Farm Bill 101
April 23, 2013
Tags: sustainable agriculture, family farming

I was invited recently to sit in on animal science class at a college about 10 miles away from my house that has a strong agriculture program. This week, the class was discussing the farm bill, and the students were supposed to be exploring what it meant to them.

The discussion was led by my friend Paula, who recently made the choice to return to school and get an agricultural degree. She talked about some of the major points of the farm bill, about how the direct commodity subsidies feed agribusiness, but how small farms, such as Sap Bush Hollow, derive very little (if any) direct benefit. She talked about how, because the Farm Bill didn’t pass in 2012, there was a temporary extension on it as part of the fiscal cliff package. The subsidies that aid corn syrup processors and ethanol blenders stayed in place. The programs that benefited small producers, such as new farmers, minority farmers, healthy food markets, renewable energy and sustainable farming efforts, were suspended. The classroom remained quiet. Passive. Disinterested.

Paula attempted to shake them up. “Guys! This is about you! About us! About what we’re here for!” The room stayed quiet.

She moved on to the next controversial part of the Farm Bill – Food and Nutrition Assistance, which encompasses SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), formerly known as Food Stamps. Several students began to shift in their seats. Paula put forward some numbers about the amount of money allocated to SNAP. The classroom began to writhe. Tongues clucked. I heard hissing. Paula then mentioned how many people were dependent on SNAP (in 2011, one out of every seven people in this country was getting some form of food and nutrition assistance). And with that, save for a few quiet exceptions, the classroom sprung to life:

“Welfare mothers!”
“They’re using food stamps to buy cigarettes!”
“I’m not paying for lazy people!”
“Users!”
“They just waste that money!”

Wow. So many golden educational opportunities….where to begin?

Let’s start with …

1. The meaning of hypocrisy: From the dictionary: The semblance of having desirable or publicly approved attitudes, beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually possess. It seems increasingly popular, in these hard economic times, to toss around accusations about who is draining the public resources. And the people who get public funds most directly under the umbrella term of “welfare” are the first ones to get pelted with stones. Yet anyone who has driven by the farmers market on their way to buy $1.99/lb pork chops at the grocery store, when the local farmer can’t produce them for less than $11, is dipping from the same pot that holds the food stamps. The farm bill encourages factory farming by making sure feed can be purchased for less than the price of growing it, giving factory farms billions of dollars in cost discounts every year. A portion of this savings gets passed along to the American grocery-shopping public in the form of artificially cheap food that real farmers (those of us who have to pay for the true costs of production) simply cannot compete with. Anyone who shops at a conventional grocery store for factory farmed meat or processed foods is taking a “government handout,” not just the “welfare mothers.”

2. The meaning of irony: From the dictionary: A figure of speech in which the words express a meaning that is often the direct opposite of the intended meaning. The first farm bill was enacted on the heels of the Great Depression, with the goal of supporting America’s farmers and ranchers. That’s still the intent. Yet today, farm bill commodity subsidy payments have contributed to such an unequal distribution of market share between corporate and family-scale agriculture, the only way many small farmers could benefit from the farm bill is through the very nutritional assistance programs that these young agriculturists were spurning. There’s no shortage of small farmers who qualify for any number of “welfare” programs.

3. The meaning of self-defeating behavior: From the dictionary: behavior serving to frustrate, thwart, etc., one’s own intention. Here was a group of students training to be farmers and food processors. Many of them will likely want to open their own farming- related businesses some day; or they will return to family farms to pick up where their parents and grandparents left off. Some of them, unable to sustain themselves financially among the land and livestock that nourish their spirits, will have to go and work for agribusiness. If the current economy is any indication, many of them will find themselves with college debt, low wage jobs, and in need of food.

Any way you slice the pie, the Farm Bill impacts these students, either because it sponsors (or fails to sponsor) programs that might help them get started on the land or in a food-related enterprise; or because the policies of the bill greatly benefit agribusiness, thus making it tougher and tougher for family-scale farms to compete; or because it results in a proliferation of processed crappy foods that pollute our bodies as well as our soil and water; or because it provides a food benefit that a number of them will likely need in the near future. These kids need to understand the Farm Bill. It can help them and it can hurt them. But the only reaction they could muster was venom toward any human being who might have need of food assistance, thus the only action many of them might take would be to cheer if the food and nutrition assistance programs were cut. They’re hurting themselves with their own apathy and venom.

For that matter, apathy and venom hurt all of us. The food problems, the farm problems, and the poverty issues, effect all of us. Propaganda infuses our daily lives, encouraging us to hate those in need, to judge them as irresponsible leaches on society. This hatred has become a cancer in our culture, poisoning us from the inside, making students like the ones in this classroom, who should be keenly concerned about our nation’s food policy, content to see it fail, rather than reformed, and to see more people go hungry. By fixating on the notion that a fellow human in need is threatening to their well-being, these students are playing an active role in promoting the very social inequality that impairs their own futures. As social epidemiologists Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson have shown, no matter which side of the balance we fall on, whether rich or poor, the more inequality there is in our culture, the greater our rates of anxiety, depression, and countless other social problems from crime to illness — for everyone. *

…Which leads me to the final, and most important, educational opportunity…

4. The meaning of compassion: From the dictionary: A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another’s suffering or misfortune, accompanied by a desire to alleviate the pain or remove its cause. In truth, I suspect that the venom that came forth from these young people’s mouths wasn’t truly their own. They probably learned it from someone else. Most of them were too young to have come by such opinions honestly. And I can only assume that the source of such venom came from people in their lives who are truly fearful, who worry that the resources they need to survive will be commandeered for someone else’s benefit.

We are living in times when the worry about resources, be they financial or ecological, are very real. And the Farm Bill, for all its inconsistencies and controversies, represents our nation’s policies on these fears. As we seek to create a workable Farm Bill and a workable life, we cannot forget that the uncertainty of our neighbors will affect our own well-being. If we are going to be truly resilient, then we must be compassionate about the suffering of those who are around us, and we must seek ways, both through policy and through our daily individual actions, that will help to rectify this suffering. That is simply part of being a community. And if we lose that, then we agree to a life of depredation for all, and happiness for none, where only a few will survive, and no one truly thrives. But if we can embrace compassion, then it becomes the foundation for true community resilience; where being a caring citizen and neighbor fuel a way of life where everyone has good, clean healthy food; where they come by it honestly; and where young agricultural students are able to plan a future where they can produce it freely and joyfully.

*For those of you interested in learning more about how inequality contributes to widespread social problems across the classes, I recommend Kate Pickett and Richard G. Wilkinson’s book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Bloomsbury Press (2011).
Comments
April 23, 2013 6:51 AM EDT
please ask your friend paula’s students read this!!
– jacquie
April 23, 2013 7:44 AM EDT
I have taken graduate level classes that provided less good understanding than this blog post. Thank you! I just downloaded the book to my Kindle reader.
– Tom Denham
April 23, 2013 7:52 AM EDT
I just posted the following on Facebook with a link to this page – Shannon Hayes understands people, politics, and culture like no one I’ve ever met before. I like something I read on the internet almost every day, but this brief story about her speaking at an animal science class at a college near her home may be the most inspiring thing I’ve read this year.
– Tom Denham
April 23, 2013 8:23 AM EDT
Yes, Shannon, well done. Thanks., but have Paula make this required reading in her class, with a grade assigned to it to make sure they do.
– Boris McGiver
April 23, 2013 8:34 AM EDT
Thanks for encouraging folks to read, Tom! And yes, if I know Paula, she is likely to share…She is generous that way.
– Shannon Hayes
April 23, 2013 9:09 AM EDT
Well said, I am going to make some copies.
It must be one of the oldest tricks in the book for the very wealthy who want to shape government policy to their favor to divide the rest of us (the 99%) against each other. They realize together we would be so powerful, so they invent “welfare mothers” and “lazy” people who “take most of our tax dollars”. (Reagan’s welfare queen and her Cadillacs, by the way, could not be found, even after months of the New York Times reporters searching for her.) Hate radio and faux news continue to feed this divide.
So thank you for consolidating these points; the more of us that know them and share them, hopefully the less ignorance there will be among those who need this information so desperately.
– Sylvia
April 23, 2013 9:34 AM EDT
Shannon; thank you for a truly inspired, authentic insight into how this society has come to function. We have devolved to a state of survival, using the corporate/media tactics of competition, fear based greed, and self induced ‘blindness’ to our connection to others, in order to allow us to function with no sense of compassion or self awareness. Once again, you have seen very clearly and honestly what most have not, and have the courage and integrity to share it with us in a way that really makes a difference. Thank you
– Ed M
April 23, 2013 9:52 AM EDT
Great observation, analysis and writing.
This brought up so many emotions–35 plus years of teaching freshman, who come to college with very limited experiences and many prejudices–trying to get them interested and concerned about inequality in their communities, the country and the world. Let’s hope this ag class and others will be trans-formative for Paula’s students. Last week, I ran into a former student from many, many years ago, now working at the University in development, who said he still remembers and talks about the inequality issues we discussed in Introductory Sociology class. As teachers, we don’t often know what impact we will have on students.

The comments you made about the Reagan era descriptors of welfare recipients, were re-visited in the Clinton era “Welfare to Work” legislative reforms. Even the upper-class students in a Family Policy class (many of whom were themselves struggling financially) could not comprehend the issues of hypocrisy, conflict, self-interest, irony that you discussed. I never thought I was successful in demonstrating how these policies were linked to their lives. I can only hope that some kernel of understanding sunk-in.

The issue of SNAP benefits also hits close to home, since my daughter became disabled and eligible for Social Security, Medical Assistance and SNAP after graduating from college. We wouldn’t go hungry without the benefits but it does make it possible to purchase specialized gluten-free, dairy-free foods and healthier local, farm fresh food. I’m sure that I get a lot of suspicious “looks” when I use the SNAP card at the grocery since I’m buying “pricier” alternatives to dried, canned, processed foods that most welfare recipients are compelled by necessity to purchase.

Thanks again for another thoughtful blog entry.
Renee
– Renee
April 23, 2013 9:54 AM EDT
When I read your stuff I am always reminded that I am not alone and I am reassured that I am not crazy! Thank you!
– sharon collins
April 23, 2013 10:10 AM EDT
This brilliantly sums up the problems inherent to the lack of critical thinking we have in this country. Money doesn’t ‘trickle down’, but bad behavior sure does. I wonder what would happen if these young people suddenly realized how they’ve been manipulated?

Thank you for your specificity and clarity of thought. The subject matter is alarming, but you are a breath of fresh air. 🙂
– Molly
April 23, 2013 10:11 AM EDT
Thank you, Shannon, for so eloquently describing this problem. I have recently heard quite a few comments like those of these students and I was shocked by their vitriol. I, too, concluded that those making the comments were too young to have drawn those conclusions themselves. Someone is handing those sentiments down.
– Karen @ www.makingshift.com
April 23, 2013 12:38 PM EDT
WELL STATED–always enjoy your BLOG.
– annette Varady
April 23, 2013 5:26 PM EDT
I’ll be bold enough to suggest something quite radical. Distributism. Maybe you’ve not heard of it, but you may have heard of “three acres and a cow.” It’s based on the principle of subsidiarity: that policies, business, education, agriculture, etc. be taken care of by the lowest form of government possible. The LOCAL COMMUNITY should be more involved in policy making than the federal government. We should be buying from our neighbors – and our charity should be local. Agriculture has been hurt by the policies of both Republican and Democrat administrations of the last century.

Students today should be reading GK Chesterton. He writes about big government and big business. He says that, in the end, there’s no difference between the two AND they’re both in on policy together to get the little guy. All of US. Except GKC says it more eloquently than I do.
– Elodie
April 23, 2013 9:21 PM EDT
Thank you, Shannon for the way you say things the average reader can understand. I continue to quote your blogs and recommend your books. Too bad so much of the knowledge of small family farming is so far gone we can barely teach it in school.
– Sassy Kas
May 1, 2013 1:21 AM EDT
From April 27-May 5, John Robbins is interviewing 24 of the world’s leading experts in movements for healthy, sustainable, humane and conscious food for all. You can listen to each broadcast via teleconference or streaming webcast. In addition, all the presentations are available on 24 hour replay for no charge. Shannon, I’m wondering if you’ve been following the interviews at www.foodrevolution.com (must sign up). The interviews are brilliant, eloquent, and so educational. I could SO see you as an interviewee for the 2014 summet. You are a leading expert in living wisely, healthy, and sustainably, and radical homemaking is right in line in so many ways with the topics and initiatives being discussed. I hope you might look into this. Thank you for your work!!!

-Carolyn