Our Priorities for the 2007 Farm Bill
The National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is a diverse
nationwide partnership of individuals and grass roots organizations
working toward policies for food and farming systems that support
healthy rural communities. The 2007 Farm Bill offers an opportunity to
reform our food and farm policies to achieve a more sustainable
agriculture. Through our issue committees, the Policy Advisory
Committee and in consultation with our Board the National Campaign has
identified the following Farm Bill priorities:
Organic Agriculture
Reauthorize and increase certification cost-share funding for organic farmers.
Full funding for the Conservation Security Program; dual eligibility for the CSP with organic certification and higher tier payments for organic practices.
Establish a new National Organic Conversion and Stewardship Incentive Program to provide financial and technical assistance to producers and beginning farmers in developing and implementing organic practices for conversion to certified organic production.
Establish organic certification as a national priority under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program
Re-invigorate public plant and animal breeding capacity and development for organic and sustainable systems; amend the National Research Initiative (NRI) to list “classical plant and animal breeding” as one of the priorities for competitive research grants; modify term limitations for NRI research grants to reflect longer-term nature of breeding programs.
Ensure collective bargaining rights for organic producers by closing loopholes in the Agricultural Fair Practices Act.
Provide a “fair share” of agricultural research funding and improved data collection for organic food and farming.
Establish a liability regime that places the economic risk of loss from genetic contamination upon GMO patent holders and seed manufacturers.
Reform risk management programs to ensure greater fairness for organic producers.
For more information, contact:
Liana Hoodes
Stewardship Incentives
Ensure that the Conservation Security Program (CSP) is the keystone conservation program for working agricultural land in the Conservation Title by:
Providing adequate and mandatory funding to ensure a nationwide enrollment.
Protecting existing provisions requiring farm and ranch conservation plans with strong standards and criteria.
Streamlining the payment procedures while retaining the payment limit.
Improving the delivery of technical assistance for CSP farmers.
Encouraging the shift toward outcome based payments, and encouraging farmer innovation and locally appropriate solutions.
Strengthen Conservation Compliance, sodbuster and swampbuster as preconditions for participation in all farm programs.
Retain the Conservation Reserve Program as a major conservation and wildlife enhancement program.
Retain the Wetlands Reserve Program with an enrollment directive of no less than 250,000 acres per year nationwide.
Restore the Environmental Quality Incentive Program payment limitation to $150,000 over five years and restore the ban on funding for new or expanding CAFOs.
Ensure that conservation of natural resources is a major focus of agriculturally based renewable energy production.
Increase the overall proportion of Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program funding available for 15 year contracts from 15% to 25% with full cost share for special projects that address listed species and species of concern.
For more information, contact:
Loni Kemp http://www.mnproject.org/
Frank Casey http://www.defenders.org/
Ferd Hoefnerhttp://www.sustainableagriculturecoalition.org/
Competition and Concentration
Economic concentration in our food production, processing and
distribution systems and the failure of the federal government to check
anti-competitive behavior has left family farmers defenseless against
price manipulation and abusive production contracts. The National
Campaign supports the passage of a comprehensive Competition Title in
the 2007 Farm Bill that would:
Require Packers to offer contracts with a firm base price in an open and public manner.
Reduce captive supplies and market manipulation by prohibiting Packer ownership and control of livestock.
Close poultry loopholes in the Packers and Stockyards Act.
Provide a minimum level of contract fairness for farmers by prohibiting mandatory arbitration clauses, confidentiality clauses, and deceptive trade practices.
Strengthen the Packers and Stockyards Act by limiting the use of preferential pricing structures for other than quantifiable differences in product value or acquisition costs.
Close loopholes in the Agricultural Fair Practices Act to ensure collective bargaining rights of contract farmers free from retaliation from processors.
Amend the Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting Act to assure adequate market information and transparency; require Packers to provide price, contract, supply and demand information.
Fully implement mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) for beef, lamb and fresh fruits.
For more information contact:
Jerri Lynn Bakken
Becky Ceartas
Rural Development
Small Business and Entrepreneurial Development
Many rural communities have self-employment and small business ownership
rates many times greater than urban areas. Small businesses are also the
job creators in much of rural America. In the Great Plains region, for
example, nearly 70 percent of job growth in the 1990s came from non-farm
proprietorships. To allow for continued creation and expansion of rural
businesses and employment opportunities resources to rural small
business development must be enhanced.
Create a Rural Entrepreneurs and Micro-enterprise Program to provide grants for training, technical assistance or micro-credit to rural entrepreneurs and to qualified organizations serving them;
Create a Community Entrepreneurial Development Program to promote entrepreneurship, capital investment, youth retention and leadership development in rural communities; $75 million annually for grants for regional initiatives around small business education and technical assistance, leadership development, youth attraction and retention, community-based philanthropy and intergenerational business transfer planning.
New Market Creation
Reauthorize and increase funding to at least $20 million annually for
the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program (FMPP) providing competitive
grants to develop direct farmer-to-consumer marketing ventures.
Increase funding for the Value Added Producer Grants Program to $60
million annually to provide enterprise planning and working capital
assistance to independent producers for ventures that will add value and
income to their agricultural operations.
Set aside 10% of the Value Added Producer Grant Program for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and target another ten percent for outreach and technical assistance to underserved states.
Create new VAPG categories for the development of food value chains that help mid-sized farms thrive through the marketing of high value, differentiated products and for cooperative ventures among family farmers which enhance income.
Rural Development and Research Priorities in the Farm Bill
Retain mandatory funding of $200 million a year for the Initiative for
Future Agriculture and Food Systems with a focus on small and mid-sized
farm profitability, new and beginning farmers, agricultural and rural
entrepreneurship, public plant and animal breeding and genetic
conservation, ecosystem services, conservation effectiveness, climate
change mitigation, renewable energy, innovative rural development
strategies, food system-public health interactions, and local and
regional food systems development.
Reauthorize the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
grant program and fund it at $20 million in honor of its 20th
anniversary.
Reauthorize and find a suitable administrative home for the Appropriate
Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program and fund it at
$3million.
Authorize and fund a new Rural Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Facilitation Program with at least $20 million in annual mandatory
funding to provide much-needed resources and services to rural areas,
creating jobs, spurring community innovation in all sectors of the rural
economy, and increasing the start-up rate and reducing the failure rate
of small businesses.
For more information contact:
Kim Leval
Social Justice and Community Food
Security
Increase and expand the Section 2501 Outreach and Technical Assistance Program for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
Increase economic and ownership opportunities in agriculture for farm workers; strengthen pesticide safety protections and access to safe and clean housing; protect and expand eligibility for Food Stamps for all legal residents without waiting period.
Create a comprehensive legislative initiative to bring socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers into USDA programs and to address barriers to participation in programs to manage risk, provide marketing assistance, farm credit, assistance with organic transition or transition from tobacco and peanuts, value added enterprises, record keeping and general farm management.
Provide enhanced credit services and flexible eligibility criteria for new entry producers and farm workers.
Immediately stay all foreclosures pending legal review for socially disadvantaged borrowers involved in unresolved discrimination cases, civil rights complaints and individual and class action law suits.
Enhance urban food systems in ways that provide economic opportunity and entry to urban and entrepreneurial farmers and increase access to fresh, locally produced fruits and vegetables.
Provide capital and other support services for food retail businesses in underserved communities; ensure that marketing/financial trainings are provided in language appropriate to the community being served (i.e. Spanish, Hmong, etc.)
Special set asides and cost share enhancements for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers enrolling in the Value Added Producer Grant program, NRCS Conservation programs, the Forest Stewardship Program and any new energy initiatives created in the 2007 farm bill.
Enhance the disaster assistance and emergency response provided to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and farm workers hit by natural disasters; restore disaster assistance programs discontinued in the 2002 Farm Bill; .
Reauthorize USDA Community Food Project Competitive Grants program to provide $60.5 in grants to support innovations which; encourage purchase of local food by institutions, food banks and other emergency food providers; provide technical assistance for retail development in underserved areas and for limited resource and socially disadvantaged applicants; support metropolitan production linked to community based food services and markets; and to support an information clearinghouse on innovative solutions to food security challenges.
Authorize $45 million in mandatory funding for pilot projects targeting transportation and processing infrastructure to serve local and regional, limited resource and socially disadvantaged family farmers serving underserved markets.
Authorize geographical preferences and increased flexibility in school, institutional and Department of Defense procurement policies.
Improve nutrition title programs by; increasing funding for Farmer’s Market Nutrition Programs, Farmer’s Market Promotion Programs, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program; broaden and streamline eligibility for legal immigrants for the Food Stamp Program; increase benefit allotments to facilitate the purchase of healthy foods by Program participants; expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Pilot Program to all 50 states; expand research and technical assistance resources for urban agriculture within existing or renewal of past urban USDA programs; provide support for community food security applications for Food Stamp Nutrition Education and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.
For more information, contact:
Lorrette Piccianohttp://www.ruralco.org/
Thomas Forster and Steph Larsenhttp://www.foodsecurity.org/policy
Commodity Programs
Implement effective payment limitation reform.
Create fair and cost effective farm programs that support diversified farms; reward conservation; provide economic stability for small, mid-size and family owned farms and farm workers.
Sustainable Livestock
Pasture based farming systems provide many environmental, economic, human and animal health and farm family lifestyle benefits. Conventional and industrial confinement systems, by contrast, contribute to the economic and environmental decline of rural communities. The 2007 Farm Bill should recognize and promote the multifaceted benefits of grass based agriculture by:
Reducing regulatory barriers to small scale livestock production and processing.
Supporting policy oriented research to support small meat packer innovation and to identify industry wide needs for processing and marketing alternatives.
Bringing new resources and legislative authority to improve federal meat inspection programs for small packers.
Supporting and promoting state inspection programs.
Authorizing the Value Added Producer Grant Program and the Risk Management Agency Education and Outreach Grants to fund joint producer initiatives to assist small meat processors in developing collective markets for byproducts, rendering and other marketing opportunities.
Fully implement mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) for beef, lamb and fresh fruits.
For more information, contact:
Jeff Schahszenski
Renewable Energy
The Renewable Energy Committee was recently formed and members have not yet articulated their 2007 Farm Bill Priorities. The Committee has, however, developed a purpose statement to guide their work:
The committee’s primary focus for the next nine to twelve months will be in the area of diversified feedstock for bio-energy. Recognizing that this is a period of great transition in the areas of bioenergy and feedstocks, full consideration of sustainability principals, decentralization, promoting local ownership, and the impacts on rural communities will be applied as priorities are assessed and further developed by the committee. Attention to the tradeoffs to other forms of renewable energy will be considered.
For more information, contact:
Dennis Olson http://www.iatp.org/iatp/staff.cfm
© 2007-2008 National Campaign for
Sustainable Agriculture.
