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LinkedInPosts Tagged: farm bill
Federal definition of 'rural' prevents California from getting adequate ag research funding
USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue held a town hall at World Ag Expo in Tulare on Feb. 13 to listen to suggestions for the upcoming Farm Bill. VP Glenda Humiston was among those present for the discussion.
Todd Fitchette of Western Farm Press wrote: “While trade, labor and regulatory issues may top the list of agricultural policy issues Perdue faces in Washington D.C., Glenda Humiston, Vice President of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Division of the state's Land Grant university, stressed the importance of adequate research funding and federal definitions of rural versus urban, which she said is having detrimental impacts across California on important program funding.
“Humiston said that while UCANR has a ‘proud tradition of research in California,' the university is plagued by reduced budgets at the same time the state is plagued by a new invasive pest every several weeks. She said for the university to stay ahead of these issues and to help growers in these and many other areas, additional funding is vital.
“The United States is losing the battle over agricultural research with China, which spends more in that sector, Humiston says. She continues to trumpet the idea of greater broadband access to rural areas of the state as new agriculture will demand internet upgrades for technology like sensors and driverless spray rigs.”
In private communication, Fitchette mentioned that widespread applause broke out across the audience in response to Humiston's comments.
“If a county has one town that has 50,000 population in it, the entire county is labeled metropolitan for purposes of allocating funding,” Humiston said, wrote Chelsea Shannon of the Hanford Sentinel.
Matthew Sarr of the Porterville Recorder also covered the event.
Sonny Perdue hears from California growers at World Ag Expo (Western Farm Press)
Sec. Sonny Perdue visits World Ag Expo (Hanford Sentinel)
World Ag Expo: Secretary Perdue takes pulse of agriculture community (Porterville Recorder)
Senate passes 'complicated' Farm Bill, UC's Dan Sumner says
Now that a half-trillion-dollar Farm Bill has been passed by the U.S. Senate and is headed for the House of Representatives, Madeleine Brand interviewed Dan Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center, to get his take on the Senate action. The nearly six-minute interview aired on Southern California Public Radio's Madeleine Brand Show.
Sumner said the Senate's Farm Bill contains substantial changes in the dairy program, the biggest of which is removal of an ancient price support program. The program, in which the government would buy powdered milk, butter or cheese if prices fell below a certain level, has not been implemented in the last two decades.
A new program will probably provide more payments to farmers, but Sumner said the "strings attached" make the provisions unhealthy for the industry in the long run.
"In order to participate, you have to agree cut back your milk production whenever the prices are low by government standards," Sumner said. "What that means, the more efficient, more innovative farms that would like to be growing have to cut back."
He said he expects the House version of the Farm Bill to be "quite different" from the Senate version.
"The speaker and the leadership in the House have been more clear they want substantial budget cuts and, given the nature of the majority in the house, those are more likely to happen on the nutrition side," Sumner said.
Dan Sumner.
Farm subsidies are not to blame for the obesity crisis
The common notion that the federal government is contributing to the obesity epidemic by providing billions of dollars in annual subsidies to farmers doesn't pencil out, according to UC Davis agricultural economist Julian Alston.
Alston was featured in a six-minute NPR story about farm subsidies yesterday. The story largely dispelled the theory that federal subsidies encourage farmers to grow too much grain, causing commodity prices to drop, making food cheaper and inviting people to eat too much.
Alston said improved agricultural productivity is responsible for cutting the price of food.
"Food productivity is more than doubled, so the real cost is less than half what it was 40 to 50 years ago," he said. "That's the big story. And that wasn't caused by subsidies. That was caused by improvements in productivity on the farm."
Farm subsidies do not necessarily make food cheaper.
"The net effect of the whole set of farm supports is to make food more expensive and actually to discourage obesity," Alston said.
Think tank urges radical farm policy reforms
The American Enterprise Institute got a great deal of media coverage this week after releasing the organization’s recommendations and detailed background information relating to the reauthorization of the U.S. Farm Bill in 2012.
The institute says that farms and farm households have no more need for federal programs that subsidize incomes and risk-protection strategies than any other businesses or households. Eliminating inefficient and outdated agricultural subsidies in the Farm Bill could save U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion over the next decade while having little impact on the country’s food supply or its farmers’ viability.
The AEI statements were packaged under a headline describing American farm subsidies as an “American Boondoggle.” One of the articles, titled Picking on the Poor: How US Agricultural Policy Hurts the Developing World, was written by the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center Dan Sumner.
“In many ways, U.S. agricultural policy is harmful to the global poor. Farm-commodity and related subsidies reduce world prices, especially when prices are already low,” Sumner wrote. “A typical small cotton farm in Africa would have gained more than $100 per year if U.S. programs had not depressed cotton prices.”
This isn’t the first time the American Enterprise Institute has called for farm subsidy cuts, said an article in the Billings Gazette, but with a tight U.S. budget and the number of U.S. citizens with farming-related jobs down to one in 50, AEI officials said they believe they have a good chance of influencing cuts to the 2012 Farm Bill.
Other publications that picked up the story included:
Dan Sumner
House Ag Committee hears from valley farmers
California farmers would like the 2012 farm bill to provide help for struggling dairies, incentives for reducing air pollution and support for a legal farm work force, according to testimony at a House Agriculture Committee hearing yesterday at Fresno City Hall reported in today's Fresno Bee.
The story, written by Robert Rodriguez, said an almond grower who requested help for purchasing new tractors that meet state air quality regulations heard from Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, that it may be a tough sell in the nation's capital.
"We can't drive public policy on what one state does," he said. "We are going to have to make some tough choices."
Speakers at the meeting said low dairy prices have hurt California dairy operators and that a significant majority of people willing to do farm work lack proper immigration status.
Van Konynenburg suggested the 2012 legislation should build on the parts of the 2008 farm bill that promoted healthy foods for schoolchildren and other consumers.
Many schools cannot handle large amounts of fresh produce, so the programs should include products such as "peach snack cups or a box of raisins," he said.
"Tree fruits and nuts are vital to the good health of the American diet," Van Konynenburg was quoted. "The next farm bill should support foods which the nation's medical community believes will enhance health and help fight disease."
Van Konynenburg also urged support for research that reduces labor needs in orchards, such as a mechanical peach thinner being tested by the University of California Cooperative Extension, said the Modesto Bee version of the story.
Mechanical peach thinning research by UC Cooperative Extension.
