[SustainableTompkins] Food Injustice: Govt. opposes local foods

[Joey Gates]

Wow-that made me sick at heart. I come from a former
dairy, currently soy/corn cash crop farm family.  I
have dreamed of turning it organic etc some day, but
this article reveals how that could be nearly
impossible.

--- Elan Shapiro <elansla at ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us>
wrote:

> Op-Ed Contributor
> My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
> 
> By JACK HEDIN
> NY Times
> March 1, 2008
> 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.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Elan Shapiro
> Sustainable Tompkins Community Partnership
> Coordinator
> Sustainable Living Associates, Principal
> Frog's Way B&B
> 211 Rachel Carson Way
> Ithaca, NY 14850
> 607-275-0249    607-592-8402 Cell
> 
> "We must be the change we want to see in the world"
> 	          Mohandas Gandhi
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