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| Volume 4, Issue 4 -- May 2007 |
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The Farm Bill I think a lot about food. As a mother of two young children, I sometimes feel like my entire day revolves around food. It seems I am buying, preparing, cooking, thinking about what to cook or buy, storing or cleaning up after a meal. It can get exhausting and is oftentimes boring. But rather than making all this mental and physical energy toward food a burden, I should turn it into a positive learning tool for my family. So, we’re taking baby steps into the world of organic food, locally grown produce, even planting our own vegetable garden despite the large amount of shade around our house.
In addition to recycling, we would like to get a compost bin as a way to cut down on the amount of trash we send to the landfill. These are small steps, but ones that I pray will lead to a more radical conversion to being a more just and peaceful people. Instead, millions of people globally either go hungry or struggle to find even the basic food staples to put on their tables. I am humbled by mothers and fathers who work long hours and make tough choices, like using money to either feed their children or buy needed medicine and send them to school. So what am I really trying to teach my children? I suppose, in a nutshell, I want them to realize that they are not alone in this world and that the choices they make about the food they eat, the clothes they wear, how they treat the people, and the work they eventually will do affects not just their immediate family and community. Indeed, actions have far-reaching consequences, like the butterfly that flutters her wings and causes ripple effects around the world. My hope is that they will learn to be peaceful people, choosing love over violence of any kind. I hope they will learn to walk lightly on the Earth, much lighter than I have. I hope they learn to give with generosity and without expectations of recompense. I hope they learn to respect and value the differences of others as signs of God’s love for diversity. And I hope that they become these people tomorrow by the small choices we parents make today, such as eating organically and locally grown foods, recycling and conserving energy, to name just a few. This month’s JPIC newsletter is about the federal 2007 Farm Bill. This law will have profound consequences on the way farmers operate nationally and internationally. It will also change government programs like Food Stamps and Environmental Conservation. Families and communities here and abroad will be affected by this legislation. As people of faith, we need to understand that our U.S. food policies play a major role in the way people eat and have access to food in this country and abroad. We will share with you just a few of the connections between the Farm Bill and how it will change the way people live in the Global South. We advocate for policies that are based in uplifting the human dignity of all people and advancing the common good. We invite you to join us to be advocates for just and sustainable food and agricultural policy.
Economic Justice: Another Farm Bill is Possible By Theresa E. Polk I have spent the last few weekends turning over the earth, carefully weeding and sowing the seeds that will become this summer’s bounty in my little patch of dirt. I love this time of year for that—sinking my hands into the rich, moist earth with its promise of the first seedlings. Nothing I buy in the store can compare to what my humble little garden provides, neither in taste nor satisfaction. As I dig my way through a winter’s worth of weeds and neglect, Congress is turning over quite a bit of dirt as well. With the Farm Bill of 2002 set to expire this year, they are sifting through a long history of food and farm policy, weighing hours of testimony and digging through the pages of the previous Farm Bill, looking to determine what shape the next one will take. In the most-general terms, the Farm Bill is the U.S. law governing agricultural and food policy that is renewed approximately every five years. President Franklin D. Roosevelt formulated the first set of agricultural policies that would eventually, through many revisions, become today’s “Farm Bill” as part of the New Deal in 1933. These policies helped the rural United States recover from the years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The breadth of the Farm Bill is vast. It covers 10 different areas, known as “Titles,” that include commodities, conservation, trade, research, nutrition and energy. It affects things as disparate as school lunches and the price of corn in Mexico. It has repercussions for immigration, public health and climate change. It is enormously complicated. At the heart of the matter are commodity subsidies, government payments to producers of specific crops, including corn, rice, wheat, cotton and soybeans. Over the last decade, commodity subsidies have averaged more than $11 billion per year, making it the second largest budget item in the Farm Bill, after food and nutrition programs. Yet despite the money allocated to subsidy payments, farmers and rural communities here are struggling to survive, while small farmers around the world are facing a looming crisis leading to increasing hunger, migration and desperation. At the root of the problem are low prices. Prices of the primary commodity crops on the world market have fallen by more than 40 percent since 1996. This is a direct result of changes in U.S. agricultural policy that shifted to an export-oriented model that permitted or even encouraged low prices while simultaneously forcing open new markets throughout the world. Price supports and supply management systems were replaced by an unregulated free market. To paraphrase Larry Mitchell, the CEO of the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA), farmers farm. It’s what they do. They farm every acre, every year. When the price is low, they farm more to make up for the low price; when the price is high they farm more to turn a small profit. (You can listen to Mitchell discuss trade and agriculture policy at www.tradejusticeusa.org/iwg/briefingreport.html). Planting decisions do not respond to price. Farmers simply respond by planting more food. Overproduction gluts the market and further drops the price. It was hoped that these lower prices would lead to greater markets for U.S. goods. Unfortunately, this has not been the case: exports have remained relatively flat through this period despite rock-bottom prices for agricultural goods. More and more family farmers are being pushed either off the land or are forced to rely on other sources of income. For family farmers, payments are not closing the gap between costs of production and market price. There are fewer farms, and the farms that remain are larger as they are pushed into the hands of corporate agribusiness. Loopholes in the system and the distribution of subsidy payments favor large, mechanized, monoculture farms. Between 1993 and 2000, there was a net loss of 33,000 farms with sales of less than $100,000 per year. Yet over the same time, there was little or no decline in the quantity of land under production, demonstrating a trend toward large farms specializing in commodity program crops. Not only is the Farm Bill not helping family farmers in the United States, it is hurting small farmers the world over. While it might seem to be a piece of purely domestic legislation, the Farm Bill plays a key role in setting world commodity prices. Prices have been pushed so low that they have fallen significantly below the price of production: 25 percent for corn, 40 percent for wheat and up to 57 percent for cotton. Family farmers in the developing world cannot make a living, and their governments either cannot afford subsidy payments, or are constrained by the rules of world trade and aid packages. What is the solution? Unfortunately, this is a complex problem with no easy answers. Many would simply advocate for the removal of farm subsidies, but because of high concentration in the agricultural sector, this would have very little effect, especially in the short and median term, on world prices while devastating U.S. family farmers. Rather, researchers at the University of Tennessee (http://agpolicy.org/blueprint.html) advocate a three-pronged approach.
According to the University of Tennessee’s study, “Farmer prosperity in the US and the developing world is not only possible, it is achievable. It can be ours at less cost and within a shorter time span than the hoped-for benefits of liberalized agricultural trade promised by the wealthy nations of the world to their developing country counterparts. The choice is ours to make: whose future will be protected, and what kind of global food system will be the outcome of US agricultural policy?” Migration: Reaping the Seeds We Sow
Excerpted from: Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally Network Policy solutions to address the situation facing 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, or to address the flow of an estimated 1.2 million migrants that cross the border in an average year, are far from straightforward. An essential part of addressing these difficult decisions is an analysis of the reasons why migrants are crossing the border and why their ranks have increased so dramatically in the last decade. The call for “comprehensive immigration reform” that has become so popular in Congress implies a holistic approach to the issue. But if immigration policy is to be truly comprehensive, it must be informed by related issues and stakeholders, and should deal with the root causes of the recent waves of migration. A central factor exacerbating the economic instability of the poor in Mexico, and increasing the migration from Mexico, is the United States’ own flawed agriculture policies. The dumping of U.S. agricultural commodities, particularly corn, in Mexico at below the cost of production has contributed to the collapse of the Mexican corn market beginning in 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. As a result, it has frequently become impossible for peasants in Mexico to stay on their land. Meanwhile, many of those who make it to the United States work as farm workers without appropriate protections and rights, often facing poor wages and a lack of health and safety protections. Mostly unnoticed, U.S. agriculture policy has thus created a de facto immigration policy, yet not at all the kind that many have hoped for. A truly comprehensive and progressive policy on immigration will have to address the dysfunctional agriculture model in the United States.
Read more at www.globalfarmer.org/Uploads/immigration%20paper2.pdf Care for Creation: Bee Colonies Disappearing Honeybees play a humble, often overlooked, yet essential role as pollinators in U.S. agriculture. Estimates suggest that bees are responsible for every third bite of food we consume, approximately $14 billion annually. Yet something is happening to our bees. Beekeepers in 24 U.S. states have reported losses from 30-80% of their hives due to so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This little-understood phenomenon is characterized by the absence of adult bees in a colony, yet with little or no sign of dead bees. Many theories have been suggested for why this may be taking place, but little research has been done on the phenomenon. Sierra Club, among other scientists and beekeepers, suggests that there may be a connection to increased production of genetically modified crops, particularly those modified to be resistant to certain pests. In a letter to the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the Sierra Club writes: “The cause of CCD is unknown. Although factors being considered include pesticides, mites, microbial disease and habitat decline, there’s a possible link that’s not being investigated. Highly respected scientists believe that exposure to genetically engineered crops and their plant-produced pesticides merit serious consideration as either the cause or a contributory factor to the development and spread of CCD. In searching for the cause of massive honey bee losses nationwide, we must leave no stone unturned to find the answer.” For more information, please visit www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2007-03-21.asp Peace & Reconciliation: Bias in the Fields While family farmers have been struggling to survive under current agriculture policies, minority farmers, particularly African American and Native American farmers, have been disproportionately affected. The number of farms owned by African American and Native American farmers is rapidly decreasing. According to numbers cited by the National Council of Churches, in 1910, 215,000 African American farmers owned, fully or partially, 15 million acres of land. By 1992, that number had decreased to 18,000 African American farmers owning only 2.3 million acres. The number of Latino farmers is growing, yet many Latinos are employed as farm laborers rather than owning their own farm. Evidence has accumulated demonstrating racial bias and discrimination in the delivery of services by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Participation in USDA programs by socially disadvantaged farmers remains low, while an independent report showed that they received far less than their fair share of USDA money for crop payments, disaster payments and loans. In 1998, a class-action lawsuit was filed by African American farmers against the USDA (Pigford v. Johanns) for discrimination. For more information, please visit the Federation of Southern Cooperatives at www.federationsoutherncoop.com. Legislation is now being proposed to rectify some of the historical fairness and inclusion shortcomings of USDA programs. Proposals are being considered to support socially disadvantaged farmers and stem the loss of African American farms. The Rural Coalition, along with other partner organizations through its Farm and Food Policy Diversity Initiative, has created a special initiative to support socially disadvantaged farmers. The initiative seeks to preserve and build land ownership, support transition to organic production, provide access to markets, credit and USDA programs and support rural communities. For more information on the initiative, please visit www.ruralco.org/action/diversity/sdpid.html. TAKE ACTION: Support Family Farms!
For further reflection: www.nccecojustice.org/network/downloads/Our%20Daily%20Bread.pdf Columban News: Columban Missionary in Japan for more than Four Decades visits Washington, D.C. By Amy Woolam Echeverria Sometimes the Spirit is so strong, we just have to listen. And in this Easter season, there is no denying it. In mid-April, I visit the Columban community in Bristol, Rhode Island, to update Columbans about the work we’re doing in the JPIC Office. I think collectively there were more than 500 years of mission experience in the room! I was quite humbled. I talked about a specific threat to global peace: a push by the Japanese government, at the urging of the U.S. government, to remove Article 9 (known as the “peace clause” from the Japan Constitution. Since World War II, the Japanese people have prided themselves that not a single person has been killed as a result of Japanese state aggression for more than 60 years. That could change if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has his way. I shared details about this issue and asked the Columbans if they would be willing to sign on to a letter that we were planning to deliver to the Japanese embassy in Washington D.C. We wanted to deliver the letter to Prime Minister Abe during his visit to Washington, D.C. at the end of April. I also shared our plans to hold a vigil in front of the White House while Prime Minister Abe and President Bush had their State dinner. I was pleased when everyone enthusiastically signed the letter and offered words of support and encouragement for the work we do. However, it was just minutes after my talk that really surprised me. Fr. Frank Carroll came up to me and said he would be interested in coming down to the vigil. Talk about being present to the Spirit! Fr. Carroll had been in Japan for more than 40 years and is just back in the States for about a year. He has been looking for ways to get involved in justice and peace work. Within a couple of hours, he had his ticket booked and he was coming to D.C. for a visit. And what a visit it was. He arrived on Wednesday afternoon just in time to get his bearings and see the office. On Thursday he attended a protest rally in front of the White House organized by a Korean activist community speaking out about the comfort women issue. (See www.support121.org for more details). That was followed by a visit to the Japanese Embassy, where we delivered more than 100 individually signed letters and a letter signed by more than 50 international organizations calling on Prime Minister Abe to keep Article 9 in tact. We ended the day back at the White House where Fr. Carroll offered the opening prayer for the peace vigil. We were small in numbers, but among us was a Japanese Buddhist nun who prayerfully played her drum and chanted for peace. On Friday morning, we gathered with colleagues from different offices, including Maryknoll and Pax Christi USA, and Fr. Carroll shared about his time in Japan and the place justice and peace issues have in the Japanese context. It was an informative session. After a quick lunch, we were off to the airport and Fr. Carroll’s trip came to an end. We are grateful for his willingness to come on the spur of the moment. We look forward to the Spirit inspiring even more moves to action! Resources & Events:
-- National Catholic Rural Life Conference
They also participate in the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill.
For their statement of principles on the 2007 Farm Bill, see
-- Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally Network
-- Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment On March 13, 2007, AFSC and the Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment (IWG) organized a day-long Congressional briefing titled “Rethinking U.S. Trade Policy for the Common Good,” co-sponsored by Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Walter Jones (R-NC). The briefing urged Congress to expand the debate around trade to consider livelihoods, food security, rural development, cost of medicines and affordability of water. You can listen to the sessions at www.tradejusticeusa.org/iwg/briefingreport.html.
-- Jubilee Grassroots Training & Organizing Conference IN OTHER NEWS:
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