Published May 24, 2010
In political food fight, critics fire at USDA program
By Sarah Carlson
Check out this recent article from Kansas City star. The numbers are outstanding: Bruce Babcock, an economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, said it was “ironic” that Roberts and others objected to the USDA spending $65 million on Know Your Farmer.Babcock pointed out that commodity producers received $5 billion over the last two years, and the crop insurance industry received $7 billion. Comments?
In political food fight, critics fire at USDA program
By DAVID GOLDSTEIN
The Star’s Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON | There’s a food fight raging between Capitol Hill and the Agriculture Department and it is about small potatoes.
Organic small potatoes.
And big ones, too, as well as peas, beans, melons, beef and poultry. Just about anything, in fact, that is farm-raised and edible.
Three Republican senators — including Pat Roberts of Kansas — have complained that a USDA effort to educate the public about where food comes from slights “conventional farmers who produce the vast majority of our nation’s food supply.”
Roberts and colleagues John McCain of Arizona and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia complained to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that his agency spent $65 million last year on a program aimed at “small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets.”
In so many words, take your arugula and shove it.
The USDA calls the program “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” It has no money of its own, but has spent other federal agricultural dollars to further its goals, including farm bill funds to aid locally grown food projects.
These include grants to support farmers markets from Kansas to California, crop productivity and management efforts in Missouri and Alaska, and organic agriculture research in North Carolina and Washington.
Bruce Babcock, an economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, said it was “ironic” that Roberts and others objected to the USDA spending $65 million on Know Your Farmer.
Babcock pointed out that commodity producers received $5 billion over the last two years, and the crop insurance industry received $7 billion.
“We should welcome alternative producers if we want to see entrepreneurship grow in rural America,” he argued. “How can it hurt? It can only help.”
Roberts, a former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and member of the Senate agriculture committee, said last week that he never meant to sound dismissive of small farmers and niche producers, or their customers.
“The more people that go to the farmers markets, the more people understand agriculture and they eat a better diet,” Roberts said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it ought to be encouraged. … But you can’t go back to Walden Pond agriculture and expect to feed America.”
Still, supporters of Know Your Farmer — such as Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center — said that critics have ignored the program’s larger goals: to spread the word about the economic value of local food production and thereby preserve America’s rural heritage.
About 40,000 midsized farms disappeared between 2002 and 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For many, it has become too costly to compete. They’re too big to directly market their own goods, but often not big enough to go wholesale.
“Towns are emptying in western Kansas because medium-sized farms don’t count any more,” said Nagengast, whose agency is a nonprofit research and family farm advocacy group. “Generally, he’s (Roberts) got better judgment than to gratuitously dismiss something the health industry, environmental industry, rural development industry and people in small towns are interested in. It’s a whole other layer of the economy that he’s dismissing.”
The Agriculture Department’s efforts reflect a growing movement toward healthier eating and fresh-from-the-farm cooking. And it embraces more than just foodies who devour issues of “Bon Appétit” and scour farmers markets for the perfect baby eggplant.
Followers include everyone from public school officials who want to cut out fats and sugar from their cafeteria menus, to restaurateurs such as Jane Zieha, whose Blue Bird Bistro on Kansas City’s West Side has been serving farm-to-table food for a decade.
“I am working very hard to change the myth that local food — you know what you’re consuming and who’s growing it — is only for the affluent,” Zieha said. “My customers come from all walks of life.”
It has no bigger symbol than first lady Michelle Obama, who planted a vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House and is leading a campaign against childhood obesity. Just last week, several major food manufacturers, spurred by her efforts, agreed to start offering more healthy choices.
Other supporters of the USDA program include Diana Endicott, who runs a 400-acre naturally raised cattle ranch with her husband, Gary, near Fort Scott, Kan. She helped organize an alliance of 100 or so other organic farmers and sees nothing wrong with giving a boost to those who aren’t into tilling 10,000 acres.
“Know Your Farmer is not saying we support only small-scale agriculture,” said Endicott, who sells her beef and organic tomatoes to several local supermarkets and a food cooperative. “We need to be educated about our food and we need to know how to make wise choices. We have a new generation of farmers coming and people who want to be reconnected to land. It’s trying to find the right balance for everyone to be able to participate.”
The latest political squabble dates to the rise in popularity of organic food, when its producers felt that the USDA was ignoring them and only listening to big agriculture. It’s been a battle for who has the USDA’s ear ever since.
The American Farm Bureau, the industry voice, declined to comment on Know Your Farmer, beyond calling it “a good thing” that members of Congress and the USDA were talking, according to spokesman Mace Thornton.
But the criticism from some could hint that the conventional farming industry is concerned that advocates of organic and community supported agriculture are gaining in popularity and influence.
“In this Department of Agriculture, they have a more sympathetic view,” said former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter, who served under the first President Bush. “They have been able to get significantly increased funding for what they like to do. Know Your Farmer fits that overall niche very nicely.”
But Yeutter shares some of the critics’ concerns. If there is more attention to smaller farms, he noted, “How do you feed the immense number of people in the world, and the additional 3 billion likely to be here by 2050?”
Organic small potatoes.
And big ones, too, as well as peas, beans, melons, beef and poultry. Just about anything, in fact, that is farm-raised and edible.
Three Republican senators — including Pat Roberts of Kansas — have complained that a USDA effort to educate the public about where food comes from slights “conventional farmers who produce the vast majority of our nation’s food supply.”
Roberts and colleagues John McCain of Arizona and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia complained to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that his agency spent $65 million last year on a program aimed at “small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets.”
In so many words, take your arugula and shove it.
The USDA calls the program “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” It has no money of its own, but has spent other federal agricultural dollars to further its goals, including farm bill funds to aid locally grown food projects.
These include grants to support farmers markets from Kansas to California, crop productivity and management efforts in Missouri and Alaska, and organic agriculture research in North Carolina and Washington.
Bruce Babcock, an economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, said it was “ironic” that Roberts and others objected to the USDA spending $65 million on Know Your Farmer.
Babcock pointed out that commodity producers received $5 billion over the last two years, and the crop insurance industry received $7 billion.
“We should welcome alternative producers if we want to see entrepreneurship grow in rural America,” he argued. “How can it hurt? It can only help.”
Roberts, a former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and member of the Senate agriculture committee, said last week that he never meant to sound dismissive of small farmers and niche producers, or their customers.
“The more people that go to the farmers markets, the more people understand agriculture and they eat a better diet,” Roberts said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it ought to be encouraged. … But you can’t go back to Walden Pond agriculture and expect to feed America.”
Still, supporters of Know Your Farmer — such as Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center — said that critics have ignored the program’s larger goals: to spread the word about the economic value of local food production and thereby preserve America’s rural heritage.
About 40,000 midsized farms disappeared between 2002 and 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For many, it has become too costly to compete. They’re too big to directly market their own goods, but often not big enough to go wholesale.
“Towns are emptying in western Kansas because medium-sized farms don’t count any more,” said Nagengast, whose agency is a nonprofit research and family farm advocacy group. “Generally, he’s (Roberts) got better judgment than to gratuitously dismiss something the health industry, environmental industry, rural development industry and people in small towns are interested in. It’s a whole other layer of the economy that he’s dismissing.”
The Agriculture Department’s efforts reflect a growing movement toward healthier eating and fresh-from-the-farm cooking. And it embraces more than just foodies who devour issues of “Bon Appétit” and scour farmers markets for the perfect baby eggplant.
Followers include everyone from public school officials who want to cut out fats and sugar from their cafeteria menus, to restaurateurs such as Jane Zieha, whose Blue Bird Bistro on Kansas City’s West Side has been serving farm-to-table food for a decade.
“I am working very hard to change the myth that local food — you know what you’re consuming and who’s growing it — is only for the affluent,” Zieha said. “My customers come from all walks of life.”
It has no bigger symbol than first lady Michelle Obama, who planted a vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House and is leading a campaign against childhood obesity. Just last week, several major food manufacturers, spurred by her efforts, agreed to start offering more healthy choices.
Other supporters of the USDA program include Diana Endicott, who runs a 400-acre naturally raised cattle ranch with her husband, Gary, near Fort Scott, Kan. She helped organize an alliance of 100 or so other organic farmers and sees nothing wrong with giving a boost to those who aren’t into tilling 10,000 acres.
“Know Your Farmer is not saying we support only small-scale agriculture,” said Endicott, who sells her beef and organic tomatoes to several local supermarkets and a food cooperative. “We need to be educated about our food and we need to know how to make wise choices. We have a new generation of farmers coming and people who want to be reconnected to land. It’s trying to find the right balance for everyone to be able to participate.”
The latest political squabble dates to the rise in popularity of organic food, when its producers felt that the USDA was ignoring them and only listening to big agriculture. It’s been a battle for who has the USDA’s ear ever since.
The American Farm Bureau, the industry voice, declined to comment on Know Your Farmer, beyond calling it “a good thing” that members of Congress and the USDA were talking, according to spokesman Mace Thornton.
But the criticism from some could hint that the conventional farming industry is concerned that advocates of organic and community supported agriculture are gaining in popularity and influence.
“In this Department of Agriculture, they have a more sympathetic view,” said former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter, who served under the first President Bush. “They have been able to get significantly increased funding for what they like to do. Know Your Farmer fits that overall niche very nicely.”
But Yeutter shares some of the critics’ concerns. If there is more attention to smaller farms, he noted, “How do you feed the immense number of people in the world, and the additional 3 billion likely to be here by 2050?”