Green Options

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I’m relatively new to this crazy Farm Bill thing. I was invited last Summer to an event at Paul Newman and local food activist chef Michel Nischan’s restaurant, the Dressing Room in Wesport CT, to listen to an amazing panel of speakers and participate in a dialog about the 2007 Farm Bill. This incredibly informative and passionate panel included, US Representative Rose DeLauro (D-New Haven, CT); Gus Schumacher, the undersecretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services during the Clinton Administration; Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill; and Annie Farrell an advocate for sustainable and organic farming and manager of Millstone Farm in CT.

I was stunned by what I learned last year - more importantly, I was stunned by what I didn’t know, and I consider myself a sustainable agriculture supporter! I’ve been trying to track the progress of this Bill in its fits and starts and controversial moments, but still find myself quite ignorant and ever-more surprised when I hear or read another piece of this hulking bulk of legislation.Today is my ‘recipe’ day, not that I’ve kept up with the schedule lately AT ALL, but after reading the NY Times article about the latest on the Farm Bill, I just had to write something about this. Sorry. Look for some lighter fare (perhaps easier to digest than the Farm Bill) Monday!

Word has it that the farm bill congressional conferees hammered out at the end of last week would most likely be vetoed by President Bush. The ink has not dried on the agreement, and that is why Congress had to pass an extension of the existing farm bill last week. The extension gives lawmakers until May 2, when they must either pass another stopgap measure or resort to the permanent 1949 agriculture law, if a new bill is not completed.

According to Ryan Grimm at Politico.com, when asked what the President would do if the current iteration of the farm bill made its way to the President’s desk White House spokesman Scott Stanzel replied, “as it stands now, it is not something the president would support.” Stanzel wrote in an email:

“The proposal before Congress would dramatically increase spending, in part by masking additional spending in budgetary gimmicks and accounting tricks.”

Farm bills pass - that’s what they do

Despite the threat, there may be enough Congressional support to override the veto. According to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), “If the White House is stupid enough to veto this, they’re going to get overridden.”

The farm bill is a very popular funding mechanism for Congressional spending. Every state’s congressional delegation works extremely hard to get their slice of the agricultural pie - not doing so does not bode well in the eyes of powerful ag interests and the voters of agricultural states. In short, farm bills do not get vetoed. At least very rarely do they get vetoed - there are a few exceptions.

They have been around for centuries, but they are quickly becoming the darlings of the eco-friendlies and clean energy nuts. Windmills, or in this case, wind energy generators, come in all shapes and sizes. But, how feasible and cost-effective would it be for you to integrate a small wind system at your home, cabin, or camp? It might actually be easier than you might think. And if the small-wind tax credit somehow holds onto its tenuous place in the farm bill, it might just be cost-effective for you to invest one that can help defray, or even eliminate your monthly electricity bill.

Jack Hedin is a Minnesota organic farmer who grows food for local markets. He wants to expand his operation to help meet the growing demand for his produce. The way he sees it, the federal government is standing directly in his way, and he’s upset about it. So he sent an Op-Ed to the New York Times, which they published last week. I imagine he was hoping to get people talking about our farm subsidy program and its impact on American food and farming. Judging from my email inbox, he succeeded in spades.

Here’s a summary of Jack Hedin’s story. He farms 100 acres in southern Minnesota, and has found that demand for his organic produce is so strong that he can’t meet it on his land. So last year, he rented 25 acres from two nearby corn farmers, and planted fruits and vegetables on the extra land. It wasn’t long before his landlords ran into trouble with the commodity farm program. This program subsidizes commodity crops, paying farmers who grow corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton, and several others.

While the program was set up to guarantee farmers who grow commodity crops a certain income, it turns out that it also penalizes farmers who then switch to growing fruits and vegetables on “commodity base” acres. This is what happened to the farmers who had rented him the 25 acres. They found themselves out of compliance with the commodity farm program, and would be penalized not only for the subsidy that year for that acreage, but also for the market value of the “illicit” crops.

Excuse me while I step up on the soapbox. Ahem. I’ve been chided before about being too political on my food blog. More recipes, Woman! But the thing is, food is all tied up with politics, and there are a few things we eaters need to understand about this. For our own safety. So we can make better choices. This is a pretty short primer on the basics, but there are a lot of great links in here that can help you get the full picture of our food system.

How does food policy impact the safety of what we eat?
I mean, it’s just legislation, right? Laws that are supposed to keep the food supply safe. The basis for these laws was established in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt in response to the publication of Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle. Ironically, one of these laws, the Meat Inspection Act, was supposed to eradicate the use of “4-D” cattle in meats, meaning dead, diseased, decaying and downed. Over 100 years later we are still facing the same issues.

The other act, the Pure Food and Drug Act, was designed to insure the safety of drugs and non-meat food items. However, the two agencies overlap. A raw egg, in the shell, is the responsibility of the FDA. Once the shell is broken, the USDA is in charge. If a processed sandwich is to be inspected, the USDA would have jurisdiction over the meat, the FDA over the bread. Makes all kind of sense, right?

Learn what you need to know about food safety, policy and what you can do as a consumer after the jump.

I thought it was over. Like a modern day Don Quixote, I tilted away at the windmill, blogging and firing emails off to my representatives in Washington, rallying for Farm Bill reform. I was not alone. Over 350 pro-reform farm bill editorials hit the mainstream press. The calls for subsidy reform fell on deaf ears at Congress, however, as the 2007 versions of the Farm Bill failed to adequately address the issue.

As the great hope for a better Farm Bill that included subsidy reform amendment Dorgan-Grassley died, the final proposed bill was just left with some token nods to food program assistance and limited support for specialty farmers. Real reform slipped away into the night along with 2007.

With the new year comes a glimmer of hope.
And, that hope comes from a most unlikely source. It seems that the Bush administration, in a fervor to slash all non-Iraq spending, has promised a veto if Congress does not come up with a farm bill that doesn’t feature additional spending. As a result, the subsidy reforms are being revisited, particularly the income cap for eligibility.

The revised plan would call for a lower cap on income for subsidies, but the amount of that cap is a point that has yet to be agreed upon. The house places the cap at a $1 million “hard” cap and a $500,000 “soft” cap that would not apply to people with at least two-thirds of their income from farming. The Senate proposed a $750,000 “soft” cap.

The White House has called for a much lower $200,000 “hard” cap, saying that this cap would end subsidies to roughly 40,000 people.

Opponents of the approach advise that none of these measures will be effective. There are loopholes large enough to drive a combine through, which would allow the larger producers to evade the subsidy caps. As a result, reform activist group, The Center for Rural Affairs, is calling for voters to again urge Congress to consider better approaches to real subsidy reform, such as those offered by Dorgan-Grassley.

One of the most viable solutions to our large-scale environmental challenges is to use “waste” instead of virgin materials. This is especially true for the transportation fuels industry. Unfortunately, with the current infrastructure in place, virgin resources can actually be more cost effective than “waste.” I became aware of this when I toured the Coskata ethanol laboratory in suburban Chicago. I discovered that there is a cheaper and more consistent supply of harvested trees to produce ethanol than trash.

Trees, agricultural waste, storm debris and trash are all viable fuel sources for ethanol, using the Coskata process. This highly flexible technology allows future manufacturing plants to cater to locally available materials, making ethanol viable in parts of the globe that would not use corn or sugar cane for fuel. Argonne National Laboratory tests show that greenhouse gas emissions are up to 84% lower for Coskta ethanol than conventional gasoline. It has a net energy balance of up to 7.7, compared to 1.3 for corn-based ethanol. These results were achieved with a production cost of $1 a gallon when timber was used as an ethanol fuel source.

On face of it, you would think that garbage would be the cheapest way to produce fuel, given the flexibility of the Coskata process. In fact, one of the most available and economically viable fuel sources is trees, with the low price tag of $50 a ton. There is a very efficient infrastructure for harvesting and transporting trees. They are available throughout the year, unlike some agricultural products. It is actually cheaper to use trees than sorted garbage and agricultural waste.

Barbara Kingsolver's latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, tells the story of how she and her family lived for a year eating only food they grew themselves or that they purchased from local food-growers.

She was generous enough to take time from her book tour to answer our questions on the importance of keeping in mind that we are what we eat.

Why is buying and eating locally-grown

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Editor's note: In today's Red, Green and Blue, our political commentators Jimmy Hogan and Shirley Siluk Gregory weigh in on the U.S. Farm Bill and its related subsidies, due for reauthorization this year.

Shirley: If Congress is serious about solving the host of problems it claims it wants to fix — rising obesity and diet-related illnesses, polluted stormwater runoff and environmental degradation, food insecurity and overdependence on fossil fuels — it should

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