More on the 2007 Farm Bill

There's a great story in today's Chronicle about the reauthorization of the Farm Bill. The reporter explores the growing movement to reform the farm bill by shifting the focus of the bill away from primarily subsidizing farmers (and agribusiness) to providing more support for regional and sustainable farming, promoting more healthy foods and diets and encouraging more environmentally friendly policies. The chief complaint against past Farm Bills is that they have primarily supported farmers who grow only a handful of crops--corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat and rice--as opposed to fresh produce or livestock and that those foods, though cheap, are not actually good for us to eat. In April, Michael Pollan made a strong case for why what we've subsidized in the past has negatively affected our health.

I'm going to do some more research on the political organizing to change the bill, and I'll report back soon. I was pleased to see, however, that the Environmental Working Group, where my friend Dusty works, has compiled a database of farm subsidies for the last few years. Very interesting.

Last night, I picked up again my copy of Omnivore's Dilemma, which I had put down for the last month or so. I just finished reading the section in which Pollan writes about Joel Salatin's farm, Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia. Swoope is about 40 miles or so from Lexington, Virginia, where I grew up, and I was delighted to read that such an iconoclastic farmer is challenging the conventional wisdom in the Shenandoah Valley. This is the kind of farming a new farm bill ought to support.