Defying President Bush's veto threat, the Senate joined the House Thursday in voting "yay" on the $289 billion omnibus legislation that covers everything from farm subsidies to food stamps. In both chambers, support for the bill tallied strong enough to override Bush's threatened veto. The legislation has bitterly divided the sustainable-agriculture world. Supporters acknowledge the bill is deeply flawed, but argue it contains important gains in conservation, nutrition, and school lunch programs that would be lost if the bill failed -- at least until a new and comprehensively better farm bill could be passed. Critics counter that the small victories for sustainable-ag in the current bill are paltry compared to those won by wealthy farmland owners, who managed to escape stringent subsidy caps.
source: Bloomberg, McClatchy News
see also, in Gristmill: How should sustainable-food advocates respond to the latest farm bill proposal?
Comments
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usandthem Posted 5:11 am
16 May 2008
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Wolverine Posted 7:02 am
16 May 2008
Environmental problems are never going to be solved by doing some good things to go along with all the bad things. This legislation, as all past farm bills, is hideous for its subsidies to big business and polluting activities, and should not be supported merely because it has a few crumbs for the natural environment thrown in.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 1:59 pm
17 May 2008
Not great, but still...could've been worse.
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italo Posted 5:35 am
18 May 2008
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Wolverine Posted 9:23 am
18 May 2008
Second, our economy is based on destroying the Earth. So how in the world would any solution "our economy and environment in concert"? What's needed for the good of the planet is for humans to greatly lower their population AND individual consumption. Fantasies about everyone being materialistically wealthy while benefiting the planet have no basis in reality and are very harmful to the environmental cause.
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