Center Co-sponsor of Food and Family Farm Presidential Summit
The 2007 Food and Family Farm Presidential Summit was a day to appreciate the food that sustains us and to consider the needs of those who raise it. Held Saturday, November 10, at the Downtown Mariott in Des Moines, Iowa, the summit featured speakers throughout the day – including the Center’s own John Crabtree – punctuated by appearances from five candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination: Illinois Senator Barack Obama, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, and New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
Iowa Farmers Union, which hosted the event, invited all presidential candidates, though the only Republican elected official to address the summit was Iowa’s senior Senator Charles Grassley, co-sponsor of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment to the farm bill, which the Center strongly supports. Like the five presidential candidates and perhaps some other distinguished guests, Grassley received a warm welcome and a standing ovation. He also took questions from the audience.
The Center for Rural Affairs was one of eight co-sponsors of the event, and the theme of the day was clearly “Vote Family Farms,” an appeal featured prominently on the buttons distributed by Iowa Farmers Union and worn by so many in attendance, including speakers. In that spirit, John Crabtree, the Center’s Development and Outreach Officer, addressed the summit with “Getting a Fair Deal at the Meat Counter and Beyond.”
“If an abandoned barn collapses in rural America and nobody’s there to hear it, does that mean that farm policy has failed?” Crabtree asked rhetorically in a speech advocating the Dorgan-Grassley amendment and a federal ban on packer ownership of livestock. “No more farm bills that undermine rural communities and drive family farms out of business,” he entreatied. “Small and mid-sized farms and ranches have demonstrated time and again that they can match or beat the costs of production in the packers’ industrial facilities. … Family farmers are efficient.”
The summit attracted a cadre of journalists from the U.S. and abroad. Each candidate addressed a room of 30 or 40 reporters immediately after speaking to the crowd, a newspaper reporter from Prague sitting at our table told me. The Czech reporter, who introduced himself to me as Theodore, is the top foreign correspondent for the leading daily newspaper in the Czech Republic, MF Dnes.
He was one of 15 foreign journalists brought to the event by the U.S. State Department. Like another journalist I spoke to – a Washington-based correspondent for New York Newsday – Theodore was there primarily to cover Clinton’s speech. Late in the day we also spotted Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet the Press” ascending the escalator.
Flanked on either side by three Secret Service agents carefully scanning the crowd, Senator Clinton was the last of the presidential candidates to speak. She was followed by Congressman Bruce Braley from Iowa’s first district, the final speaker of the day.
Contributed by: Judy Snyder, visiting journalist. Judy made a brief stay at the Center’s Lyons office this fall, helping with media efforts.
Iowa Farmers Union, which hosted the event, invited all presidential candidates, though the only Republican elected official to address the summit was Iowa’s senior Senator Charles Grassley, co-sponsor of the Dorgan-Grassley amendment to the farm bill, which the Center strongly supports. Like the five presidential candidates and perhaps some other distinguished guests, Grassley received a warm welcome and a standing ovation. He also took questions from the audience.
The Center for Rural Affairs was one of eight co-sponsors of the event, and the theme of the day was clearly “Vote Family Farms,” an appeal featured prominently on the buttons distributed by Iowa Farmers Union and worn by so many in attendance, including speakers. In that spirit, John Crabtree, the Center’s Development and Outreach Officer, addressed the summit with “Getting a Fair Deal at the Meat Counter and Beyond.”
“If an abandoned barn collapses in rural America and nobody’s there to hear it, does that mean that farm policy has failed?” Crabtree asked rhetorically in a speech advocating the Dorgan-Grassley amendment and a federal ban on packer ownership of livestock. “No more farm bills that undermine rural communities and drive family farms out of business,” he entreatied. “Small and mid-sized farms and ranches have demonstrated time and again that they can match or beat the costs of production in the packers’ industrial facilities. … Family farmers are efficient.”
The summit attracted a cadre of journalists from the U.S. and abroad. Each candidate addressed a room of 30 or 40 reporters immediately after speaking to the crowd, a newspaper reporter from Prague sitting at our table told me. The Czech reporter, who introduced himself to me as Theodore, is the top foreign correspondent for the leading daily newspaper in the Czech Republic, MF Dnes.
He was one of 15 foreign journalists brought to the event by the U.S. State Department. Like another journalist I spoke to – a Washington-based correspondent for New York Newsday – Theodore was there primarily to cover Clinton’s speech. Late in the day we also spotted Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet the Press” ascending the escalator.
Flanked on either side by three Secret Service agents carefully scanning the crowd, Senator Clinton was the last of the presidential candidates to speak. She was followed by Congressman Bruce Braley from Iowa’s first district, the final speaker of the day.
Contributed by: Judy Snyder, visiting journalist. Judy made a brief stay at the Center’s Lyons office this fall, helping with media efforts.
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