Friends of the Earth Statement on House Republican and Senate Democrat Farm Bill Proposals

After months of delay, House Republicans and Senate Democrats unveiled dueling Farm Bill priorities today. The House’s bill slashes nutrition programs and climate-focused conservation funding in order to boost commodity crop production. It also includes the EATS Act, which is opposed by 200 Members of Congress and more than 150 organizations. The EATS Act could wipe out many existing states’ environmental, health and safety laws related to agriculture, effectively overturning a Supreme Court ruling to uphold California’s Proposition 12, which bans extreme forms of animal confinement.

In contrast, the Senate’s Farm Bill summary provides a starting point to advance a more just, healthy and sustainable food system by protecting nutrition programs, investing in popular conservation programs, and recognizing procurement as a critical lever to improve the food system.

In response, Friends of the Earth’s senior program manager Chloe Waterman issued the following statement:

House Republicans have proposed a dead-on-arrival Farm Bill framework that puts Big Ag’s profits over everyone else: communities, family farmers, consumers, states and local rule, farmed animals, and the planet. Senate Democrats are off to a much better start than the House, but they have also fallen short by failing to shift subsidies and other support away from factory farming and pesticide-intensive commodities toward diversified, regenerative, and climate-friendly farming systems. We are particularly concerned that millions of dollars intended for climate mitigation will continue to be funneled to factory farms, including to support greenwashed factory farm gas.

Friends of the Earth recently published a report, Biogas or Bull****?: The False Promise of Manure Biogas as a Methane Solution, that documents ways in which manure biogas production undermines environmental justice and exacerbates industry consolidation – for methane reduction benefits that are overstated by the U.S. government, inadequately tracked, and insufficient to meet global methane targets.