[Community_garden] CFSC Farm Bill update vol. 6

[Betsy Johnson]

Farm Bill Update 07.16.07
Contact Your Members of Congress- 
Money Needed for Healthy Food in the Farm Bill  

As Farm Bill debate heats up, we urge you to contact your Representative and
Senators and recommend that they support a Farm Bill with increased funding
for healthy food and communities provisions. For many of the issues, the
target is funding, and Members of Congress on the Ways & Means (House) and
Finance (Senate) Committees as well as Democratic Leadership (Speaker,
Majority Leaders) are key to ensuring that funding is found for healthy food
and farm provisions in the Farm Bill. 
 
The debate has become increasingly polarized over the past 6 months. The
"reformers" want moderate to extreme reductions in payments for specific
farm commodities (corn, rice, wheat, cotton, soy and several others) in
order to pay for increases in nutrition and conservation. The "extenders"
who want to maintain the status quo for these payments. An extension of the
2002 Farm Bill would mean everyone-low-income communities, environment and
small farmers-taking a hit. While those pushing for commodity reform may
have an important message, the cost in votes to the nutrition, conservation
and rural development parts of the Farm Bill may be too great if no
consensus on the Farm Bill is reached by the deadline -Sept 30, 2007. 
 
The next three weeks are critical as both houses of Congress work to craft
and fund the next 5+ years of U.S. food and farm policy. Congress has heard
from many constituent groups but needs more input from citizens the health
of our communities and small, sustainable farms. Your legislators need to
hear YOUR VOICE! Please call them TODAY, below are some talking points to
use. If you don't know your legislator's number, call the Capital
Switchboard at 202-224-3121.
 
 
Requests for CFSC Priorities

*	For Community Food Projects, Members of Congress, on and off the Ag
Committee, are urged to support the $30 million funding level in MANDATORY
spending. 
*	Though the jurisdictional issue with the House Education & Labor
Committee has been resolved, members of the House Agriculture Committee
should be urged to support an amendment, to be offered by Congressman Kagen
(D-WI), inserting brief language, clarifying the local procurement issue,
into the House draft bill. 
*	Members of Congress, on and off the Ag Committee, should be urged to
support the no-cost request for the Healthy Food Enterprise Development
Program language to be included in the House & Senate draft bills. 


Timing Update

*	House Agriculture begins debating and amending Draft Bill: July 17 
*	House Floor Farm Bill debate and vote may be as early as July 30 
*	House Agriculture Appropriations meets July 18 on draft  fiscal year
'08 bill 
*	Senate likely to postpone Agriculture Committee vote until September



Food Security in the Media

*	Sacramento Bee link: http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/272049.html 
*	San Jose Mercury News link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_6355675 
Other Media: 

*	Washington Post link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301930.html 



Other Farm Bill News

*	Timing in the Senate is not firm because Chairman Harkin and Senate
offices have expressed that the full Committee draft of the bill will likely
not be released in July if there isn't time for floor debate until
September. In both the House and Senate, Ag committee offices have expressed
a reluctance to let the Committee draft sit in public for a month before
going to the floor, since this greater amount of time would allow critics to
find more changes to make to the Committee draft. 

*	Since neither Agriculture Committee has expressed an interest in
funding increases in nutrition or conservation through commodity reform, the
debate has moved to the search for offsets, or sources of funding outside of
the Agriculture committee. Both Agriculture Committees have begun requesting
offset sources for the nutrition, conservation and fruit and vegetable
provisions in the "En Bloc Amendment" or Farm Bill 2, from the Ways & Means
and Finance Committee Chairmen Rangel (D-NY) and Baucus (D-MT), in the House
and Senate respectively. 

*	Speaker Pelosi and other members of the House Democratic Leadership
have joined forces with Peterson and Ag Committee Democrats to find funding
for these common priorities. In order to avoid an ugly situation on the
House floor with many amendments and disagreements, Pelosi has told Peterson
that a moderate amount of commodity reform is necessary in order to craft a
politically acceptable bill. Peterson has sent several small measures of
commodity reform to the Congressional Budget Office, that would close
several of a larger number of loopholes that farmers can use to increase
individual commodity payments. 

*	Meanwhile, in response to Republican announcements that an extension
of the 2002 Farm Bill seems likely, in Friday's Congress Daily, Chairman
Peterson stated that this may be simply a strategy by Republicans to prevent
any bills from passing this Congress. 

*	Congressmen Pomeroy (D-ND) and Berry (D-AS) have been drafted as
Farm Bill whips for when the bill reaches the floor.

*	Despite the fact that most House Ag Committees have banded together
to support the maintenance of most farm subsidy policy, in order to prevent
increases in support for Rep. Kind (D-WI)'s reform bill when it's proposed
on the floor, there remains disagreement within the Committee. According to
Congress Daily on July 12, Rep. 

Cardoza (D-CA) is not satisfied with the $685 million for specialty crops
included in the House draft bill, and has stated he won't vote for the bill
without  increases for specialty crops, conservation and research that are
based in real money rather than reserve funds, causing a rift between him
and Chairman Peterson.   

*	Chairman Harkin has also discussed plans to write a 6 or 7 year Farm
Bill, which would allow for greater offsets from savings to fund other Farm
Bill priorities. Other potential strategies for saving money expressed by
both Chairmen include delaying advance payments to farmers and finding minor
savings from crop insurance. 

*	This afternoon, Congress Daily reported that Senators on the
Agriculture Committee are reluctant to suggest specific offsets until after
Harkin releases his commodity title, which is the only section of the
unofficial Senate bill draft that has not been released to anyone. 


If you are receiving this update from another list and would like to be
added to the CFSC Farm Bill update list, please go to www.foodsecurity.org
<http://www.foodsecurity.org>  and submit your name. 

Thanks for your support and for contacting your members of Congress! 

Take care,
Steph & Aliza

-- 
Community Food Security Coalition
110 Maryland Ave. NE Suite 307
Washington, DC 20002
Phone: 202.543.8602
Email: Steph at foodsecurity.org
www.FoodSecurity.org < <http://www.FoodSecurity.org>
http://www.FoodSecurity.org> 





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070718/2794d52c/attachment.html