• Does your local community have "food deserts"? Are there a lot of households facing "food insecurity" (that's what the kids are calling hunger these days)? More communities are getting into the business of forming food policy councils to address the supply and distribution of food, support small local farms, and inform people about where their food is coming from. Is there a food policy council in your community?

• The 2007 U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution supporting a shift in Farm Bill priorities (pdf). They asked for action to address the loss of agricultural land to urban sprawl, better access to healthy food in low-income areas, increased food stamp benefits, more support for organic agriculture and conservation, and better distribution infrastructure for locally produced food.

• Over a third of the nation's farmers live in New York, Texas, Florida and California. Who knew it wasn't just something that happens in the middle of the country? The governors of those four states wrote a letter to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees (pdf) asking for the Farm Bill to include more support for specialty crops (read: mostly the things you buy in the produce section), greater inclusion of fruits and vegetables in federal nutrition programs, support for organic agriculture, and an expanded investment in farmland conservation. Twenty-six members of California's House delegation also wrote their own letter to the House Agriculture Committee (pdf) asking for greater support for programs that address hunger, poverty and market access for small and medium-sized farms.

• As of 2002, agricultural land use in the United States (pdf) "totaled nearly 1.2 billion acres, just under 52 percent of total U.S. land area." The EPA noted in 2006 that "agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation." If you care about conservation, you may want to perk up your ears whenever people start discussing agricultural policy.

(h/t to the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition for several links)