We've emerged from our collective post-House of Representatives farm bill funk to post some final thoughts. Then we're moving on to the Senate, where we have high hopes for a decent farm bill, especially one that addresses our all-consuming quest for payment limitations. In no particular order, here we go.

Most absurd statement during the House floor debate, courtesy of Marion Berry (D-AR):

The only reason the farm bill exists is to ensure adequate food production and processing so the American people have enough to eat and clothes on their backs.

That is probably a slight paraphrase but I wrote it down as he said it. If that is truly the case, then I suppose we can get rid of all conservation and rural development programs to start off. And the "clothes on their backs" line? That's in there for big cotton. Because, you know, you can't eat cotton, but they still average $213 per acre in government support. And I'm not sure where food "processing" comes in.

But the broader point would be that we don't have any problems producing food in this country. And we never have, not even before farm programs existed. If all we really care about is ensuring a food supply, the market will take care of that. People have to eat, you know. And if we're worrying about people being able to afford food, then just provide more money in food stamps. Farm programs should exist to benefit the type of farming we want to see in this country. We don't know how you justify farm programs on the basis of food production alone. The issue of people having enough to eat is a distribution issue, not a production one.

In depressing news, this came across my email inbox last week:

The Grocery Manufacturers Association has a new vice president for federal affairs. Scott Faber, most recently a campaign director at Environmental Defense, has joined the trade association that represents food, beverage and consumer products companies. At Environmental Defense, Faber managed the group's national campaign for federal farm policy reform. Faber has also served as senior director for public policy at American Rivers. Former Rep. Calvin (Cal) Dooley, D-Calif., is president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Everyone has a right to work where they choose. And I'm sure Mr. Faber has the best of intentions. But leaving right in the middle of a Farm Bill campaign? For this? This is the sort of stuff that raises our blood pressure to dangerous levels. And here's a partial list of some Grocery Manufacturers Association members (ones you probably have heard of):

Alcoa Consumer Products Company Altria Group Inc. Archer Daniels Midland Cargill, Incorporated Coca-Cola Company ConAgra Foods, Inc. Dean Foods Company

General Mills, Inc. Hormel Foods Corporation Kellogg Company Monsanto PepsiCo, Inc. Time, Inc. Unilever

Ugh. Full list here. It doesn't get much better. I wish Mr. Faber the best of luck, and hopefully he'll have the opportunity to positively influence GMA's positions. Maybe take Environmental Defense's position on genetically engineered food over to GMA, who think it's perfectly safe and consumers shouldn't have a label even if they want one.

Here's a link to Ethicurean's post on some good news in the House farm bill. Interstate shipment of state-inspected meat rocks! We hope many, many states take advantage of this provision.

Senator Chuck Grassley, expressing his feelings regarding the House's payment limits sham reform:

"The million dollar cap is a laugh, a joke. It does nothing."

And to think we took a thousand words to say the same thing. Typical of us.

During the House debate, Rep. Rosa DeLauro noted that large numbers of rural children use food stamps. Here in the home office, resident research expert Jon Bailey sent us some data on that point:

• Rural Americans disproportionately use the food stamp program – 21% of food stamp beneficiaries live in a rural area (compared to 16% of the nation’s population)
• 10% of rural residents use food stamps (compared to 7% of urban residents)
• 40% of rural residents that receive food stamps are children (compared to 25% of the rural population being children) – that may be the 40% figure used by Rep. DeLauro
• Compared to urban food stamp recipients, rural recipients are: more likely to be white, less likely to be black or Hispanic, more likely to be married, more likely to live in the South
• More rural children use the school lunch program (79% of rural vs. 68% of urban)
• More rural children receive free or reduced price school lunch (31% of rural vs. 25% of urban)
• Rural children disproportionately receive free or reduced school lunch – 19% of children receiving a free or reduced price lunch live in a rural area (compared to 15% of the nation’s school age children who live in a rural area)
• Rural children are more likely to receive free or reduced price lunch than urban children regardless of race or ethnicity

From the report "Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs Alleviate Food Insecurity in Rural America”,[pdf fact sheet] put out by the Carsey Institute. Hopefully people will stop talking about how the nutrition title exists only for urban people. That may have been true 40 years ago (we doubt it), but it is certainly not true now.

Lastly, the New York Times has an editorial on a new online map of enormous livestock production facilities, which come with equally enormous lagoons full of the stuff that results from hog bodily functions. We particularly enjoy the last paragraph, and wish we had written it:

It’s important to read this map not as a static record of farm sites or a mere inventory of animals. It is really a map of overwhelming change and conflict. It raises two of the fundamental questions facing American agriculture. Do we pursue the logic of industrialism to its limits in a biological landscape? And how badly will doing so harm the landscape, the people who live in it and the democracy with which they govern themselves?