"A good day for those who want
to write the farm bill on the floor"
That's Environmental Defense attorney Scott Faber's succinct summation of how the House conservation subcommittee mark up went down today.
Members of a House Agriculture subcommittee were thwarted by a lack of money on Tuesday from expanding "green payments" to farmers and from creating a $305 million program to combat asthma-causing dust.Lawmakers put the ideas on the table during the first bill-drafting session for the farm law being written this year. But they withdrew them without a vote in hopes that money will become available this summer to pay for the programs.
Here's the coverage by Chuck Abbott of Reuters.
California Democrat Dennis Cardoza said stewardship programs must be expanded so that fruit, vegetable, nut and nursery crop growers can meet a mounting regulatory burden and so that specialty crop growers get a more equitable share of supports.He proposed a $305 million air quality program to combat dust and ozone but withdrew it because there was no money.
"This is one of the most important issues we have," said Cardoza, who said 300 congressional districts violate federal standards for clean air. "Air quality problems are going to be putting farmers out of business in my state."
Observers said that when Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wondered aloud if farmers in his district would understand why money would be spent on air pollution problems of California farmers, Rep. Cardoza wondered right back if farmers in his district would understand corn subsidies to Iowa.
Folks, this is getting interesting. And the question being begged is very simple:
Does the make up of the House Agriculture Committee reflect the full House on matters of food, agriculture, nutrition and food assistance, conservation, and biofuels...or does it reflect the narrower interests of subsidized agriculture?
Comments
It would be interesting to see a map showing the district locations of all of the Ag Committee members. Does a free software package exist that would allow someone to make such a map? It's easy to find maps showing congressional districts (e.g. National Atlas), but I haven't seen a tool that lets one change colors of selected districts to red, blue or whatever. But I didn't look at the "representativeness" of the Representatives.
I posted a simple state-based map over at Growers and Grocers soon after the House committee membership was announced (link below). The middle of the country is covered by the committee and the Southeast also has quite a few representatives (3 from GA, 4 from NC, 3 from AL, 4 from TX).
It would also be interesting to make a map showing the districts of the representatives who have co-sponsored conservation and Farm Bill reform (i.e., the list in the Environmental Defense ad referred to on Mulch a few days ago.)
http://growersandgrocers.net/2007/01/30/the-us-house-agriculture-committee/
Posted by: Marc | May 22, 2007 11:16 PM
By posting this info you are giving the perception that corn and soybean farmers are the only beneficiares of the farm subsidies. If only that is were they stopped, but it does not. Now the livestock industry is up in arms about the high price of commodities especially corn. So I think that your organization should put out a press release that says "Livestock farmers and thus anyone who eats meat has been benefiting from farm subsidies." I know that your agrument will that the big quys are getting all the money and thus all the benefits but now with corn at a level that most all farmers will be able to make money without the Gov. help everyone that eats meat or drinks soda with corn sweetner in it has been benefiting from these subsidies.
Posted by: Dale | May 28, 2007 10:44 PM