Commodity field and policy

This New York Times article by farmer Minnesota Jack Hedin describes how current ag policy is weightily stacked against the non-commodity grower. Though the article is already two years old, the problems it deals with are current. Note how the commodity program holds its farmers in sway by penalizing them for growing non-commodity crops. It is acceptable for commodity farmers to grow nothing on their "corn base" acres, while as it is an extreme penalty for them to grow anything else.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

(Read the whole article here.)

These policies direct farmers' priorities. It is easy to see the connection between these policies, the crops that are grown, the cheapness of certain food products, the availability of nutritious food, the balance of our diets, and the health of our population. The Midwest is "ground zero" of these phenomena, but the effects are increasingly global.

From this perspective, it is policy that is driving so much of the irrationality in our food system. There is a trend within the local food movement to simply "think globally and act locally": be a gardener, buy local and organic, start a community garden, etc. These are useful and fun initiatives that are changing our urban landscapes for the better.

But the expansive monoculture fields that surround our towns in Indiana and throughout the Midwest are not going to change as a result of a local food movement. The fields are local to no one. Its clients are not you and me, but commodity traders and multinationals. We need new policies that simply puts them out of business, or more likely, directs their efforts into a new business.

Chickens and Georgia Urban Farm Bill

Yes, yes, this blog has fallen into an inadvertent hibernation. That happens with blogs. It's Springtime in the Midwest, so spending stretches of several hours online is less appealing now as it in, say, January. But we haven't stopped working on local food issues.

One story playing out here in Muncie, as it is in many, many perhaps into the hundreds, of municipalities across the country is whether keeping chickens within city limits should be legal. This Washington Post article touches upon several of the issues.

The Georgia House of Representatives is closing in on passing a state level urban farm bill package. HR 842 would "protect the right to grow food crops and raise small animals on private property so long as such crops and animals are used for human consumption by the occupants, gardeners, or raisers and their households and not for commercial purposes" across the state. These protections would preempt the often drawn-out, often sensational and tiresome city council debates over issues like chicken keeping. Enforcement would depend upon local nuisance laws that are already in place. This editorial from the Athens Banner-Herald sums up the bill.

Again, we keep turning back to the question: Why not Indiana?