While
Capitol Hill begins another round of Farm Bill negotiations, grassroots leaders
gathered to discuss the people, places, and issues that have too often been
shut out of funding.
By
Leah Douglas | Farm Bill, FARMING, Food and Farm Labor
05.15.17
The
clock is already ticking on the 2018 Farm Bill. Hearings on crop insurance,
farm credit, nutrition programs, dairy policy, and other titles are being
regularly held before the House Agriculture Committee. The witnesses in those
hearings include members of trade associations, credit agencies, and energy
companies—the stakeholders whose priorities are typically most represented in
Farm Bill debates and in the final bill itself.
But
this spring, across town from Capitol Hill, American University hosted a 2018
Farm Bill summit, co-sponsored by the Berkeley Food Institute, with a different
set of topics on the agenda. Grassroots leaders from across the food system
gathered to discuss policy, politics, and potential—and specifically which
issues should be included in this next farm bill, with a focus on those that
are traditionally left out of the bill.
Attendees
and presenters—who included a range of policy experts and community leaders in
agricultural communities—discussed a wide range of topics, including rural
development, antitrust policy, the experiences of farmworkers, and the
obstacles still faced by minority farmers. Much of the discussion centered on
funding—or lack thereof—for these and other matters of most interest to
small-scale producers and rural communities. Indeed, rural development only
received 0.02 percent of Farm Bill funding in 2014.
Instead,
the Farm Bill typically prioritizes the needs of large-scale, conventional
growers. Those priorities are reflected in whose testimony is heard on the
Hill, and in continued expansion of subsidies, crop insurance, and credit
programs that benefit the wealthiest and largest farmers.
The
goal of this summit, then, according to moderator Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, an
assistant professor at American University, was “to broaden the conversation on
[the Farm Bill],” to bring new voices into the conversation, and “to inform it,
so as to reform it, or even to transform it.”
The
tensions between small- and large-scale farmers are only exacerbated by the
fact that rural voters are increasingly disillusioned with President Donald
Trump, whom they helped to elect, and that many environmental and conservation
programs may face dramatic cuts in the President’s coming budget. Since the
summit, President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue,
was confirmed, and President Trump released the Presidential Executive Order on
Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America. But there’s no
indication yet that either of these advancements will directly benefit
small-scale farmers.
Combating
Corporate Consolidation
Among
the key priorities the group identified is food industry consolidation. While
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has addressed this issue through some
policy measures, it’s never taken center stage. And it hasn’t been a priority
in how the bill’s funds are allocated, a trend that will likely continue this
year.
Over
the past several decades, consolidation has been the cornerstone of Big Ag. A
steady stream of mergers and acquisitions has resulted in more than 80 percent
of beef slaughter, 50 percent of chicken processing, and 45 percent of beer
production being handled by as few as four large companies.
“There
should be a branch of the USDA that talks about competition,” said Patty
Lovera, assistant director of Food & Water Watch, during her presentation.
“That’s not really anyone’s job” right now.
The
closest the USDA has gotten to explicitly addressing consolidation is through
the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), a program
meant to enforce the Packers & Stockyards Act (PSA). The PSA, passed in
1921, aims to uphold competitive markets in the livestock sector, but food
industry trade groups lobbied Congress to defund GIPSA for several years.
GIPSA
finally managed to introduce some rulemaking in the midnight hours of the Obama
administration, but those rules—which would offer protections for chicken
farmers who contract with vertically integrated poultry processors—have been
repeatedly delayed under the Trump administration.
Lovera
wasn’t alone in considering the effects of economic concentration.
“Consolidation of the industry has had a huge impact on rural communities,”
said Ben Burkett, director of the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives and
the president of the National Family Farm Coalition. There used to be a
proliferation of mom-and-pop seed stores, he said, but Monsanto drove them out
of business. Continued consolidation in the seed sector has meant that prices
have risen and farmers are increasingly tied to one of just three or four
companies in the sector.
Support
for Female Farmers and Farmers of Color
Another
hot topic at the summit was how to use the Farm Bill to offer more support to
minority farmers. Dr. Joe Leonard, who headed the USDA’s Office of Civil Rights
during the Obama administration, lauded his department for making a
“generation’s worth of change” in eight years. But he acknowledged that USDA
still has a long way to go in addressing historical and ongoing
under-representation of minority farmers in its programs. For instance, he
said, people of color on average only apply to around seven USDA programs, when
the Department offers over 200.
Rudy
Arredondo, president of the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade
Association, agreed that USDA could do more to support farmers of color. “The
hoops we have to go through are just incredible,” he said, speaking to the
experience of his members, who are mostly small-scale producers and face
obstacles including accessing grant programs and land.
Support
for minority farmers has appeared in the Farm Bill before. The 2008 Farm Bill
included provisions that settled a $1.25 billion class-action lawsuit between
USDA and Black farmers. And although the USDA does manage programs tailored to
recruiting and assisting woman and minority farmers, including the Outreach and
Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers program, the 2014
Farm Bill cut that program’s funding in half, to $10 million.
Outside
the Farm Bill, progress is happening on this front: Earlier this month,
Democrats in California’s state Assembly introduced the Farmer Equity Act,
which would give farmers of color more support from the state’s Department of
Food and Agriculture.
Improving
Farmworker Wages and Working Conditions
With
the current climate of fear and anti-immigrant policies as a backdrop,
farmworker wages and working conditions were another important point of
discussion at the summit.
“It
would be a folly not to think about labor issues” alongside other Farm Bill issues,
said Jessica Felix-Romero, director of communications for Farmworker Justice.
“The Farm Bill can create the [solutions] to address what farmworkers face.”
And
yet there is scant mention of farmworkers in the bill. There have been attempts
to write provisions that could improve on-farm working conditions, such as the
Charter for a Healthy Farm Bill, written by the Institute of Agriculture and
Trade Policy for the 2014 Farm Bill. But the final bill ultimately reduced
funding for projects that assist farmworkers.
It’s
still too early to say whether the 2018 Farm Bill will better reflect the needs
of farmworkers, minority farmers, or communities struggling to stay afloat in a
consolidated farm economy. Yet the urgency remains to push forward for a more
inclusive bill. “For those of us who work in rural America on the ground, this
is not just theoretical,” said Rudy Arredondo.
Leonard
echoed that sentiment, making it clear that in his view, the stakes are high
for the next Farm Bill to include better policy for all farmers. “If we don’t
succeed, the bread basket of the world closes,” he said, “and the world doesn’t
succeed.”
National Latino
Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association
Washington, DC
20016
Office: (202)
628-8833
Fax No.: (202)
393-1816
Email: latinofarmers@live.com
Twitter: @NLFRTA
Website: www.NLFRTA.org 
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