The Farm Bill will affect many, if not most, Americans. How is it going? Not well. Photo: Chris Koerner @ flickr.

As we reported last October, the 2008 Farm Bill was set to expire in September of 2012. September came and went, but no new Farm Bill was passed. This is no small matter for those of us interested in food systems, as the bill covers the food stamps program (known as “SNAP”), subsidies for crop and dairy producers, and dozens of other programs that assist small farmers, rural development, farmland conservation, and ongoing agricultural research. As you can tell from this list, the bill is not just about farms, nor will it affect just farmers; it will affect many, if not most, Americans.

Much of the debate in Congress during 2012 centered around the $80 billion food stamp program and the billions in annual subsidies to growers of corn, soy, cotton, and rice. These subsidies have become more controversial in recent years because they encourage the growth of high calorie crops with relatively little nutritional content, discourage crop diversity, and because the majority of funds go to wealthy owners of large-scale farming operations rather than the struggling family farmers that the subsidies were meant to help. As seems to increasingly be the case in Washington, a heated debate led to an overdue, last minute compromise that appears to be the worst of both worlds.

With the “Fiscal Cliff” looming, Congress passed 112 H.R. 8, the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” on New Year’s Day. Title VII of the Act extended the 2008 Farm Bill through September of this year. Rather than making any changes or cuts to the big ticket items, the extension opts to cut funding to a variety of smaller, less newsworthy efforts, including grant programs to support research into higher quality organics, fruits, and vegetables, an education and outreach program for new and young farmers, a grant program to fund the creation of farmers markets and other direct-to-consumer efforts, and a cost share program that helped defray the cost of organic certification.

Sadly, the new “compromise” did very little to improve either the fiscal outlook of the nation or provide any long-term security to farmers or SNAP recipients, who must sit at the edge of their seats as  a second round of debate rages in D.C. about what to include in the 2013 Farm Bill. Direct payment program to commodity crop growers will continue for at least 9 months, even though there were many proposed reforms to this outdated program.

Instead, politicians focused on entirely eliminating the funding for a variety of forward-looking, progressive efforts. These were dollars that were being spent in ways that might actually provide a future with a more balanced, safe, and healthy American food system, with more local and organic options for consumers, and with more sustainable local economies from rural to urban areas of America. Programs such as these actually have the potential to reduce health care and energy costs by increasing the consumption of healthy, local foods. Sadly, these shortsighted cuts will be difficult to reverse at a time when Congress will likely be under pressure to come up with further cuts in a 2013 Farm Bill. We can only hope that the backlash from these events provides enough pressure on politicians that these or similar efforts will continue into the future.