Wow. I just got my first edition of Keith Good’s daily Farm Policy e-mail newsletter, after hearing Ralph Grossi talk about it last Thursday. It is like our Digest, only on steroids — everything a food-politics nerd could want, with play-by-play reporting on media coverage of the federal government’s strategizing, jockeying, and deal-making around agriculture.
It’s written by Keith Good, who has a law degree and a master’s in agricultural economics; he’s a journalism fellow with the German Marshall Fund. In addition to publishing the Farm Policy newsletter daily, which is like our Digest on steroids, he blogs at Ag Policy Soup, where he also posts podcasts of his interviews with ag experts. Go to the website to sign up, or just send an e-mail to subscribe.
Here’s a short summary of Good’s major topics in today’s newsletter, which is titled “The Next Congress Takes Shape — Political Dimensions of Next Farm Bill Debate”:
Los Angeles Times: An article datelined Big Sandy, Montana, talks about what organic farmer Jon Tester’s Senate win means for the Big Sky State. While Tester “has never lived anyplace other than the family farm, which his grandparents homesteaded here in 1916,” and many are comparing him to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” a local historian warns not to think of Tester as “a straw-chewer; he’s a businessman. He’s out to get the last buck, even out of the federal government.”
The New York Times also has a profile of Tester, pointing out that he’ll be the only person in Congress who knows how to butcher a cow or grease a combine — and one of the few to consider the job a pay raise: Tester earned barely $20,000 a year from farming.
California’s agricultural fortunes are looking positive with the Democratic win, says the New York Times; the Star-Telegram looks at how Tom Delay’s redistricting in Texas has cost the state bigtime in the new Congress.
The Quad City Times (Iowa) reported that Sen. Tom Harkin, expected to chair the Ag Committee, predicts the upcoming farm bill “will put a greater emphasis on renewable energy, biomass production and conservation and less on subsidy payments to farmers.” Not so fast, though: “I’ll be the last person to pull the rug out from underneath our established farmers,” Harkin said. “They can’t have that done. If there’s a transition, it’s got to be a smooth transition.’”
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