Making wise investments for our nation’s future

The measure we commonly call the “farm bill” is the single most important piece of legislation for improving the quality of life and economic vitality of our rural communities. It is also a food, agriculture, conservation and energy bill, which is of critical importance to every American and has very significant consequences and ramifications around the globe. This bill must make investments for the future –investments in our food assistance programs and fresh fruits and vegetables in schools, renewable energy production, environmental incentives and rural economic development – while at the same time ensuring strong farm income protection. 

Since the last farm bill, dramatic new energy challenges have come into focus: oil prices have more than doubled, global warming is now beyond dispute, and we have grown even more dependent on oil imports from some of the most unstable regions of the world.  One urgent solution to these problems is to boost production of clean, home-grown, renewable energy.  But for this to happen, we need to make major investments in research.  We need to ramp up production of new energy crops such as biomass.  And we need to jump-start markets for these new energy crops.  To do these things, we need a new bill to build on the first-ever energy title in the 2002 farm bill.

With millions of acres of fragile, erodable land being taken out of the Conservation Reserve Program and put into production, we have an acute need to boost investments in conservation, especially conservation on working lands.  As Fred Wilson, a farmer in Clearfield, Iowa, told me: “Given the soil types and structure in this area, if you don’t no-till, you’re in trouble down the road.”  Fred is at the forefront of conservation.  Yet, the most recent National Resources Inventory found that 102 million acres of cropland are eroding at a rate that is depleting the land’s capacity to continue to grow crops.  We need to support new practices on working lands and restore some of the damage done to the Conservation Security Program. 

Today, in Iowa and elsewhere, rural communities face enormous challenges.  Half of America’s rural counties lost population from 2000 to 2005.  In Iowa, 66 percent of rural counties lost population over the last decade.  And we know that two-thirds of family farm income does not come from the farm, but from activities off the farm, such as jobs in town.  In many places, the loss of population and jobs has created a negative cycle that feeds on itself.  In the new farm bill, we have an opportunity to help reverse this destructive dynamic. 

Earlier this year, our Senate Agriculture Committee heard testimony from Rhonda Stewart, a working mother from Ohio, who told us how her food stamp benefits run out toward the end of each month.  When that happens, she and her son are forced to rely on cheaper, less nutritious food.  Because of inflation, these cuts grow deeper every year, shrinking the purchasing power of families who are struggling with high costs of food, transportation, and child care. 

As a result of these cuts, a typical working parent with two kids will receive about $37 less each month — a cut of almost $450 a year.  The new farm bill is an opportunity to reverse this devastating trend and to protect our poorest families.

A top priority of this bill is continuing a strong farm income protection.  I favor a system that places a stronger focus on paying farmers when their incomes fall, and when they really need help.  But we also need to create a system that is fairer — both to farmers and to taxpayers.  We cannot go forward with a system that paid more than $1 billion to the estates of deceased farmers, and doled out another $1.3 billion to landowners who don’t even farm the land at all.

So, obviously, as we go forward with a new farm bill, the stakes are very high.  We can’t afford to settle for an extension of the status quo — not in terms of budget, and not in terms of policy.  We need to secure additional funding.  And we need to hammer out a farm bill that meets the needs of the future.  We’ve made progress to date.  But there is still much work to be done.

Harkin is chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

Special section: Agriculture

A better way to provide farmers with financial security while reducing the cost to taxpayers
Farm bill: Helping America’s working families
Agriculture: Cornerstone of a nation
Making wise investments for our nation’s future
Farm bill is fiscally and environmentally prudent while maintaining a safety net
Righting the wrongs of the farm bill
Fighting for specialty crops