Disparity to Parity

Category: Economic Justice

  • Parity: An Economic Foundation for an Agroecological System

    Parity: An Economic Foundation for an Agroecological System

    [cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][x_button shape=”pill” size=”small” block=”false” circle=”false” icon_only=”false” href=”http://d2p.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/George-Naylor-Parity_-An-Economic-Foundation-for-an-Agroecological-System.pdf” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”right”][x_icon type=”cloud-download” class=”mvn mln mrs”]Download PDF[/x_button][cs_element_raw_content _id=”5″ ][cs_content_seo][author]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_raw_content _id=”6″ ][cs_content_seo][share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” linkedin=”true” email=”true”]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”7″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”8″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”9″ ][cs_element_raw_content _id=”10″ ][cs_content_seo]Table of Contents
    1. Introduction
    2. Free Markets Don’t Lead to Farmer – or Consumer – Freedom
    3. What We Can Learn From the Great Depression and Parity
    4. Supply Management and Conservation as Parity
    5. A New Era in Agriculture

    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”11″ ][cs_content_seo]Joan Robinson, a renowned economist of the 20th century, uttered one of the most cogent truths of that century: “The reason to study economics is to know when economists are lying to you.”
    We farmers need to recognize that the promises of most farm economists and journalists have been based on an ideology, not the science of economics. This ideology glorifies “free markets” and promises freedom and liberty, as manifested in the notorious 1996 farm bill referred to as “Freedom to Farm.” What this really means is unrestrained freedom and billion-dollar profits for multinational corporations. By insisting on basing policy on this ideology, farm economists and journalists intentionally obscure the logical economic analysis of the inevitable disastrous outcomes of free markets: low incomes for family farmers, the hollowing out of rural communities, pollution of water and air, moving livestock production out of the hands of family farmers, the monopolization of food and farm input industries, and bleak futures for kids who would love to grow up to be farmers.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”12″ ][cs_element_quote _id=”13″ ][cs_content_seo]The reason to study economics is to know when economists are lying to you.\n\nJoan Robinson\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”14″ ][cs_element_text _id=”15″ ][cs_content_seo]Any farmer you ask will have stories recounting investments gone wrong and dreams destroyed by disastrous unforeseen market crashes. My neighbor used to point to his beautiful silo and say, “There’s my monument to stupidity.” Over the last 45 years, I can’t count how many times I have cleaned out my corn and soybean bins in August getting ready for the next harvest, only to sell these bushels at the lowest price of the year, and knowing prices would be even worse at harvest. Another year of rolling the dice, my livelihood depends on the judgment of speculators and global grain processors at the casino called the Chicago Board of Trade. Is this any way to run an agricultural system?
    Everything is the farmer’s fault. As an example, here is some advice farmers have gotten from an Iowa State University Extension farm management economist, quoted in a Farm News article: “For any given year, there is no magic day, week, month, or even price known until it has occurred. Most years, those spring highs happen somewhere between mid-May and mid-July. Unfortunately, most producers miss these futures price rallies because they fail to establish reasonable time or futures price targets and lack discipline in marketing their crops.” (Farm News, Fort Dodge, Iowa, June 12, 2020, page 4A). In this article, the economist doesn’t suggest any “reasonable” time or futures price targets, but does mention that we can expect a record US corn crop of 16 billion bushels. If you, as a farmer, think that 30 cents above today’s corn price is reasonable (which is still way below cost of production), but by mid-July the market goes up only 25 cents instead, you can blame yourself for lacking “discipline” (and you can also blame yourself for cleaning out those bins in August – for an even lower price). Hope there’s a crop disaster somewhere else in the world! Wait! The Nightly News shows government sanctioned burning of the Amazon rainforest to increase Brazil’s production of corn and soybeans. Ugh!
    Some non-farmers ask why farmers raise the same crops year after year, often corn and soybeans, instead of something else. The answer is, “What crop could that possibly be?” Perishable crops are not an option for most farmers. Storable crops are the only practical choice, and they cover over 240 million acres in the US; fruits and vegetables only cover about 12 million acres. Any agricultural crop that doesn’t have a special premium for its direct human consumption or milling quality ends up as animal feed or as biofuel feedstock. Feed grains and oilseeds are valued simply by their content of protein, carbohydrates and oil – the champions of which are corn and soybeans. That’s why, despite disastrous prices, farmers are expected to increase production in 2020 with 97 million acres of corn and 93.5 acres of soybeans (Farm News, Ibid.)\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”16″ ][cs_element_image _id=”17″ ][cs_element_text _id=”18″ ][cs_content_seo]Soybeans field. Photo by Meredith Petrick on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”19″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”20″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”21″ ][cs_element_text _id=”22″ ][cs_content_seo]Free Markets Don’t Lead to Farmer – or Consumer – Freedom\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”23″ ][cs_content_seo]Media reports often sound the alarm to the environmental damage of today’s agriculture – soil erosion, water pollution, air pollution, loss of biodiversity – the list goes on. They say farmers, enticed by “subsidies” and crop insurance to raise as many bushels on as many acres as possible, make irresponsible choices. But let’s be clear: farmers don’t really have another choice. Like any enterprise in a free market economy, the only “choices” are to make more and make it cheaper – raising more crops for less and less money, with the environment paying the price.
    Our “free market system” inevitably leads to overproduction on a global scale. After all, every farmer around the world in this globalized system is in a contest to increase production in order to increase income. Consequently, supply overshoots demand, resulting in low commodity prices that can’t keep up with inflation, and ever-shrinking farm income. Lower farm income results in some farmers throwing in the towel or being foreclosed on. That means the remaining farmers who bravely hang in there will be farming more land and trying to increase yield. There you have it: ever larger farms using more corporate-sourced technology to increase yields, which leads to more overproduction. Is this freedom?

    A question rarely posed by the media or ag economists is, “When crop prices are disastrously low, don’t the buyers benefit?” (The buyers must be the consumer, right?) Actually, with over 40,000 items now in a typical supermarket – almost all highly advertised and processed products – the price of raw materials as they leave the farm has little relation to retail prices. In fact, the “consumers” for most farmers’ crops are really giant food processing and marketing corporations, not ordinary citizens. These corporations reap a windfall when farmers’ crops sell at disastrously low prices because retail prices are generally not affected.
    Besides, nearly 50 percent of corn and over 95 percent of soybean meal is fed to livestock (cattle, hogs, poultry, and dairy cows), almost exclusively owned or contracted for by giant meat processors and their vertically integrated Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (often referred to as CAFOs, or factory farms). “Farm animals,” as we know them, are generally owned by corporations and are crowded together in giant feedlots or CAFOs. This is yet another reason farmers have few choices in what they produce. With livestock raised this way, family farmers are shut out and it is no longer (financially or contractually) an option for them to use soil-conserving and regenerating perennial hay and pasture, along with small grains for feed and bedding. When livestock were an integral element of the farm, the farmer could wisely choose to use different parts of the farm in different ways and make crop rotations the norm – rotations that saved soil, sequestered carbon, and could produce nitrogen (in the form of animal waste) for the next corn crop. These rotations also diminished the plagues of weeds and pests that result from the endless repetition of corn and soybeans – sometimes referred to as monocropping.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”24″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”25″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”26″ ][cs_element_text _id=”27″ ][cs_content_seo]What We Can Learn From the Great Depression and Parity
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”28″ ][cs_content_seo]From the early days of our country, independent family farmers were recognized as essential participants of our new democracy, and, according to noted historian Eric Foner, upholding the family farm was one of the pillars of the new Republican Party in the 1850s. The rejection of exploitation of other humans, especially the enslavement of humans of African descent, was based on the party’s dedication to justice and freedom for all. Family farmers, small business owners, and free workers recognized the limited opportunities they would have in a sick economy if slavery were to exist and expand.
    Farmers of my generation heard sad, sad stories from their parents or grandparents of neighbors losing their farms in the 1920s and early 1930s. They said political leaders were indifferent to the farmers’ plight during the Roaring Twenties because exaltation of the free market ruled their thinking and policymaking. The ideology of free markets overruled common sense, so burgeoning debt, income inequality, and the depressed farm economy led to the Great Depression. The stories also included how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, starting in 1933, was willing to challenge the titans of industry and the big banks to change the rules of the economy that had led to the worst economic disaster in history. The farm I farm and live on today was one of many saved by Roosevelt’s New Deal farm program features. I say “features” because any people-oriented legislation must be a compromise and survive the slings and arrows of big city media and establishment economists. So was the case with New Deal farm programs.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_raw_content _id=”29″ ][cs_content_seo][slider animation=”slide” slide_time=”3000″ slide_speed=”1000″ slideshow=”true” random=”false” control_nav=”false” prev_next_nav=”true”]
    [slide][/slide] [slide][/slide] [slide][/slide] [slide][/slide] [slide][/slide] [/slider]\n\nExampleExampleExampleExampleExample[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”30″ ][cs_content_seo]Nevertheless, the pillars of these programs were based on sound economic principles that addressed farmers’ basic needs, not just in a depression, but for all times. Farmers demanded “parity prices,” prices that maintained their purchasing power compared to a time of economic balance from 1910-1914.  (Just as farmers today know that three dollars per bushel is not the same as the three dollars per bushel in 1975 when I came back to farm the family farm.) With New Deal farm programs clearly aimed at parity prices, farmers could receive a nine month
    non-recourse loan at 90 percent of the parity price for each storable commodity. If they were unable to sell it and pay back the loan with interest, the government would put the commodity in a food security reserve (called the Ever-Normal Granary) and the farmer could keep the loan. Therefore, no farmer would accept less than the loan rate, and the market price would always stay above that level. Non-recourse loans are important to farmers because, unlike recourse loans, the lender will not demand a farmer sell other assets if they cannot pay back their loan, giving farmers financial stability in times of pricing instability or disasters.
    The Ever-Normal Granary was essential because restricting production to raise price levels could otherwise lead to food shortages and still leave the farmer guessing how high or how low prices might result, while speculators gambled with farmers’ livelihoods. The price floor was also protected from cheap imports by what was called Section 22, where the Secretary of Agriculture could limit imports if the price support mechanism was threatened.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”31″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”32″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”33″ ][cs_element_text _id=”34″ ][cs_content_seo]Supply Management and Conservation as Parity\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”35″ ][cs_content_seo]Many attempts at supply management and conservation have been tried. Yet, I believe that in exchange for a fair price, farmers would choose the simplest method that would free them from always trying to produce more and more at the expense of their sanity and the land. This would be a quota system. If a farmer were given a quota that would assign a quantity of grain for his contribution to the nation’s food supply, the farmer could then aim for that quantity, producing it with the least application of synthetic inputs while focusing on taking care of the land for future generations.
    It is obvious that many of the environmental problems of modern agriculture would be eliminated by this supply management system. Land not needed for producing the usual fencerow-to-fencerow corn and soybeans, for instance, could be transformed into soil-conserving production of hay and pasture with small grains offering good feed and bedding for livestock raised on family farms instead of in corporate confinements and feedlots. Pasture and hay would include perennial legumes to generate nitrogen in the soil for the next corn crop and weed suppression would make herbicide use decline drastically. Perennial grass and legumes also sequester carbon deep in the soil, a very strong consideration regarding solutions to climate change.

    Agriculture must respect everyone’s need for a nutritious and healthy diet from farms that can take care of our land and water. Unfortunately, “consumers” of our commodities today are really the multinational corporations that process and manufacture “food,” among the 44,000 items in large supermarkets. A cheap food agriculture policy like the free market policy today (propped up by taxpayer dollars) is to benefit their profits, not to make food more affordable for our citizens. Tax payer dollars in direct payments to farmers or subsidies for crop insurance are subsidies to benefit these corporations, not farmers.
    If we apply economic theory that values preservation of our natural resources, health of small farm communities, and the cooperative culture of family farms, then we can recognize that we’ve been sold a false analysis. We can recognize that the current agricultural system inevitably creates what valid economics refers to as  “externalities” from “market failure.”  This means that the true costs of producing agricultural commodities, which should include pollution of our water, soil erosion, and the hollowing out of our rural communities, are not accounted for in the purchase prices paid by multinational corporate consumers. They are too cheap. This results in a “misallocation of resources,” another economics term that refers to the excessive quantity and consumption that result from their low prices. Commodities are too cheap and too much is being produced, creating another array of economic and environmental fallout that will saddle future generations with disastrous outcomes.
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”36″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”37″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”38″ ][cs_element_text _id=”39″ ][cs_content_seo]A New Era in Agriculture\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”40″ ][cs_content_seo]Surely today’s farmers recognize that the current system of producing more and more for less and less will not create their idea of freedom and liberty or a secure future in agriculture for them or for their children. In fact, it will be only a matter of time when crop farming – like most of today’s livestock production – is replaced by corporate farming. Do we have freedom and liberty when we don’t have neighbors or small towns with churches, schools, doctors, and small businesses? Can we really look at ourselves in the mirror if we know that future generations will inherit a damaged environment and society and ask, “What were they thinking? How could they have let this happen?”
    It is essential for today’s farmers to be at the lead of the new era of parity agriculture, to bring with them the experience, knowledge, and love of farming needed for future generations of farmers to farm joyously in a system we can all be proud of. Can’t we choose parity and not disparity?\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”41″ ][cs_element_image _id=”42″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

  • Secure Land Tenure: First Step toward Racial Justice & Agricultural Parity

    Secure Land Tenure: First Step toward Racial Justice & Agricultural Parity

    [cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][x_button shape=”pill” size=”small” block=”false” circle=”false” icon_only=”false” href=”http://d2p.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/Secure-Land-Tenure_Blanding.pdf” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”right”][x_icon type=”cloud-download” class=”mvn mln mrs”]Download PDF[/x_button][cs_element_raw_content _id=”5″ ][cs_content_seo][author]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”6″ ][cs_content_seo]Interview with Cornelius Blanding (by Garrett Graddy-Lovelace, edited by Elizabeth Henderson, Kathryn Anderson, and Jim Goodman)\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_raw_content _id=”7″ ][cs_content_seo][share title=”” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” linkedin=”true” email=”true”]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”8″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”9″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”10″ ][cs_element_raw_content _id=”11″ ][cs_content_seo]Table of Contents

    1. Intro
    2. Coalition Building with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives
    3. The Discrimination Black Farmers in America Experience
    4. Messaging Parity in a Language People Can Relate To: Equity
    5. Farming as a Civil Service
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”12″ ][cs_content_seo]My perspective on this is not that of someone from a farm. I came from a family that lost land, and that is one of the reasons that I am not from a farm like many of the  Black folks that I work with. So, I talk about this from the standpoint of land loss in the Black community. I grew up in an all-Black community, where we didn’t own the infrastructure. We rented the housing. We didn’t own the businesses. Historically, the only thing that was owned—in most of our communities; especially the community I come from—was the church.
    I am from two different sides of this conversation. On my mother’s side, the family owned land in Lowndes County, Alabama. That land was passed down to my grandfather, my mother’s father. He passed it down to his children, my mother being one of seven children. So it was Heirs Property (link to glossary). But as my mother grew up, they ended up losing the land before I even learned about it. Like most folks, you have this land that has been passed down from generations. And then the disconnect happens because of the tenure of land being so insecure. So, we lost that land. I started understanding it once I became part of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. And all the conversations I heard from my grandmother on my mother’s side were about working the fields of some of the plantations. At that time, there were a lot of cotton plantations around Montgomery and a lot of industry. My grandmother would talk about work in the fields. The conversations I had with her weren’t on the farmers’ side, and it was such a disconnect when you resorted to just working somebody else’s land. So, those conversations were never around ‘parity.’ They were about mistreatment on the farm, how little they got paid being labor on various farms and in that system. 
    On my father’s side, the family came from a place called Hatchechubbee and has been fortunate enough to keep the land in the family. We have family reunions on my father’s side every year, so we grew up understanding that there was land. There weren’t many conversations related to it in reference to farming it. The elders dealt with the work on it. We have business meetings at the family reunion each year, but mostly about how to keep the land in the family, not about farming it. So much has happened over the years – the farming side disappeared. I’ll explain why.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”13″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”14″ ][cs_element_image _id=”15″ ][cs_element_text _id=”16″ ][cs_content_seo]Bayou Bourbeaux Plantation operated by Bayou Bourbeaux farmstead association, a cooperative established through the cooperation of the FSA (Farm Security Administration). Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer via The Library of Congress\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”17″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”18″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”19″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”20″ ][cs_element_text _id=”21″ ][cs_content_seo]Coalition Building with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”22″ ][cs_element_text _id=”23″ ][cs_content_seo]That brings me to my journey to the Federation. Once I spent time with farmers, and co-workers, that is when I started understanding the issues—the why. I came to this organization with a lot of questions more than anything, and wondering what had happened to our land, and the land of Black farmers, people and communities. I started connecting the dots. I then started hearing about these issues of parity and  price support floors. I come to this work from that disconnect from the land—from not knowing why we lost it.
    Once I got to the Federation, I started hearing and having conversations with some of our board members. One of the board members was a farmer from Kentucky. At that time, tobacco was king. And we were always hearing that losing their quotas and losing the price support was the downfall of their farm, and Black farmers eventually losing land and losing farms. I heard the conversations with peanut growers in Georgia, talking about how they relied on price support and quotas around peanuts and issues from other farmers in Mississippi having a whole different conversation around farming fresh fruits and vegetables and not having any kind of support around those crops. 
    Across the board, however, there was a perception that Black farmers were getting less from their quotas—they did have quotas—but they were receiving less from their quotas than their white counterparts. So they always felt there was some discrimination even within the quota system. There were many meetings at the Federation, especially during the annual meeting, with the USDA. A lot of the Federation meetings would be coordinated to have USDA there or we arranged for the farmers to testify before Congress. We would bring busloads of farmers—Black farmers—from Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee to voice their concerns about low prices and unfair treatment to the USDA. I particularly remember when Ms. Mattie Mack, from Kentucky, testified about how the tobacco quota system was supposed to raise prices, but the big tobacco buyers would force small farmers, and especially Black farmers, out of business. There were constant conversations about this in the 1990s and 2000s.
    In a 1996 interview, long-time FSC/LAF (Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund) president Ralph Paige decried the ‘Freedom to Farm’ (alternatively: ‘Freedom to Fail’) Farm Bill as “devastating.” Turning the racist mid-90s discourse on its head, Paige lambasted it as “nothing more than a welfare program that would pay large corporate farmers to grow fence-row to fence-row.” Paige astutely predicted its dangerous impacts: “It does not have a safety-net in this bill that would protect family farmers for the long-run. It has decreasing payments that will fade out in seven years. The small farmers who have small acreage and small allotments will be the ones who are hurt most because their payments will be very small and would fade out quickly. For instance, the Peanut Program should not be tampered with because it does keep farmers on the land and many poor people in rural communities especially in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina derive a living from the Peanut Program. Either they are working in plants or they are farm laborers, or they grow peanuts.”
    I came on to the Federation in 1997, and these conversations were very powerful. We are just now archiving this advocacy, in our Amistad archives, digitizing these testimonies. The Federation certainly participated in the farm justice movements, and the whole creation of FarmAid, with Carolyn Mugar and others. The Federation was instrumental in founding FarmAid, working to center Black farmer struggles in the farm justice movement.
    For half a century, the Federation’s advocacy attests to the urgency of fair prices for Black farmers. Yet, we do not use the term “parity”—why? The word does not speak to the needs and lived experiences of our  members. For a select, elder few who recall the cotton, peanut, or tobacco quota programs from a generation or two ago, like Mr. Ben Burkett, the concept of price-floors and supply management make sense. But for middle-age or younger farmers, the concept is historic and improbable. Moreover, for those struggling to hold on to land, or who have suffered the trauma of racist dispossession, ‘parity’ seems too abstract and removed from the urgency at hand. They are ready, however, to resume prior activism around fair prices—alongside the struggle against broader racisms in agriculture and land policies.
    Why and how did the issue of prices become peripheral to Federation advocacy? I think people were worn down. There have been a multitude of issues, a lot of focus and resources diverted to the farm crisis in general and the plight of Black farmers, because of the urgency of the situation. Facing rampant discrimination and lack of access to credit, our minds were pulled off the parity issue. Lawsuits, different fights, all required so many resources. Even more than the Federation had at that time. There is a lack of common knowledge, and major disconnects in these movements. We understand things differently; we talk about things differently. Also, many in the Black farming community don’t speak of it in terms of parity, but rather as a fair price. Someone like Ben who sits on the board of the National Family Farm Coalition and hears the term and uses it, but for others, if you talk about parity, you’ve lost people. It is considered a dirty word by some; a word with too much baggage. But fair prices resonate, very much. Equity resonates even more. There has to be equity in policing, education, but also in the food system.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”24″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”25″ ][cs_element_quote _id=”26″ ][cs_content_seo]There has to be equity in policing, education, but also in the food system.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”27″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”28″ ][cs_element_video _id=”29″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”30″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”31″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”32″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”33″ ][cs_element_text _id=”34″ ][cs_content_seo]The Discrimination Black Farmers in America Experience
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”35″ ][cs_element_text _id=”36″ ][cs_content_seo]From the 1990s onward, we have been distracted from the issue of fair prices. We have these issues of discrimination and access to credit. Farmers have been losing their land at such high rates. Even today, there are so many issues, so much pain in the Black farming community, starting with land—land loss—that people almost can’t hear you if you don’t start with that. After you get past land and land loss and how to deal with that, then it’s this issue of credit—having access to credit and being treated fairly. If you get past that, there is the issue of this debt out there. We are always fighting from behind. \n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”37″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”38″ ][cs_element_quote _id=”39″ ][cs_content_seo]Having a conversation about fair prices can happen once we get to the level playing field, to the base line. Only then can we talk about prices and fair prices. \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”40″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”41″ ][cs_element_text _id=”42″ ][cs_content_seo]Having a conversation about fair prices can happen once we get to the level playing field, to the base line. Only then can we talk about prices and fair prices. That’s a much-needed conversation, but we have to start by maintaining the land base first, and then credit and debt. Until then, and unfortunately, talking about fair prices is almost like a luxury. 

    And that is the shame in all of this. This gets in the way of even how we collaborate. It’s like you bring in a football team together, and you want to talk about what plays we have, but some of the players don’t even have the proper gear to be out there—they don’t even have a helmet on. They are worried about how to play the game safely, before they worry about the right way of running a play. And that prevents you from operating as a team because you have so many players out there at different levels. Until you get all the players on the team at the same level, it is hard for them to operate effectively as a team. All of that is to say we can’t show up in coalitions the way we need to at times because we are dealing with some things that are so fundamental that they get taken for granted.
    It has to be put in the same context of what is happening today, right now with all this unrest and these protests in our country. At the heart of it is police brutality. It’s been about discrimination. At the center of it all, it has been about unfair treatment,

    inequities, inequalities, about how the police treat Black people specifically and people of color in general. We watched a Black man die on television, on social media, at the hands of someone who was supposed to serve and protect.
    Now, I say all of this  because some of our friends—and I underscore the word friends because that’s exactly how they behave and how they have shown themselves to be said, ‘I didn’t realize this [racist police brutality] was still going on today. I thought this was something we got through  in the 60s and 70s. And my response is, Black people have been living this every day since then, just in different ways.

    One of the things, on a personal level, I also had to  come to grips with is that  my son, who is 27 years old and graduated from college a few years

    ago is in that high risk group and extremely vulnerable to these issues of brutality and unfair treatment of people of color. His college project was a video on this exact same thing. You would think he did it today—as a response to what is going on now. It was an awakening moment for me because I had to realize that, wow, my son was away in college, in a place where I thought he was sheltered; and he was dealing with the same reality that every kid on the street, every Black kid, deals with every day, that we all deal with, without shelter—even in protected environments. And this is not always seen or understood, even by our friends. And that’s why this moment is so important because people are beginning to see this for what it is and see things they may have missed over the years. And we’re starting to have real conversations.
    When friends come together, it is extremely important for friends to understand where each stands at that moment, and what each is dealing with. They need to understand the players on the team who are not ready to talk about the plays because they are still trying to get the proper equipment to go out there and play the game.
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”43″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”44″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”45″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”46″ ][cs_element_text _id=”47″ ][cs_content_seo]Messaging Parity in a Language People Can Relate To: Equity\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”48″ ][cs_element_text _id=”49″ ][cs_content_seo]This is all to say that parity is sometimes not understood and not the language used by all.  Equality, equity, and fair prices may be better words. Even when it is understood, it is a luxury. I don’t say this to minimize it, because it is extremely important. We just have to understand that in order to get to this important part of it, some other players on the team, some other members of the coalition have other urgent issues that they see as something they have to get past before they can even get to this.
    We have to focus on all of these issues. How do we wrap this up into the context of what is going on right now? We have to treat everybody, every farmer, fairly, within the contexts of policing, healthcare, education, etc. But even when it gets down to pricing & land access; we must  wrap these issues up in the blanket of racial equity at large—and deal with them that way. People should understand that first you have to secure land, for Black farmers, Black landowners—this is key. Even when that land tenure is secured, they have to maintain it. And the only way to maintain it is with fair prices, which are extremely important. Because if you get to the point, to have land and good tenure of it, you still have to make it productive. And there’s no way to make it productive unless you are getting a fair price—unless you are getting a floor at the very start. This is extremely important, but we have to make sure we are framing it the right way and that we are paying attention to all the needs of everybody, so that everybody around the table is equipped to fight for this issue.
    Cooperatives are extremely important to this issue of parity, when you are looking at the cost of production as the basis. At the end of the day we are talking about how do we make sure somebody gets a fair price. And in order for the price to be fair, it has to first take into consideration the cost of production, and then from there, it adds on to some reasonable profit in order to make a living. So, getting at that cost of production is important because when you start talking about a small farmer—well, most farmers, especially Black farmers—they’re buying in a retail market but selling in a wholesale market. When it should be just the opposite. Usually, large farmers, corporations and others, they buy wholesale and they sell retail. But small farms are in an  inverse situation, buying inputs at a retail store, and then selling product at low wholesale prices. They’re already behind the eight ball.
    What the cooperatives allow small farms to do–especially Black farmers and those with limited resources–is to aggregate things. To aggregate and share the tools & equipment that they have. But more importantly, aggregate production. They can buy collectively and gain economies of scale, then lower the costs of production. And the more you can lower the cost of production, the easier it becomes to get to that fair price. It then allows them to start buying in a wholesale market and hopefully, sell  in the retail market.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”50″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”51″ ][cs_element_image _id=”52″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”53″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”54″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”55″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”56″ ][cs_element_text _id=”57″ ][cs_content_seo]Farming as a Civil Service\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_gap _id=”58″ ][cs_element_text _id=”59″ ][cs_content_seo]Parity programs and quotas are worth revisiting. But until we start looking at farming as a civil service, we will always be chasing our tails. If we as a country, as a collective body of people start understanding farming and agriculture as a civil service, we will understand the need for the government to be engaged. 
    What makes us unique as a country is that we operate under the common good. And the challenge is finding out what are the themes that we all have in common and food is surely one of them. If we are operating from  the standpoint of the common good of food, and supporting those who are growing food, then it becomes obvious that there has to be a quota. So the question of quotas and what it takes to provide a fair price floor has to begin with the recognition of farming as a civil service to this country.

    The history and layers of this struggle for equity—from land to credit to fair prices for Black farmers—needs to be gathered and archived. We are working with the Amistad Archive at Tulane University to collect and archive our  materials. More needs to be written down and recorded. One thing my grandmother used to always say was that you either spend time writing about it or doing it, and sometimes you can’t do both. That is why I truly value the researchers, the writers, because without those folks, this work doesn’t go anywhere and it is  just our internal  operation, and nobody knows about what we are doing. We haven’t had the resources to employ someone who can be sitting around writing about the work. So we depend upon these relationships.
    My perspective on these issues is truly guided by this organization, and by the things that I’ve learned from various mentors throughout this organization, including Ralph Paige, John Zippert, Ben Burkett and others. And also by the voice of our membership, because I’m constantly meeting with our board who comes directly out of the membership. And because our director 

    of communication is constantly speaking with the membership and trying to survey them and learn from them. So, my words are reflective of that. But all of this is not usually written down. 

    And I’m not an anomaly here. Ralph Paige, Charles Prejean and all of the leaders whose words and work need to be chronicled and recalled. There are things that have been written about the 

    Federation’s work, and its work on fair prices for Black farmers, but it is usually others who’ve had the opportunity to talk with people and write it down. Our

    challenge is also archiving that.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”60″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”61″ ][cs_element_image _id=”62″ ][cs_element_text _id=”63″ ][cs_content_seo]Cornelius Blanding, Representative John Lewis and Garrett Graddy-Lovelace (from left to right) at the 50th anniversary of FSC/LAF\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

  • A Farmer Controlled, Consumer Oriented Food System

    A Farmer Controlled, Consumer Oriented Food System

    [cs_content _p=’519′][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][x_button shape=”pill” size=”small” block=”false” circle=”false” icon_only=”false” href=”http://d2p.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-Jim-Essay.pdf” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”right”][x_icon type=”cloud-download” class=”mvn mln mrs”]Download PDF[/x_button][cs_element_raw_content _id=”5″ ][cs_content_seo][author]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_raw_content _id=”6″ ][cs_content_seo][share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” linkedin=”true” email=”true”]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”7″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”8″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”9″ ][cs_element_raw_content _id=”10″ ][cs_content_seo]Table of Contents
    1. Introduction
    2. Smaller, More Diverse Farms Are the Answer
    3. We Are Controlled by the Middleman
    4. Food Is Way More Than a Commodity
    5. Solutions Can Benefit Farmers and Consumers
    6. Taking Our Food System Back

    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”11″ ][cs_content_seo]Back in the ‘70s, USDA Secretary Earl Butz urged farmers to plant commodity crops “fence row to fence row” and told us “[a]dapt or die.” It was bad enough when USDA Secretary Ezra Taft Benson told farmers (in the ‘50’s) to “get big or get out,” but “adapt or die”?

    No matter: US farmers were listening to these two guys – because getting big and planting fence row to fence row became gospel. Farms, almost all of them, have become very specialized. Most function as part of the animal production chain, either housing and feeding cattle, pigs, and poultry, many of them under contractual agreements with corporate processors, or growing the grain commodities (corn and soy) for all those animals to eat.

    Commodity crop farms have gotten large – thousands of acres, corn one year and soy the next, in an endless rotation. Animals are often raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), which confine thousands of animals, either in specialized buildings or outdoor feedlots, such that animals seldom have access to pasture, outdoors, fresh air, or natural light.
    Feed may be grown miles or states away from the CAFO, making the system very fossil fuel intensive. Since manure is mostly water, hauling it long distances is not cost effective, so CAFO operators may find it impossible to apply the manure according to safe environmental limits, making excessive application their cost-effective option. In lieu of manure being available locally, grain farmers buy commercial fertilizer, which is petroleum-based and again, fossil fuel intensive. Hardly a sustainable system when compared to integrated small farms growing their own crops and recycling their manure as fertilizer on their own fields.
    Specialized manure-holding facilities are required, but due to the large volumes produced, heavy rain, snow, storage leaks, or improper handling, CAFOs create a very real potential for big manure spills. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that living or working near a CAFO can be potentially hazardous to your health. Manure can contain antibiotics, pathogens, nitrates, pesticides, hormones, trace elements, and heavy metals, all potentially dangerous, especially if they enter drinking water.
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”12″ ][cs_element_image _id=”13″ ][cs_element_text _id=”14″ ][cs_content_seo]Photo by James Baltz on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”15″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”16″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”17″ ][cs_element_text _id=”18″ ][cs_content_seo]Smaller, More Diverse Farms Are the Answer\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”19″ ][cs_content_seo]Contrary to what the “get big or get out” crowd would have us believe, CAFOs and industrial agriculture are not necessary to properly nourish humanity. Small farms are typically more efficient food producers, especially in developing countries. These non-U.S. small operations farm their land more intensively and rely on a mix of grain, vegetable, and fruit crops, in addition to keeping livestock on pasture, which thereby can achieve 50 to 300% greater output per acre, while still farming in a sustainable manner.
    Those who farm in the US distance themselves from the term “peasant,” thinking it connotes a tenant, sharecropper, small farmer, or mere farm worker. I was a small farmer; a peasant and proud of it. Remember, roughly half of the world’s population are farmers who work the land and tend livestock. As a small farmer, I was a minority in the US, but worldwide, I was part of the majority.

    The vast majority of the world’s small farmers and farm workers struggle against the power of trans-national agribusiness corporations (TNCs) that control the vast corn/soy monocultures and the CAFOs, and thereby control the world’s food supply. Peasant farmers struggle against oppressive government policies that, by design, convert local farming and food economies to industrialized agriculture, with much of the production intended for export markets.
    Peasant farmers struggle for the right to grow what they wish, for access to water, land and credit, and for the rights of women farmers who still feed most of the world. They struggle for protection from subsidized foreign imports and to protect their crops from contamination by Genetically Engineered (GE) seed. They struggle to eliminate food from international trade agreements, because food is different – food is a human right, not a commodity.
    US farmers are ambivalent to this struggle, but are we really so distant from it? Do we really control our own destiny? An Iowa farmer notes that in his state farmers own about 20 percent of the land they farm, while 80 percent is rented. They are tenants.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”20″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”21″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”22″ ][cs_element_text _id=”23″ ][cs_content_seo]We Are Controlled by the Middleman \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”24″ ][cs_content_seo]We have no control over our market prices or our input costs, but the TNCs do. Young and beginning farmers are generally priced out of land purchasing, and government subsidy programs dictate what crops we will grow. Without a subsidy check, there is no reason to grow commodity crops domestically because they are cheaper on the world market. Farmers do what they have to do to survive.  We compete with farmers worldwide to see who can work the cheapest while the global market crushes local food production.
    There is no shame in being a peasant, a farmer, in struggling to control your destiny; manual labor and working the land are not demeaning. Feeding your family, your community and resisting the globalization of food are the struggles all farmers – all people – must share, whether they grow millet and rice in India, herd cattle in Africa, grow tomatoes in a Brooklyn window box, or fish the North Sea.
    Yet, with food having been debased to the status of an international commodity, it is viewed in strict economic terms, both by the shopper looking for bargains at the supermarket and by the stock traders who deal in pork bellies, unit trains of corn, and cargo ships full of GE soy.
    Commodities are fine in the financial world, but they have no place in our bellies. Wall Street couldn’t care less how many varieties of corn are cultivated in Mexico or Guatemala or for how many thousands of years they provided both physical and spiritual sustenance.
    The fact that we place little value on our food, or that it no longer gives us the sense of home and community that it once did, goes to the heart of the problem. We have lost control of our food system, as consumers and as farmers. Apathy about our food, where it was grown, who grew it, what’s been added to it, is an open invitation for corporate interests to take control. We handed them the keys to the pantry and told them, in effect, to make their profits however they wished – just keep the shelves full.
    Since we have seldom seen empty store shelves and as most of us in the Global North can afford to buy whatever we wish, we generally accept the bounty of the industrial food system. Further, many are prone to enthusiastically support that system when we accept the myth that the system is really essential in order to “feed the world.”\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”25″ ][cs_element_image _id=”26″ ][cs_element_text _id=”27″ ][cs_content_seo]Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”28″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”29″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”30″ ][cs_element_text _id=”31″ ][cs_content_seo]Food Is Way More Than a Commodity\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”32″ ][cs_content_seo]And there’s the rub: feeding the world was never the intention. In the 1970s, well-meaning researchers and eager graduate students, myself included, were convinced we could eliminate hunger in our lifetime. Yet the big picture was always about corporate profit, and people with good intentions who genuinely wanted to end hunger generally didn’t think much about that. All those hungry masses were seldom given the chance to feed themselves. In reality, there was never a shortage of food in the world as a whole: there were areas of food shortage, just as there were areas of obesity and food waste. Most areas that lacked food also lacked real Democracy and certainly, as we see today, there was a constantly growing income gap.
    While we became spectacularly good at growing commodities to feed the livestock for our meat-heavy diets, fuel our cars, and create processed food, we were not producing enough real food for people. For that we depend on underpaid immigrant labor to produce our fruits and vegetables, as well as imports from the very parts of the world where food access is a problem.
    Ethically, we cannot continue to source our food from the rest of the world because those farmers have no option but to work for poverty wages to supply the global market, nor can we continue to allow land-grabs to push small farmers off their land. At the price of the environment, we cannot continue to encourage and subsidize industrial agriculture and continue to feed grass-eating animals a diet of grain.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”33″ ][cs_element_image _id=”34″ ][cs_element_text _id=”35″ ][cs_content_seo]Photo by Marcin Jozwiak on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”36″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”37″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”38″ ][cs_element_text _id=”39″ ][cs_content_seo]Solutions Can Benefit Farmers and Consumers\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”40″ ][cs_content_seo]To really address the ongoing failures of the food system – failures highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic – and to position ourselves to adequately face the next crisis, we must reform our food system, ensure fair farm prices and empower peasant farmers and agricultural workers while we invest in rural infrastructure.
    All farmers need fair markets and fair prices. The government must, as it has in the past, establish reserves for grains, as well as other products. Non-recourse government loans – a part of previous Farm Bills – would allow farmers to sell their produce either on the market or into the reserves, with their decision based on a floor price that, under a fair pricing system, farmers, processors, and retailers could all live with. Reserves would improve prices for farmers, prevent food shortages and stabilize consumer prices.
    Supply management is an essential part of a fair pricing system, either as a quota to cap production at a certain level or actually taking a certain number of acres out of production. The idea that we can no longer expect other countries to absorb our excess production which undercuts their farmers, should go hand-in-hand with restricting imports that could undercut prices and the well-being of US farmers.
    By investing in smaller, local processing facilities – for beef, dairy, as well as for fruits and vegetables – we could strengthen markets and make the supply chain more flexible. This investment should include more brick-and-mortar facilities, as well as mobile facilities that can travel from farm to farm, giving farmers multiple options for sales and consumers more options as to how they buy.

    Photo by Megan Markham on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”41″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”42″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”43″ ][cs_element_text _id=”44″ ][cs_content_seo]Taking Our Food System Back\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”45″ ][cs_content_seo]In sum, we need to reclaim our food system from the speculators, the corporations, and the international financial institutions that pressure farmers to grow commodities instead of food. It’s time we started producing more food locally again and let the rest of the world do likewise. Time we found the nearest farmers’ market, supported urban agriculture, and planted those window-boxes in Brooklyn and everywhere else. Time to eat like our health really depends on it, because it does. Time we started thinking about food in the big picture rather than whatever happens to be on our plate at the moment, not knowing the story of that food, or worse, not caring. \n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”46″ ][cs_element_image _id=”47″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”48″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”49″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”50″ ][cs_element_line _id=”51″ ][cs_element_gap _id=”52″ ][cs_element_text _id=”53″ ][cs_content_seo]A Farmer Controlled, Consumer Oriented Food System by Jim Goodman is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

  • Restoring Parity and Reducing Ecological Impacts through Agricultural Price Floors

    Restoring Parity and Reducing Ecological Impacts through Agricultural Price Floors

    [cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][x_button shape=”pill” size=”small” block=”false” circle=”false” icon_only=”false” href=”http://d2p.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/Amanda-Starbuck_s-PDF-Essay.pdf” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”right”][x_icon type=”cloud-download” class=”mvn mln mrs”]Download PDF[/x_button][cs_element_raw_content _id=”5″ ][cs_content_seo][author]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_raw_content _id=”6″ ][cs_content_seo][share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” linkedin=”true” email=”true”]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”7″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”8″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”9″ ][cs_element_raw_content _id=”10″ ][cs_content_seo]Table of Contents
    1. Introduction
    2. Price Floors Provide Farmers with Stable and Fair Incomes
    3. Price Floors, if Tied to Agroecological Practices, Can Build Soil and Reduce Climate Emissions
    4. We Cannot Afford to Leave the Principles of Parity Out of Our Nation’s Farm Policies
    5. We Cannot Afford to Leave the Principles of Parity Out of Our Nation’s Farm Policies

    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”11″ ][cs_content_seo]Introduction\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”12″ ][cs_content_seo]Farmers, and the rural communities that depend on them, are in crisis, and have been for a long time. Median net farm yearly income for US farmers in 2020 is projected to be negative 1,840 dollars, an estimate made even before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the food supply chain.[extra id=”ref1″ href=”#fn1″ title=”Text of footnote 1 here” title=”Footnote 1″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Highlights from the February 2020 Farm Income Forecast.” Updated February 25, 2020.”][1][/extra] Farm debt is at an all-time high, causing more than 10,000 farms to close each year and raising fears that small farms are “nearing extinction.”[extra id=”ref2″ href=”#fn2″ title=”Text of footnote 2 here” title=”Footnote 2″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Semuels, Alana. “‘They’re trying to wipe us off the map.’ Small American farmers are nearing extinction.” Time. November 27, 2019.”][2][/extra] The suicide rate among farmers is higher than for any other occupation, compelling dairy cooperatives to include numbers for suicide prevention hotlines when sending dairy checks.[extra id=”ref3″ href=”#fn3″ title=”Text of footnote 3 here” title=”Footnote 3″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Smith, Tovia. “As milk prices decline, worries about dairy farmer suicides rise.” NPR. February 27, 2018. “][3][/extra] Overproduction and low prices are driving farms out of business. Unchecked consolidation among crop and livestock industries has further driven down farm income while funneling money out of rural communities.[extra id=”ref4″ href=”#fn4″ title=”Text of footnote 4 here” title=”Footnote 4″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Food & Water Watch (FWW). “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies.” November 2012 at 2.”][4][/extra] Additionally, farmers, farm workers, and rural communities experience disproportionate health impacts from industrial agriculture, including exposure to toxic pesticides and hazardous pollution from factory farms,[extra id=”ref5″ href=”#fn5″ title=”Text of footnote 5 here” title=”Footnote 5″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Factory farms, or “CAFOs” (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) house large numbers of animals in confinement. The regulatory definitions of CAFOs as they pertain to the Clean Water Act can be found at 40 CFR § 122.23. “][5][/extra] all while facing declining access to healthcare facilities.[extra id=”ref6″ href=”#fn6″ title=”Text of footnote 6 here” title=”Footnote 6″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Douthit, N. et al. “Exposing some important barriers to health care access in the rural USA.” Public Health. Vol. 129, Iss. 6. June 2015 at abstract.”][6][/extra]
    Federal farm policy in the US does little to address the various causes behind the current farm crisis. For instance, although subsidized crop insurance serves as a disaster program, it does nothing to prevent overproduction, a key contributor to low crop prices. Moreover, crop insurance does not incentivize farmers to implement ecological practices that can build soil and ensure the productivity of farmland for future generations. Instead, farmers are thrown a lifeline to make it through one more harvest, incentivizing them to plant even more acres next year in order to shake out a living.
    Reinstating a parity program which includes price floors and supply management can stabilize prices in a predictable range. This will eliminate the price volatility that plagues farmers. Price floors should be set at parity – a price that restores the buying power of farm commodities and is adjusted for farm expense inflation. If coupled with federal grain reserves, the program could operate without budgetary costs to the federal government.
    Moreover, supply management can address the numerous ecological problems that come with excess commodity production. With fewer acres of corn and soybeans needed, farmers are free to divert fields to soil-conservation systems like hay production and pasture, thereby reducing pesticide use, greenhouse gas emissions, and soil erosion.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”13″ ][cs_element_image _id=”14″ ][cs_element_text _id=”15″ ][cs_content_seo]Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”16″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”17″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”18″ ][cs_element_text _id=”19″ ][cs_content_seo]Price Floors Provide Farmers with Stable and Fair Incomes
    \n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”20″ ][cs_content_seo]Today’s grain farmers are both buying inputs from and selling products into tightly consolidated markets. Four firms control 67 percent of the seed industry; these percentages are even higher among corn (85 percent) and soybean (76 percent) seed firms. For herbicide and pesticide firms, four firms control 84 percent.[extra id=”ref7″ href=”#fn7″ title=”Text of footnote 7″ title=”Footnote 7″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Mooney, Pat. ETC Group. “Blocking the Chain: Industrial Food Chain Concentration, Big Data Platforms and Food Sovereignty Solutions.” October 2018 at 4; Kelloway, Claire and Sarah Miller. “Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America’s Food System.” Open Markets Institute. March 2019 at 6 to 7.”][7][/extra] With less competition, grain farmers have seen significant increases in seed and input costs over the past decades, while the prices farmers receive for their output have not kept up, the result of selling into a grain trading market where concentration amongst so few firms is at nearly 90 percent.[extra id=”ref8″ href=”#fn8″ title=”Text of footnote 8″ title=”Footnote 8″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Kelloway & Miller at 6 and 8.”][8][/extra]
    In the absence of price floors, farmers have few options to make up revenue lost in this tightly consolidated system. Some will respond to a year of low prices by increasing production, including through intensive practices or by planting on marginal lands. This, in turn, increases the overall grain supply and further drives down grain prices, essentially creating a vicious cycle.[extra id=”ref9″ href=”#fn9″ title=”Text of footnote 9″ title=”Footnote 9″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”FWW. [Fact sheet]. "Grain reserves. Common sense farm policy." May 2014 at 2 to 3.”][9][/extra]

    Price floors aimed at parity prices can significantly increase and stabilize farmer income while making sure processors and livestock feeding corporations pay a fair price. One way to implement this is for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to provide nonrecourse loans to farmers based on this price floor. In years when required supply reductions are inadequate or when local prices fall below the price floor, the USDA would not require farmers in those localities to pay back the loan, but instead would collect the harvest as collateral – essentially buying surplus grains from the market. The USDA could then release these grains into the market at higher prices in years when drought or other disasters reduce production, thereby smoothing out market volatility and ensuring a steady supply of grain to the benefit of both farmers and consumers.[extra id=”ref10″ href=”#fn10″ title=”Text of footnote 10″ title=”Footnote 10″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Ibid at 1.”][10][/extra]

    Price floors and grain reserves are not new concepts. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933 was the government’s response to chronic price collapses, most notoriously following World War I and culminating in the “dirty thirties,” where rock-bottom prices and the Dust Bowl bankrupted thousands of farms. Recognized as the first Farm Bill, the AAA responded to this crisis by setting price floors and import restrictions on various commodities, while purchasing surplus grains for the national reserve.[extra id=”ref11″ href=”#fn11″ title=”Text of footnote 11″ title=”Footnote 11″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Graddy-Lovelace, Garrett and Adam Diamond. “From supply management to agricultural subsidies – and back again? The U.S. Farm Bill & agrarian (in)viability.” Journal of Rural Studies. Vol. 50. February 2017 at 76. “][11][/extra] This saved countless family farms from going under while providing a steady and reliable source of grain for consumers. Prices averaged 100 percent of parity from 1942 through 1952, helping to avoid a post-war recession.[extra id=”ref12″ href=”#fn12″ title=”Text of footnote 12″ title=”Footnote 12″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1975, “Indexes of Prices Received and Paid by Farmers, and Parity Ratio: 1910-1970,” series K344-353, pp. 488-489, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970.html. “][12][/extra] However, under political pressure from agribusinesses, subsequent farm bills destroyed the New Deal promise of parity and eventually eliminated supply management and food reserves for virtually all commodities.[extra id=”ref13″ href=”#fn13″ title=”Text of footnote 13″ title=”Footnote 13″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”FWW. [Fact sheet]. "Grain reserves. Common sense farm policy." May 2014 at 2.”][13][/extra] The exception is sugar, whose price is still supported at no budgetary cost to the US government.[extra id=”ref14″ href=”#fn14″ title=”Text of footnote 14″ title=”Footnote 14″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”A chief difference in the sugar supply management program is that nonrecourse loans are given to sugar processors, not farmers. See McMinimy, Mark A. Congressional Research Service (CRS). “U.S. Sugar Program Fundamentals.” R43998. April 6, 2016 at summary. “][14][/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”21″ ][cs_element_image _id=”22″ ][cs_element_text _id=”23″ ][cs_content_seo]Photo by Laura Seaman on Unsplash\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”24″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”25″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”26″ ][cs_element_text _id=”27″ ][cs_content_seo]Price Floors, if Tied to Agroecological Practices, Can Build Soil and Reduce Climate Emissions\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”28″ ][cs_content_seo]Another key tenet of supply management is participation in conservation programs. The Dust Bowl was a manmade disaster, caused in part by ploughing up prairie grasslands in response to high prices and the US government’s call to increase production during World War I. Similarly, today’s farm crisis incentivizes ramping up production through extractive, ecologically-damaging practices, including continuous monocultures grown with synthetic inputs like pesticides and fertilizers. Intensive agricultural practices like these increase soil erosion rates, threatening the future productivity of cropland.[extra id=”ref15″ href=”#fn15″ title=”Text of footnote 15″ title=”Footnote 15″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Nearing, Mark A. et al. “Natural and anthropogenic rates of soil erosion. ” International Soil and Water Conservation Research. Vol. 5., Iss. 2. June 2017 at 79.”][15][/extra] Intensification also reduces soil organic matter and biodiversity, making farmland less resilient to threats from plant pests and extreme weather events.[extra id=”ref16″ href=”#fn16″ title=”Text of footnote 16″ title=”Footnote 16″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Schrama, M. et al. “Crop yield gap and stability in organic and conventional farming systems. ” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. Vol. 256. March 15, 2018 at 123 to 124.”][16][/extra]
    The AAA created programs that paid farmers to set aside marginal land from production, easing soil erosion rates while avoiding overproduction of grain crops. Later farm bills expanded on these programs.[extra id=”ref17″ href=”#fn17″ title=”Text of footnote 17″ title=”Footnote 17″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Congressional Research Service (CRS). “Agricultural Conservation in the 2018 Farm Bill.” R45698. April 18, 2019 at summary.”][17][/extra] The USDA can leverage existing conservation programs to not only protect ecologically sensitive land but also as another supply management tool. Similarly, the USDA can boost funding for programs that incentivize agroecological practices, such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and returning livestock to pasture. The ecological benefits from such programs extend far beyond the fence line and merit public funding.
    Moreover, supply management can help curb climate-warming emissions. Agriculture is perhaps the largest source of human-caused climate emissions, contributing between 19 to 29 percent of these throughout the entire food production chain.[extra id=”ref18″ href=”#fn18″ title=”Text of footnote 18″ title=”Footnote 18″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Vermeulen, Sonja J. et al. “Climate change and food systems. ” Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Vol. 37. November 2012 at 198.”][18][/extra] In the US, grain crops often rely on synthetic inputs produced using fossil fuels, which represent the largest contribution of greenhouse gases in some cereal crop systems.[extra id=”ref19″ href=”#fn19″ title=”Text of footnote 19″ title=”Footnote 19″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Woods, Jeremy et al. “Energy and the food system. ” Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B. Vol. 365. 2010 at abstract; Liu, Chang et al. “Farming tactics to reduce the carbon footprint of crop cultivation in semiarid regions. A review. ” Agronomy for Sustainable Development. Vol. 36, No. 69. December 2016 at 3.”][19][/extra] Avoiding overproduction and incentivizing ecological practices can go a long way towards reducing agriculture’s immense climate footprint and avoiding catastrophic climate change and its many impacts on agriculture.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”29″ ][cs_element_image _id=”30″ ][cs_element_text _id=”31″ ][cs_content_seo]Aerial View of a Factory Farm. Photo by Socially Responsible Agriculture Project \n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”32″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”33″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”34″ ][cs_element_text _id=”35″ ][cs_content_seo]Price Floors and Supply Management Can Eliminate Indirect Subsidies to Factory Farms\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”36″ ][cs_content_seo]One major consequence of overproduction of grain crops is that it provides animal feed processors with a mountain of cheap grain.[extra id=”ref20″ href=”#fn20″ title=”Text of footnote 20″ title=”Footnote 20″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Wise, Timothy A. Tufts University. Global Development and Environment Institute. “Identifying the real winners from U.S. agricultural policies. ” Working Paper No. 05-07. December 2005 at 1 to 4. “][20][/extra] This, in turn, props up the polluting factory farm industry. Since the current farm safety net provides insufficient economic relief without managing supply, grains remain cheap and public dollars are “effectively launder[ed] through farmers,” as Food & Water Watch Founder, Wenonah Hauter says, to the feed processors and factory farms.[extra id=”ref21″ href=”#fn21″ title=”Text of footnote 21″ title=”Footnote 21″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Hauter, Wenonah. (2012). Foodopoly: The Battle over the Future of Food and Farming in America. New York: New Press at 293.”][21][/extra]
    The availability of cheap grain led to fewer diversified crop-and-livestock operations, as it became more cost effective for farmers to purchase feed rather than grow it themselves or practice rotational grazing. It is no surprise that factory farms began to surge across the US landscape just as federal agricultural policy encouraged the overproduction of corn and soybeans.[extra id=”ref22″ href=”#fn22″ title=”Text of footnote 22″ title=”Footnote 22″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Smith, Trevor J. “Corn, cows, and climate change: How federal agricultural subsidies enable factory farming and exacerbate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. ” Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy. Vol. 9, Iss. 1. March 2019 at 47 to 48 and 55.”][22][/extra] The 1996 “Freedom to Farm” Bill removed the last remaining vestiges of supply management, leading to oversupply and commodity price crashes in these commodities. By 1999, corn and soybean prices dropped roughly 50 percent, requiring substantial direct payments to farmers from federal coffers in order to avoid mass farm foreclosure.[extra id=”ref23″ href=”#fn23″ title=”Text of footnote 23″ title=”Footnote 23″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”FWW (2014) at 2.”][23][/extra]

    Feed processors jumped on the opportunity to purchase artificially-cheap grain, and factory farms mushroomed across the rural landscape, replacing thousands of smaller, more diversified farms.[extra id=”ref24″ href=”#fn24″ title=”Text of footnote 24″ title=”Footnote 24″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Wise, Timothy A. Tufts University. Global Development and Environment Institute. “Identifying the real winners from U.S. agricultural policies. ” Working Paper No. 05-07. December 2005 at 1 to 4; FWW analysis of the USDA Census of Agriculture (1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 census years). “][24][/extra] For example, between 1997 to 2017, Iowa increased its hog production by more than 50 percent but lost 85.5 percent of its small- and medium-sized hog farms. [extra id=”ref25″ href=”#fn25″ title=”Text of footnote 25″ title=”Footnote 25″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”FWW analysis of the USDA Census of Agriculture (1997 and 2017 census years). “][25][/extra] Fewer farms, as well as a trend towards factory operations that purchase inputs from vertically-integrated companies, erode the economic and social well-being of rural communities, leading to greater levels of poverty, economic inequality, and out-migration.[extra id=”ref26″ href=”#fn26″ title=”Text of footnote 26″ title=”Footnote 26″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Lobao, Linda and Curtis W. Stofferahn. “The community effects of industrialized farming: Social science research and challenges to corporate farming laws. ” Agriculture and Human Values. Vol. 25, Iss. 2. June 2008 at 220 to 221 and 225; Durrenberger, E. Paul and Kendall M. Thu. “The expansion of large scale hog farming in Iowa: The applicability of Goldschmidt’s findings fifty years later. ” Human Organization. Vol. 55, No. 4. Winter 1996 at 411 to 412; Lyson, Thomas A. and Rick Welsh. “Agricultural industrialization, anticorporate farming laws, and rural community welfare. ” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. Vol. 37, Iss. 8. August 1, 2005 at 1487 to 1488. “][26][/extra]

    Revamping federal farm policy to include parity prices and supply management for grain crops will stop the flow of artificially-cheap inputs to factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). It is a necessary step towards leveling the playing field so that livestock farmers with diversified operations or those that practice rotational grazing can be economically viable.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”37″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”38″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”39″ ][cs_element_text _id=”40″ ][cs_content_seo]We Cannot Afford to Leave the Principles of Parity Out of Our Nation’s Farm Policies\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”41″ ][cs_content_seo]Parity principles, including price floors, supply management and grain reserves, are the logical path towards raising farm income while realigning grain production with agroecological principles. This is a necessary basis – not a silver bullet – for addressing today’s farm crisis. Supply management programs will need to be designed so that they do not disproportionately benefit the largest producers while creating barriers for new or historically underserved farmers, one criticism of early New Deal era programs that did not address the needs of landless tenant farmers and sharecroppers.[extra id=”ref27″ href=”#fn27″ title=”Text of footnote 27″ title=”Footnote 27″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Graddy-Lovelace & Diamond at 78.”][27][/extra] Additionally, we must take other actions to support farmers and rural communities, including enforcing our nation’s antitrust laws to provide farmers with fair and competitive markets, closing loopholes that enable factory farms to evade Clean Water and Clean Air Act regulations, and restructuring our trade agreements so they do not undermine the food sovereignty of farmers and rural communities of all countries, including our own.
    Encouragingly, the conversation around farm policy seems to be shifting from finger-pointing at farm subsidy recipients to a broader dialogue on how to restore fairness in the farm economy. A handful of the 2020 democratic presidential candidates’ agricultural platforms included calls to reintroduce supply management,[extra id=”ref28″ href=”#fn28″ title=”Text of footnote 28″ title=”Footnote 28″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Braser, Philip. “Candidates get detailed on farm policy in bid for rural votes. ” Agri-Pulse. January 29, 2020.”][28][/extra] proposals that have been notably absent in recent election cycles, despite the preoccupation over winning the rural vote. Legislation recently introduced in Congress targets other systemic problems in the food system, including bills to halt agribusiness mega-mergers and to fund a just transition out of the factory farm model.[extra id=”ref29″ href=”#fn29″ title=”Text of footnote 29″ title=”Footnote 29″ info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”See the “Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2019 ” (S.1596/H.R.2933 116th Congress) and the “Farm System Reform Act of 2019 ” (S.3221/H.R.6718 116th Congress).”][29][/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”42″ ][cs_element_quote _id=”43″ ][cs_content_seo]Our leaders must harness this momentum to restructure federal farm policy by reestablishing price floors and other supply management tools, so that our food system lifts up farmers, farm workers, and rural communities.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”44″ ][cs_element_image _id=”45″ ][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”46″ ][cs_element_line _id=”47″ ][cs_element_text _id=”48″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn1″ href=”#ref1″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.”]1. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Highlights from the February 2020 Farm Income Forecast.” Updated February 25, 2020.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”49″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn2″ href=”#ref2″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.”]2. Semuels, Alana. “‘They’re trying to wipe us off the map.’ Small American farmers are nearing extinction.” Time. November 27, 2019.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”50″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn3″ href=”#ref3″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.”]3. Smith, Tovia. “As milk prices decline, worries about dairy farmer suicides rise.” NPR. February 27, 2018. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”51″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn4″ href=”#ref4″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.”]4. Food & Water Watch (FWW). “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies.” November 2012 at 2. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”52″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn5″ href=”#ref5″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.”]5. Factory farms, or “CAFOs” (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) house large numbers of animals in confinement. The regulatory definitions of CAFOs as they pertain to the Clean Water Act can be found at 40 CFR § 122.23. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”53″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn6″ href=”#ref6″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 6 in the text.”]6. Douthit, N. et al. “Exposing some important barriers to health care access in the rural USA.” Public Health. Vol. 129, Iss. 6. June 2015 at abstract.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”54″ ][cs_element_text _id=”55″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn7″ href=”#ref7″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 7 in the text.”]7. Mooney, Pat. ETC Group. “Blocking the Chain: Industrial Food Chain Concentration, Big Data Platforms and Food Sovereignty Solutions.” October 2018 at 4; Kelloway, Claire and Sarah Miller. “Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America’s Food System.” Open Markets Institute. March 2019 at 6 to 7.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”56″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn8″ href=”#ref8″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 8 in the text.”]8. Kelloway & Miller at 6 and 8.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”57″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn3″ href=”#ref3″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.”]3. Smith, Tovia. “As milk prices decline, worries about dairy farmer suicides rise.” NPR. February 27, 2018. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”58″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn4″ href=”#ref4″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.”]4. Food & Water Watch (FWW). “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies.” November 2012 at 2. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”59″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn5″ href=”#ref5″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.”]5. Factory farms, or “CAFOs” (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) house large numbers of animals in confinement. The regulatory definitions of CAFOs as they pertain to the Clean Water Act can be found at 40 CFR § 122.23. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”60″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn6″ href=”#ref6″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 6 in the text.”]6. Douthit, N. et al. “Exposing some important barriers to health care access in the rural USA.” Public Health. Vol. 129, Iss. 6. June 2015 at abstract.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”61″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn7″ href=”#ref7″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 7 in the text.”]7. Mooney, Pat. ETC Group. “Blocking the Chain: Industrial Food Chain Concentration, Big Data Platforms and Food Sovereignty Solutions.” October 2018 at 4; Kelloway, Claire and Sarah Miller. “Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America’s Food System.” Open Markets Institute. March 2019 at 6 to 7.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”62″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn8″ href=”#ref8″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 8 in the text.”]8. Kelloway & Miller at 6 and 8.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”63″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn9″ href=”#ref9″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 9 in the text.”]9. FWW. [Fact sheet]. "Grain reserves. Common sense farm policy." May 2014 at 2 to 3.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”64″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn10″ href=”#ref10″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 10 in the text.”]10. Ibid at 1.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”65″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn11″ href=”#ref11″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 11 in the text.”]11. Graddy-Lovelace, Garrett and Adam Diamond. “From supply management to agricultural subsidies – and back again? The U.S. Farm Bill & agrarian (in)viability.” Journal of Rural Studies. Vol. 50. February 2017 at 76. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”66″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn12″ href=”#ref12″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 12 in the text.”]12. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1975, “Indexes of Prices Received and Paid by Farmers, and Parity Ratio: 1910-1970,” series K344-353, pp. 488-489, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970.html. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”67″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn13″ href=”#ref13″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 13 in the text.”]13. FWW. [Fact sheet]. "Grain reserves. Common sense farm policy." May 2014 at 2.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”68″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn14″ href=”#ref14″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 14 in the text.”]14. A chief difference in the sugar supply management program is that nonrecourse loans are given to sugar processors, not farmers. See McMinimy, Mark A. Congressional Research Service (CRS). “U.S. Sugar Program Fundamentals.” R43998. April 6, 2016 at summary. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”69″ ][cs_element_text _id=”70″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn15″ href=”#ref15″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 15 in the text.”]15. Nearing, Mark A. et al. "Natural and anthropogenic rates of soil erosion. " International Soil and Water Conservation Research. Vol. 5., Iss. 2. June 2017 at 79.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”71″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn16″ href=”#ref16″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 16 in the text.”]16. Schrama, M. et al. "Crop yield gap and stability in organic and conventional farming systems. " Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. Vol. 256. March 15, 2018 at 123 to 124.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”72″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn17″ href=”#ref17″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 17 in the text.”]17. Congressional Research Service (CRS). "Agricultural Conservation in the 2018 Farm Bill." R45698. April 18, 2019 at summary.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”73″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn18″ href=”#ref18″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 18 in the text.”]18. Vermeulen, Sonja J. et al. "Climate change and food systems. " Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Vol. 37. November 2012 at 198.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”74″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn19″ href=”#ref19″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 19 in the text.”]19. Woods, Jeremy et al. "Energy and the food system. " Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B. Vol. 365. 2010 at abstract; Liu, Chang et al. "Farming tactics to reduce the carbon footprint of crop cultivation in semiarid regions. A review. " Agronomy for Sustainable Development. Vol. 36, No. 69. December 2016 at 3.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”75″ ][cs_element_text _id=”76″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn20″ href=”#ref20″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 20 in the text.”]20. Wise, Timothy A. Tufts University. Global Development and Environment Institute. "Identifying the real winners from U.S. agricultural policies. " Working Paper No. 05-07. December 2005 at 1 to 4. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”77″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn21″ href=”#ref21″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 21 in the text.”]21. Hauter, Wenonah. (2012). Foodopoly: The Battle over the Future of Food and Farming in America. New York: New Press at 293.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”78″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn22″ href=”#ref22″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 22 in the text.”]22. Smith, Trevor J. “Corn, cows, and climate change: How federal agricultural subsidies enable factory farming and exacerbate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. ” Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy. Vol. 9, Iss. 1. March 2019 at 47 to 48 and 55.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”79″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn23″ href=”#ref23″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 23 in the text.”]23. FWW (2014) at 2.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”80″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn24″ href=”#ref24″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 24 in the text.”]24. Wise, Timothy A. Tufts University. Global Development and Environment Institute. "Identifying the real winners from U.S. agricultural policies. " Working Paper No. 05-07. December 2005 at 1 to 4; FWW analysis of the USDA Census of Agriculture (1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 census years). [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”81″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn25″ href=”#ref25″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 25 in the text.”]25. FWW analysis of the USDA Census of Agriculture (1997 and 2017 census years). [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”82″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn26″ href=”#ref26″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 26 in the text.”]26. Lobao, Linda and Curtis W. Stofferahn. “The community effects of industrialized farming: Social science research and challenges to corporate farming laws. “Agriculture and Human Values. Vol. 25, Iss. 2. June 2008 at 220 to 221 and 225; Durrenberger, E. Paul and Kendall M. Thu. “The expansion of large scale hog farming in Iowa: The applicability of Goldschmidt’s findings fifty years later. “Human Organization. Vol. 55, No. 4. Winter 1996 at 411 to 412; Lyson, Thomas A. and Rick Welsh. “Agricultural industrialization, anticorporate farming laws, and rural community welfare. “Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. Vol. 37, Iss. 8. August 1, 2005 at 1487 to 1488. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”83″ ][cs_element_text _id=”84″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn27″ href=”#ref27″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 27 in the text.”]27. Graddy-Lovelace & Diamond at 78. [/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”85″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn28″ href=”#ref28″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 28 in the text.”]28. Braser, Philip. “Candidates get detailed on farm policy in bid for rural votes.” Agri-Pulse. January 29, 2020.[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][cs_element_text _id=”86″ ][cs_content_seo][extra id=”fn29″ href=”#ref29″ title=”” info=”popover” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”Jump back to footnote 29 in the text.”]29. See the "Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2019 " (S.1596/H.R.2933 116th Congress) and the "Farm System Reform Act of 2019 " (S.3221/H.R.6718 116th Congress).[/extra]\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]