August 2007 Newsletter

Congress is in recess for the month of August, and most representatives will be holding listening sessions with constituents. The single most effective thing you can do to make a difference on the farm bill is to attend and tell your elected representatives in person exactly how you feel.

Visit www.cfra.org/indistrict to see more information and a schedule of meetings in various states. If you learn your senator or representative is holding a meeting, let us know! Email dano@cfra.org or call 402.687.2100 and ask for Dan Owens.

I know it’s August, which is a lot closer to the middle of the year than the end. But someone, back in the day, invented the concept of the fiscal year.

As of this writing, almost 2,100 individuals have given a total of nearly $103,000 with over a month to go before the end of our fiscal year and our annual campaign. Last year we raised over $100,000 in contributions from over 2,000 individual donors. We are in the middle of a fight over the 2007 farm bill. And support from people just like you helps fund our most crucial and cutting-edge work.

Fourth in our continuing series, this month we share John Crabtree’s letter to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin about the kind of farm bill that rural America truly deserves

The farm bill debate in the U.S. House of Representatives has been, to say the least, disappointing. Increased and weakened farm payment limits will mean larger subsidy checks to the nation’s largest farm operations being used to drive more of their smaller neighbors out of business. The following are excerpts of a letter I wrote on behalf of my family to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) earlier this year.

Senator Harkin, no one will ever farm our farm again after we leave, not if things remain the way they are now. Of course, someone will till the soil, plant, and harvest. But no one will farm here; no one will live here.

Thanks to citizen activism, conservation, research, entrepreneurship, and beginning farm issues received a boost in the bill approved by the House ag committee

While disappointing in some significant respects, the farm bill passed out of the House of Representatives includes some promising new programs for rural America in response to the involvement of thousands of engaged rural Americans. We appreciate your efforts.

The House Agriculture Committee unanimously passed a farm bill that actually makes farm program payments to mega farms larger

The vote by the House Agriculture Committee to increase subsidies to the nation’s largest farms is a disservice to rural America.

Its version of the farm bill raised the true limit on direct payments made regardless of farm prices from $80,000 to $120,000. Mega farms get an additional $40,000 each year to drive their neighbors out of business. The increase is only for married mega farmers. Widows and bachelors take a small cut.

The central issue in the 2007 Farm Bill debate is: Should the federal government provide bigger subsidies to the nation’s biggest farms to drive their neighbors out of business? Or, should the Farm Bill focus on supporting family-size farms and investing in the future of rural communities?

To inform those questions, we recently released An Analysis of USDA Farm Program Payments and Rural Development Funding In Low Population Growth Rural Counties, a new report that compares farm subsidy payments received by the largest farm businesses with the rural development grants received by counties experiencing the most severe demographic and economic distress.

North Carolina: The State House voted 108-0 to ban the construction of new waste lagoons for hog farms. Despite being the second-largest producer of pork, North Carolina has had a moratorium on new lagoons for 10 years. The recent vote makes it permanent. All existing lagoons are grandfathered in. (Read more in this month’s Corporate Farming Notes.)

Maine: The largely-rural state recently enacted new legislation that authorizes tax credits to refund college loan payments for any Mainer who obtains a degree in the state, and then lives in and pays taxes in the state after graduation. Termed Opportunity Maine, the legislation offers an answer to the student debt crisis while also giving young people a reason to stay in the state.

Arts-based development embraces more than economic benefits; the arts define us and our culture and anchor us to one another

For the past two months, I have quoted the benefits of arts-based community development for rural communities. I used statistics describing the economic benefits of art and other cultural entertainment to help communities grow and prosper. You can find these statistics at www.artsusa.org.

Arts for America published the economic study to help promote communities and the benefits they can obtain by engaging people in the arts. I have received email from all over the country telling me how communities and regions are using arts and cultural awareness to everyone’s economic benefit.

Communities with limited employment opportunities also experience problems with the cost of local education and school funding

One problem many rural schools have is that they are seeing enrollments of challenged students increase as overall enrollment falls. This is happening in communities with limited employment prospects. The rules assume that children are the same everywhere, but fail to take into account that some children and their families are stuck in minimum wage, Quick Stop economies.

Quick Stop economies develop when people stop in your community only to buy fuel or food. Countless numbers pass through, but few choose to stay and build a life. It’s an economy of minimum wage jobs and little chance for advancement. Many of the children who are born and raised in Quick Stop areas learn to look elsewhere for opportunity.

Rural Development Initiatives, Inc. (RDI) is presenting the fifth annual Regards to Rural Conference. The 2007 conference opens on Thursday evening, October 25 and concludes Saturday afternoon, October 27, 2007 at Skamania Lodge along the Scenic Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

The Center for Rural Affairs’ Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP) is looking for a Hispanic Business Specialist. This position will help scale up REAP’s Hispanic Business Center work.

Position Description – This is a bilingual position, and the successful candidate must have the ability to speak fluent Spanish and English. The Hispanic Business Specialist will primarily aid in the development and expansion of small businesses in rural Nebraska and will assist in packaging and making small loans, provide business management education, and technical assistance.

Good employees are hard to find and harder to keep, especially if they face financial challenges outside of work. The Nebraska Appleseed center sponsors a project, Keeping Afloat, which partners with small businesses to connect employees with child care subsidies, food stamps, Medicaid and children’s health insurance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Rebecca Gonzales of Nebraska Appleseed says helping workers to access these services helps both the employee and the small business. “By providing additional income and support to employees, these benefits help small businesses reduce absenteeism, retain employees, and create a more stable work environment.”

North Carolina approves a permanent ban on swine waste lagoons; livestock market reforms largely absent from House farm bill

- In Raleigh, North Carolina, state legislators approved a bill on July 25, 2007, that permanently bans new swine waste lagoons and orders state environmental regulators to create environmental standards for all new waste systems.

Whole Foods Market, the nation’s largest natural foods supermarket chain, has announced the rollout of its Local Producer Loan Program. Whole Foods announced a year ago that it would increase its commitment to purchasing local foods for its stores across the country.

The loan program is part of that public campaign to encourage local farmers to become suppliers. The company plans to provide up to $10 million annually in low- interest loans to small producers in the U.S.