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The 2007 Farm Bill just passed the U.S. House Thursday, July 27. The Senate will consider its own version in September, and President Bush could also veto the bill altogether.
This bill has a very damaging provision, which is a gigantic subsidy for agribusiness giants. The biggest, richest farms get the majority of the subsidy, which was 21 billion dollars last year. This year the bill is over budget, so a $4 billion dollar tax increase is written into it. It will further destroy struggling family farms and discourage organic farming and sustainable agriculture.
It will also worsen the effects of NAFTA, further flooding Mexico and other poor countries with subsidized U.S. crops so that poor family farmers there also can’t compete. More of them will continue to lose their land, poverty will increase, and the flow of immigrants into the U.S. will increase. Blocking these subsidies will do far more to reduce immigration than billions spent on militarizing the border.
Are you angry about welfare sucking up our tax dollars? Be angry at agribusiness. One big farm owner said that many of the farm businesses are getting up to 40 percent of their gross revenues directly from the government. One family can receive up to $2 million a year ($1 million for the husband, $1 million for the wife.) These are not small families working in a farmhouse. These are high society elite business people, like George Bowles of San Francisco, who was director of the San Francisco Opera and a trustee of the Fine Arts Museums. He collected $1.19 million between 2003-2005.
The bill dangles some pretty little carrots, such as increases in conservation, nutrition, and food stamp programs. But the budgets for these programs are still not big enough to actually improve them and sustain them, and they don’t hold a candle to the billions agribusiness is receiving. If family farmers were allowed to fairly compete, perhaps they wouldn’t need food stamps.
There are some alternative propositions, such as spending less money by not giving huge subsidies to big agribusiness, and giving more money instead to small farmers who need it, and to sufficiently fund conservation and environmental programs.
Please read more about the Farm Bill. I posted links below.
Then take action!
1. Contact your senators. Tell them to block corporate welfare subsidies to agribusiness in their version of the bill.
2. Contact President Bush. Urge him to veto this bill if it does contain such subsidies.
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