Restore Sustainability to Agriculture

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Eleven, Number Two
January/February 2002

Call To Action:

Restore Sustainability To Agriculture

The Conservation Security Act (CSA), along with other agriculture bills, died in a deadlocked Senate in 2001. These bills will be taken up again at the end of January when Congress returns. The 2001 versions are HR 2646 and S 1731.

The CSA would have rewarded farmers who care for the land by paying for the public (non-market) benefits of stewardship such as enhanced water quality, soil conservation and increased wildlife habitat. It was a bright spot in a package of agriculture bills that otherwise rewarded agribusiness interests — granting large subsidies to factory farms and "program corps" of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. An analysis by the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) shows that from 1996 to 2000, 10% of the nation's biggest subsidized crop producers received two thirds of all subsidies.

Proponents of factory farms succeeded in changing the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP) so that it can be used to fund construction of large-scale liquid manure lagoons, instead of being used by family farmers to improve the environmental performance of their farms.

Agribusiness interests were also successful in defeating a Competition Title in the Senate Ag Committee Bill that would have restored some measure of fairness to the livestock industry. Corporate meat packers consolidate their control of the hog and cattle market through acquisitions, and use direct ownership of livestock to force independent producers to take lower prices. A strong amendment to ban packer ownership of livestock was narrowly defeated by three votes. (1)

Now is the time to advocate for a more equitable, pro-family, farm bill, with limits on subsidies and more funding for conservation.

We must also develop alternative models that reflect the vision and values of economic and ecological and cultural sustainability. In Minnesota the Sustainable Farming Association, The Land Stewardship Project, The MN Insitute for Sustainable Agriculture and the Minnesota Project, recently released a 4-year study that showed farm profits and environmental performance on sustainable farms match and often exceed that of conventional farms.

However, as Dave Henson of the Program on Corporation, Law and Democracy points out, sustainable alternatives will become the norm "only if we dismantle the mechanisms of corporate rule. . . . Our most effective campaigns will be about what we put in our state constitutions, corporate codes and corporate charters, and about the laws we pass at the state, county, city and town council levels to define and enforce limits to corporate authority."

He goes on to remind us, "When challenging corporate rule on the local level, we need to be prepared to face legal attacks and economic threats which can pit one level of government against another. But this is also an opportunity to educate and mobilize a disregarded public." (2)

1. From "The Conservation Security Act," The Land Stewardship Letter, Sept./Oct. 2001, vol. 19, No. 4, LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake MN 55110 (www.landstewardshipproject.org).

2. From "Asserting Democratic Control of Food and Agriculture," by Dave Henson, By What Authority?, Fall 2001, vol. 4, no. 1, a publication of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, PO Box 246, S. Yarmouth MA 02664 (www.poclad.org).