"Freedom to Farm" on Steroids: The Agribusiness Dilemma for Farmers For years the agribusiness giants that rule farm policy have created a dilemma for farmers. Under federal farm policy and programs the big incentives encourage farmers to "subsidize" them (Cargill, ADM (ethanol), Murphy hog factories, FS (Farm Bureau) co-ops, Kelloggs, etc.) with cheap grain. Taxpayer funding, that is, encourages us to overproduce corn and other grains to "subsidize" our environmentally destructive competitors. Consider the Reagan era farm "bail-outs." According to analysis by Iowa CCI, a hypothetical 300 acre farm could get something along the following lines for the years 1982-1993: 1. (5-year rotation oats-hay-corn-soybeans-corn) a relatively small amount; 2. (2 year rotation corn-beans [50% each]) about $40,000 more than farm #1; 3. (1/3 corn following corn and 2/3 corn-beans rotation) more than $75,000 more than farm #1; 4. (100% corn base, all corn every year) about $150,000 more than farm #1. Double these figures for 600 acres, etc. All of this is based on a farmers "Crop Acreage Base" and "Program Payment Yield." The more corn after corn after corn, (using lots of insecticides and herbicides) and the more fertilizer (to crank up yields beyond optimally profitable levels, well, if there were no such taxpayer funded incentives), the more money you make. Naturally these policies have been supported by the pesticide giants and fertilizer lobby. These severe penalties for resource conserving crop rotations were preserved in Freedom to Farm, in AMTA payments and the emergency payments. "Loan Rates" were dropped and Non-Recourse loans were replaced with Marketing Loans, lowering market prices, so it is very difficult for family farmers to survive without the subsidies. But the subsidies cover up the huge defacto subsidies (low prices) which subsidize animal factory competitors and the cheap grain lobby, all of which got much richer off the 1980's farm crisis and Freedom to Farm. Thus the dilemma. Base and Yield formulations have been preserved in the new farm bill. (They were in both House and Senate versions.) Senator Harkin switched from opposition to these principles to support for the "freedom to farm" concept. He's keeping family farmers in business but with taxpayer money which greatly subsidizes those trying to put us out of business. And of course, family farmers have a strong incentive to destroy the environment when the big money requires big insecticides and overuse of fertilizer. Still, Sierra Club gave Harkin an environmental award. In all of this an old Base and Yield formulation has been used. Ours was figured more than 15 years ago, and that's what we still got under Freedom to Farm's formulas. Now though there's more bad news. Alan Guebert reports in his "Farm and Food File" for July 14, 2002 that the new farm bill allows you to increase your subsidy money by pouring on the fertilizer and insecticide in each coming year. It's not just destroying the environment decades ago that wins. It's what you did when given a choice under Freedom to Farm and what you will do in the coming years. My father is a contributor to Sierra Club and numerous other environmental organizations as well as the Farmers Union and the Democratic Party. He is 85, a member of "the greatest generation" which has been accused of hypocrisy since the 1960s. Part of our farm is rented out. The renter has wanted 50% corn and 50% soybeans, which is cheaper for him (fewer inputs) and better for the environment. Dad has argued for more corn on corn (with heavy fertilization), believing that the farm bill would pay you for that in the future. (We can get more rent because of our high Base and Yield. We planted corn on corn in the past with heavy fertilization.) This is a significant argument when negotiating rental contracts every year. It's our farm, so Dad's arguing for the renter to crank up our Base and Yield, but with one year contracts, the renter sees less incentive to make these investments into our future. I've come back to farm part of our land with cattle, sheep, goats and chickens on pasture with rotational grazing. I've taken 20 acres out of row crop production. The policies I've described above are so idiotic and so well known in some circles that I've been arguing that these radically anti-environmental Base and Yield formulations would never be used again. That's what I've been arguing to Dad. I told him how I watched these issues debated during the mid 1990's as Iowa CCI's representative to the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group. At Iowa CCI we pushed to reconcile family farm, sustainable agriculture, and environmental groups. At one regional meeting in preparation for the National Dialogue on Sustainable Agriculture I confronted national family farm and sustainable agriculture leaders calling on them to come together on issues surrounding the Loan Rate for Non-Recourse Loans, an issue which was being neglected between them at the time. Family farm groups want a higher Loan Rate so as to not "subsidize" our anti-environmental competitors (animal factories) and those trying to run us out of business with cheap grain. They also want to end taxpayer subsidies based on heavy insecticide use and over fertilization. The potential was there in 1994 or 1995, I felt, but about to be missed, for an effective national coalition such as the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. I laid it on thick to these leaders. Afterwards the director of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture thanked me profusely, but privately, for publicly hitting the two sides hard on this, since, though she saw the problem, in her position as organizer, she couldn't be so confrontive. As it turns out, however, these divisions have continued over the past decade. For this latest farm bill, the sustainable agriculture and environmental groups had positions so poor from a family farm perspective that the Family Farm Coalition formulated their own separate proposal (which included the essential, really-big-money pro-environmental provisions I've described above). Too many sustainable agriculture and environmental groups got taken in by the divide and conquer strategy of Senator Harkin and others. While the big money destroys the environment, he got in significant token amounts of environmental payments to work the other side. Thus in winning support Harkin helped split the two coalitions apart, reducing our power. Now, each group is spinning the issue to their funders and supporters to say that funding them has made a significant impact. Harkin's change from family farm to "freedom to farm" principles has worked. The Sierra Club gave Harkin an Environmental award. At one point the Center for Rural Affairs, a leading sustainable agriculture group even called the new farm bill, (in its final stages, as I recall) "the most family farm friendly agricultural legislation to pass in decades." The Center has long been an opponent of raising Loan Rates. They did not join family farm groups to support the 1980's Harkin bill (before Harkin caved in). The Center's Marty Strange, in his book Family Farming, labeled those who did "doctrinaire" groups. The Farmers Union, long a Loan Rate supporter has also caved in this time around. (They get chairs at the front table for Harkin's "hearings" like the one in Tipton Iowa where the front table and Harkin took up 90 minutes of a scheduled 2 hour "hearing," as 25 farmers stood waiting to speak at two microphones in the audience.) Apparently the Center for Rural Affairs wasn't considering the extra insecticides, the over fertilization, the reduced rotations, the destruction of grazing lands which the new farm bill continues and increases. Our farm, for example, could lose many thousands of dollars because I've taken land out of corn and seeded it down, hoping to become certified organic. The political support I've counted on from environmental groups and sustainable agriculture groups has not materialized. Dad's pessimism was exactly accurate. If we want to keep our farm in this climate of ever lower market prices, we need to get our renter to over fertilize and grow corn on corn with extra pesticides so we can better "farm" the government. The internet is abuzz with calculators to show farmers how making these changes translate into the big money. The bold new incentive is that, unlike in recent decades, we're allowed to get credit year by year for changes in Base and Yield. We no longer need to rely on decades old Base and Yield figures. We can crank them up and up and up. It will be Base and Yield on steroids (causing ever lower market prices and an ever increasing need for more "steroids,"). What is more, we can expect even greater impacts in these same directions in future farm bills. That's what Dad will argue with our renter and me. And he's correct. This is the trend of farm politics: The 1980 Farm bill-- the Reagan "bail out"-- the 1990 farm bill--Freedom to Farm--Harkin's "freedom to farm on steroids, (but with a green mask)." Grassley, Ganske, Leach, Nussle, Latham, Lightfoot, Boswell, and now Harkin are primary supporters of these concepts.:
