I had to hunt around to confirm it but, as I expected and predicted, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) leap-frogged more senior members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry to become the chair. I think it is significant anytime that a woman takes over a chair of a committee in Congress. It’s true that Stabenow is replacing Blanche Lincoln, but Lincoln only served as chair for a few months.
I’m a novice about agriculture policy. But I did know that Michigan has a lot of farms. I went to college there.
Remarks of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow
Chairwoman, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
To the Michigan Agri-Business Association
January 11, 2011I’m so happy to be with you here today, in my new role as Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, but also because all of you are so important to Michigan’s economic future.
People in other parts of the country think it’s odd that the Senator from Michigan would end up as Chair of the Agriculture Committee. When they think of Michigan, they think of cars, and that’s it. What they don’t know is that, in our state, one out of every four people has their job thanks to Michigan agriculture. And it’s not just being a grower or producer, it’s companies like yours that provide services to farmers, in crop protection, crop fertility, grain handlers, farm credit, equipment manufacturing – the list goes on.
We belong to a local CSA and buy almost all our fruits, vegetables, and fresh herbs through them. Grocery store produce sucks. It’s awful and tasteless. Other than bananas I have no use for the produce section of our grocery stores. So, my real interest in agriculture is in seeing policies that encourage small organic farmers and real fresh, quality produce. I want that stuff available to everyone, including in our cities. Urban farming is also something worth supporting. But, on this topic, I’m a student.
Based on Stabenow’s comments, I learned that Pat Roberts (R-KS) will replace Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) as the Ranking Member. Stabenow will craft a Farm Bill with Sen. Roberts and the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Frank Lucas (R-OK).
So…educate me. What are the big contentious issues we should care about in this year’s Farm Bill?
Certification of organic foodstuffs. Large corporate farms and food processors want the cachet of “organic” without being organic. This will squeeze out local small producers if it passes.
No doubt the expected levels of crop stabilization payments will create some heat.
And the interesting thing will be if Republicans actually move to end the sugar subsidy. This is one the Democrats should agree to even though it will hurt Mary Landrieu and Bill Nelson. It will also hurt Cornyn and Hutchison. And Vitter and Rubio. It might also affect Hawaii–don’t know how large a sugar crop they have there.
Ag support is a huge bucket of swill. The money goes mostly to millionaires, and very little actually supports “family farms”, whatever those are. There should be a limit to the size of farms (there is already, but this is circumvented by accounting gimicks which subdivide farms for tax purposes). There should be a TIME LIMIT. Hey, you can only get non-farmer welfare for a lifetime limit of 5 years. Why do you get on the welfare wagon for your entire life just because you own a $190K combine? There should be limits on absentee farmers, like Sonny Bono who made millions in farmer welfare as a congressman – there are plenty of examples of this.
Food safety is going to be a huge contentious issue, since the poisoners’ lobby runs the House, while the Senate is still democratic. How do we regulate egg mills which produce millions of eggs in appalling filth? Will the new rules of the FDA for food tracking be implemented? Will small farmers need to be part of the source tracking? Can we force the vaccination of livestock for H&M disease?
Can we eliminate or reduce the use of antibiotics in food animals?
The GMO debate, to which Stoneyfield Farms has added its own quirk, a plant-based plastic container made from GMO corn.
This is a great blog collective on food (including farm bill) issues: http://www.lavidalocavore.org/
I was in the States over Christmas, and apart from some vegetables in Pike Street Market in Seattle, the food was tasteless, even premium grass-fed steak (which had not been properly aged). Not only that, but the ordinary food is more expensive in places like Safeway than in the small shops of my city in Canada. I always thought that although it was inferior, US food was at least cheaper. Now it is more expensive and worse. People in the US are being truly screwed by Big Ag. If they only knew …