If You're Poor, I Hope You're Not Hungry...What We Need To Know About the 2013 Farm Bill

The 2013 Farm Bill after an ad hoc extension of the old farm bill, is finally coming to a vote.  The two most worrisome portions, the decrease in SNAP food assistance to the poor and the continuation of crazy corporate handouts under the guise of farming subsidies.

Really, I am not necessarily so against the cutting some aspects of SNAP but I think limiting who qualifies for it is the wrong approach to savings  (SNAP is food assistance AKA food stamps...shhhhhh...no one will want to allow food stamps).  As previously discussed the SNAP program certainly leaves lots to be desired and more than condones the purchase of complete junk food.  See http://www.nutrimommy.com/2013/01/snap-supplemental-nutrition-assistance.html

But to cut $4.1 billion from it over 10 years instead of fix it...hmm. And, when there are so many other flaws in the Farm Bill which strongly favors corporate producers of shitty foods, oh, wait, I mean agribusiness as some call it.  So, anyway, the new Farm Bill being voted on by the senate finally after a year of debate and a vote to bring it to a vote (wow our tax dollars get eaten up in the processing). 

Furthermore, what about subsidies of commodities...I am very liberal, I get relying on government for appropriate stuff, but it seems to me if I start a business and prices are down I lose out, if milk makers start to produce a lot of milk and prices are down, they get paid the difference.  WTF?  Why does this not outrage free market Republicans?  If organic growers were paid the difference, they would then offer lower prices too.  Same with all of the producers of the non-factory, crop based health foods.  I pay a shitload for kale chips but the bottom line is I pay the market price.  If I were to buy the corn syrup, soy protein, bread, bread and more bread, milky, meaty typical American fare I would pay what the seller decided (it seems a touch of the subsidy is actually passed on to me...thus the unfortunate amount of junk food sales in the US), but the main ingredients are all subsidized commodities.  I don't worry about it, because I don't buy it.  Just saying, it is a pure fact that if corn used for corn syrup were not subsidized, we could save money on the Farm Bill and decrease health care costs. Win, win.

Why do some businesses have to be profitable without subsidies yet we subsidize the foods that make us fat sick and in a health care crisis we may never see the end of...

The National Corn Growers Association and the National Milk Producers Federation are pleased and want the Bill to pass...that alone is worrisome, GMO corn syrup and 800 calorie Starbucks milky drinks (do they even bother to add coffee to them anymore?) will get a competitive edge. 

Any help to small farms and organics?  The bill will fund some of the stranded programs that had been abandoned with a lack of funding.  So, more research, cost share programs, seems nothing earth shattering for new organic small start ups but maybe some small steps in the right direction.  Since 1995, about 75 per cent of the money spent on subsidies went to about 4 per cent of the farming community, all very large corporate agri-giants. So, this is really not a bill that is all about the old fashioned family farmer.