Republican Senators Vilify "Locavore" Funding

You'd think the fact that USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, the architect of the enlightened Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program, was just named by Time Magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential people would indicate that a mainstream public supports what she's doing.

Hogwash, say a few tone-deaf Republican Senators. According to Keith Good, writing in the Farm Policy report, Senate Ag Committee Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) and Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) have just sent Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack a letter (PDF) vilifying the Know Your Farmer initiative.

In the letter, they object that the program is "aimed at small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets." These "locavore projects in urban areas," according to these critics, "come at the expense of rural communities with documented rural development needs."

There are so many things wrong with these statements that I hardly know where to begin.

Like, for instance, the fact that supporting small and organic producers will actually not hurt rural communities but strengthen the fabric of U.S. agriculture by helping new farmers enter the field (so to speak) at a time when we desperately need new farmers. Or like the implication that small and organic farmers sell at urban farmers markets due to some elitist affinity for "affluent patrons" and a disdain for rural America or poor people. Here's a secret: affluent patrons are good for farmers.

If rural America hadn't been emptied out by misplaced farm policies that encouraged consolidation and led to the disintegration of family farms and rural community life, maybe these farmers, who in most cases truck their wares in from their farms in rural areas relatively near the city, could sell to their own communities as well as to urbanites. Actual urban farmers who are selling food grown within city limits are so rare that newspaper articles are written about them when they surface, even in foodie San Francisco.

The Senators' use of the word "affluent" attempts to imply a distinction between rich city people, who apparently don't really need fresh, healthy food because they can eat their money instead, and poor, downtrodden rural people. But what about all the poor urban people who are, yet again, left out of this equation? If government ever got serious about helping poor, inner-city residents afford and access fresh food, maybe these farmers hanging out at urban markets could sell to those people instead and leave those affluent patrons forlornly holding their empty hemp shopping bags, which is apparently what these Senators would like.

"American families and rural farmers are hurting in today's economy, and it's unclear to us how propping up urban locavore markets addresses their needs," the Senators go on in the letter. How about that the creation of more numerous and more vibrant markets for fresh foods, no matter where they are, allows American farmers to sell more of what they grow, which, um, helps them? And don't even get me started on the term "propping up," which suggests that these markets are not viable and would collapse without government help. My turn to say "hogwash."

"Given our nation's crippling bugetary crisis," the letter continues, "we also believe the federal government cannot afford to spend precious Rural Development funds on feel-good measures which are completely detached from the realities of production agriculture."

Ah ha, here it is, their real message. With this phrase "production agriculture," these Senators betray their position, which is one of support for large-scale, industrial, commodity crop production. What they object to is government funds being used to grow real food for real people who want to buy it and eat it for dinner. What they want is government funds to be used only to prop up big companies that make big profits selling corn and soy to make animal feed and biofuels and things you shouldn't eat for dinner like cheese puffs and candy corn, profits which these companies can then donate to ... well, these very Senators.

Is it a surprise that McCain's campaign committee's current number two donor is MJKL Enterprises, which, Business Week tells us, "operates 59 Carl's Jr. restaurants; 60 Hardee's(R) restaurants; twelve Pizza Patron(R) restaurants"? Or that the number eight donor to Saxby Chamblis'  campaign committee is currently Flowers Foods, which "markets baked foods under such brands as Nature's Own and Whitewheat"? Or that Pat Roberts' campaign committee's current number 19 donor is the American Association of Crop Insurers?

If Big Ag loses out to an army of little guys, what do you think will happen to these, er, affluent donors? They'll go to seed, that's what, and our Senators aren't about to let that come to pass.

Photo: Soggydan Dan Bennett via Flickr