Inside D.C.
Blumenauer’s Farm Bill Folly
While the House debated and approved this week the first legislative package to reform the federal tax system since 1986, and the Senate Finance Committee kicked forward its version of the same tax reform, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D, OR) convened “A Call for Reform: Fix the Farm Bill.” The forum was effectively a press conference for unveiling his “Food & Farm Act,” Blumenauer’s vision for what omnibus farm policy legislation would look like if he were king for a day.
I have to admit, I haven’t read the “Food & Farm Act” yet; the bill text isn’t available.
Blumenauer, who represents a decidedly blue district in a predominantly red state, is in his 12th term, instantly recognizable by his ever-present bow tie and his bicycle pants clip. His office waxed effusively that the Blumenauer “farm bill reform forum” included “fiscal hawks, food and agriculture policy experts, environmentalists, animal welfare advocates and others.” You can read all about it at www.blumenauer.house.gov.
However, no matter how progressive Blumenauer thought he was being, his invitation list was anything but. Nowhere among the featured speakers was a real live farmer, rancher, agribusiness person, conventional food retailer, or even a knowledge ag committee staff member. Yet everywhere you looked you’d find an animal rights group, environmental group, activist “science” group, liberal urban lawmaker or some other organization with a serious axe to grind with conventional agriculture and the evolution of the Farm Bill.
This is very likely why no one in boots-on-the-ground agriculture, from Blumenauer’s fellow lawmakers to national farm and ranch groups to individual companies, will take the Oregon lawmaker’s effort seriously. The effort is extreme, naïve and broadly unwise.
The keynote speaker at this forum was Michael Pollan, “author, journalist, activist” and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He’s the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I suggest if you wish to know more you can Google the title and check out the Wikipedia description. Suffice it to say, Pollan is a dandy reporter/philosopher, just not much a farm policy expert.
Also part of the “all-star group of policy experts” was Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS). He was backstopped by the “farm animal campaign content director” for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). HSUS and ASPCA, along with their foot soldier groups, are the motivation for Blumenauer’s zeal to add an animal welfare title to the Farm Bill. However, if you look at the Humane Society Legislative Fund’s (HSLF) – the separately incorporated HSUS lobbying arm – website, the only farm animal legislation listed are House and Senate versions of two anti-producer group checkoff bills.
It’s pretty widely known HSUS wants to make it a federal crime to sell dog and cat meat in the U.S., and it would like to see federal support for programs which provide for the pets of battered women in shelters, neither of which would fit under the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) programs at USDA. The big push by HSUS these days is getting certified yet another ballot question in California, i.e. “HSUS to spearhead California initiative to end era of extreme confinement of farm animals,” meaning an expansion to all other species of Prop 2 which mandated cage-free egg production. Of course, HSUS continues to beat the drum on animal fighting – already illegal; horse slaughter – not sanctioned in the U.S., another fix to so-called “crush videos” – already illegal, along with various and sundry anti-biomedical research initiatives, and so forth.
One after the other, the featured speakers took glancing shots at current farm policy, and by extension, at farming and ranching.
All of this begs the question: Should omnibus farm legislation be a policy playground for – dare I say it? – various special interest groups with no skin in the game of farming and ranching?
As both House and Senate agriculture committees struggle to cobble together a new 2018 Farm Bill, hamstrung by nearly historically tight budgets, one reality must be kept in mind: The policy must support and protect about 1.5 million farm families, most of whom don’t fit in the Blumenauer/Pollan/Pacelle vision food production.
hamstrung by corporate welfare, you mean? Your point of view is ridiculous. I hope you enjoy watching the planet and your loved ones die from the standard American diet. Perhaps someone might remember you enough to write some snarky ‘web article’ about who was in attendance at your funeral but I doubt anyone will.