Presbyterian Hunger Program Organizes for Food and Farm Bill Reform

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By Fritz Gutwein, PHP Farm Bill Reform Organizer

In 2007, the U.S. Congress is expected to reauthorize the Farm Bill. This piece of legislation is about farms and farmers, but its scope is much broader. The Farm Bill touches everyone in this country (and many outside the U.S.)— everyone who eats, and especially those who struggle to have enough to eat.
This year, people of faith are turning their attention to the food polices of our nation and how they are shaped by the Farm Bill. The Presbyterian Hunger Program is forming teams of people of faith and farmers across the U.S. in key congressional districts to raise awareness about our country’s food policy and to lobby our elected officials to make this year’s Farm Bill one that reflects our concern for those most vulnerable.

The Farm Bill has its origins in the 1930s, when one in four Americans lived on a farm and the nation was struggling on many fronts, facing chronic poverty, drought, and dust storms, as well as abuses in industry such as child labor and low minimum wages. As a cornerstone of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the first Farm Bill sought to address many of these crises that effected the nation, especially rural America.

Today, with a population over 300 million, the U.S. has only 2 million farmers, and only 350,000 work full-time on a farm. Today’s Farm Bill contains ten “titles”, and addresses everything from rural development and conservation to nutrition (food stamps), competition, and what crops the government will support with subsidies.

Reform of our farm and food policies begins with the reform of Title I, the home of trade distorting, commodity subsidies.

The direct payments the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) makes to growers of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat have many negative effects on the world’s food economy. One is the way they encourage over-production, which drives down the price of these crops globally.

Governments of poorer countries have been forbidden by multilateral institutions and trade rules to give subsidies to their farmers, so millions of farmers are squeezed out of world markets. They simply cannot compete with subsidized U.S. crops, which are dumped on the world market at below the price of production. This dumping hurts growers in Africa and Latin America. In fact, the World Trade Orginization (WTO) agreed.

In March 2005, the WTO upheld a ruling against the U.S. stating that the subsidies we provide to cotton farmers artificially depress the price of cotton (view video) and cost Brazilian farmers millions of dollars in sales. Similar disputes regarding our rice and corn subsidies are likely to follow.

The commodities title costs $12.5 billion per year, second only to the nutrition title containing the nation’s food stamp program. While the food stamp program benefits about 26 million low income people, only 25% (500,000) of all farmers receive commodity subsides, and of these, the top 10% get 75% of all payments.

By reforming Title 1, we can reduce or eliminate our trade distorting subsidies and help raise the income of small producers in the developing world. By shifting resources to other titles, like rural development, conservation and nutrition, we can support all farmers and provide more support to people who are hungry.
Work on this bill will likely continue from now until the Thanksgiving recess. There will be many high points of activity—opportunities for us to make our voices heard to our representatives in Washington.

To join PHP’s effort to reform the Farm Bill, email Fritz Gutwein or call him at (502) 569-5711.

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