KATHERINE OZER - National Family Farm Coalition
Vision for the Future of the Farm and Food System

A family farm system in all regions of our country and across the globe should be supported by government policies that ensure fair prices and market access to all farmers along with widespread ownership of land. When farm prices include all costs, internal and external, family farmers will not be forced to exploit their land and families to increase production to make up for declining returns. By ensuring fair prices for feed grains and oil seeds, we can halt the flow of cheap feed to livestock factories and stop the consolidation of farms and agricultural industries.

George Naylor, a corn and soybean farmer and President of the National Family Farm Coalition has written, "We need a family farm system composed of government policy and a nurturing culture– a social contract– that will ensure economic opportunity and a truly healthful environment for rural America. A family farm system would renew economic life in rural communities and deliver safe, nutritious food to consumers in cooperation with Mother Nature. A family farm culture– respect for family, neighbors, community, and Nature– must be restored to the fabric of our nation. The "family farm" should be an ideal by which we measure our progress as a society in offering rural economic opportunity and freedom, conservation of resources and biodiversity, and a healthful, safe food supply."

As I look towards the 2007 Farm Bill, I see one track moving forward at a slow pace and one track moving in reverse at a much higher speed.

The track moving forward is international solidarity around family farm issues emerging to fight the free trade agenda reflected in joint campaigns across borders to change farm policy whether the farm bill in the U.S. or the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) in the European Union. The fight against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) brought together groups to denounce the fair trade model as one that has failed the NAFTA countries and should NOT be replicated or expanded. Increasing public concern about food and health are starting to connect consumers to the food they eat and the farmers who raise that food. It is not just a question of where or how our food is produced but by whom and under what conditions.

Family farm organizations are developing viable alternatives and campaigns that transcend borders while articulating the need to address the corporate control and true agenda of agribusiness. A global understanding of food sovereignty is emerging coordinated through Via Campesina and a U.S. campaign that the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) is taking the lead on. The following vision statement was developed by family farmers within NFFC to express our view of food sovereignty:

"We envision empowered communities everywhere working together democratically to advance a food system that ensures health, justice and dignity for all. Family farming will be an attractive and viable livelihood that supports economically, environmentally, and socially diverse and sustainable communities where future generations will thrive. Farmers, ranchers and fishers will have control over their lands, water, seeds, and livelihoods, as well as the ability to steward the land, take good care of animals, protect biodiversity and conserve and increase farming knowledge. Farm workers and food workers will have respect and decent incomes, and farmers will have the first right to produce food for local and regional markets, so that the planet’s energy and the soil and water are conserved. All people will have access to healthy, local, delicious food."

The high speed track is that of corporate agribusiness and grain traders whose agenda is to depress commodity prices and increase their profits in the U.S. and throughout the globe by exploiting the land and all who raise and produce food. Their profits continue to mount and their destruction is being felt on farms and in rural communities throughout the globe. On Capitol Hill, their control and influence has targeted those programs in the 2002 farm bill that were "wins" for family farmers and sustainable agriculture. There is now a 2 year delay in the implementation of Country of Origin labeling (COOL); the de-funding of the Conservation Security Program and the re-direction of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to benefit the cleanup of mega-livestock operations.

The profit-driven export based agenda of the American Farm Bureau Federation and most commodity groups misrep-resent the views of family farmers while confusing the public. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Bush Administration espouse a trade agenda that reflects their free trade ideology of dismantling the government role in supporting fair prices for farmers and then proposing to slash the very subsidies that provide income to farmers to compensate for some of their losses due to record low commodity prices. During the 2005 harvest, corn farmers in the Midwest were receiving under $1.40 for a bushel of corn. That is over 50 pounds of corn that has been planted and harvested with a cost of production of more than twice that amount. Record low corn prices at a time of record high input costs. As these prices fall, corporate profits rise as there is no longer a floor under commodity prices. Our family farmers and rural communities are losing while others in the food chain are profiting at their expense.

The public needs to be clear on the need for a new farm policy; one based on fair prices and systems that enable more farmer and community control over our food supply. We need to slow down the fast-track whose agenda it is to destroy family farm agriculture. In the U.S. we have the capacity to reverse this unsustainable system while halting similar destruction among farmers and peasants worldwide. We all deserve better and by working across constituencies, regions, and issues, we can re-direct our current farm and food policies to one that is truly economically and environmentally sustainable.

Katherine Ozer is Executive Director of the National Family Farm Coalition in Washington DC. Visit www.nffc.net.


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This article was published in the Winter 2005 issue of Catholic Rural Life©. No portion of this article may be reproduced without written permission from The National Catholic Rural Life Conference. To purchase the Winter 2005 issue of Catholic Rural Life, please contact The National Catholic Rural Life Conference office at 4625 Beaver Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50310-2199, call (515) 270-2634, or e-mail ncrlc@mchsi.com. The cost is $2.50 an issue plus postage and handling.