CNS STORY: New 'Seeking Balance' statement lists priorities for next farm bill

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CNS Story:

FARM-POLICY Jan-18-2007 (720 words) With photo. xxxn

New 'Seeking Balance' statement lists priorities for next farm bill

By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, has joined 350 other organizations in a statement calling for substantial revisions to U.S. agriculture policy in the 2007 farm bill.

"We have witnessed the continued loss of farms, farmers and valuable farmland. Unprecedented farm and agribusiness consolidation limits competition and innovation in the marketplace," said the statement, "Seeking Balance in U.S. Farm and Food Policy."

"Current farm and food policies have contributed to the overproduction of certain crops, creating artificially low prices that imperil the livelihoods of farmers here and abroad," the statement said. "Moreover, the benefits of farm subsidies flow disproportionately to very large farms and specific regions of the country, neglecting entrepreneurial and diversified farms and regions that raise livestock and grow other types of crops, including fruits and vegetables."

"As a nation, we can and must do better," the statement said. "These problems and trends are not inevitable, but rather the result of public policy choices."

Under the banner of "renewing American agriculture," the statement lists numerous ways to better U.S. farm policy, including:

-- Fostering market-based solutions and advancing new opportunities to farm.

-- Expanding new and competitive markets.

-- Cutting hunger, improving nutrition, increasing food access and improving health.

-- Building rural businesses, improving rural communities and promoting community development.

-- Protecting the environment.

-- Assisting farmworkers and ensuring fair access to agricultural programs.

-- Promoting diversity, equity and local leadership.

"Most farmers and ranchers don't benefit from current farm policies," the statement said. "A long history of discrimination in farm program delivery has prevented many minority farmers from obtaining credit and participating in crop insurance, commodity and conservation programs."

Rural communities, it added, are losing population and lagging in job growth; of the 200 poorest counties in the United States, 195 of them are rural.

"Farmers seeking to improve the environment are turned away," the statement said. "Conservation programs designed to address water, air and wildlife challenges are not available to 75 percent of farmer applicants. Support for organic farming and other sustainable alternatives is inadequate to the fast-growing demand from farmers and consumers."

Meanwhile, according to the statement, twice as many farmers are over age 65 as are under age 35. "We can and must cultivate a new generation of farmers and ranchers," "Seeking Balance" said. "Public policies can do a great deal to ensure that there are incentives in place to help new farmers and ranchers buy land, meet the challenges of farm succession and establish viable farm businesses."

"Seeking Balance" said the 2007 farm bill "creates a rare opportunity to take significant steps towards reversing these trends. More than $300 billion in taxpayer dollars is at stake over the next five years."

The statement said crop subsidies should be limited for corporate farms. It also said subsidies "are no substitute for sound rural development policy. Indeed, rural counties with the highest concentration of subsidies also have lower levels of job creation and negative population growth."

In urging the improved enforcement of conservation standards linked to commodity and conservation programs, the statement said current policies "demand that farms squeeze more and more from the soil -- putting short-term gains ahead of the land's capacity to supply our food into the future."

The statement also called for establishing an Office of Farm Workers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "While stronger farm labor, health and safety protections need to be addressed in other areas of law," it added, "our food system depends on farmworkers having a voice at the table within agriculture."

The farm bill "provides an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between rural and urban America -- and to better understand how their futures are intertwined," "Seeking Balance" said.

With about 1.2 million acres of farmland lost each year -- a rate of two acres a minute each minute of the year -- "a large and increasing share of U.S. agricultural production occurs in urban-influenced counties," the statement said, adding, "These highly productive farmlands ... are increasingly threatened by urban sprawl."

The statement said, "Without changes to farm and food policies that unfairly distribute benefits and limit opportunities, our farm and food system will continue to be out of balance."

END

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