Elanor Starmer’s Posts

• Running dry

  Time to save our nation’s dairy farmers 51

  Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago

  Suicides, farm sales, milk dumping--that all might sound like scenes from the Great Depression. But right now, U.S. dairy farmers are in a severe crisis.

• Siding with the Bushies?

  Why a Bush veto of the farm bill is bad for the food movement (and the world) 3

  Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

  My former boss in D.C. once said that if she ever found herself on the same side of an issue as the Bush administration, it was time to go back and look more closely: There must be a hidden agenda. That was the thought that struck me as I contemplated the administration's farm bill veto threat on Friday.

  I understand the calls from some in the sustainable-ag community to veto the farm bill (and thank Tom Philpott and the comment crew for outlining them). The argument appears to be that, while there were important wins, this farm bill does… Read More

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Elanor Starmer’s Recent Comments

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  Definitions, indeed

  JMG3Y- Let's be careful about these statistics. On the cost side, farmers will be making payments on that land and equipment (those assets are not truly 'theirs' until they've been paid off-- which generally they haven't been) in addition to shelling out for seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel each season. Farm subsidies are also capitalized into land values, so if farmers stopped receiving subsidies, the value of the land would fall (some say by an estimated 20%). And on a more technical note, the USDA census figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so you can't compare the 2000 data to 2007 without making that adjustment yourself. High land prices are a problem-- they're a huge barrier to beginning farmers, for example-- but let's not assume that the farmers who already have land are getting rich off of it.

  I raise this because I've been frustrated by the way that farm income stats have been thrown around in this Farm Bill debate in an attempt to paint commodity farmers a wealthy and powerful. The way USDA reports income statistics is misleading: farm income figures include full-time farmers but also include the incomes of "rural residence farmers" who do not consider farming to be their primary occupation. These are your doctors and lawyers who live in the country (on a "farm") and maybe own some animals. The USDA counts their off-farm salaries when it reports the average for U.S. "farm income." If you take out that category and look only at the incomes of full-time farmers, the average income (which includes subsidies) is below the average for non-farm U.S. households. That suggests that farmers aren't winning under the current system. Focusing on farmers as the problem will leave us chasing our tail while ADM, Cargill, Smithfield, and Tyson run away with the farm bill. On How should sustainable-food advocates respond to the latest farm bill proposal? posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses

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  the piggies plead for passage

  The Farm Bill is far from perfect, but others have mentioned small but important wins in their area of interest. I'll add that for small- and mid-sized livestock producers, it's a massive improvement over the status quo. I don't think we can afford to lose what we've gained in this arena.

  The Farm Bill, for the first time, includes a Livestock Title. Among other things, the title helps close a loophole that has allowed huge meatpacking companies like Smithfield, Tyson and Cargill to offer lower prices to small independent livestock producers than they do to large producers for animals of the same quality. It requires that producers be allowed to decline mandatory arbitration clauses in a livestock or poultry contract. (In the past, companies have used these clauses to prevent producers from fighting delinquent companies in court.) And while the packer ban was dropped (and I think that's an outrage, frankly), the bill does require the USDA to report how much time it spends investigating deceptive or anti-competitive practices by meatpackers. With the meat industry rapidly consolidating, knowing how much time the USDA spends looking into this stuff is an important organizing tool for sustainable ag advocates. Finally, the bill allows meat from smaller state-inspected processing facilities to be sold across state lines-- a huge win for smaller producers who can't get their animals into the giant USDA-inspected facilities. (If you're interested in this issue, here's more info: http://www.ethicurean.com/2007/10/04/getting-to-the-heart ...)

  I also want to put in a plug for the organic research money in the bill, a 7-fold increase over past years. Public research dollars are critical to the goal of growing food (and raising livestock) in a way that's less dependent on petroleum-based inputs, toxic pesticides, and GMOs.

  I personally doubt we can expect greater commodity reform after the election, even if a Democrat wins; these issues are largely regional rather than partisan. My vote is for the sustainable ag community to use the momentum generated from this bill to make change on the local and state levels, and then to use those patchwork victories to force major federal-level reform in the 2012 Farm Bill.  
  On How should sustainable-food advocates respond to the latest farm bill proposal? posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses