The Farm Bill and RI Agriculture

R.I. Shares Its Thoughts on Federal Farm Bill

By DAVE FISHER/ecoRI News staff

WARWICK — Every five years or so, Congress reviews and restructures the Farm Bill. The bill is the primary tool of the federal government to define the role and purview of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and all its respective funding appropriations.

That time is upon us, and on Nov. 28, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., hosted a roundtable discussion at the Warwick Public Library with the state's agricultural community to hear its complaints and concerns about how previous farm bills have been actuated in Rhode Island.

Representatives of the USDA, the state departments of Environmental Management and Health, the Rhode Island Farm Bureau, the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association and other agencies took part in the discussion, and comments and concerns were heard from a crowd of more than 100.

Farm bills can be rather controversial nationally and internationally because the blanket regulation and subsidies provided through the USDA don’t necessarily work for all farmers and can impact the world economy. Local and organic agriculture proponents have criticized past farm bills for providing too much funding for large agricultural concerns that employ inhumane practices and use an army of petrochemicals to maintain their livestock and crops. The 2008 Farm Bill, for instance, increased subsidies for biofuels, which many economists believe to be a contributor to the world food price crisis in 2007-08.

Overarching regulation, grants and subsidy mechanisms that favor Big Agriculture have long been the bane of small farmers. In Rhode Island, we have nothing but small farmers and, yet, our agricultural economy continues to grow and thrive.

There seemed to be a consensus on the panel and in the room that in order for our local food system to survive several points had to be prioritized.

First, the tax assessment on farms has to be adjusted to reflect the output of the farm, not the value of the land. Currently, farms are taxed at a reduced rate up to $1 million in value. Al Bettencourt of the Rhode Island Farm Bureau suggested that a farm's entire assessed value should be taxed at the farm rate. Inheritance tax rates on farms need to be adjusted as well if we want to preserve farmland from generation to generation, he said.

Second, the grant and funding mechanisms provided by the USDA need to be more flexible and reflect the needs of the state. For instance, money is made available to Rhode Island to preserve grassland. Given that we don’t have too much grassland, much of this money reverts back to the federal government. Rhode Island's contingent of the USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service would like to see that money spent in where the state does need it — in marshes, on farms and in woodlands. It also would like to see changes that would allow the NRCS to spend money on public land, which is currently forbidden by the Farm Bill, and lower upfront investments for NRCS matching grants.

Third, food safety regulations need to be more flexible and friendlier to small farms. Local farmer Pat McNiff said blanket food safety regulations are designed for big farms and processors, and forcing small farms to adhere to the same regulations is unfair.

Lastly, we need to remove the development pressure on existing and viable agricultural land. That land includes the state's vast turf farms and nurseries that aren't currently eligible for USDA funding. Rhode Island is home to tens of thousands of acres of sod farms and nurseries that, according to Jesse Rodriques of Rhode Island Nurseries, “Needs to be preserved to grow food if and when we need it.”

Other panelists and attendees pled their cases to prevent proposed cuts to individual programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Community Food Project, and proposed disbanding the USDA Foods Program. The Foods Program was once a surplus buying mechanism that was used by the USDA to bring food at a low cost to schools, but recently, the program has stopped buying surplus.

Dorothy Brayley of Kids First said the money that is earmarked for the program should be go directly to the school systems to allow more flexibility in purchasing.

Some other suggestions from the crowd included expansion of conservation programs to aquaculture, expansion of crop insurance benefits to help local farmers offset extremely seasonal income, labeling requirements for genetically modified foods, and providing subsidies for beverages other than milk in schools.