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1 Rethinking Farm Policy; a Green New Deal for Family Farmers1 John

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1 Rethinking Farm Policy; a Green New Deal for Family Farmers1 John Rethinking Farm Policy; A Green New Deal for Family Farmers1 John Ikerd2 For the first time in the past 50 years, we have an opportunity for fundamental, structural change in U.S. farm policy. Threats of climate change, water pollution and depletion, loss of biological diversity, and the economic decline and social decay of rural communities are all problems to which agriculture is a major contributor. How can we help solve these programs with farm policies, rather than continue to make them worse? We need to start with a common understanding that the only politically defensible justification for government farm policies is to ensure domestic food security. That’s why government food assistance programs have always been administered through the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA). Logically, programs promoting farm exports should be administered by the Dept. of Commerce and biofuels programs by the Department of Energy. Domestic food security was the political justification for the initiation of U.S. farm policies of the 1930s, which included the Food Stamp program. The nation was in an economic depression. Farm families were going broke in numbers that put the nation’s food security at risk. Depression era farm programs attempted to provide domestic food security by providing economic security for family farmers. Domestic food security was also the political rationale for the later shift in farm policies in the early 1970s to programs that incentivize and subsidize industrial agriculture. The Nixon/Butz administration used the promise of greater domestic food security to convince Congress of a need to change U.S. farm policy—and the rationalization worked. Policies that subsidize agricultural exports have since been rationalized as a means of ensuring food security by maintaining competitiveness in global markets. The industrialization of American agriculture was made possible by post-World War II agrochemical and mechanical technologies. However, it was “made inevitable” by supportive government policies. The specialized, mechanized, large-scale nature of industrial farming makes it inherently risky. Farmers are forced to make large investments in land, buildings, and equipment in operations that are inherently vulnerable to unpredictable weather that can devastate crops, diseases that can wipe out livestock and poultry operations, and markets characterized by periodic overproduction. So, American taxpayers are asked to absorb much of these risks through U.S. farm policies—including various kinds of price supports, deficiency payments, subsidized crop insurance, disaster payments, loan guarantees, low interest rates, and investment tax credits. All of these programs incentivize or subsidize industrial agriculture. The programs were well intended, but they had unintended consequences. Wendell Berry— farmer, philosopher, and author—eloquently sums up the consequences in a 2017 letter to the 1 Prepared for presentation at “Farmers, Soils and Climate,” a presidential forum sponsored by Food Democracy Now, Des Moines, IA, January 25, 2020. 2 John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia MO, – USA. He is the author of six books, which are available on Amazon.com: Books and Kindle E-books, and dozens of presentation papers, blog pieces, and other website posts at http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/ and http://www.johnikerd.com. Email: [email protected]. The professional opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Missouri. 1 New York Times: “The business of America has been largely and without apology the plundering of rural America, from which everything of value—minerals, timber, farm animals, farm crops, and “labor”—has been taken at the lowest possible price. As apparently none of the enlightened ones has seen in flying over or bypassing on the interstate highways, its too-large fields are toxic and eroding, its streams and rivers poisoned, its forests mangled, its towns dying or dead along with their locally owned small businesses, its children leaving after high school and not coming back. Too many of the children are not working at anything, too many are transfixed by the various screens, too many are on drugs, too many are dying.”i A 2017 Wall Street Journal article labeled rural America as the “New Inner City.” In terms of poverty, education, teenage births, divorce, death rates, disability, and unemployment, rural counties now rank below inner cities.” ii Drug abuse and crime, once urban problems, now plague rural communities. What did we get from all of this desecration of rural America? We didn’t get food security. Admittedly, American consumers on average spent less of their disposable income on food in the late 1990s than in the 1970s. Over the past 20 years, however, food prices have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation.iii Furthermore, industrial agriculture didn’t feed the hungry. In 2018, one-in-nine Americans were classified as food insecure and one-in-seven American children lived in food-insecure homes.iv In fact, more people are now classified as “food insecure” than in the late1960s.v Whatever has been gained by lower food costs has been more than offset by rising costs of health care. An epidemic of diet related illnesses; obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and cancers, now threatens the physical and financial future of the nation. Costs of health care are projected to account for one-fifth of the GDP by 2026.vi Past policies were well intended but they didn’t worked. What will it take to bring about another transformation in American farm policy similar to that of the early 1970s? I believe it will take an outright consumer/taxpayer revolt. The corporate agri-food establishment has used its economic and political power to take firm control of the farm and food policy making in Washington DC and in statehouses across the country. They have controlled both Democratic and Republican administrations. If we keep accepting the same kinds of farm policies we have accepted in past, we are going to keep getting the same kind of agriculture we have been getting. However, for the first time since the 1970s, I see the possibility for a transformational change in U.S. farm policies. A 2019 Congressional Resolution calling for a Green New Dealvii calls for changes that would fundamentally change U.S. environmental, social, and economic policies—including farm policies. The resolution focuses on the issue of climate change but would mandate fundamental changes in U.S. farm policies that reach far beyond mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The Green New Deal has not been approved by the U.S. Congress. It is simply a proposed congressional resolution that has never been formally debated in Congress or put to a serious vote. Still, it has been endorsed, to one extent or another, by every major contender for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States for the upcoming 2020 national election. This is the first time since the 1970s that a serious possibility has existed for transformational change in U.S. farm policies. The Green New Deal will be opposed by every major farm organization, and every farmer, who is committed to or feels trapped in the current 2 industrial agricultural system. However, it is supported by progressive farmers and farm organization that have seen a need for transformational change in farm policy. The Green New Deal would replace current farm policies that support an industrial agri- food system with policies supporting a sustainable agri-food system. It “will require the following goals and projects… “(G) working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, (i) by supporting family farming; (ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health; and (iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food… (J)… restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage…; (K) restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency.” In addition to presidential candidates, various non-profit organizations are shaping their political agendas around the principles expressed in the Green New Deal. One such organization is Data for Progress,viii which is supporting work of the Sunrise movement.ix This is an organization made up of bright, young people who have educated themselves on issues and understand that our failure to address critical ecological and social challenges is a direct threat to their future. They have developed a “Green New Deal Policy Series” outlining specific policy proposals. A bold policy statement, “Regenerative Farming and the Green New Deal,” was released in January 2020.x The following policy proposals are excerpts from this document. • Reform current monocultural crop insurance programs. o Limit eligibility for government subsidized crop insurance to crops grown using approved soil conservation practices. o Place limits of total acreage and insurance coverage to $250,000 market value of all insured crops eligible for government subsidized crop insurance. o Over time, phase out government subsidized crop insurance programs for single crops and all commodity-based programs unless accompanied
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