WASHINGTON – EWG Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Scott Faber delivered the following remarks before the Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Conference on Tuesday, September 26.
The farm bill is more than a bill to help farmers.
Although it was first enacted during the Depression to address low crop prices, the farm bill has been amended 17 times – every five years or so – to address hunger, support rural communities, produce renewable energy, and, most recently, fight climate change.
But rather than help family farmers avoid economic ruin, as Congress intended, our farm safety net has evolved to serve the largest and most successful farmers – at the expense of their smaller neighbors.
Today only 30 percent of farmers grow the “major crops” that are eligible for farm subsidies, like corn and cotton. And the largest 10 percent of these farmers collect about two-thirds of these subsidies. Only 20 percent of farmers can afford to participate in our federal crop insurance program.
Most farmers – especially those in greatest need – not only get no help from our federal farm safety net, but most farmers have to compete for land against their larger, government-subsidized neighbors.
And now some members of Congress want to take a farm bill that already fails to serve most farmers and make it even less equitable – and they want to cut climate-smart funding to do so.
Rather than addressing other big food and farm challenges – like protecting workers, or supporting healthy diets, or making our food safer – these members of Congress want to move us backwards.
As Secretary Vilsack recently said, we’re at a pivotal moment for agriculture, our rural communities, and our climate.
Are we going to have a farm bill for the many? Or are we going to have a farm bill for the few?
Are we going to help small and medium-sized farmers prepare for the extreme weather already being caused by climate change?
Or are we going to, as Secretary Vilsack said, “maintain a status quo” that leads to too many farmers “struggling to cover their costs, too many rural communities languishing, and outdated . . . policies that all too often reinforce systemic inequities.”
As I said, some members of Congress want to make the inequities that are a feature of our farm safety net even greater – and, again, they want to cut the climate-smart funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act to do so.
In particular, they are proposing to increase price guarantees, or price floors, for major crops – even though higher price guarantees would mostly benefit fewer than 6,000 peanut, cotton and rice farmers in a few states.
As I said, only 30 percent of farmers grow the “covered commodities” that are eligible for subsidies, but only 1.3 percent of farmers grow peanuts, cotton and rice.
Of these, the largest 10 percent of farms received more than 80 percent of payments linked to price guarantees.
Increasing price guarantees – and cutting popular conservation programs that serve all farmers to pay for these increases – would certainly be a farm bill for the few, not the many.
This approach would divert spending from farmers in 38 states to primarily benefit farmers in 33 congressional districts. Many of these farmers have received subsidies for 37 consecutive years, and some have already collected more than $10 million from the taxpayer.
Secretary Vilsack is right: We are at a pivotal moment, especially when it comes to the climate crisis.
Farmers know that climate change is happening. They see it everyday.
And they want to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and take steps to prepare their farms for the extreme weather caused by climate change.
Here’s what else we know.
Agriculture is a significant – and growing – source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Nitrous oxide emissions from synthetic fertilizers and methane emissions from animals and their waste account for 11% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As other sectors reduce their emissions, agriculture’s share of U.S. emissions could increase – to 32% by 2050.
And here’s one more thing we know.
Extreme weather is also a growing threat to farms – and to our food supplies.
Climate change has already reduced agricultural productivity. And the extreme weather caused by climate change is increasingly damaging crops. More and more insurance payments are being made for climate-related losses, such as losses caused by drought, heat, floods and excess moisture.
The good news is that voluntary adoption of simple conservation practices can significantly reduce emissions – and help farms withstand extreme weather.
The widespread adoption of common farm conservation practices – such as crop rotation, cover crops, planting trees, and installing buffers – in the Corn Belt alone could reduce annual emissions by 4 million metric tons – or the equivalent of taking 1 million gasoline-powered cars off the road.
Other practices – such as changing how we feed animals, graze animals, and manage manure – could also reduce emissions.
Restoring some hard-to-farm lands to forest, grassland, or wetlands could create carbon sinks. Protecting grasslands from conversion is another way farmers can help protect and build soil carbon.
But until the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, most farmers offering to help reduce emissions were turned away by the Department of Agriculture.
Until Congress included almost $20 billion in the IRA, 75 percent of farmers and ranchers were turned away due to insufficient funding when they tried to get USDA conservation funding, and the number of farmers being turned away had been increasing.
More than 100,000 farmers were turned away when they sought USDA conservation assistance in 2022. What’s more, USDA was only able to finance 15 percent of the climate-smart projects recently proposed by groups of farmers offering to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The funding included in the IRA was the biggest investment in conservation since the Dust Bowl.
Even so, farmer demand for funding continues to outstrip available funds. USDA’s NRCS this year turned away 74 percent and 60 percent, respectively, from USDA’s two biggest working lands conservation programs. Demand for another program, which pays groups of farmers to work together to tackle environmental challenges, is $2 billion – or eight times greater than available funds.
Adopting these climate-smart practices is not just good for the climate.
Many of the practices that reduce emissions or build soil carbon – like riparian buffers – also provide important wildlife habitat or intercept and filter farm runoff, protecting drinking water supplies. Many of the climate-smart practices funded by USDA – like cover crops – can help reduce the economic damage caused by storms.
But until the IRA, most USDA conservation funding did not address the climate crisis.
Until the passage of the IRA, most of the funding for USDA’s two major working lands conservation programs – EQIP and CSP – did not flow to farmers adopting practices that reduce emissions.
So maintaining the climate “sideboards” in the IRA is critical to ensuring that USDA conservation funding flows to farmers adopting practices that reduce emissions or build soil carbon.
Here’s what is equally important: All farmers and ranchers – regardless of what they grow or whether they live – are eligible for climate-smart funding. So cutting IRA funding to increase price guarantees, as some have proposed, will harm farmers in 38 states in order to help a few cotton, rice and peanut farmers in just 33 districts.
Your voice is more important than ever.
Will we level the playing field and give small and medium-size farmers a chance against their large government-subsidized neighbors?
Or will we make access to our farm safety net even less equitable?
Will we help farmers reduce emissions and help farms better prepare to withstand extreme weather?
Or will we cut climate-smart spending to increase subsidies for the largest peanut, cotton and rice farmers?
So, tell Congress: We need a farm bill for the many, not the few. Tell Congress: We need to protect the climate-smart funding in the Inflation Reduction Act.
