Advocacy group calls for fairer U.S. farm bill

by David Beckmann*

Less than 2 percent of the U.S. population work on farms. So why should we care about the farm bill?

Because it's about much more than farms and farmers; it touches everyone in the U.S. - everyone who eats, and especially those who struggle to have enough to eat. Even people outside the United States feel its impact.

This year the farm bill is up for renewal. Bread for the World, a Christian citizens' movement against hunger, is asking Congress to modify the farm bill in ways that would provide more help and opportunity to poor and hungry people.

The farm bill principally tries to help U.S. farmers. It authorizes the Food Stamp Program, our nation's first line of defense against hunger. It determines the rules for trading goods with poor countries abroad. It provides the main source of support for developing strong rural communities. Few other pieces of legislation give policymakers such a chance to greatly reduce hunger in the United States and around the globe. Wherever in America you live, you have a stake in the farm bill and the power to help shape it.

A lot of rural people are struggling. Hunger, poverty and unemployment rates are all higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Nine out of 10 "persistent poverty" counties - places where poverty rates have exceeded 20 percent for the past 30 years (versus a national average of 10 percent) - in America are rural. Since the farm bill was first authorized, the face of rural America has changed dramatically. Yet federal farm policy has not kept pace with these changes.

Current farm policy has its roots in the Great Depression, when a full quarter of the U.S. population lived on farms. Now, the vast majority of rural residents work in retail service or factories. Of the 6 percent of rural Americans who do farm, only a small fraction receive farm payments. The current system is biased in favor of big farms. Nationwide, the top 6 percent of farm payment recipients receive almost half of the payments. A small group of farmers and landowners benefit from federal programs, and a far greater number of people who live in rural America - including most farmers - do not. That's just not fair. We can do better.

While the farm bill fails to meet the needs of rural communities and a majority of our own farmers, it unintentionally harms smallholder farmers in the developing world. The current system encourages overproduction of commodities like cotton and corn, which are then sold internationally at artificially low prices. Farmers in poor countries cannot compete with these prices - even in their own markets. For many people in Africa, where 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood, U.S. farm programs diminish hopes of
escaping poverty.

This year we have the chance to reform the farm bill to make it fairer and more just for farmers and people at risk of hunger here in our country and around the world.

We need to help struggling rural communities generate new jobs by strengthening small businesses, investing in infrastructure, supporting entrepreneurs and promoting local initiatives to revitalize rural towns. And we need to strengthen and increase funding to the Food Stamp Program, to provide a nutritious and sufficient diet for hungry people. We need a broader, more equitable safety net that works better for small and moderate-sized farms and helps a new generation of farmers get started. We need a support system that gives farmers in poor countries a better chance to escape hunger and poverty.

The time is ripe for change. This year we can create a farm bill that is better for rural America, better for hungry people throughout our country and better for poor people in the developing world.

Even though most of us don't make our living on a farm, many of us have rural roots. I know from my own family's experience about both the strong values and economic struggles of rural America. Our national farm policy should make sure that hard-working, resourceful and community-minded people - whether in the United States or in Uganda - can provide for their families.

*Beckmann is president of Bread for the World, a nationwide faith-based advocacy group for the world's hungry.

The Roanoke Times