Farm bill impacts everyone, says Catholic rural life official

FARMINGTON, Minn. (CNS) -- The farm bill isn’t just about farmers, impacting “not just on our food and land, but everywhere. That’s why the church needs to be involved,” said Bob Gronski, policy coordinator for the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.

Gronski spoke March 31 at St. Michael Church in Farmington during an ecumenical forum on the federal 2007 farm bill. Titled “Seeding Our Future,” the forum provided information about specific aspects of the farm bill and encouraged participants to take political action.

The farm bill is a multiyear omnibus bill that is reauthorized every four to seven years. As an omnibus bill, it includes policies on a wide range of agricultural and food-related issues, including commodity subsidies, international aid, food assistance, conservation, agricultural trade, credit, rural development and research.

Many provisions from the last farm bill -- the Farm Security & Rural Investment Act of 2002 -- will expire in 2007. Congress is expected to reauthorize the bill this year.

While the forum focused on four components of the 2007 farm bill -- food stamps and nutrition programs, producer and commodity issues, conservation policy, and international food production and trade -- the legislation addresses much more, said Dale Hennen, director of the rural life office for the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

The forum’s sponsors -- including the Archdiocesan Rural Life Conference, the Office for Social Justice, Catholic Charities and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference based in Des Moines, Iowa -- laid out four main goals for the 2007 bill: ensuring low-income people an adequate, nutritious diet; strengthening rural communities; helping farmers earn a sufficient livelihood and be good stewards of the land; and allowing small-scale farmers in other countries to earn a living.

Catholic rural interest groups are advocating changes from the 2002 farm bill in several areas, including government subsidies. Currently, the farm bill concentrates subsidies, or production-based money grants, on corn, cotton, rice, wheat and soybeans.

“If you produce more, you get more subsidies,” Hennen said. “It isn’t based on need -- that’s the problem.”

Sixty percent of U.S. farmers do not receive government subsidies because their production does not qualify. Thirty percent of subsidies go to the largest three percent of farms, according to the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “Farms are getting larger and larger and bypass the local community,” said Bill Gorman, a dairy farmer in Goodhue.

Capping subsidies and government support is important, Gronski said. The government, he added, should also reward “sustainability and community.” Subsidy caps would create a more level playing field and allow all farmers equal access to the markets, Hennen said.

Crop diversification is also important, Gronski said during the forum. Current subsidies promote the overproduction of feed grains and sugars. Under the 2002 farm bill, only a small amount of support goes to fruit and vegetable production, grazing operations, organic farming and other sustainable farming systems.

Hennen said he wants improvements in the 2002 farm bill’s Conservation and Security Program, which provides incentives to landowners and farmers to practice sustainable and earth-friendly farming methods.

“Right now we’re basing our payments on production, which is often harmful to the environment and is geared toward larger farmers,” Hennen said. “(Capping subsides) is geared toward people, farmers or others, who take care of the land while they are producing, which is of much greater benefit to society,” he said.

Currently, the food stamp program and other nutrition and food programs are the largest of the farm bill’s mandatory spending programs. Mandatory spending is federal funding that does not need to be appropriated each year by Congress.

Donna Neste said she relied on food stamps and other nutrition assistance after her husband lost his job in the same month she became pregnant. She credits food assistance programs with the health of her son, who is now 24. “I don’t know how he would have turned out ... if he wouldn’t have gotten the right nutrition as a baby,” she said.

Catholic organizations want the 2007 farm bill to keep the food stamp program’s entitlement structure, while making benefit allotments adequate to purchase enough healthy food. They also want it to broaden eligibility and connect more eligible people with the benefits.