Category: United States

Bureau of Reclamation Steps In

Tell the federal government what to do about the Colorado River.

The Colorado River’s use is governed by an agreement among the seven states that draw water from it, and that agreement is overseen by the Bureau of Reclamation, a part of the Department of the Interior. The current arrangement is completely inadequate to meet the growing demands of the water users and the dwindling water in the river. After the states blew past a couple of deadlines without putting together a new plan, the Bureau came up with a couple of ideas of their own and — this is the good part — they’ve published the plan and have opened it for comment. Wide open. You can comment.

“Reclamation is particularly interested in receiving specific recommendations related to the analyses or alternatives that can be considered and potentially integrated into the SEIS.” (Quote from Reclamation’s page linked in the next paragraph.)

Here’s the plan on the Bureau’s page: https://www.usbr.gov/ColoradoRiverBasin/SEIS.html

Brace yourself. It’s over 400 pages not counting the appendices. There has also been a lot in the press about the river’s woes lately, including a flurry of new articles about Reclamation’s proposals. Google is your friend. And there will be Zooms on May 4, 8, 10, and 16. Details are on that same page I linked to above.

If your head is clear enough to frame an opinion after all that, you can comment here: https://www.swcavirtualpublicinvolvement.com/cr-interimops-comment-form

School Lunches and Local Food

Local Food

The USDA wants to make it easier for schools to purchase food directly from local producers. As part of an effort to bring their rules into line with recommendations in their publication Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 they’re proposing to make it easier for schools to employ a “geographic preference” for local foods in their bidding process. School districts themselves decide whether this is something they want to do, and they define for themselves what “local” means.

I love it!

If you love it (or hate it) you have until April 10 to comment.

Scratch Cooking

There’s something else I found interesting in the proposed rule changes. They’re recommending that the salt allowed in school meals be further reduced. So far schools have been able to meet the low sodium requirements with processed foods that are readily available, but lowering salt even more would make that difficult. The alternative is scratch cooking — that is, cooking from scratch at the school or district site. Most schools don’t do that, and don’t have the staff, the skill, the time or the equipment for it. The USDA has therefore estimated the cost of remedying all that and included it in their proposed budget.

Scratch cooking is a big deal! When you buy ready-made food, that puts a lot of steps between you and the farmer. That gap is where giant food corporations live. They buy from farmers in huge quantities, process food pulled from all over the country and imported from other countries, and ship it everywhere for sale. Then they lobby the government with their generous profits to bend food policy in their favor.

The average farm size in Iowa is over 300 acres, and they grow a lot of corn and soy. No one is going to plant 300 acres in field corn to supply a local market, but if there IS no local market, what choice do they have? Schools (and hospitals and just plain folk) all doing scratch cooking could support a friendlier, healthier local food system.

Here’s a nice post on the subject: From Farms to Schools: How a New Roadmap Will Transform How We Feed California Schoolchildren.

Competition in the American Economy

Today President Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. It includes the agriculture sector.

  1. He intends for the Department of Agriculture to toughen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act by making rules that clearly identify unfair and unjust practices, reinforce the interpretation that a violation of the act doesn’t need to show harm to the whole industry – just one farmer is enough, dial back the practice of poultry companies controlling every aspect of a contract farmer’s operation while the farmer shoulders all the risk, updating the definitions and criteria for determining what is unfair under the Act, and shore up anti-retaliation protections for complainants under the Act. (The USDA had already announced on June 11 that it would begin work on the Packers and Stockyards Act.)
  2. He wants the USDA to fix country of origin labeling so consumers can tell where their food is from.
  3. He has directed the Department “to devise a plan to ensure that farmers have greater opportunities to access markets and receive a fair return for their products.” The order includes a list of suggested ways of doing this and ends with, “any other means that the Secretary of Agriculture deems appropriate.”
  4. In an attempt to ” to improve farmers’ and smaller food processors’ access to retail markets,” he is asking for a report on the effect of retail concentration “including any practices that may violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Robinson-Patman Act (Public Law 74-692, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. 13 et seq.), or other relevant laws” and also on “on grants, loans, and other support that may enhance access to retail markets by local and regional food enterprises.”
  5. And he’s ordered a report on ways in which intellectual property rights may “unnecessarily reduce competition in seed and other input markets.”

Public Comments to Federal Agencies

I was recently involved in my first attempt at making a public comment to a federal agency, in this case The Department of Agriculture. It was a great learning experience, though I’m sure we could do a much better job the second time around. My first lesson was that we need to allow LOTS of time for any collaborative effort. We were hard-pressed to meet the comment deadline, and that seriously constrained our efforts.

This resource will help us (the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles chapters of the Climate Reality Project) do a better job next time. And there will be a next time. The opportunity for public comment is too good to pass up!

How to Submit a Public Comment to a Federal Agency

County Urban Agriculture Committees

County Committees have deep roots

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.

… and they matter

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.

Urban ag committees are born

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?

Will Los Angeles get a committee?

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.

Maybe Vilsack will know!

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.

Update (4/14/21)

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.

Urban Ag

A short video from Community Alliance with Family Farmers about what urban farmers would like from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

I noticed a couple of small things…

  • Mention of a farm ID. What’s a farm ID?
  • One of the farmers is in Long Beach, not so far from me. It would be cool to work with her.
  • ALL farmers complain about the paperwork and reporting requirements for grants from the USDA, but it’s rougher for small farmers who don’t have farm managers or accountants on staff. I’ve heard slaughterhouses complain, too. The paperwork requirements, inspections, safety protocols etc. are all largely written with the help of lobbyists who represent large farming interests, and they can easily turn out to be barriers rather than benefits for the little guys.

Note to me: The small farmer in Long Beach was Sasha Kanno of Farm Lot 59.

Federal Farm Policy-AFT

Free Range Conversations from American Farmland Trust (AFT) talks about federal farm policy.

Streamed live on Jan 21, 2021

AFT’s 2021 Transition Recommendations:

  • Develop a USDA Cover Crop Initiative
  • Establish a Commission on Farm Transitions
  • Maximize the Economic and Environmental Benefits of ACEP-ALE
  • Strengthening the Farmland Protection Policy Act
  • Create a Debt for Working Lands Initiative

What’s the Beef?

Slow Food USA is offering a free, online panel discussion about meat that it’s framing as a way to begin talking about the 2023 Farm Bill.

Join us to examine the impacts of industrial-scale livestock production. We’ll hear perspectives from small-scale farmers and ranchers, humane animal husbandry, regenerative environmental practices, climate impact, and meat and poultry workers. This will serve as a launch point for the 2023 Farm Bill discussions. We’ll focus on Representative Pingree’s Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA) and Senator Booker’s Farm System Reform Act. After our conversation, we’ll give you simple steps to call your legislators to support the bills. This panel is curated by our National Food and Farm Policy committee.

https://slowfoodusa.org/slow-food-live/

A Slow Meat Panel with Matthew Raiford, Wednesday, February 10, 11am PST/2pm EST

REGISTER HERE

Progress Report-US

The whole point of this blog is that it’s a work in progress. Here’s my progreess so far on US policy. (Eventually I’ll get around to California and local policy.) First, I’m specifically interested in food production as it relates to climate. There are two federal bodies that deal primarily with food, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Only the first deals with issues that relate to climate, so I’ll be giving the FDA short shrift.

Legislation

  • Farm Bill – Passed roughly every five years, it’s the primary enabling legislation.
  • A trio of antitrust laws that seem ancient but are still very relevant given that the astonishing level of concentration in food production is seen by many as a problem:
    • Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
    • Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
    • Packers & Stockyards Act (P&SA, 1921)

Government Entities

Special Interests

I haven’t got very far with interest groups, but my sense is that there are lots of lobbyists and most of them are representing large business interests, not people whose only interest in food is eating it, or small farmers, or the rural communities that depend on farming. I see that as a problem. Open Secrets looks like a great site for getting up to speed on lobbyists. I’m sure I’ll be looking to if for help later.

That’s it for now, but I hope, in time, to expand all this… a LOT.