It’s time for a new Farm Bill, CWS tells Congress

Vicki Poier presents a congressional aide with CWS post cards and information at the office of Senator Norm Coleman (R- MN). Photo: K. McNeely/CWS

June 28, 2007

Church World Service advocates lobbied key lawmakers for U.S. Farm Bill reforms that alleviate the suffering of family farmers in the United States and around the world. As they met with lawmakers or their legislative aides on Capitol Hill earlier this month, other farm bill activists were delivering bundles of cards collected through CWS's 'Sow Justice' advocacy campaign to the offices of 22 senators.

The Church World Service advocates—all active in CWS regional offices in Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota —asked lawmakers and staff in 10 Senate or House offices to ensure that the next version of the U.S. Farm Bill includes provisions to provide people with low income an adequate nutritious diet. CWS is also seeking reforms that strengthen rural communities, help farmers earn a sufficient livelihood while also conserving their land, and to make it possible for small farmers in poor countries to earn their way out of poverty.

The lobbying took place in conjunction with the advocates’ participation in the Bread for the World 2007 conference "Sowing Seeds, Growing a Movement." The conference, which focused on the farm bill, attracted some 1,000 concerned citizens from across the country for three days of presentations, workshops and lobbying in the nation’s capitol.

An active participant in the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill, CWS joined a network of churches and religious organizations in outlining a set of faith based principles upon which the farm bill ought to be based. The “Sowing Seeds” conference started from those principles and provided participants with additional analysis, statistics, and networking opportunities in two days of workshops, worship opportunities, and plenary and informal sessions.

Sheryl Rippke of the CWS Iowa Regional Office encourages Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) to support farm bill reform. Photo: L. Crosson/CWS

This spring, CWS partnered with Bread for the World and several organizations and denominations to present a series of workshops in Midwestern states which were designed to mobilize advocates, farmers, and concerned citizens around efforts to improve the farm bill now being discussed on Capitol Hill. Through its "Sow Justice" campaign, CWS is calling for a U.S. Farm Bill that w ill ensure farmers a fair price for their produce, close anti-trust law loopholes that harm small farmers, and support increasing purchases of local nutritious food for schools and other public institutions at a fair price for both the farmer and the buyer .

Advocate Vicki Poier, a farmer and a long-time CROP Hunger Walk organizer from Montevideo, Minnesota, shared her concern for farmers overseas with a legislative aide in the office of Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN).

"I would like to see the farm bill be a food bill that focuses on nutrition and on supporting farmers in this country without causing harm to those in other countries,” said Poier.

Poier still lives on the farm where she grew up. She and her husband, who works the farm, raised four children there —all grown and none a farmer. She is concerned about the future of farming in her rural community.

"It’s is such a huge financial burden that not many young people are willing to take it up,” she says.

The burden for Poier and all small farmers is caused, in part, by market deregulation. The policy has resulted in a few major companies monopolizing the buying of agriculture and food products, and therefore having the power to determine how much farmers will be paid for their produce.

Robert Gronski of National Catholic Rural Life presents congressional aide with farm bill reform materials at the office of Senator Harkin (D-IA). Photo: L. Crosson/CWS

When farmers don’t get a fair price for their products they simply plant more so they will have more to sell. The resulting overproduction depletes the soil and causes other environmental damage. It also results in overproduction and lower prices. The food products are then sold around the world for less than they cost to produce in the U.S. and for less than farmers in other countries can sell their own locally grown products.

Asked what would be the ideal outcome of the trek from office to office letting lawmakers know the recommendations of CWS for dramatic reforms in the U.S. Farm Bill , Poier said. “In the best of all worlds, we would actually achieve the Millennium Development Goals objective of reducing hunger by half by the year 2015.”

For this year, though, she says she would be content to see lawmakers make the dramatic changes to the US Farm Bill that CWS and its partners are pushing for.