New Hunger Report Suggests Ending Farm Subsidies

By Lisa Kellman

The group Bread for the World released its “2012 Hunger Report” Monday, which argues against cutting U.S. food and farm aid budgets.

Officials associated with the report held a press conference at the National Press Club to discuss solving issues within some of the nation’s current food and farm policies.

With the ‘super committee’s’ Wednesday deadline to slash $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit approaching, the heads of congressional agriculture committees have devised a plan to save $23 billion over the next five years by making cuts from programs under their jurisdiction.

David Beckman, president of Bread for the World Institute, supported saving money by shifting away from direct farm subsidy payments and toward a more “comprehensive revenue insurance” system in order to help with farm risk management. 

However, he also voiced concern over making conservation programs and food stamp funding part of the $23 billion cut.

“Because our food and farm policy have been so driven by special interests, they’re suboptimal in almost every respect,” argued Beckman, “Bread for the World’s most urgent recommendation is that Congress not cut SNAP food assistance in order to pay for wasteful farm subsidies.”

Many other panelists called for an end to farm subsidies and other harmful issues.

“We can dramatically improve the health and well being of our population, provide a safety net to farmers, farm sustainably and in an environmentally sound way for less money than we’re spending right now, if we had the courage to face down the special interests that time and again frustrate reform,” argued Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.

Cook cited as an example, Congress’ revised agriculture appropriations bill last week, which counts tomato sauce in pizza as a vegetable and was pushed furtively by frozen pizza lobbyists.

The report also proposed increased funding to child nutrition programs, an additional commitment to aid hunger and food security abroad, and a proposal called “Ag jobs” that would create a guest farm worker program for immigrant laborers.

“All this can be done and you could save a lot more than the $23 billion,” said Beckman.

The middle class can expect big retirement troubles

A study from Ernst and Young on the likelihood of new retirees outliving their financial aspects was discussed in a conference call this afternoon. Joe Reali, chairman of Americans for Secure Retirement, claimed the study found that the majority of middle class retirees will outlive their retirement benefits.

According to Tom Neubig, who represented Ernst and Young, 6 of ten new retirees will not be able to maintain their current standard of living when drawing from available retirement resources, and many will be forced to cut their spending during retirement by about one third. He went on to say that those retiring with a guaranteed source of income like a structured payment package will fare much better than others.

Larry Mitchell, director of legislative affairs for the American Corn Growers Association, added that many who work in farming are forced to take on additional jobs to earn income due to financial worries. Most of these jobs offer little or no retirement benefits. As such, farm workers across the nation are having an increasingly difficult time earning adequate retirement benefits, and with the release of this new study the situation appears only to be getting worse.

Low corn yield equals expensive beef

Corn, apparently, is many things. It is animal feed, human food, and ethanol. I spoke with George Chadima in Fairfax, a farm owner near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Excessive moisture has caused the nitrogen to be leeched from the soil, which is requiring farmers to buy biologically active fertilizer. The corn that was planted already has been “drowned” by water pooling in areas, and much of the rest was also damaged by a recent hailstorm. Crops, he said, would probably yield 75-80% of what they normally do.

I was shown a warehouse that housed large containers of soybeans yet to be planted. The planting schedule is three weeks behind already due to the weather, and hopefully, he said, they’ll be able to plant within the next couple of days. This is happening to many farmers in Iowa, and the result is going to mean higher prices- in everything.

Corn prices, of course, will go up, since using corn for “human food” or exporting it elsewhere, essentially removes corn from the chain of production. Ethanol, surprisingly, does not create that problem, because after the grain alcohol is removed there are still co-products from the corn, such as animal feed, plastics, and oils. The chain of production includes feeding that corn to animals, and then using the byproducts as fertilizer. Because it is costing more to harvest the corn, and there will be less of it, this will cause beef prices to rise.