Earth Matters: In place of a farm bill, we need an agrarian reform act; hope for Pacific gray whales

The vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum, and including most media, don’t pay much attention to one of the most important packages of legislation Congress takes up every five years. That’s so even though it goes to the heart of how we feed ourselves, who feeds us, how this affects the socio-economic well-being of the nation and the world, how all of this interacts with nature, and how the powers-that-be keep dragging their feet in dealing with long-known problems in agricultural methodology and concentrated ownership.

The legislation is the farm bill, and the latest iteration is slated for approval in September. As always, the final product will cover a lot of ground, and there are provisions that would be good under any circumstances, at least in their intent. But breaking up agricultural monopolies, reducing extensive agricultural pollution on a broad scale, and incentivizing vast adjustments in farm practices because of climate change have little chance of being part of the package. As regards the latter the unlikely duo of Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa are working together on amendments they hope will survive the bill’s conference committee scrutiny.

In a stellar analysis on this year’s farm bill in the June issue of The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein succinctly explores several of the nooks and crannies of the complex trajectory of U.S. farm legislation over the past 90 years and how this affects the current bill. Here’s a brief taste: