Old McDonald doesn’t exist anymore. That is, the Old McDonald who had a farm and on that farm he had a pig, cow, et cetera has probably sold off most of his property and moved to the city.
According to the Carsey Institute, less than 6.5 percent of the U.S. labor force is engaged in farming. Since 2000 migration from farming counties has accelerated and population losses are now widespread.
Poverty in these rural areas is equally widespread. Between 1994 and 2001, the federal government spent two to five times more money per capita on urban rather than rural community development. The largest single source of governmental support to rural communities is agricultural subsidies.
These subsidies are traditionally allocated every five years through the Farm Bill. The 2002 Farm Bill passed in an election year when crop prices hit rock bottom and critical votes lay in farm states.
The 2002 Farm Bill doled out about $20 billion worth of commodity subsidies to farmers. Of the $20 billion, about 90 percent goes entirely to five crops: corn, wheat, rice, cotton and soy.
The U.S. subsidizes these crops so heavily that it lowers global market prices. This hurts many countries that rely on agriculture as their means for development. Worldwide, 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day; about 75 percent rely on agriculture as a means of income.
This economic favoritism is also responsible for the disappearance of many small farmers, leading to the collapse of local food networks and a reliance on carbon-intensive, long-distance transport of food.
A study conducted at the University of Michigan estimated that it takes an average of seven to 10 calories of input energy to produce one calorie of food. Most of our food is transported in diesel trucks that get only two to five miles per gallon and most food travels 1500-2000 miles to land on your plate. The study estimated that 10 percent of the energy used annually in the United States was consumed by the food industry.
Subsidies and artificially low energy prices are what make large-scale factory farms economically feasible. Cheap oil will not last forever; world production has already peaked. As the price of oil rises, we’ll be forced to reevaluate our food systems and place more emphasis on less energy-intensive agricultural methods, like smaller-scale local and organic agriculture.
The new 2007 Farm Bill has the potential to stop these government hand-outs and make small farming more economically feasible.
The bill has already gone through the House but the resulting bill didn’t change the system of commodity subsidies. The Senate vote is coming soon. In anticipation, students from the University of Washington and Vassar College are organizing a National Student Day of Action for an Equitable Farm Bill this Friday, Sept. 21.
In support of this movement, Whitman’s Campus Climate Challenge is holding an event this Friday on Ankeny Field from noon to 1 p.m. They will be encouraging students to sign letters to their senators in support of a more just farm bill.
In addition to reforming subsidy allocation, the 2007 Farm Bill attempts to address a number of environment issues. The letter will ask senators to boost conservation programs that help farmers protect our natural resources.
