Farm to Family Connection - Commentary

FARM TO FAMILY COMMENTARY
---Select commentary from a weekly column by Curt Arens published in the Cedar County News, Hartington, NE

October 2007

Food Security is Farm Security

Dear Friends,

If you pay attention to mainstream media, you might think that the ongoing battle for a new Farm Bill is all about direct payments to farmers. Of course, many farmers pay attention to this part of the bill and the legislative process that produces it, because it is important in budgeting for years to come.

But there are tons of programs, including food initiatives and some innovative conservation and family farm friendly concepts beyond the payment title, that have a lot more to do with the vocation of farming - producing food - than direct payments.

The Community Food Project competitive grant program (CFP), for instance, received a paltry $5 million mandatory funding from the massive $100 billion dollar 2002 Farm Bill, but has, unfortunately, been cut from mandatory spending in the House version of this new bill. You might ask why this little program matters at all to farmers in Nebraska.

Because of the program’s grassroots nature, it provides money to aid those who need it, in developing programs and projects that help low-income folks who don’t have access to "real", farm fresh food. With the explosion of nearly 1250 new farmers markets around the country since the last Farm Bill, with the addition of 1000 schools now purchasing some food for their cafeterias from local patrons who are farmers, and with over 1200 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms springing up, consumers are "hungry" for farm fresh food raised by folks who live in their own communities.

Sadly, many inner-city families, with limited incomes, do not have access to even basic food products from a full-service, retail grocery store within any real proximity of their neighborhoods, and don’t have that local food security. They rely entirely on food purchased from a neighboring convenience store, paying premium prices for food that doesn’t meet their health needs. CFP provides grants that help farmers markets, community gardens and new youth initiatives sprout up in these neighborhoods.

Projects like the City Sprouts and United Methodists for Mission and Justice in Omaha and Open Harvest Natural Food Cooperative and Lincoln Action Program in Lincoln, have enjoyed CFP funding. The program has helped families and farmers in all 50 states, and unlike most government programs, funds grassroots concepts that are proposed and carried out by the folks living in these cities, neighborhoods and farms.

I think that if we are only concerned, in this important battle for the heart and soul of a Farm Bill, with how much direct payments will be on the line, then we have lost sight of what it means to be a farmer. Farming the land, in my humble opinion, is a privilege. As we know, making a living from the land is a privilege with some pretty serious responsibilities, like trying to feed the world.

So if we are going to pay attention to the payment title of the Farm Bill, and if we are going to contact our legislators and ask for funding for families living on the land, then we might also consider asking for funding for projects like CFP that do not break the bank, but instead give a leg up to the folks who are dependent upon our vocation – the families who eat our food.

Hope you have a good week.