[Faith & Hunger] More info on BFW Farm Bill Amendment

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

The Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment
An Opportunity to  Combat Global Poverty
On Thursday, the House of Representatives will consider the Agriculture  
Committee’s version of the farm bill which does little to help struggling  farmers 
in the United States and around the world. The ONE Campaign recognizes  the 
need to help poor farmers and rural families at home and abroad, and that is  
why we support the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment. 
The Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment – Fairness Amendment – would  
limit commodity payments and redirect at least 10 billion dollars in savings  
into alternative-support systems for American farmers and other programs to  
support the livelihood of farm families, nutrition, and rural development 
while  simultaneously helping small farmers from developing countries. 
This historic amendment offered by Representatives Ron Kind (D-WI), Jeff  
Flake (R-AZ), Joe Crowley (D-NY), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)  
and Paul Ryan (R-WI), is supported by progressives, conservatives, farmers,  
churches, nutrition and environmental organizations, tax reform advocates, and  
both free and fair trade supporters. The diversity of support for real reform  
and fairness in America’s farm policy is unparalleled. 
Key Reforms
    *   Reduces Subsidies that distort trade and make it difficult for  
farmers abroad to compete. 
    *   Expand School Lunches Overseas. The amendment increases by $1.1  
billion over five years the McGovern-Dole program to provide school lunches to  
hungry children in developing countries. 
    *   A Fair and Modern Safety Net for Production Agriculture. The  
amendment replaces depression-era price guarantees with a modern revenue-based  
safety net developed by USDA experts that better protects family farmers from  
declines in crop prices and crop yields. Savings: $1 billion over five years.   
    *   Support Working Family Farmers. The amendment denies subsidies to  
large commercial farmers with average annual adjusted gross income greater  than 
$250,000 and limit annual subsidies to $250,000 per person. 
    *   Gradually Reduce Automatic Direct Payments. The amendment gradually  
reduces direct payments, which were created to wean farmers off subsidies in  
1996 but which have become an entitlement program that will cost more than $26 
 billion over five years. Limited resource farmers would be exempted from 
cuts,  and modest incentives would encourage farmers to invest payments in rainy 
day  accounts. Savings: at least $7 billion over five years.
Background
The commodity programs authorized in Title I of the Farm Bill were created  
during the Great Depression to provide farmers temporary support to help  
overcome economic hardship, but they no longer serve that purpose. Approximately  
three-fourths of the payments go to the largest tenth of producers, with the  
vast majority of farmers receiving no commodity subsidies at all. Half of the  
fund the U.S. pours into farming goes to only about 20 congressional  
districts. 
Furthermore, the impact of American commodity payments goes beyond U.S.  
borders. The current system encourages American farmers to produce more than the  
market demands. This surplus floods world markets with crops sold at  
artificially low prices, sometimes below cost, making it impossible for farmers  in 
poor countries to compete, even when it costs them less to produce the same  
crop. 
What You Can Do




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