Farm follies
Rutland Herald, November 13, 2007

The U.S. Senate has a chance to take meaningful steps toward a sane food policy when it takes up the new farm bill this week.

The farm bill, which will set agricultural policy for the next five years, has drawn well-deserved criticism for its continued emphasis on subsidies to big growers of the five major commodities — wheat, corn, rice, soybeans and cotton. Author Michael Pollan has called this the "let-them-eat-high-fructose-syrup model" of farm policy.

Nationally, two-thirds of the billions in crop subsidies go to 10 percent of growers, creating many pernicious effects. Subsidizing corn is a way to keep Coca-Cola and other foods that make us fat cheap for consumers. It is also a way of making the major agribusiness and manufactured food companies rich.

According to Pollan, this is why Twinkies are cheaper than carrots and Coke is competitive with water.

Rising opposition to the corporate subsidy model of farm policy has persuaded Congress to add other provisions to the farm bill to make it more acceptable. These provisions include support for what are called specialty crops, meaning actual food, such as fruits and vegetables. The other provisions of the bill also include environmental programs, which could help Vermont farmers cut back on the farm waste running into Lake Champlain.

Vermont's congressional delegation traditionally concerns itself primarily with preserving the federal dairy program. This year they are pushing to expand the MILC program, which places a floor beneath the milk price to protect dairy farmers from severe dips in price.

At present, the milk price is high so farmers do not require federal support. But it was just two years ago when the price had reached 40-year lows, and federal (and state) subsidies helped keep family farms in Vermont and elsewhere afloat. The White House is opposed to an expansion of the MILC program, though the program as a whole does not appear to be in jeopardy.

The Senate is likely to consider an amendment offered by Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to put a $250,000 cap on the subsidies that a farmer can receive. This is to avoid the huge payday that the biggest farms enjoy at the expense of the federal government; the cap is high enough that few if any Vermont farmers will be affected.

Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., have proposed an even more sweeping farm reform. It would provide revenue insurance, preventing serious income loss by farmers, but eliminating the commodity subsidies that have distorted the U.S. food market and harmed international agriculture.

In the past, Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is influential on farm policy, has shied away from pushing too hard on subsidy caps out of an interest in protecting the dairy program. But this year the dairy program appears to be in good shape, and it would be in the national interest if he, plus Sen. Bernard Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch, threw their support to the Dorgan-Grassley amendment. Ultimately, change like that espoused by Lugar and Lautenberg is needed to bring food policy in line with the interest of those who eat, as opposed to those who farm the federal government for subsidies. At that time, one hopes that Leahy, Sanders and Welch sign on to the cause of farm policy reform.