation rids schools of junk food, issues proper alerts to schools when contaminations occur, guarantees all foster children access to school meals, connects farms to schools to supply them with fresh, local produce, and strengthens nutrition resources for children and young mothers. But if our children are ever going to truly succeed in the classroom and beyond, they need better access to healthy meals in the lunchroom, and this legislation falls short of that goal. Further, I’m disappointed that the bill is paid for in part with future funds from the critically important SNAP program. I will continue to fight for more common sense changes to the program and secure the investments we need to make sure every child can achieve their full potential.

Photo: a la corey