The Agribusiness Examiner #67 / March 20, 2000 / A.V. Krebs, Editor/Publisher
Faced with disastrously low commodity prices, unfair competition and bad government policy, family farmers from across the country will converge on Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow carrying a five-point plan for fixing what ails rural America.
At the Rally for Rural America farm families will demand that the USDA and Congress accept a five-point agenda adopted by more than 40 grassroots family farm groups earlier this year in response to the economic devastation facing our nation's family farmers and rural communities. The plan addresses critical farm issues, including the need for a new farm bill, enforcement of anti-trust laws, consumer and environmental protection, referenda on mandatory pork and beef checkoffs and negotiation of fair trade agreements.
Chief among these proposals is a call from family farmers for a new farm bill that provides a fair, open and competitive market and a fair price for their commodities. Specific recommendations include establishing non-recourse loans at near cost of production levels to ensure that farm income is derived from the marketplace and not from taxpayers, creating farmer-owned reserves to ensure food security, and maintaining planting flexibility.
Sponsors of the rally include: AFL-CIO, National Association of Farm Service Agency, American Agriculture Movement, County Office Employees, American Beekeeper Alliance, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, American Corn Growers Association, National Family Farm Coalition, American Sugar Alliance, National Farmers Organization, Burley Tobacco Grower Cooperative, National Farmers Union, National Rural Electric Cooperative, Campaign to Reclaim Rural America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), Rural Coalition, Rural Action Caucus, Farm Aid, Rural Telephone Finance Cooperative, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Southwest Peanut Growers, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, United Methodist Board, Mennonite Central Committee Church and Society, National Association of County Officials, Virginia and Carolina Peanut Growers, National Association of Agriculture Educators, and Women Involved in Farm Economics
Family farmer and National Family Farm Coalition President Bill Christison will speak on behalf of family farmers at the Tuesday rally. He says the farmers' five-point plan will be the core of his message.
"It's time for the federal government to enact a new farm bill that works for family farmers, not the expansion of factory farms and the increasing corporate concentration in our food system. Short-term fixes don't work for family farmers, our rural communities or for taxpayers. We still have the opportunity to change direction in federal agriculture policy. The time for action is now," Christison said.
Specifically, the policy agenda for rural America would:
Immediately pass a new farm bill that will: Establish non-recourse loans at near cost of production levels to ensure that farm income comes from the marketplace and not from taxpayers. Enact short-term conservation measures to avoid wasteful over-production. Create a farmer-owned reserve to ensure food security in times of scarcity and price stability in times of plenty. Maintain planting flexibility. Establish national dairy policy to ensure a farmer's cost of production plus a return on investment. Restore competition to the marketplace through strict enforcement of anti-trust law. Place a moratorium on mergers and acquisitions in agribusiness, transportation, food processing manufacturing and retail companies. Require a strict enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act to end price discrimination. Enact a ban on packer ownership of livestock. Protect consumers and the environment. Require labeling of meat and other foods imported into the U.S. to give consumers the right to know and choose the country of origin of their food. Stop the expansion of large-scale factory farms. Protect environmentally fragile lands and habitats. Hold referenda on the mandatory pork and beef checkoffs as petitioned by independent producers. Negotiate fair trade agreements. Ensure that all countries retain the right to develop farm programs that respond to the needs of their farmers and consumers. Put an end to export dumping (the sale of commodities below the cost of production), that undermines our domestic economy. Ensure that environmental protection, fair wages and worker rights are part of every trade agreement.
In conjunction with the Washington rally, a solidarity action, sponsored by the Agriculture Action Network (a working group of the newly formed Minnesota Action Network) and Upper Midwest Grain RAGE (Resistance Against Genetic Engineering) is planned for Tuesday near Cargill's Minnetonka, Minnesota headquarters.
The unprecedented action against Cargill is to draw attention to the intimate link between the demise of rural livelihoods across the world and the global consolidation of corporate agribusiness.
"Such unprecedented and monopolistic concentration of resources in a small number of multinational corporations like Cargill has drastically reduced farmer's capacities to make basic decisions about production, use ecologically sound practices, and earn a sustainable living. Cargill has grown too big, and controls too much of the global food supply. We call for the revocation of Cargill's corporate charter on the grounds that they no longer serve the public good," the Network's media spokesperson Jeannie Zanetti points out. More information on the Rally for Rural America can be found on the Internet at http://www.RallyforRuralAmerica.org/.:
