“Arkansas Traveler” is an old-time song of folk humor that tells of a well-heeled dandy who gets lost while travelling across the Ozark Mountains. He comes upon a backwoods farmer and shouts out: “Hey farmer, where does this road go?” Not missing a beat, the farmer says: “I’ve lived here all my life, stranger, and it ain’t gone nowhere, yet.”
A corny joke, yet the current US Congress has traveled that same nowhere road all year long in a fruitless attempt to reach agreement on a rewrite of America’s basic Farm Bill. This failure is a very big deal and wholly irresponsible. The bill is a five-year, $700 billion package that not only doles out federal crop subsidies (which have largely gone to huge agribusiness operations), but it also provides food stamps for millions of poor families, money for vital ag conservation programs, and economic development work in thousands of rural counties.
So why the dead end? It’s caused by the same plutocratic/theocratic nuttiness of Republican lawmakers who put their extremist right-wing ideology and corporate servitude above all the other needs of regular people and our country. Because of their internal chaos and political grandstanding, the old status quo Farm Bill had to be extended for another year. Yet, that’s not all bad news, for a whole new constituency has begun rallying to write a truly innovative, forward-looking farm-food-labor climate bill that fosters the Common Good above the exploitative greed of today’s monopolistic, narrow-minded agribusiness complex.
Let’s turn the dead-end year into a positive opportunity to build public support in 2024 for fundamental democratic change in America’s food direction. The way to get there is not through more back-room Washington deals, but by going straight to the people, mobilizing family farmers, food workers, consumers, climate activists, and others behind a revitalized system that works for us.
Photo by Aurora Borealis on Unsplash
Do something
To learn more about the Farm Bill, we recommend Farm Aid’s Farm Bill 101 guide, and their regular updates. (They’ll also give you actions to take when it’s time!)
We’re also fans of RuralOrganizing.org for getting involved in rural support all over the country— after all, the Farm Bill is not just a food bill, it’s a rural infrastructure bill.
We have a similar road joke here in Vermont. An out of stater is driving down a road in his pick up. He ha s a deer strapped to the hood, a Christmas tree in the back and a bushel of apples and a few gallons of maple syrup in the cab. He stops at a gas station and asks if he can take this road back to Massachusetts. The Attendant looks at the truck and says you might as well you’ve got everything else.
The ghost of Earl Butz still haunts AG policy that has created one of the most unhealthy dinner plates in the entire world.
Couldn't agree with you more. There is a cancer that's been growing in the ranks of the GOP for years and that has manifested itself as MAGA. Until we the people rid ourselves through the vote the problems that persist today will only continue to fester.
Regenerate America has a good list of marker bills to support regenerative farming in the farm bill. Visit https://kisstheground.com/advocacy/
Excellent! I am inspired to move along this road! A great focal point for social and economic reform! Thank you Jim for giving us the information so we can write a pointed letter to our government representatives with suggestions on how to better serve US !
I wish BIDEN would get the FCC to enforce monopoly radio and TV laws in rural areas. They blast out MAGA and conservative talk shows all day. this is illegal. FCC, Biden, FCC to combat Trumpism.
It blows me away that Glen (G.T.) Thompson -- my congresscritter -- is the person who has devoted so much energy to the new Farm Bill and he will obediently vote against passing it if the Squeaker of the House tells him to.
I may be asking for advice on this soon.
It has occurred to me that speaking directly to local (Snohomish County, WA) food producers would be good for building alliances. However, my mom is the descendant of loggers (in WA since 1881) and indigenous people, my dad was from Manhattan, NYC. While I know the local forest ecosystem in detail, as well as something about the mycorrhizal ecology of crops, I know nothing about farming or farmers.
Plus I'm trans (FtM) and gay, used to San Francisco style, where I was living for the last12 years. I'm now back home. I would expect my appearance (old and weird) could be just be a mite off-putting for rural folks But I'm willing to try to seem human.
My mother was an Oklahoma farmer's daughter who got her PhD from Cornell in Biology, Botany, Cytology,etc. Married a NYC pharmacist and l was raised in NYC, NJ. I wanted to be a farmer so l could have a horse and l am obsessed with food. I think that drag queens can be offensive, although l have dressed as a drag king much of my life l was called a 'tom boy'. I am now the Mother Interior of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to bring a bit of biological balance to the order. All religions have ceremonies around the coming and goings of the Great Spirit, birth, marriage and death. Respectful of life is the common ground that one must focus on, regardless of another's beliefs or religion.
Or sexual preferences/fantasies, which should be kept private, in my opinion, as we are all individually twisted
Mostly it's an expression of ones personal style and a fashion statement. The Earth needs the population control that homosexual relationships result in.
It is about time that PA's Department of Agriculture, Mr. Redding, gets up on his hind legs and insists that the Farm Bill strengthen small and family operations and openly supports organic farming. Our farmers and those people who eat have been left out of the equation for far too long!
Unless you are running an incorporated agribusiness in W.V., your farming is considered a hobby, not a real job.
What a dasterly turn about. Often farmers might have to take a second job just to make ends meet. Is this considered a hobby? Just trying to stay alive...
Once again the amount of money that a farm makes is the determining factor
You should be the Secretary of Agriculture.
As long as any farm aid bill contains help for the average American, ie: food stamps or help for the rural family farm it's not gonna pass because it goes against the Republican platform.
The Republican platform is against the living and for the corporate money making, which is MAGA death, which is our nitty gritty struggle. We need a system that'll focus on life supporting policies over money making
Also a powerful critique of U.S. ag policy by Alan Guebert, here:
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/farmed-out-guebert