Published on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 by Common Dreams
Experts Tell Congress: Support Healthy Food System, Not Big Ag
Ahead of 2012 Farm Bill, food and health experts send open letter to Congress blasting subsidies for 'big agriculture'
The letter comes just days ahead of an expected Senate vote on the 2012 Farm Bill and was initiated by the Environmental Working Group's
Kari Hamerschlag and authors Anna Lappé and Dan Imhoff. All the
signatories expressed frustration with the draft of the bill that came
out of the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this year. It says the
committee’s proposal is “seriously out of step with the nation’s
priorities and what the American public expects and wants from our food
and farm policy.”
"Investing in healthy food, healthy diets and critical nutrition
programs for millions of struggling families across the country should
be the priority as Congress writes the next farm bill," said Marion
Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition at
New York University. "Not more subsidies that send billions of scarce federal funds to the bank accounts of Big Food producers."
"We need a farm bill that supports farmers,
rural communities, and those who are hungry, not a bill that gives
unlimited subsidies to the biggest commodity producers while at the same
time cutting programs for the neediest among us." --Anne Lappé
"We need a farm bill that supports farmers, rural communities, and
those who are hungry, not a bill that gives unlimited subsidies to the
biggest commodity producers while at the same time cutting programs for
the neediest among us," said Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet and cofounder of the Small Planet Institute. "We stand with the millions of Americans who share this common sense perspective."
The full letter follows:
Dear Member of Congress,
With the 2008 farm bill due to expire in a matter of months, the
Senate Agriculture Committee approved legislation in April to steer the
next five years of national food and agriculture policy. We applaud the
positive steps that the proposed bill takes under Senator Debbie
Stabenow’s leadership, including incentives for fruit and vegetable
purchases, scaling up local production and distribution of healthy foods
and bolstering marketing and research support for fruit, nut and
vegetable farmers.
Unfortunately, the Senate bill falls far short of the reforms
needed to come to grips with the nation’s critical food and farming
challenges. It is also seriously out of step with the nation’s
priorities and what the American public expects and wants from our food
and farm policy. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making
nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible should be a
top priority in the farm bill. Members of the U.S. Council of Mayors and
the National League of Cities have both echoed this sentiment in recent
statements calling for a healthy food and farm bill.
Although the committee proposal includes important reforms to the
commodity title, we are deeply concerned that it would continue to give
away subsidies worth tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to the
largest commodity crop growers, insurance companies, and agribusinesses
even as it drastically underfunds programs to promote the health and
food security of all Americans, invest
in beginning and disadvantaged farmers, revitalize local food economies
and protect natural resources. We strongly object to any cuts in food
assistance during such dire times for so many Americans. These critical
shortcomings must be addressed when the bill goes to the Senate floor.
As written, the bill would spend billions to guarantee income for
the most profitable farm businesses in the country. This would come
primarily in the form of unlimited crop insurance premium subsidies to
industrial-scale growers who can well afford to pay more of their risk
management costs. Crop insurance programs must be reformed to work
better for diversified and organic farmers and to ensure comprehensive
payment caps or income eligibility requirements. Otherwise, this so
called “safety net” becomes an extravagant entitlement for affluent
landowners and insurance companies.
In addition, the proposed $9 billion-a-year crop insurance
program comes with minimal societal obligations. Growers collecting
hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premium subsidies should
at least be required to take simple measures to protect wetlands,
grassland and soil. Instead, the unlimited subsidies will encourage
growers to plow up fragile areas and intensify fencerow-to-fencerow
cultivation of environmentally sensitive land, erasing decades of
conservation gains.
Most of the benefits from these programs would flow to the
producers of five big commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice and
wheat). Meanwhile, millions of consumers lack access to affordable
fruits and vegetables, with the result that the diets of fewer than five
percent of adults meet the USDA’s daily nutrition guidelines. Partly as
a result, one in three young people is expected to develop diabetes and
the diet-related health care costs of diabetes, cancer, coronary heart
disease and stroke are rising precipitously, reaching an estimated $70
billion a year.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Government Accountability
Office has identified modest reforms to crop insurance subsidies that
could save as much as $2 billion a year. Half could come from payment
limits that affect just four percent of the growers in the program.
Congress should use these savings to provide full funding for
conservation and nutrition assistance programs and strengthen
initiatives that support local and healthy food, organic agriculture and
beginning and disadvantaged farmers. These investments could save
billions in the long run by protecting valuable water and soil
resources, creating jobs and supporting foods necessary for a healthy
and balanced diet.
When it is your turn to vote, we urge you to stand up for local
and healthy food and nutrition programs and to support equitable and
fiscally responsible amendments that will protect and enhance public
health and the environment while maintaining a reasonable safety net for
the farmers who grow our food. More than ever before, the public
demands this. Come November, they will be giving their votes to members
of Congress who supported a healthy food and farm bill that puts the
interests of taxpayers, citizens and the vast majority of America’s
farmers first and foremost.
Our nation was built on the principles of protecting our greatest
legacy: the land on which we grow our food and feed our families. Stand
with us to protect not only farmers, without whom we would all go
hungry, but to enact a food and farm bill that fairly and judiciously
serves the interests of all Americans.
Sincerely,
| Leigh Adcock | Executive Director, Women, Food and Agriculture Network |
| Will Allen | Farmer, Founder, CEO of Growing Power |
| Dan Barber | Executive Chef and Co-owner Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns |
| Neal D. Barnard, MD | President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine |
| Sung e Bai | Director of National Programs, Slow Food USA |
| Mario Batali | Chef, Author, Entrepreneur |
| Fedele Bauccio | CEO, Bon Appetit Management Company |
| Jo Ann Baumgartner | Wild Farm Alliance |
| Rick Bayless | Chef, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo |
| David Beckmann | President, Bread for the World |
|
Andy Bellatti |
Andy Bellatti, MS, RD, Andy Bellatti Nutrition |
| Wendell Berry | Lane's Landing Farm |
| Haven Bourque | Founder, HavenBMedia |
| Tom Colicchio | Craft Restaurants |
| Christopher Cook | Author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis |
| Ken Cook | President, Environmental Working Group |
| Ann Cooper | Chef and Founder, Food Family Farming Foundation |
| Ronnie Cummins | Organic Consumers Association |
| Laurie David | Author, Family Dinner |
| Michael R. Dimock | President, Roots of Change |
| Christopher Elam | Executive Director, INFORM |
| Maria Echeveste | Senior fellow, Center for American Progress (for affiliation purposes only) |
| Andy Fisher | Co-founder and founding Executive Director, Community Food Security Coalition |
| Chef Kurt Michael Friese | Owner, Devotay Restaurant & Bar and Publisher, Edible Iowa River Valley |
| Joan Dye Gussow | Grower, Author, Professor Emerita Teachers College, Columbia University |
| Melinda Hemmelgarn, MS, RD | Food Sleuth Radio |
| Gary Hirshberg | Co-founder and Chairman, Stonyfield |
| Mark Hyman, MD | Chairman, The Institute for Functional Medicine |
| John Ikerd | Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics |
| Dan Imhoff | Author, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill |
| Wes Jackson | President, The Land Institute |
| Kristi Jacobson | Catalyst Films |
| Michael Jacobson | Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest |
| Robert Kenner |
Director, Food Inc. |
| Navina Khanna | Co-Founder and Field Director, Live Real |
| Andrew Kimbrell | Executive Director, Center for Food Safety |
| Fred Kirschenmann |
Author, Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays From a Farmer Philosopher |
| Melissa Kogut | Executive Director, Chefs Collaborative |
| Anna Lappé | Author, Diet for a Hot Planet, Cofounder, Small Planet Institute |
| Robert S. Lawrence, MD | Center for a Livable Future, Professor, Johns Hopkins University |
| Kelle Louaillier | Executive Director, Corporate Accountability International |
| Bill McKibben | Author, Deep Economy |
| Liz McMullan | Executive Director, Jamie Oliver Food Foundation |
| Craig McNamara | President Sierra Orchards and Center for Land-Based Learning |
| Carolyn Mugar | Founder and Director of Farm Aid |
| Frances Moore Lappé | Cofounder, Small Planet Institute |
| Dave Murphy and Lisa Stokke | Food Democracy Now! |
| Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II | Director for Public Witness, Presbyterian Church |
| Marion Nestle | Professor, NYU and Author, Food Politics |
| Y. Armando Nieto | Executive Director, California Food and Justice Coalition |
| Nicolette Hahn Niman | Rancher, Author, Attorney |
| Denise O'Brien | Co-founder, Women, Food and Agriculture Network; organic farmer |
| Robyn O'Brien | Executive Director, AllergyKids Foundation |
| Michael Pollan | Professor, UC Berkeley School of Journalism |
| Nora Pouillon | Chef, Author, Owner of Restaurant Nora |
| LaDonna Redmond | Food Justice Advocate and Food and Community Fellow |
| John Robbins | Author, Diet For A New America, The Food Revolution, and No Happy Cows |
| Ocean Robbins | Host, Food Revolution Network |
| Ricardo Salvador | Union of Concerned Scientists |
| Eric Schlosser | Author, Fast Food Nation |
| Lori Silverbush | Silverbush Productions |
| Matthew Scully | Author, Dominion |
| George L. Siemon | CEO, Organic Valley |
| Michele Simon | President, Eat Drink Politics |
| Jim Slama | President, FamilyFarmed.org |
| Naomi Starkman | Founder, Editor-in-chief, Civil Eats |
| Anim Steel | Real Food Challenge |
| Josh Viertel | Former President, Slow Food USA |
| David Wallinga, MD | Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy |
| Alice Waters | Owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant |
| Andrew Weil, MD | Founder and Director, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine |
| Tom and Denesse Willey | T&D Willey Farms |
| Paul Willis | Founder/Manager Niman Ranch Pork Company |
| Mark Winne | Mark Winne Associates |
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