Farm Bill Update
August 6, 2007
Find your Legislator at Home in August!
Happy August! Congress is officially on recess and many of the rest of us are planning a week or two of vacation before summer ends. Your legislators, however, are likely to be in their home states and districts, attending summer fairs and events. Many of them will even accept invitations to tour community gardens, community food projects, farmers’ markets, and other activities that highlight local food systems, especially if you invite the press along too! It’s easy to find your legislators—just call their local office and ask to speak to their scheduler. They may also post events on their websites.
Meeting with your legislators—especially in the Senate—is vital during this recess! Decisions are still being discussed and deals are being brokered, and WE NEED YOU to stress the importance of small but powerful programs like Community Food Projects and the need to adequately fund them with mandatory money. Letters to the Editor and editorials in local papers have also been extremely successful, and we encourage you to continue submitting them. Thank you for all your hard work and support, and we look forward to working together to make a big impact as the Farm Bill moves to the Senate.
Agriculture Appropriations: Last week, the Agriculture Appropriations bill was introduced on the House floor. There were significant partisan differences of opinion which resulted in various actions to disrupt the process, including a walk-out by Republicans after a disputed vote.
One exciting event during the debate on the floor for Agriculture Appropriations was a colloquy, or discussion on the House floor, between Chairwoman DeLauro (D-CT) and Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) on the Community Food Projects (CFP). Rep. Rush lamented the fact that CFP was changed from mandatory money to discretionary, and the Chairwoman went on record as supporting the program. This is good news for the program, which may have to rely on the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee every year if the program doesn’t receive mandatory money in the Farm Bill.
Omissions from Last Week: Due to the sheer volume of information in last week’s update, we forgot to mention several important programs in which people may have interest.
- Fruit and Vegetable Snack program-In the Manager's amendment, the mandatory funding for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable (Snack) Program was increased to $70 million per year and to include 35 schools in each of 50 states.
- Organic Research- In the Managers Amendment, organic research was extended at $25 million in mandatory funding per year.
- Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for meat and fresh produce was included in the Farm Bill with a compromise 3-tier system to account for products of mixed origin.
- Rural Coalition has an outline of the outcomes for socially disadvantaged and minority farmers which should be posted on their website (www.ruralco.org
SENATE: Now that the House is finished and August recess has begun, we are looking to the Senate next. Timing is completely up in the air—some rumors suggest that we may have a draft of the Senate Farm Bill before the end of August, others say we may not see it until the 3rd week in September. It is likely that the 2002 Bill will have to be temporarily extended as the Senate may not take up the Farm Bill on the floor until October.
Sen. Baucus, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, is working on finding money for desired increases in the Farm Bill, but it’s not likely that he’ll use the same tactics the House used in closing a tax loophole. Information is being held very closely right now and is difficult to come by, but we’ll keep our eyes and ears open and keep you informed as we have new information.
Media Report: There have been lots of interesting editorials and articles about the Farm Bill in the last week, here are links to some that caught our attention (though some are more positive than others):
Anthony Flaccavento in the Washington Post, “Hurting a Small Farm Near You”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301569.html
NY Times, “Food That Travels Well’: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Tucson Citizen: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/56406.php
Lastly, this week we say goodbye to CFSC’s rock-star policy intern, Aliza Wasserman. She’s done amazing work this summer, and we wish her the best of luck as she returns to her graduate program at Tufts. Thanks Aliza!
Happy summer, and don’t forget to contact your legislators!
Best,
Steph & Aliza
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Community Food Security Coalition
110 Maryland Ave. NE Suite 307
Washington, DC 20002
Phone: 202.543.8602
Email: Steph@foodsecurity.org
www.FoodSecurity.org
