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News

Wed Dec 16
Can We Afford to Delay?

The 2008 Food, Conservation, and Energy Act included a provision to help beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers. But its implementation has been delayed. Can we afford to delay?
At 628 pages and 1.65 MB, The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 easily crashed my laptop three times before finally downloading. The Act made me realize how uneducated I am about the food I serve my family, how little I know about the farmers who grow our food, and how closely linked government and agriculture are. How was I to write this article? It was enough to send me running for dark chocolate. Sustainably-grown, of course.
As early as 1933, the United States government began directing federal money into agriculture. Ostensibly partially for the goal of conservation, the government’s main intent was more likely “rural investment, income support, and supply control.”[i] In fact, “it was not until the mid-1980s that conservation programs were truly rooted in protecting natural resources.”[ii] The Food Security Act of 1985 introduced the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Intended to address the issue of soil erosion, the CRP paid farmers to take out of production some 36.4 million acres of farmland.[iii] As a result, “the USDA estimates that the average erosion rate on enrolled acres was reduced from 21 to less than 2 tons per acre per year.”[iv] Acts since the Food Security Act have continued to focus more intensely upon environmental issues including “ground water pollution, water quality, and sustainable agriculture.”[v]
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 added to the CRP a Transition Option. Retiring farmers with land returning to production may sell or lease to “beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who will use sustainable grazing practices, resource-conserving cropping systems, or transition to organic production.”[vi] But implementation of the Transition Option has been postponed while an environmental impact statement (EIS) is conducted. The EIS will “delay CRP Transition Option implementation for at least two years which is when most CRP contracts are set to expire (over 4.2 million acres in just 2009 and 2010), thus wasting taxpayer dollars and an important environmental opportunity.”[vii]
It’s unlikely I’ll ever read The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act in its entirety. But I will try to be a more educated, more involved citizen. Food Democracy Now and other organizations are showing me just how to do that. To sign a petition to end the delay of the implementation of the Transition Option, go to: http://fdn.actionkit.com/cms/sign/next_generation/#1>?akid=30.53058.DUcqCQ%3D1&rd=1.
For more information, see the following websites:
Food Democracy Now: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/
Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-2419
October, 2009 hearings on the Conservation Title to the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008: http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/statements.html
Kelly Prill, 2009

[i] Cain, Zachary and Stephen Lovejoy. History and Outlook for Farm Bill Conservation Programs, Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues. http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2004-4/policy/2004-4-09.htm.
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Ibid
[v] Ibid
[vi]Grassroots Guide to the 2008 Farm Bill, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, http://sustainableagriculturecoalition.org/publications/grassrootsguide/farming-opportunities/crp-transition-option/
[vii]EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Tell USDA to STOP Delaying Implementation of the CRP Transition Option for Beginning and Minority Farmers!, Beginning Famers, An Online Resource for Farmers, Researchers, and Policy Makers, http://beginningfarmers.org/tag/conservation-reserve-program/.