Washington — There’s a food fight under way between Congress and the Agriculture Department, and it’s about small potatoes.
Organic small potatoes.
Big ones, too — as well as peas, beans, beef, poultry and melons. Just about anything, in fact, that’s farm-raised and edible.
Three Republican senators have complained that a USDA effort to educate the public about where food comes from slights “conventional farmers who produce the vast majority of our nation’s food supply.”
Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas, John McCain of Arizona and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia complained in a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that his agency spent $65 million last year on a program “aimed at small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers’ markets.”
Or, to put it bluntly: Take your arugula and shove it.
The USDA calls the program “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” It has no money of its own, but the agency has spent other federal agricultural dollars to further its goals, including farm bill funds to aid locally grown food projects.
These include grants to support farmers’ markets in Kansas and California, crop productivity and management efforts in Missouri and Alaska, and organic agriculture research in North Carolina and Washington state.
Bruce Babcock, an economist and the director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, said it was “ironic” that the senators and others objected to the USDA spending $65 million on Know Your Farmer when commodity producers received $5 billion during the past two years, and the crop insurance industry received $7 billion.
“We should welcome alternative producers if we want to see entrepreneurship grow in rural America,” Babcock said. “How can it hurt? It can only help.”
Supporters of Know Your Farmer, such as Dan Nagengast, the executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, said that critics have ignored the program’s larger goals: To spread the word about the economic value of local food production and thereby preserve America’s rural heritage.
“Cultivating these new markets — not replacing old ones — is critical to revitalizing rural America,” Vilsack wrote to Roberts, McCain and Chambliss.
Local food ‘myths’
About 40,000 mid-sized farms disappeared between 2002 and 2007, according to the U.S. Census. For many, it’s too costly to compete with conglomerate farms.
The USDA’s efforts reflect a growing movement toward healthier eating and fresh-from-the-farm cooking. It embraces more than just foodies who scour farm stands for the perfect baby eggplant and devour issues of Bon Appetit.
Followers include everyone from public school officials who want to cut fats and sugar out of their cafeteria menus, to restaurateurs such as Jane Zieha, whose Blue Bird Bistro in Kansas City, Mo., has been serving farm-to-table food for a decade.
“I am working very hard to change the myth that local food — you know what you’re consuming and who’s growing it — is only for the affluent,” she said. “My customers come from all walks of life.”
The local food movement has no bigger symbol than first lady Michelle Obama, who started a kitchen garden on the South Lawn of the White House and leads a campaign against childhood obesity.
Last week, for instance, several major food manufacturers, spurred by her efforts, agreed to start offering more healthy choices.
Roberts is a former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and currently sits on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee along with Chambliss, the panel’s ranking Republican.
He said that they never meant to sound dismissive of small farmers and niche producers, or their customers.
“The more people that go to the farmers’ markets, the more people understand agriculture and they eat a better diet,” Roberts said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it ought to be encouraged. ... But you can’t go back to Walden Pond agriculture and expect to feed America.”
Diana Endicott, who runs a 400-acre naturally raised cattle ranch with her husband, Gary, near Fort Scott, Kan., said she doesn’t expect to feed America, nor do the 100 or so other organic farmers in a local growers’ alliance she helped organize.
But what’s wrong, she asked, with giving a boost to farmers who aren’t interested in tilling 10,000 acres?
“Know Your Farmer is not saying we support only small-scale agriculture,” said Endicott, who sells her beef and organic tomatoes to several local supermarkets and a food cooperative. “We need to be educated about our food and we need to know how to make wise choices. We have a new generation of farmers coming, and people who want to be reconnected to land. It’s trying to find the right balance for everyone to be able to participate.”
Comments
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tomatogrower (anonymous) says…
Good old Roberts. He's standing up for those gigantic corporations who have wiped out most of the family farms and have gotten billions of tax dollars, so they could provide us with so much crummy, unhealthy food at a low cost. I mean the tomatoes in the grocery stores aren't really tomatoes. I think they were made in a factory somewhere in China. Poor little corporations. They will lose profits if a few people support local farmers who still exist. Don't help out small business owners, the corporations need all the profits and the monopoly. I mean how else are they going to control the population while jobs are taken to other countries and people finally wake up to the fact the US is being turned into an hacienda economy for a few very rich people. You can only keep them distracted with fears of gun control and higher taxes for so long. Eventually you'll have to tell them to toe the line, or you will cut off their food supply. Next they'll be discouraging home gardens too.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (anonymous) says…
No surprise. These senators get literally $millions from Big Ag, and they're just doing what they've been bribed to do, which is to bury any potential competition.
merrill (anonymous) says…
Face it local food ripens on the vine instead of being harvested who knows how early but corporate farm products are picked relatively "green".
Central Warehouse/Hen House/Price Chopper owned by Ball Foods in KCMO has been on a local buying binge for at least 5 years. The buyer told me the market is huge for local products. This group is looking for more local produce/products.
Anytime corp america is feeling pinched they whine whine whine and corrupt our local,state and federal governments with their money(too bad government officials are such weak individuals).
Corp america supports genetically modified foods in a huge way. If it is not organic food must be considered genetically modified. Why? Monsanto controls most all seed companies and corporate farmers.
JackRipper (anonymous) says…
Good ol Roberts, the man who demonstrates what a bought and sold senator looks like. Yeah, God forbid people start using farmer's markets and compete against the corn injected food system that keeps all those huge agribusiness companies on wallstreet active in southwest Kansas where most people have no idea what goes on as we suck the dwindling water from the aquifer, use petrochemicals to fertilize, and keep those wallstreet companies happy. We should be embarrassed to have an ass like Roberts who cares nothing about Kansas except facilitating the further rape of this great state. But who cares, I guess the last season of Lost is on. US Americans, people who think they are educated who haven't got a clue what a lot of sheep they are as they are led to slaughter.