Food Policy for Climate Activists
California and United States
The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is a California nonprofit. Their mission is: “To build sustainable food and farming systems through policy advocacy and on-the-ground programs that create more resilient family farms, communities, and ecosystems.”
This is a slide from one of their webinars:
The US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency had its origins (under another name) in the 1930s as part of an effort by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help farmers during the Great Depression. County committees of farmers have been a significant means for the agency to keep in touch with farmers on the ground since very early in that effort–so for nearly a century.
Today I listened to part of a hearing to review the state of Black farmers in the U.S. in which members of the House Agriculture Committee questioned Tom Vilsack, Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture. He also served as Secretary under Obama. One of the questions was from Alma Adams, a Democratic representative from North Carolina.
“What do you think might account for the steep drop in direct farm loans to Black producers and what steps is the USDA willing to take to increase that participation?” she asked.
Secretary Vilsack led off his reply by saying: “We have to have people in the Farm Service Agency offices and in the County Committees that reflect the population that they serve. When I was Secretary the last time, I did for the first time ever appoint minority members to County Committees that did not have minority membership. I think it’s important that we take a look a that County Committee structure.”
From this I draw the conclusion that County Committees matter.
That brings me to the most recent iteration of the Farm Bill in 2018. (There’s a new one every five years, more or less. I guess the Soviets weren’t the only ones enamored of five year plans.) It includes a pilot program to test the concept of County Urban Agriculture Committees. This was part of a larger plan to respond to the hitherto neglected topic of urban agriculture. By now there should be 10 of these pilot programs, but so far as I know, there are only 6, and none of them is in California. Will they create more? Will one be in Los Angeles?
I called our local Farm Service Agency (FSA) in Lancaster. Oddly no one in the Farm Service Agency there knew what I was talking about, but they eventually referred me to the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), another USDA agency with whom they share office space. The NRCS woman I spoke to was very helpful. I mean, really, she was great. But her answer on the question about urban ag committees was that they’re a pilot program run out of Washington, so no one local knows much about them. She, too, would love to see a committee formed in Los Angeles, but her take was it’s up to the guys in D.C.
Then I found an email address on a flyer having to do with the urban committees, so I shot off a quick note. I got a response from a USDA office in Puerto Rico. Why Puerto Rico? I have no idea. Certainly not because my correspondent there was a fount of useful information. The most germane tidbit he had to offer was the email address of someone else he said could provide more information on the off chance I was still curious.
I was.
So I emailed contact number 3, who turns out to work on county urban ag committees for the NRCS. Now I’m thinking that even though the ag committees for everyone else are handled out of the Farm Services Agency, the pilot for the urban ag committees is the National Resource Conservation Service’s baby, which, I suppose, is why my question to the Farm Service Agency in Lancaster was referred to the NRCS.
Why would the NRCS be running county urban ag committees when all the original county ag committees are under FSA’s umbrella? I’m guessing it’s because, after all, urban farms aren’t real farms, right? In farming circles, small farms are sometimes referred to, rather dismissively, as hobby farms, and hobby farms are not always taken very seriously by real farmers. I see their point, but from my perspective small farms have one very big factor making them interesting — they’re hotbeds of innovation. Urban farms suffer, though, not only from being small, but also urban. Maybe that’s more than the FSA can wrap its mind around? But that’s another story.
And my email to Washington? It’s been two weeks and I’m still waiting, but I’m guessing the guy is pretty busy. Maybe tomorrow, or next week. Better late than never.
That brings me to an email invite I got a couple of days ago to a “teletownhall” with American Farmland Trust President and CEO John Piotti talking to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. When I registered to attend, the site gave me the opportunity to submit a question, so I did. I asked if they’d be forming any new county urban agriculture committees and, if so, was there any chance Los Angeles would get one.
I’m not sure where to turn next if he doesn’t have a satisfying answer, but I’ll think of something. Never say die.
There were over 5500 people in attendance at the teletownhall with Secretary Vilsack; my question wasn’t among the chosen. Most of what he said wasn’t of great interest to me, but one point caught my attention. A caller asked if we could farm sustainably and still produce enough food for export. My sense was that the caller imagined sustainable farming would mean the end of industrial agriculture. Vilsack’s answer seemed to be that we could keep doing what we’re doing (industrial ag), but tweak it enough to be sustainable without sacrificing production. Maybe I’m reading too much into his comments, but I’m not looking to Vilsack to launch the crusade against concentration in agriculture that I’d like to see. He’s also keen on some kind of carbon bank, a means by which money would be collected from GHG emitters (a carbon tax?) and then doled out to farmers who engaged in carbon sequestering practices.
AB 125, a major agriculture bill, was introduced on December 18, 2020, as a placeholder, saying pretty much “more to follow.” Recently it’s got a lot of buzz, and there seemed to be a slew special interests plumping for their little bit of what would be a notable bond measure. Well, more is here. Yesterday, March 18, 2021, the placeholder was amended, and the bill has grown into a bond measure that adds a whole new division to the Public Resources Code.
Codes are bodies of state law on broad topics — Criminal Code, Civil Code, Business Code, Education Code, etc. I’d never heard of the Public Resources Code before, and I wonder why this bill is there rather than in the Food and Agriculture Code.
Each Code is subdivided into Divisions, they’re broken down into Parts and then Chapters and then Articles and so on. The point is, a Division is big. Way too big for me to be trying to read in the wee hours of the morning. Suffice it to say, we now have a $750 million $3.1 billion* bond act to parse. Are we having fun yet?
*I shouldn’t try to do this stuff in the middle of the night. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/climate-agriculture-targeted-in-3-billion-california-bond-bill
Yesterday, California Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) announced AB 125, a bill proposing a bond measure to support a variety of agriculture-related efforts. The grab-bag title is: The Equitable Economic Recovery, Healthy Food Access, Climate Resilient Farms and Worker Protection Bond Act. Right now the bill says, in its entirety: “It is the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation to issue a bond to support solutions to the climate crisis and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that would create a more equitable and resilient food and farming system.”
I’m not at all sure of legislative procedures for bonds, but this is what I think is going on:
Right now there’s a place-holder proposing that the legislature will pass a bond — so legislation saying practically nothing except that the legislature is planning to try to raise money for something ag-related. So what’s up with that? My understanding is that a coalition of special interests is working on the wording of the bill spelling out just what they’d like to do with the money if the bond passes. Representatives of some of those interested parties participated in the public announcement of the bill yesterday. You can see it here. So far as I can tell, their intentions align with my interests. Eventually, I suppose, they’ll amend AB 125 to spell out just how the legislature plans to spend a hefty sum of money.
That bill itself doesn’t include funding and only takes a simple majority to pass, but the bond proposal to raise the money to back the bill would require a 2/3 vote of the legislature AND voter approval, so the next step, assuming the process makes it through the legislature, is to put the bond measure on the November ballot in 2022 and give the California voters their say. It’s a 3-step process. The whole shebang could fall apart at any step:
All that means that if you want to support the bill, whatever it is, then the first step is to work on the legislators who need to get a bond proposal on the ballot, and the next step will be to convince the voters. The second step won’t matter if you don’t succeed on the first step.
And what will AB 125 do? My sense is that food and ag people are trying to pin down stable funding for projects that have been working hand-to-mouth for a while, and as a general principle, that sounds like a very good idea to me. Still, it’s hard to be sure what you think of a bill that’s essentially just a promise that some day a bill will be written. At the very least, it’s ant opportunity to jump in and see how the legislative machine works, and perhaps to witness a sea change in California’s legislative approach to food and agriculture.
Here’s a great post from CalCAN, one of the bill’s supporters: https://calclimateag.org/a-resilient-and-equitable-food-and-farming-system-in-california/
American Farmland Trust wants Californians to tell their legislators to fund five climate-friendly agriculture projects in the proposed state budget:
The state fiscal year begins on July 1, which means work as already begun on planning next years budget. It begins with the governor’s proposal in January, the legislature works on it for a while, then the governor produces the May Revise. By July the final bill should have been passed. Here’s a citizen’s guide to participating in the budget process produced by the California Senate. The proposed budget for 21-22 is online, but it’s hard (or impossible) to find information about how much money is going to any specific program.
This is a quick and dirty foray into food policy for climate activists, especially in the USA and California. I like to bounce ideas off other people, so, welcome! Add thoughts, add resources, it’s all good. I expect order to emerge from the welter but it could take a while. Hang in there. 🙂
Food Policy for Climate Activists 