Fresh & New
SUMMER 2007
Tom Pedersen's acclaimed chocolates are on a "top 40" list of Texas Monthly's Pat Sharpe.
Before we get into what's available at the market, please read the following overview of the Farm Bill, excerpted from Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill by Daniel Imhoff, Copywrite--2007 Watershed Media, distributed by University of California Press.
It's Time to Talk . . . about the Farm Bill
In a recent New York Times column, Michael Pollan pointed out that "An American shopping for food on a budget soon discovers that a dollar buys hundreds more calories on the snack food or soda aisle than it does in the produce section." The reason for this is that our laws (a.k.a. the Farm Bill) provide subsidies for those who grow corn and soy (which is what the snack food and soda aisles are made of) and provide zero in subsidies for carrots or broccoli. So the snack foods are ludicrously cheap. If you're hungry and poor, you get the most calories you can for the fewest dollars. Good for your budget, bad for your health.
What a difference--corn grown by local farmers for our plates and corn grown to satisfy Farm Bill subsidies that are developed to ruin the nation's health.
.Over the past several decades, the farm bill has served the interests of large-scale industrial agriculture to produce cheap food and lots of it. There are incredibly high external costs though: fewer farmers to grow our most nutritious foods, degraded soils and waterways, and a public health crisis. A new farm bil--one that serves the interests of all American--with a vision toward sustainability, can help reverse these trends.
Below is an overview from the must-read Food Fight: A Citizen's Guide to the Farm Bill, by Daniel Imhoff to help you understand the depth of this legislation which food eaters everywhere need to pay attention to.
Every five years, Congress revisits and passes a massive but little understood legislation known as the Farm Bill. This year will be one of those years, and if things play out the way they're headed, this could become the most scrutinized food and farm policy debate in recent history. Originally conceived as an emergency bailout for millions of farmers and unemployed during the dark times of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, the Farm Bill has snow-balled into one of the most -- if not the most -- significant forces affecting food, farming, and land-use in the United States. In a country consecrated to private property rights and free market ideals, it might seem hard to fathom that a single legislation could wield such far-reaching influence. But to a large extent, the Farm Bill determines what sort of foods we Americans eat (and how they taste and how much they cost), which crops are grown under what conditions, and, ultimately, whether we're properly nourished or not.
Why the Farm Bill Matters
If you pay taxes, care about the nutritional value of school lunches, worry about biodiversity or the loss of farmland and open space, you have a personal stake in the tens of billions of dollars committed annually to agriculture and food policies. If you're concerned about escalating federal budget deficits, the fate of family farmers, a food system dominated by corporations and commodities, conditions of immigrant farm workers, the state of the country's woodlands, or the marginalization of locally raised organic food and grass-fed meat and dairy products, you should pay attention to the Farm Bill. The dozens of other reasons the Farm Bill is critical to our land, our bodies, and our children's future include:
* The twilight of the cheap oil age and onset of unpredictable climatic conditions;
* Looming water shortages and crashing fish populations;
* Broken rural economies;
* Euphoria over corn and soybean expansion for biofuels;
* Escalating medical and economic costs of child and adult obesity;
* Record payouts to corporate farms that aren't even losing money;
* Over 35 million Americans, half of them children, who don't get enough to eat.
"The farm policies we design now will likely determine whether we will continue to have a sustainable food system in the future," writes longtime North Dakota organic farmer and food activist Fred Kirschenmann, in the introduction to Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill. Although the economic challenges of modern agriculture may seem abstract to many urban and suburban residents, he argues, "an enlightened food and farm policy is of considerable consequence to every citizen on the planet." We all do have to eat, after all.
What Is the Farm Bill?
The Farm Bill is essentially a $90 billion tax bill for food, feed, fiber, and, more recently, fuel. Each bill receives a formal name, such as the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (a.k.a. "Freedom to Farm"), but more often each act is simply referred to as "the Farm Bill."
While many people equate its programs and subsidies with assistance for struggling family farmers, the Farm Bill actually has two primary thrusts: (1) Food stamps, school lunch, and other nutrition programs account for 50 percent of current spending -- an average of $44 billion per year between 2000 and 2006. (2) Income and price supports for a number of storable commodity crops combine for another 35 percent of spending. In addition, the Farm Bill funds a range of other program "titles," including conservation and environment, forestry, renewable energy, research, and rural development.
For decades, Farm Bill negotiations have been dominated by a tag-team of two powerful interest groups. The farm bloc (representatives from commodity states along with the agribusiness lobby) has orchestrated a quid pro quo with the antihunger caucus (urban representatives aligned with hunger advocacy groups). As a result, ever-increasing payments have been successfully directed toward surplus commodity production and the livestock feedlot industry. In return, the Farm Bill's desperately needed hunger safety net programs have survived relatively unscathed.
Who Gets the Money?
For the simplest answer, one might twist a line from Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, "It's the commodity groups, stupid." Thanks to a growing number of nongovernmental, governmental, and mass media resources, following the Farm Bill money trail is not that difficult. (Excellent places to start include Environmental Working Group, Oxfam International, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Washington Post, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) According to the Congressional Research Service, 84 percent of commodity support spending goes to the production of just five crops: corn, cotton, wheat, rice, and soybeans. Half of that money currently goes to just seven states that produce most of those commodities. The richest ten percent of farm-subsidy recipients (many of whom are corporations and absentee landowners who can hardly be classified as "actively engaged" in growing crops) take in more than two-thirds of those payments.
A few other broad brushstrokes:
* Almost 50 percent of all commodity subsidies went to 5 percent of eligible farmers in 2005.
* Subsidies help the largest farms to acquire the best land and squeeze out smaller growers.
* The growth rate for jobs trailed the national average in nearly two-thirds of counties receiving heavy subsidies between 2000 and 2003, according to a recent report.
A Food and Farm Bill for the 21st Century?
The silver lining is that Americans actually do have a substantially large food and farm policy program to debate. Conditions for change have perhaps never been better, as market dynamics and public awareness rapidly align to create uncertainty about farm politics as usual. Indeed, the Farm Bill matters because it can actually serve as the economic engine driving small-scale entrepreneurship, on-farm research, species protection, nutritional assistance, school lunches made from scratch, regional development, and habitat restoration, to name just a few.
Our challenge may not be to abolish government supports altogether, but to ensure that those subsidies we do choose to legislate actually serve as valuable investments in the country's future and allow us to live up to our obligations in the global community. How we get there is still to be determined. But most observers agree that the era of massive giveaways to corporations and surplus commodity producers must yield to policies that reward stewardship, promote healthy diets, secure regional economies, and do no harm to family farms or hungry kids and their families.
"Today, because so few realize that we citizens have a dog in this fight," writes Michael Pollan in his excellent foreword to Food Fight, "our legislators feel free to leave the debate over the Farm Bill to the farm states, very often trading their votes on agricultural policy for votes on issues that matter more to their constituents. But nothing could do more to reform America's food system, and by doing so, improve the condition of America's environment and public health, than if the rest of us were to weigh in."
In the Austin Farmers' Market...
WEDNESDAY MARKET--NOW OPEN at The Triangle! Wednesdays, 4 - 8 p.m., free parking across the street. Located at 46th and Triangle Avenue which is on 46th between Lamar and Guadalupe.
NOW IN SEASON
Vegetables: Tomatoes are from the fields. . Also this season are all kinds of eggplant, peppers, and of chard, bok choy, mizuna and fresh herbs.
Fruits: Blackberries, blueberries, peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe.
Meats: Award-winning bison, lamb, beef, pork, sausage, bacon, and eggs. Thunderheart bison is only one of two producers in the U.S. that conduct field harvests with respect. Bison health benefits include more omega 3 than salmon and great levels of beta carotene and CLA.
PLEASE BRING CLEAN CARDBOARD EGG CARTONS TO THE MARKET; these can be reused by the smaller 'yard' egg farmers. Bring them to the farmers selling eggs--they'll gladly take them off your hands.
Dairy: READY, SET, GOat CHEESE! West Wind Goat Dairy--get your goat cheese fix!
Baked Goods: Breads, sticky toffee pudding, johnnycakes, scones, cinnamon rolls, cookies, muffins, granola, biscotti and kolaches.
Flowers: Flowers from Arnosky Family Farm in the Texas Hill Country. Get really long-lasting fall flowers, locally grown.
Plants: Vegetable starts, trees, ferns, cacti, ornamentals, and herbs.
Assorted: Hummus, salad dressings, sauces, truffles, chocolate, spiced nuts and preserves.
Ready-to-Eat: Breakfast and lunch fajita tacos, tamales, savory kolaches, quiches, soups, Mediterranean foods, healthy Thai food, Brazilian food, Austrailian pies, bento Japanese foods and coffee. A spread of goat cheese and a Texas French Bread baguette is a great ready to eat snack with fresh sliced sweet red pepper! LOTS of rehydrating drinks, including: Nile Valley Hibiscus teas, Maine Root root beer, cranberry refresher (Southside Kolaches) and water sold at the Information Booth. Coffee, iced mocha at Texas Coffee Traders.
Crafts and arts: Specially designed t-shirts, soaps, paintings, jewelry, organic children's clothing, cloth purses, yoga mat holders, and clayworks.
Services: CAFÉ AREA by the band, great for people watching and music aficionados; accupuncture ocassionally and massage (ahhhh...) under the trees in the park.
We are a local growers-only market featuring more Central Texas farmers than ever who only sell what they grow, raise or catch. Satisfy your connection to the food you eat and meet the farmers directly!
posted June 06, 2007 | permanent link to this article
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