[SustainableTompkins] From the NY Times: My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

[Wericclay at aol.com]

Hi folks,
 
I am curious how much the issue of commodity  subsidies rules hamper our own 
local producers?  
 
Eric
 
 
Eric Clay,  M.Div., Ph.D.
Community Coach
Shared Journeys, Inc.
832 North Aurora  Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-592-6874_  wericclay at aol.com_ (mailto:wericclay at aol.com) 

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March 1, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
My Forbidden Fruits (and  Vegetables) 
By JACK HEDIN
 
Rushford, Minn. 
IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the  
local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a  
tough time keeping up with the demand.  
But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables  
not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their  
supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works  deliberately 
and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding.  And the 
barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in  place will 
be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are  working 
on now goes into effect.  
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this  
because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been  
severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As  I’ve 
looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand  
that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and 
 Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it 
 even gets started. 
Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn’t be enough to meet demand, I 
 rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under the alfalfa hay 
that  was established there, and planted watermelons, tomatoes and vegetables for 
 natural-food stores and a community-supported agriculture program. 
All went well until early July. That’s when the two landowners discovered  
that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm Service  
Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the commodity farm  program, 
and it was going to be expensive to fix. 
The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn  
or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat 
 and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and  
tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my  
landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.  
I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and  
vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on 
 that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and 
 runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any 
subsidies  in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if 
the  farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there
’s  no problem.) 
In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 — for one season alone! And 
 this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that only one of the  
government’s three crop-support programs was in effect; the total bill might 
be  much worse in the future.  
In addition, the bureaucratic entanglements that these two farmers faced at  
the Farm Service office were substantial. The federal farm program is making 
it  next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic  
vegetables. 
Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California,  
Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through  
their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been  
able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.  
That’s unfortunate, because small producers will have to expand on a  
significant scale across the nation if local foods are to continue to enter the  
mainstream as the public demands. My problems are just the tip of the iceberg.  
Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill that  
would provide some farmers, though only those who supply processors, with some 
 relief from the penalties that I’ve faced — for example, a soybean farmer 
who  wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his usual subsidy on those acres but 
 suffer none of the other penalties. However, the Congressional delegations 
from  the big produce states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their 
 highest farm bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except  
perhaps as a tiny pilot program. 
Who pays the price for this senselessness? Certainly I do, as a Midwestern  
vegetable farmer. But anyone trying to do what I do on, say, wheat acreage in  
the Dakotas, or rice acreage in Arkansas would face the same penalties. Local  
and regional fruit and vegetable production will languish anywhere that the  
commodity program has influence. 
Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price for  
this — whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge to  
absorb the government’s fines, or in the form of less access to the kind of  
fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.  
Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers need  
more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables to 
meet  increasing demand from local markets — without the federal government 
actively  discouraging them. 
 
Jack Hedin is a  farmer.

 



**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.      
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)