Updated August 11, 2023
The Union of Concerned
Scientists put things nicely into perspective. They tell us that food is
woven deeply into the fabric of our daily lives. It should nourish our bodies,
bind together communities, and provide a good living for the millions of people
who work to produce, distribute, and sell it. And it should do all this while
sustaining and regenerating the resources (the soil, air, and water) that it
depends on. But this is not always the case. The current US food system
too often plays a different—and destructive—role. Instead of keeping us
healthy, it fuels epidemics of diabetes and heart disease. Instead of
supporting strong communities, it exploits workers, worsens racial and income
inequality, and drains money from local economies. Instead of working with
nature in a resilient, sustainable way, today’s dominant farming methods
despoil the landscape, pollute air, and water, and accelerate climate
change. And these problems didn’t arise by accident: they are the result
of policies driven by narrow private interests rather than the public good.
Every five years Congress writes
a piece of legislation called the Farm Bill. This year, we need legislation
that fixes some, if not all of what is wrong with our food system. We
must have a transformative Farm Bill in 2023 for the sake of our health, the economy, the sustainability of our
soil, and the climate.
Knowing what is at stake, the
Environmental Working Group at Florida Veterans for Common
Sense (FLVCS) has researched the farm bill in depth. This bill is a federal
policy that financially supports the agriculture industry as well as
nutritional programs. The majority (about 75%) goes towards nutritional
programs (Title IV) throughout our nation. Title II of the Farm Bill is
dedicated to conservation programs and approximately 6.8% ($59.7 billion) are
allotted to this section. In our research, we (disclosure: I worked on
this project) found that much of this funding goes to large industrial
agricultural firms that regularly use processes that put forth false solutions
that in reality are not environmentally friendly, nor do they help combat
climate change. In fact, many of them use chemical pesticides and
fertilizer that are damaging to the environment. The way these funds are
allocated ignores smaller farmers that fully support and want to use
regenerative and traditional practices in farming. The Environmental
Working Group has developed and published a FLVCS position paper that supports
increasing the amount of dollars allocated to conservation and shifting Farm
Bill funding from harmful practices to support farmers as they implement
environmentally friendly processes.
Click here to read the
FLVCS’s Farm
Bill Position.
And also check out an
informative op-ed posted in The Invading Sea: Farm
bill should encourage sustainable practices.
Please consider passing this
information on to other concerned citizens. The references provided in
the position paper can provide a deeper knowledge of the need for
transformational change in our food and farming systems, and provide ammunition
to engage members of Congress, to influence them to do the right thing with the
2023 Farm Bill: to promote the public good instead of the narrow private
interests that have been supported in past Farm Bills.