Farm Bill helps fund U.S. food production

Ask a New York city slicker pulling a loaf of Wonder Bread from his corner grocery store shelf what the Farm Bill is, and you’re unlikely to get much of a response. Ask the loaf of bread in question, and the answer won’t be any more enriching.

It’s not just because bread doesn’t talk, or because New Yorkers are rude. It’s because the complexity of America’s food industry today makes it such that most consumers are unaware of where their food is coming from. The loaf of Wonder Bread, moreover, wouldn’t know itself – it could be made of wheat transported from any number of states. Industry analysts say that food items like this change hands at least 33 times and travel 1,500 miles before ever reaching a plate.

The major congressional attempt to manage America’s colossal food industry is the $782 billion Farm Bill – one of the biggest legislative behemoths in the federal government. Originally created in the 1930s as part of the New Deal, the Farm Bill encompasses land conservation, low-income food access programs and government subsidies paid to protect farmers from volatile markets. And that’s just the beginning. 

The details of the Farm Bill’s 10 sections go up for congressional revision every four to six years and the latest is due to be renewed by this October. Before that happens, a number of interest groups, representing small farmers, hunger reduction groups and big agricultural businesses will come to the Hill to plead for their constituents.

The Farm Bill is the piece of legislation that determines the quality, quantity, price and types of America’s foods.  It’s about so much more than farming that several interest groups would like to see its name changed to the “Food Bill.”

Bonnie Buckingham, the facilitator for Missoula’s Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, said that the 2007 renewal of the Farm Bill comes at a time when there is more concern for the U.S. food industry than ever before. With fears that the nation’s energy dependence makes the transport of food unsustainable, and that food contamination is now a nationwide issue, Buckingham said people are looking to localize their food systems. 

“There’s an interest in bringing it back to the local level, where people can have a say in where their food comes from and how it’s grown and how it gets to them,” she said.

Buckingham said that 75 percent of the salad for sale in America’s grocery stores is washed in one plant. Were any contamination to break out in that facility, she said, the consequences would be tremendous.

Buckingham is also the program manager at the Missoula Food Bank, and uses Farm Bill allocations to deliver basic food supplies to 360 homebound seniors around town.

“That’s one really concrete, local way that the Farm Bill really helps us feed people at the Food Bank,” she said. 

Farm Bill money also funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Stamps and Women, Infant and Children programs, as well as other food assistance programs for the poor. Buckingham said that a revised Farm Bill advocating a local food economy could help the people enlisted in the program to eat healthier diets of fresh vegetables and fruits, and help them avoid problems like diabetes and obesity to which they are prone.

The Agriculture Department estimates that 35.1 million Americans live in households with food insecurity – about 11.2 percent of the population. Currently the Food Stamp program only assists 56 percent of those eligible. Almost one-fifth of all American children lack secure access to food. 

Buckingham said the Farm Bill could be revised to allocate more money into local food systems. Farmers could be trained to market their crops locally, for example. Infrastructure could be developed that would give Montana the capability of processing its own staple crops. Now a great deal of Montana’s wheat and dry land crops are taken out of the state for processing by big agricultural companies like ConAgra and Monsanto. The wheat is processed and mixed with wheat from other states, and sent around the country. While in 1950, 70 percent of the food eaten in Montana was grown in the state, that number is now 10 percent. 

The Farm Bill also provides subsidies to farmers growing staple crops like corn, wheat, soybeans and feed grains. Casey Bailey, a UM graduate, works a small wheat and barley farm outside of Fort Benton with his
family. Bailey said that his family gets some help from the government, but most of the subsidy money goes to the big landowners. He said the idea was that the money would trickle down and bolster Montana’s rural economies, but that hasn’t happened.  Instead, he said, there has been an exodus of companies and families from Montana, and those with small- to medium-sized farms are left with little choice but to sell out to bigger landowners. 

Bailey said the volatile nature of farming makes subsidies necessary, but that they must be closely scrutinized. 

“Farming has its ups and downs, you could have a good crop one year and then four years of nothing,” he said. “Subsidies can be a good thing, they just need to be reworked a little.”

Bailey said that as local buyers are bought up by bigger buyers, or start looking elsewhere for their wheat, his family faces a hard time trying to sell their crops. 

“The number of companies, the number of options we have to sell to is dwindling,” he said. 

The subsidy policy has often been controversial with regards to international trade.  The subsidy program was introduced widely in the 1970s, when the government encouraged farmers to plant “fence to fence” and promised to buy the excess crop to keep the market price stable.  The surplus food was exported – a large amount was sent to Russia, then facing widespread agricultural problems – as trade, or donated as foreign aid. 

Along the Montana Hi-Line, subsidies are such a way of life that some farmers are paid by the government to turn their lands into wild grasslands, and not farm them at all.  When distributed to developing countries, however, U.S. agricultural surpluses swamp the local markets with cheap, plentiful food, and can make it impossible for local farmers to compete. 

Buckingham said that the shift to local food economies – a move both consumers and farmers appear eager to make – is a sign of a dissatisfaction with the colossal food distribution system we have now, and an awareness of its dangers.  This year’s Farm Bill revisions can help America’s food system by emphasizing local food production, Buckingham said.

“Do I think we’re going to have 100 percent of our food grown in Montana?” she asks.  “No, certainly not.  But can it be more than 10 percent?  Yes.”