Using a Depression Era Tool to Reconceptualize U.S. Agricultural Policy

During the Great Depression, farmers received subsidies from the federal government to keep them in business.  Ag planners knew that farmers were the key to creating wealth in small farm communities.  The planners anticipated the impact of the "multiplier effect" on a local economy as money is injected into a community; the farmer spends his money at the feed store, whose proprietor in turn spends his dollars at the general store, and so forth.

Using the existing structure of the USDA, we can rebalance the department's mission towards creating an infrastructure to assist poor farmers.  The concept is to improve the quality of farm products so that the local farmers can sell to regional supermarkets, who would be the private partners of this federal program. The regional supermarkets would be the main buyers of the farm products as part of a system designed to link the local/regional farmers, the supermarkets and the USDA. Local supermarkets along with school lunch programs and municipal meals would also be participants.  Food banks would have priority.

Funding would go into retraining farmers on best farming practices, which include less toxic farming methods to protect the environment, humane animal programs, composting, federal leasing/lending of new small farm equipment, the building of local slaughterhouses, cooling and storage facilities for farm products, construction of roads for better access to market, low emission vehicles, marketing information, broadband internet, etc.

The regional approach of food production produces a lower carbon footprint by reducing the distance from farm to store.  All construction in this program will be green and as energy self-sufficient and technologically advanced as financially feasible.  Federal assistance for new homes and commercial construction in these communities would also follow green and energy policies. Public health and assistance would be targeted to these communities along with upgrading the educational system as children realize that there is economic opportunity in their lives and education is the best path to success.  

This program would inject funding into the hardest hit rural areas where poverty has long been entrenched.  By creating an infrastructure and a market for local farmers, the economies of these small towns will be allowed to grow organically as financial stability takes root, giving these economically depressed towns and regions an opportunity for long-term substantial growth.

Current U.S. agriculture policy, which is geared towards large scale commodity product, is outdated because it creates an excess of crops, thereby causing taxpayers to subsidize lower-cost commodities for Ag processors.  Ag policy needs to be based not on "yield per acre" but rather "return per acre."  The current policy rewards producers who can make the most widgets per acre. This leads to overuse of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, which pollutes ground water, marshes, streams, lakes, rivers and estuaries in the US coastal regions.  Overuse of chemicals also reduces fish and waterfowl breeding grounds, which help protect coastal regions from violent storms.  These so-called "downstream" costs are not reflected in the cost of production or the price of commodities grown with these materials.  Improper manure handling is also a major contributor to the dead zones in the costal regions.  However the cost of repairing the damage is again a taxpayer responsibility.  USDA policy must be based on a holistic approach to farming and processing which supports a clean environment. Mitigation programs for small farmers and processors can be paid for by the federal government.  Large corporate Ag companies will have to shoulder the cost of mitigation, but can do so with low or no-interest loans from the federal government.  

By turning the USDA inside-out, we can redesign U.S. agricultural policy for the benefit of local and regional communities, and return to creating prosperity, not maintaining the status quo.

Jill is new to organics, I have 20+ years of experience in drafting organic laws, regs and rules.

She sees everything from the perspective of a newbie without trying to understand how the organic community came to it's decisions. The the legislative process is like making sausage, so yes we did have to make some compromises to get the first organic rule passed. What is telling is how successful we were, so successful that everyone who has a idea to make Ag more meaningful wants to use Organics like a Christmas tree to hang their ideas on.

The kernel of my proposal is based in the economics of poverty, not carbon miles or feeding yuppies hip food.

Creation of self-sustaining space colonies so the human race can survive the destruction of the Earth.

Yes, I am a pessimist!

That's my biggie.  For me that's the magic bullet that addresses poverty, the economy and human rights.