Read it and weep: In case you missed our earlier post about it, here’s Michael Pollan on the current Senate version of the Farm Bill. (New York Times)
Farm Bill is bipartisan failure: This Chicago Tribune op-ed, one of many about the Farm Bill this weekend (here’s the Gray Lady’s), is worth noting for its author — a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. Victor Davis Hanson writes that "Republicans should disavow the program because it goes against their professed creed of free markets, self-reliance and small government. […And] Isn’t corporate welfare at odds with the little-guy, egalitarian concerns of traditional liberals?" Indeed.
Time to get your hands real dirty, Dick: A long-time observer of Indiana and Washington politics advises Senator Lugar on how best to use shame, mockery, and guilt to build the Senate coalition he needs to pass his Fresh Act and reform the Farm Bill. (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette)
Failing Tester: Imagine our enormous disappointment upon reading this editorial from the freshman senator from Montana, who just happens to be an organic farmer. "I’m pleased to say that the [Farm Bill] legislation making its way through the Senate is a winner. I say that not as a policymaker in Washington, but as a dryland dirt farmer from north central Montana," he writes, pointing to the "improved" counter-cyclical payment program and the "permanent disaster relief fund." Senator, respectfully, this Farm Bill is full of manure and you of all people shouldn’t be shoveling it at us. (Billings Gazette)
Politics is local: Philip Brasher notes that Congress is ignoring international trade treaty concerns in its current Food and Farm Bill. Other countries have been successfully challenging U.S. farm policy at the World Trade Organization, which could allow them to apply tariffs to U.S. imports. Sen. Harkin points out a potential solution: shift money from crop subsidies to conservation programs, which can be made without limit under WTO rules. What a great concept: paying farmers for how they grow, not how much they grow. (Des Moines Register)
Californians revolt against factory farms: A coalition of animal-welfare groups, small farmers, and vets called Californians for Humane Farms is campaigning to place the California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act on the state’s November 2008 ballot. The purpose of the act (PDF, sigh) "is to prohibit the cruel confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to tum around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs." The group needs people to collect signatures. This is going to be a tough fight, as the federal Animal Welfare Act specifically excludes (Word doc) humane standards’ application to farm animals. (Californians for Humane Farms website)
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