Organic food and beverage sales represented approximately 4 percent of overall food and beverage sales in 2010. Leading were organic fruits and vegetables, now representing over 11 percent of all U.S. fruit and vegetable sales.
Source: Organic Trade Association’s 2011 Organic Industry Survey
http://www.ota.com/organic/mt/business.html
At 11% of all US fruit and vegetable sales, organics can no longer be ignored.
Farm Bill Reflects Shifting American Menu and a Senator’s Persistent Tilling
WASHINGTON — The farm bill
signed by President Obama last month was at first glance the usual boon
for soybean growers, catfish farmers and their ilk. But closer
examination reveals that the nation’s agriculture policy is increasingly
more whole grain than white bread.
Within the bill
is a significant shift in the types of farmers who are now benefiting
from taxpayer dollars, reflecting a decade of changing eating habits and
cultural dispositions among American consumers. Organic farmers, fruit
growers and hemp producers all did well in the new bill. An emphasis on
locally grown, healthful foods appeals to a broad base of their
constituents, members of both major parties said.
“There
is nothing hotter than farm to table,” said Representative Bill
Huizenga, a Michigan Republican from a district of vast cherry orchards.
While
traditional commodities subsidies were cut by more than 30 percent to
$23 billion over 10 years, funding for fruits and vegetables and organic
programs increased by more than 50 percent over the same period, to
about $3 billion.
Fruit
and vegetable farmers, who have been largely shut out of the crop
insurance programs that grain and other farmers have enjoyed for
decades, now have far greater access. Other programs for those crops
were increased by 55 percent from the 2008 bill, which expired last
year, and block grants for their marketing programs grew exponentially.
In
addition, money to help growers make the transition from conventional
to organic farming rose to $57.5 million from $22 million. Money for
oversight of the nation’s organic food program nearly doubled to $75
million over five years.
Programs
that help food stamp recipients pay for fruits and vegetables — to get
healthy food into neighborhoods that have few grocery stores and to get
schools to grow their own food — all received large bumps in the bill.
The
new attention and government money devoted to healthy foods stem from
the growing market power of those segments of the food business, as well
as profound shifts in nutrition policy and eating habits across the
country.
“This
is my fourth farm bill, and it’s the most unique I have ever been
involved in,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Michigan Democrat who
negotiated, prodded, cajoled and finally shepherded the bill through
Congress over two and a half years. “Past farm bills pit regions against
regions. I said that we were going to support all of agriculture.”
The bill also eased a 75-year-old restriction on growing and researching industrial hemp,
paving the way for several states to begin pilot growing programs for
this variety of the cannabis plant, which can be refined into oil, wax,
rope, cloth, pulp and other products.
At the same time, hunting programs were protected in the farm bill, which attracted the rare approbation of the National Rifle Association.
The bill also ties conservation requirements to crop insurance
benefits, which many environmental groups praised. “I think this is the
new coalition,” Ms. Stabenow said.
While
still in the shadows of traditional farming, organics are the
fastest-growing sector of the food business. Support for that movement
has traditionally come from Democrats in Congress, but the organic
farming provisions in the bill had broad support from both parties.
“We
kind of overperformed with younger new members of Congress on both
sides of the aisle,” said Laura Batcha, the executive director of the Organic Trade Association.
Ms.
Batcha pointed to a provision sought by her organization to exempt
organic producers from having to pay assessments for certain marketing
programs, which received broad backing from both Republicans and
Democrats. The support surprised her, she said, but showed the
popularity of organic products.
“I
think we should let consumers make their own decisions about what kinds
of foods they purchase,” said Representative Reid Ribble, Republican of
Wisconsin, who is a member of the House Agriculture Committee. “And if there’s a market for organic products, we should support it.”
Over
all, healthy food has become more politically popular because of
efforts to combat childhood obesity and diabetes and a growing national
interest in the farm-to-table movement promoted by the first lady,
Michelle Obama, and other national figures.
“The
average member of Congress, whether they are urban or suburban, knows
that is what their constituents want,” said Ferd Hoefner, the policy
director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
“Even the most ag-centric member of the Agriculture Committee knows
that is what helps sell the bill when it gets to the floor.”
For
farmers of fruits and vegetables, oddly referred to in ag-speak as
specialty crops, the ability to participate in crop insurance programs,
which were expanded as direct payments to farmers were ended, is a major
victory.
John King, a co-owner of King Orchards, which specializes in Montmorency cherries in
Central Lake, Mich., was previously able to get insurance only for his
apples. His cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and raspberries went
uncovered.
In
2012, the combination of a bitterly cold winter and a March heat wave
resulted in Mr. King’s greatest losses in the farm’s 34-year history,
wiping out all of his stone fruit and a third of his apple crop. “Crop
insurance did not even cover half my labor bill for the year,” said Mr.
King, who has already signed up for the maximum insurance for 2014.
“Over
the years the big-program crops have been able to get what they want
while for specialty crops it has been, ‘Tough luck as you freeze,’ ” Mr.
King said. “Well, we grow the stuff people eat and want to eat, and we
do need some financial cover from this increasingly precarious weather
situation.”
On
the farm bill, Ms. Stabenow was able to come to an agreement with her
Republican counterparts in the Senate as well as the House, where the
most conservative members sought large cuts to the food and nutrition
program that makes up about 80 percent of the bill.
Ms.
Stabenow had to fend off the most conservative House members, who at
one point wanted drug testing for food stamp recipients. (Ms. Stabenow
told them that she would agree only if every recipient of farm bill
dollars was also tested.) But she also had to deal with some liberals
who pushed back against any cuts to the food stamp program, including a
provision that had allowed some states to inflate residents’ food
assistance by counting the costs of utility bills that residents did not
actually have.
“I
appreciate passionate advocates,” Ms. Stabenow said. “But I believe it
helps to be the first one to call out situations where there is not
accountability.”
Ms.
Stabenow was so persistent, her colleagues, supporters and Senate aides
said, that some senators began to fear her approach as she moved
purposefully between the Republican and Democratic cloakrooms just off
the Senate floor. The clerks there would bet over drinks whether she
could get her bill passed.
In
general, the bill reflects the diverse agricultural landscape of Ms.
Stabenow’s home state, which plays a leading role in movements like
community gardens in schools and offers a program that gives food stamp
recipients double credit for food and vegetable purchases — a model for
the federal farm bill.
“I give her a lot of credit,” Mr. Hoefner said. “She made it clear from the get-go that these items needed to be in the bill.”
A version of this article appears in print on March 9, 2014, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Farm Bill Reflects Shifting American Menu and a Senator’s Persistent Tilling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/us/politics/farm-bill-reflects-shifting-american-menu-and-a-senators-persistent-tilling.html
Farm bill: Why don’t taxpayers subsidize the foods that are better for us?
By Tamar Haspel,
Read the farm bill, and a big problem jumps right out at you: Taxpayers heavily subsidize corn and soy, two crops that facilitate the meat and processed food we’re supposed to eat less of, and do almost nothing for the fruits and vegetables we’re supposed to eat more of. If there’s any obligation to spend the public’s money in a way that’s consistent with that same public’s health, shouldn’t it be the other way around?The problem dates back to the bill’s inception in the 1930s, when farms raised livestock and grew a mix of crops, including staple crops (corn, wheat, oats, barley) and what the bill calls “specialty crops” but what the rest of us know as fruits and vegetables.
From the 1930s to 1980, subsidies alone weren’t substantial enough to significantly change the mix of crops on farms, according to Vincent Smith, professor of economics at Montana State University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “In 1980, we introduced crop insurance subsidies of substance that began to change the ways in which farmers manage risk, and to discourage diversification,” he says. And then we increased them until they became very substantial, and farmers, at least to some extent, farmed to the bill the way teachers teach to a test.
What’s important about how we subsidize farms isn’t necessarily the overall dollar amount — it comes to 5 percent to 10 percent of the market price of most of the subsidized crops — it’s that it takes some of the risk out of farming grains and oil seeds, but not fruits and vegetables.
Farming is inherently risky. Weather, insects and disease, over which you have limited control or none at all, can wipe you out. One of the ways farmers manage risk is to plant variety. Okay, powdery mildew got your strawberries, but the broccoli’s going gangbusters. For farmers, crops that are given guaranteed protection from both losses and price drops are lower-risk propositions.
Farmers, like the rest of us, have bills to pay and children to feed. (Full disclosure: My husband and I farm oysters and have benefited from the farm bill’s conservation program.) A guaranteed source of income is attractive. That’s one of the reasons that, of the 300-million-plus acres planted with food (other than grass, hay and forage for animals) in this country, half are corn and soy. Another 50 million are wheat. Only 14 million are devoted to fruits and vegetables, from peas (1.2 million acres) to mangosteens (1 acre, which I’d dearly love to visit).
The 2014 iteration of the farm bill, signed into law this month, changes the way farmers are subsidized, and if you’ve read one thing about it, it’s probably been that direct payments — annual checks based on production history — have been discontinued. But calling the two programs that replace them “crop insurance” isn’t quite accurate, says Smith, because there are no premiums and no policies. Farmers choose between Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and receive payments when price (for PLC) or revenue (for ARC) drops below a benchmark.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that PLC and ARC will cost about two-thirds of what direct payments cost, but the accuracy of that estimate depends on assumptions about the future price of commodities, something any commodity trader will tell you is notoriously hard to predict. Any analyst who could do it accurately would make his fortune in commodity futures, quit his analyst job and buy a lovely home somewhere sunny, where they grow less corn and more mangosteens.
PLC and ARC, together with a few other commodity programs, are slated to cost $44.4 billion over 10 years. Traditional crop insurance will continue, with government paying 65 percent of the premiums, and that’s another $89.8 billion, for a total of $134 billion for commodities over a decade.
And how does the bill help specialty crop growers? Robert Guenther, senior vice president of the United Fresh Produce Association, counts the ways. There’s help with research, provisions to include produce in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and school lunches, export enhancements, grants and a few other things. Total expenditure: $4 billion over 10 years. There is almost no insurance, and there are no subsidies, but many fruit and vegetable growers wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We’ve taken a different approach from the commodity growers,” says Guenther. He explains that specialty crop farming, because of its variety, doesn’t lend itself to the same kind of regulation. And he says many farmers prefer the flexibility that comes with independence to the conformity required by regulation, even if the regulation comes with cash. Asking the Agriculture Department to compare Washington apples with Florida oranges, and regulate appropriately, would be asking a lot. (There are also contractual agreements, outside the scope of the farm bill, that reduce risk for many specialty growers.)
It’s worth noting that, although producing more vegetables at lower prices looks good from a public health perspective, it’s not in the interest of the farmers already growing vegetables. Specialty growers supported the rules that, until now, prevented commodity growers from devoting some acreage to fruits and vegetables; this year’s farm bill allows commodity farmers to use up to 15 percent of their acreage for specialty crops without losing benefits. Because growing interest in local produce gives them a market, some will undoubtedly do that, and one study, published last year in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, concluded that “the removal of the planting restriction may have a non-trivial impact on U.S. fruit and vegetable production.”
I asked Guenther what he thought about the competition. “As long as these growers are willing to play by the same rules that current producers play by, they’re welcome to join the club,” he replied.
The extent to which the farm bill has shaped agriculture is hard to quantify, and the degree to which changing it can reshape it is hard to predict. According to Patrick Westhoff, director of the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, “If you subsidize something, you get more of it.” Neither Westhoff nor Vincent Smith, however, is convinced that if you stop subsidizing it, you get much less. But a 1 percent decrease in the 160 million acres of corn and soy translates to an 11 percent increase in the 14 million acres of fruits and vegetables. (Whether that would translate to increased consumption is, of course, another question.)
There might be a way to promote production of fruits and vegetables while also protecting the interests of the farmers already growing those crops. Although specialty growers haven’t pushed for commodity-like plans, Guenther says they would like to see more focus on insurance. Smith points out that most of the risk to specialty crop growers comes from weather, and many private weather insurance products are available now that can cover a wide variety of crops. Many farmers don’t buy them because they’re not subsidized. If we were to change that, says Smith, “it would probably increase production, and there would be some price effect.” How much? “Anybody’s guess.”
Changes to the farm bill can have consequences both here and abroad, and we have to proceed cautiously. We can’t pull the rug out from under farmers whose choices have been influenced by the bill, and we have to consider the price and supply of the grains and oilseeds that feed the developing world. But we also need to move away from a system that requires taxpayers to spend billions underwriting a system detrimental to public health.
Haspel, a freelance writer, farms oysters on Cape Cod and blogs at www.starvingofftheland.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/farm-bill-why-dont-taxpayers-subsidize-the-foods-that-are-better-for-us/2014/02/14/d7642a3c-9434-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
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