OCA: Take Action

Farm Bill 2008--Support Community Food Projects and a Strong Nutrition Title

To make a difference, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for the office of your Senators and Representative. When they connect you to those offices, ask for the person who works on nutrition issues in the Farm Bill. Tell them you are a constituent and that your legislator needs to voice his or her support to the Farm Bill conference committee for $10 million increase in mandatory money for Community Food Projects. While you have them on the phone, please reiterate your support for strong geographic preference language allowing schools to purchase from local farmers and for the Healthy Food Enterprise Development Center.

Then, call 1-800-826-9624 to urge Congress to pass the strongest possible nutrition title of the Farm Bill (H.R. 2419). Tell Members that it is vital to fund improvements in food stamp benefits and food stamp access as well as to boost purchases for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). The toll-free line to the U.S. Capitol (1-800-826-9624) is made available by AARP.

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November 21, 2009

Subject:

Please support new farm bill policies that will advance local food systems, organic agriculture, the environment, nutrition assistance, and beginning farmers.

We need to expand farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture (CSAs), and other direct producer-to-consumer marketing opportunities.

We need to help school children gain access to good food grown by nearby farms.

We need more funding for Community Food Project Grants to help more low-income communities feed themselves through urban garden projects.

We need more federal support for organic production and research. We need to help farmers with their organic certification costs, as well as the costs associated with the three-year conversion from conventional to organic. We need to increase funding for organic research and improve crop insurance policies for organic producers.

We need to support the next generation of farmers. The average farmer in the U.S. is nearing retirement age and over 400 million acres of farmland are expected to transition to new ownership in the next couple of decades. We need to target farm bill funds to training and mentoring. We need to reduce interest rates for down-payment loans, and set aside conservation program funds for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers. We need a new Office on Small Farms and Beginning and Socially Disadvantaged Farmers at USDA that reports directly to the Secretary of Agriculture.

We need additional funding for conservation programs including for the Wetlands and Grasslands Reserve Programs and the Conservation Stewardship Program (formerly the Conservation Security Program), an innovative program that makes "green" payments to farmers and ranchers for environmental stewardship.

We need an Office of Farm Workers to protect farm workers who regularly suffer from workplace abuses, including modern-day slavery. (There have been six successful federal prosecutions of farm labor operations for servitude in Florida over the past decade, and a seventh was just initiated, involving well over 1,000 workers and more than a dozen farm employers.)

We need increases for nutrition assistance, including food stamps (especially vital at a time of rapidly escalating food costs).

Please support full funding for these programs as well as larger structural reforms, including a strong Livestock Competition Title, a commodity payments phase-out, and tougher restrictions on agricultural commodity trading.

For more information on all of these proposals, you can contact the Farm and Food Policy Project or the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

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Farm Bill 2008--Support Community Food Projects and a Strong Nutrition Title