Growers and Grocers

If you have been reading Growers and Grocers for a while, you will know that sometime next year the U.S. Congress will consider an overhaul of agricultural policy in the form of the “2007 Farm Bill” (previous G & G coverage is here). As the debate ramps up in 2007, you won’t be able to swing a bunch of virtual chard in the blogosphere without hitting a post about the Farm Bill, so it is probably a good idea to learn some of the lingo and investigate some of the issues.

Two recent articles review one of the potentially major issues for the next Farm Bill: how growers of fruits, vegetables and nuts will be treated. A December 3rd New York Times article focused on California garlic growers (registration required). A December 6th Press-Enterprise article described the how commodity farmers and fruit and vegetable farmers in Southern California view government programs. Locavores in the L.A. area might be interested to read that one of the farmers grows wheat in Menifee, a town just 67 miles from downtown L.A.

Growers of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers (called “specialty crops”) receive few direct subsidies from the Federal government. Almost all of the more than $15 billion in subsidies go to corn, cotton, rice, wheat and soybean growers, even though the specialty crop producers expect higher cash receipts than expected for the five commodity crops ($52.2 billion vs. $52 billion).

To present a unified front to Congress for the upcoming Farm Bill debate, over seventy growers of specialty crops have formed a group called the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance and submitted a plan to Congress. The plan is not proposing direct subsidies, but a package of indirect subsidies in the form of marketing assistance to help gain new export markets, research assistance, block grants to states for agricultural programs, increased funding for federal nutrition programs, and funds for conservation.

The articles are a good introduction to some of the complexities of agricultural policy in the age of international trade in everything. Some of the issues mentioned included

• China’s new agricultural power: aided by government subsidies, an enormous workforce, and the government’s regulation of Chinese currency values to benefit export industries, China’s produce exports are growing rapidly.
• International pressure on the U.S. to end agricultural subsidies (officially, via World Trade Organization negotiations; unofficially via street protests).
• The bureaucratic inertia that resists change to government programs.
• National politics: growers of specialty crops are based in several large states that will be important in the 2008 election, including Califonia and Florida.

And there are still many issues not mentioned, like

• The power shift in Congress (interestingly, Sen. Harkin (D-IA), the expected chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, was chairman of that committee when the last Farm Bill was passed in 2002).
• The role of biofuels in agricultural policy. This week Grist is running a great series on all things biofuel, including a piece about how increased biofuel production will affect farmland and wild places like tropical rainforests
• Urban threats to prime farmland (see The American Farmland Trust’s Farmland on the Edge Report, for example).
• The federal deficit and the looming financial disaster of Medicare.
• President Bush’s veto pen. Although only used once, he (and his staff) threatened to veto many spending bills. Perhaps the next threat won’t be an empty one.
• The interplay between the Farm Bill and international trade negotiations. The Des Moines Register reported that “Farm groups argue that the United States shouldn’t reduce its commodity subsidies until a new trade agreement is firmed up. Cutting subsidies now would give away U.S. leverage in the talks, those organizations say.”

If a new Farm Bill is debated next year (there has been talk of extending the current Farm Bill for one or more years), it could be one of the most wide-ranging agricultural policy debates in decades.