Farm Bill Helps ‘Factory Farms,’
VLS Told, But Welch Sees Progress
By Sara Nelson

While the U.S. House of Representatives was passing its version of the farm bill on Friday afternoon, Bill McKibben and fellow environmental writer Dan Imhoff were discussing issues surrounding the bill in a public forum at the Vermont Law School in South Royalton.

If the size of the crowd and the hour-and-a-half-long question and answer period are any indication, it is a topic some Vermonters are very interested in.

More than 70 people packed into the basement lecture hall to hear McKibben, who is scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College and author of "Deep Economy," and Imhoff, a farmer and publisher from California who was promoting his new book, "Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill"

The authors were invited by Marian White as part of the Sustainable Agriculture Policy class she teaches at VLS.

McKibben and Imhoff argued that the farm bill currently promotes a "factory farm" system that causes a wide range of problems from pollution to obesity, delivering "bad-tasting food that is making us fat," as McKibben put it.

The authors also discussed systems that they see as healthier alternatives, such as farmer’s markets and farm-to-school programs. Under current policy, these types of programs get about 10% of farm bill funds, while commodity payments for five major crops garner about a third of the money, Imhoff said.

Imhoff listed a number of policy changes he would like to see in the farm bill to support small-scale and environmentally-sound agriculture, including country-of-origin labeling and increased funding for organic farming.

Some of the changes on Imhoff’s wish list did make their way into the just-passed House version of the farm bill.

Vermont Rep. Peter Welch said programs that encourage schools to use local foods, increased funding for conservation and renewable energy, increased funding for fruit and vegetable production, and reduced commodity payments made to farmers with incomes over $500,000, represent "the first major step in years toward reforming federal farm policy."

The fate of these changes won’t be certain until the Senate and House agree to a final version of the bill. The Senate is expected to begin drafting its version in September.

Whether or not the 2007 farm bill makes significant strides toward sustainability, McKibben sounded confident that mounting pressure will force such strides by the time the next farm bill comes up in 2012.

"People are beginning to wake up," he said.