The Sublime Equine

By Karen Nowak

(Brookfield, NY – Nov. 2011) The Farm Bill is rewritten every five years and authorizes spending to ensure that farms remain viable, that our food is safe and nutritious, that our soils remain healthy and that our waterways are clean.

It also supports land conservation, the restoration of wildlife habitats and provides food for hungry children, to name a few. In short, every citizen of the U.S. is affected in one way or another by provisions in this bill, yet few realize its significance.

On Monday, Oct. 17, the House and Senate Agriculture Committee leadership issued a joint press release stating that they will cut $23 billion in the 2012 Farm Bill and that they will provide a complete legislative package by Nov. 1.”

In other words, they will draft the new Farm Bill in 13 days; it normally takes an entire year to draft the 1,700-plus-page document. This will be the fastest crafting of the next farm bill in history!

The Farm Bill’s actual title is the “Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of (the year it was passed into law).”

It encompasses commodity programs such as dairy and crops, conservation of land and wetlands, trade, nutrition (food stamp, school lunch, emergency food assistance, etc., programs), emergency loans (which includes equine farms), rural development, agricultural research, education, extension programs and economics; forestry; rural energy (biofuels and wood); horticulture and organic agriculture; pest and disease management programs; livestock programs and animal welfare; food safety inspections/programs; crop insurance and disaster programs; programs for disadvantaged farmers; agriculture security; and trade and tax provisions (land and species preservation, protection of social security benefits).

To be fair, they did begin holding their usual hearings and audits of the previous Farm Bill programs in June, and they did have the uncertainty of just how many billions of dollars would have to be cut as part of the federal deficit reduction plan; but the fact that they plan to move this quickly with a “complete legislative package” with so little information available to the public, is more than a bit disconcerting.

The public will have little time to read this bill and contact legislators with the comments and concerns.

Significant cuts in spending have occurred in the last two farm bills (2002 and 2008), so there is little room to achieve further reductions without significantly impacting the safety net for our farmers, our food supply and land conservation.

To put it into perspective, commodity program spending is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the federal budget.

The United Nations predicts that farmers will have to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed our growing population. The Federal Reserve states that “rural America is leading the U.S. economic recovery,” but also notes that farm debt has risen “the fastest since the prelude to the 1980s farm debt crisis.”

In addition, many farmers were hard-hit by the devastating weather events across our country this year; maintaining a safety net for this country’s farmers is critical if agriculture is to continue leading our economic recovery.

It is paramount to our food security.

If you care about the health of America’s soil, water and land; helping family farms remain economically viable and a new generation of small to midsize farmers get started; rebuilding local and regional food systems or developing new markets and healthy food access, NOW is the time to get involved.

Check the House and Senate Agriculture Committee websites regularly for updates on the 2012 Farm: agriculture.house.gov/ and ag.senate.gov/site/index.html.

Our area, unfortunately, does not have a Congressman on the House Agriculture Committee, but you can, and should, fax or e-mail your comments to the House Agriculture Committee office at 202-225-0917 or AgRepublicanPress@mail.house.gov.

Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand is our member on the Senate Agriculture Committee. Her fax is (202) 228-0282. You can e-mail your comments through her website at gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/.

The Senate Agriculture Committee office fax is (202) 228-2125. The Senate Agriculture Committee does not have a direct e-mail address at this time.

Karen Nowak began showing hunters in her teens and later in life expanded her horizons to ridden dressage and driving.  For the past 20 years she has owned, bred and shown Hackney Horses, which are a critically endangered breed.  She is currently the president of the Brookfield Riding and Driving Association.