Corner Post editorial —
Proposed cuts to Farm Bill would hurt more than just farmers

by Breanne Brammer, posted Nov. 8, 2011

According to my four-year plan, in 2014 I will be preparing for college graduation and beginning the next path of my life. Just as my future will be changing dramatically in 2014, so will the future of the United States agriculture industry.

The 2014 Farm Bill will set a precedent for farm and food policy that affects all members of agriculture in the coming years. The bill began in 1965 and has been revised and passed by Congress every five years since. Usually, the programs within the bill are simply amended and revised. This is the first time in United States history that the Farm Bill will be facing dramatic cuts, around $33 billion.

The Missouri Farm Bureau is an organization that is dedicated to educating its members about the current debates and future implications of the 2014 Farm Bill. The Missouri Farm Bureau believes the most important priorities for the upcoming bill are commodity programs, conservation programs, crop insurance and research and rural development. 

According to http://www.mofb.org/, “Farm Bureau members strongly supported continuation of the vast majority of the programs included in the 2008 Farm Bill.”

Ironically, the Farm Bill does not primarily deal with farming. As agriculture is a diverse industry, so is “agriculture” legislation. The bill’s more obscure programs include nutrition programs, such as Food Stamps. The Farm Bill is known as an omnibus bill, which literally means it encompasses everything.

And a lot of that “everything” is soon to be cut.

I believe that the proposed budget reductions to the impending Farm Bill are excessive and will threaten the future of American agriculture. The Farm Bill’s original purpose was to offer aide and support to one of America’s essential industries. The benefits of the Farm Bill are seen in crop productions and the wide use of farmer aid programs such as crop insurance. To ensure that the American food supply is not negatively affected by farmers facing tough economic times, government support programs must continue.

Our country is currently in the worst economic shape since the Great Depression. Therefore, lawmakers are right to have conservative spending habits. However, I know that what my agricultural economics professor is fond of saying, is true, “You have to spend money to make money.” We need to invest and promote agriculture’s future, not make dramatic budget cuts that will hinder innovation.

In fact, the American public seems to agree. According to a recent Pew poll, “Most people want no cuts or even increased government spending in major areas.”

Congress should adhere to the public demand.

Mark Bittman, New York Times food opinion columnist, has been covering the proposed Farm Bill cuts since this summer.

“The point is that this money, which is already in the budget, could encourage the development of the kind of agriculture we need, one that prioritizes caring for the land, the people who work it and the people who need the real food that’s grown on it,” Bittman said.

It is my belief that the money currently allotted in the farm budget should be used to continue rural research and development, support small-scale farmers and encourage technology innovation. If dramatic cuts are to be made, they should be made evenly to all programs, so that certain ones are not more negatively impacted than others. I do not a support a 1 percent cut to nutrition programs with a $700 million funding limit in comparison to commodity programs that would suffer a 15 percent decrease with only a $65 baseline.

 I often hear about “the coming food crises” in the media. By 2050, America will have to double its food supply in order to feed the world. This cannot be accomplished with the barriers that the new Farm Bill presents. Meeting increased demands is difficult with legislative and nature obstacles. Recent natural disasters such as extreme flooding and heat waves negatively impacted crops throughout the nation. Research shows that the portion of the Farm Bill that farmers use the most is crop insurance. However, if farmers are using the current Farm Bill mostly for their backup plan, what are they using for their future plans?  

If you break down the current Farm Bill, the largest sectors it is devoted to are 9 percent crop insurance, 7 percent to conservation programs and 6.9 percent to commodity programs. The rest of the money goes to endeavors far from the average farmer.  

“According to the House Ag Committee’s 10-year projection for costs for programs under the Farm Bill, three-fourths of farm bill spending now goes to nutrition, with nearly all of that being food stamps,” stated http://www.agriculture.com.  With the current poor job market and economy, the percent of the Farm Bill spent on food stamps is actually higher.

Farmers are not opposed to doing their part. In today’s economy citizens and government agencies alike are making difficult sacrifices.
  
“We are very much aware of the budgetary constraints of the federal government,” Garry Niemeyer, president of the National Corn Growers Association and Illinois farmer, said. “We want to do our part as corn growers to help resolve those issues, but we only want to do our proportional part. We don’t want to have everything taken out on us.”

No one likes budget depletion, and from a college student’s viewpoint, I can strongly testify to this. The unfortunate realism is that changes and reductions will be occurring in the near future.  I am an advocate for responsible change. I believe that the Farm Bill should become more farmer specific and cuts should be made to programs that do not directly effect farming operations or that those said entities should be taken out of the bill entirely. Budget decisions may be debated for months, but their effect extends to half a decade and touches the lives of thousands of American farmers.

It is often said that the passage of time can be best determined by looking at the events that have unfolded during that specific period. In 2008, I was a freshman in high school. This was before iPads, Jersey Shore, or the Great Recession. This was also when the current Farm Bill, Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, was being debated. Then, I was sitting in my agriculture adviser’s office and listening to her describe this piece of legislation.

Now, I am a freshman in college and am once again contemplating the Farm Bill and its effects on agriculture. Only, this time, I realize that agriculture is in dangerous territory. If the proposed fiscal cuts are made to the upcoming Farm Bill, the harmful aftermath will extend to not only American farmers, but to all Americans. 

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