[Pil-pc-oceania] USA veg farmers fined for growing food on commodity cropland

[Kerry Dawborn]

Holy Cow! Thanks for forwarding that Robyn...

Kerry

Robyn Francis wrote:
> Just in case there's anyone still under the illusion the USA is a democratic
> system the rest of the world should emulate, check out this article. This is
> a horror story of just how far corporate giants and governments can and will
> go to collude in exercising control of land and protection of agribiz
> commodity markets.
> Robyn
>
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/>
> Lawrence - In case you want to post this to Permaculture.  dylan
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hedin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref
> =slogin
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hedin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&ore
> f=slogin>
>
>
> My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
>
> By JACK HEDIN
> Published: March 1, 2008
>
> Rushford, Minn.
>
> IF you¹ve stood in line at a farmers¹ market recently, you know that the
> local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are
> having a tough time keeping up with the demand.
>
> But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and
> vegetables not just at farmers¹ markets, but also in the produce aisle
> of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal
> government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food
> movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States
> Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the
> farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into
> effect.
>
> As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this
> because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have
> been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department¹s commodity farm
> program. As I¹ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions,
> I¹ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the
> program¹s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to
> snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
>
> Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn¹t be enough to meet
> demand, I rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under the
> alfalfa hay that was established there, and planted watermelons,
> tomatoes and vegetables for natural-food stores and a
> community-supported agriculture program.
>
> All went well until early July. That¹s when the two landowners
> discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm
> Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the
> commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.
>
> The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow
> corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans,
> rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my
> watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on ³corn base² acres, the Farm
> Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity
> program.
>
> I¹ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits
> and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for
> the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the
> illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently
> ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to
> fruits and vegetables ‹ if the farmer decides to grow another commodity
> crop, or even nothing at all, there¹s no problem.)
>
> In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 ‹ for one season
> alone! And this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that
> only one of the government¹s three crop-support programs was in effect;
> the total bill might be much worse in the future.
>
> In addition, the bureaucratic entanglements that these two farmers faced
> at the Farm Service office were substantial. The federal farm program is
> making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow
> fresh organic vegetables.
>
> Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California,
> Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself.
> Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states,
> they have been able to virtually monopolize the country¹s fresh produce
> markets.
>
> That¹s unfortunate, because small producers will have to expand on a
> significant scale across the nation if local foods are to continue to
> enter the mainstream as the public demands. My problems are just the tip
> of the iceberg.
>
> Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill
> that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply
> processors, with some relief from the penalties that I¹ve faced ‹ for
> example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his
> usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other penalties.
> However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce states made
> the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm bill
> priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as a
> tiny pilot program.
>
> Who pays the price for this senselessness? Certainly I do, as a
> Midwestern vegetable farmer. But anyone trying to do what I do on, say,
> wheat acreage in the Dakotas, or rice acreage in Arkansas would face the
> same penalties. Local and regional fruit and vegetable production will
> languish anywhere that the commodity program has influence.
>
> Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price
> for this ‹ whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to
> charge to absorb the government¹s fines, or in the form of less access
> to the kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.
>
> Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers
> need more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and
> vegetables to meet increasing demand from local markets ‹ without the
> federal government actively discouraging them.
>
> Jack Hedin is a farmer.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> Google command to search archives:
> site:http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture searchstring
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pil-pc-oceania mailing list
> Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania
>
>