Achieving a Sustainable Farm Bill
| Author | William S. Eubanks II |
| Pages | 263-279 |
Page 263
Chapter 15
Achieving a Sustainable Farm Bill
Willi am S. Euba nks II
When advocating a path forward to modernize domestic fa rm and food policy, an organization
or individual must decide whether to press for a systematic overhaul or incremental change.
Indeed, there is no question that a fundamental shift in the structure of U.S. agricultural policy
could enable our nation to achieve a sustainable, environmentally sound, and nutritious food system.1
Accordingly, there would be substantial value in advocating for such an immediate, fundamental farm bill
reform because the process of ma king that argument provides a glimpse of that objective, and it is impor-
tant that the ultimate goal not be lost.
However, the enormous political and nancial power of agribusiness might be better challenged through
incremental reforms targeting specic farm bill programs on issues that have the support of large segments
of the American public. In eect, this approach allows the millions of interested Americans, and the orga-
nizations that advocate on their behalf, to slowly and strategica lly chip away at the outdated, sometimes
illogical, components of U.S. agricultural policy. ese small but critical reforms would breathe new life
into the farm bill. Although reform would take longer under such an incremental approach, the goal is still
the same; indeed, these vitally signicant and ta rgeted reforms along the way will allow for improvement
at many levels even if fundamental farm bill reform never comes to pass.
is chapter rst presents the argument for a major and urgent shif t in U.S. agricultu re and food poli-
cies to achieve sustainabilit y. It then provides a counterview, arguing instead for several na rrower a nd
more gradual reforms to achieve many of the same goals, highlighting examples of targeted challenges
and ways to strengthen support for ex isting programs that sorely need the public’s backing to achieve a
healthier food system.
A. Seeking a Truly “Green” Revolution: Large-Scale Reform for Widespread
Problems
While arguably somewhat overstated, the author James H. Kunstler has starkly drawn this picture of
American agricu lture:
We have to produce food dierently. e [Archer Daniels Midland]/Cargill model of industria l agribusiness is
heading toward its Waterloo. As oil and g as deplete, we will be left with sterile soi ls and farming organized at
an unworkable sca le. Many lives will depend on our ability to x this. Farming w ill soon return much closer
to the center of American economic li fe. It will necessa rily have to be done more locally, at a smaller and ner
scale, and wi ll require more human labor.2
1. Additional arguments in favor of fundamental changes to farm bill policy are set forth in William S. Eubanks II, A Rotten System: Subsidizing
Environmental Degradation and Poor Public Health With Our Nation’s Tax Dollars, 28 S. E. L.J. 213 (2009); William S. Eubanks II, e
Sustainable Farm Bill: A Proposal for Permanent Environmental Change, 39 ELR 10493 (June 2009); William S. Eubanks II, Paying the Farm
Bill: How One Statute Has Radically Degraded the Natural Environment and How a Newfound Emphasis on Sustainability Is the Key to Reviving
the Ecosystem, 27 E. F. 56 (2010).
2. James H. Kunstler, Ten Ways to Prepare for a Post-Oil Society, C N’ N, Jan. 12, 2008, at http://www.agoracosmopolitan.
com/home/Frontpage/2008/01/12/02127.html.
is chapter is, with permission, an updated and adapted version of an ar ticle previously published as William S. Eubanks II, A Rotten System:
Subsidizing Environmental Degradation and Poor Public Health With Our Nation’s Tax Dollars, 28 S. E. L.J. 213 (2009). Copyright © 2009
by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
Page 264 Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Law
ere is at least some truth to this depiction. Despite what many scientists, farmers, and ranchers think
to be the best available agricultura l practices for environmental protection and a nutritious food supply,3
U.S. agriculture and food policies under the farm bill have generally strayed from these practices to pla-
cate the agribusiness and food-processing industries. e average commodity crop farmer now produces
enough corn and soybea ns to feed hundreds, or even thousands, of Americans each year from food items
processed from his crops.4 However, that same commodity farmer sends no healthy fruits and vegetables to
the market and amazingly can no longer feed his own family from his massive elds because of inexible
planting rules and encouragement of monocrop production through various ty pes of farm bill subsidies.5
Heavy corn-producing states such as Iowa now import, on average, more than 80% of the food consumed
by the residents of those states.6 e U.S. food production system under the farm bill, which should ideally
encourage production of healthy food, is instead creating a plethora of “food deserts”—even in rural areas
where the local economy is dependent on farming—composed of locations where food is dicult to come
by and much of the food that is available consists of processed commodities, saturated fats, and little to no
nutrition.7 Moreover, as Part II of this book highlights, the environmental impacts of the current indus-
trial model are signicant. And that model is founded on the farm bill—the programs authorized, and the
agriculture and food system encouraged by the U.S. Congress in that omnibus legislation every ve years.
e successive farm bills have promoted larger and larger farms and the inherent adverse consequences
of monocrop production and market consolidation. Scholars have noted how the stability of the Soviet
Union “foundered precisely on the issue of food” as it tried to force a transition to industrial agriculture.8
at policy contributed to the Soviet collapse because the program “sacriced millions of small farms and
farmers,” but the system of industrial agriculture “never managed to do what a food system has to do: feed
the nation.”9 Indeed, with each passing farm bill, it can be argued that the domestic farming and food
system is gradually moving toward its own failure to accomplish the fundamental objective of feeding the
nation, at least in terms of providing nutritious food grown in an ecologically resilient manner that seeks
to preserve our natural resource for the long term.10
One promising change that could mitigate the primary problems of industrial commodity crop agricul-
ture in the United States would be incentivizing sustainable agriculture to assist in normalizing the market
so that the gap in supermarket price could close somewhat between the handful of heavily subsidized com-
modities and all other foods that receive little or no nancial incentives and thus appear more expensive
than would otherwise be the case in a free market. Although a truly free market without subsidies would
be ideal,11 such as the system currently operating in New Zealand,12 the vast subsidy infra structure cur-
rently embedded in the farm bill would be dicult to pull out from under the feet of farmers that depend
on those subsidies to survive, and upon which farmers beneting from that system have made long-term
3. As described later in this chapter, some of the many farming practices that best preserve and enhance soil, water, and other natural resources are
no-till farming, cover cropping, crop rotation, residue mulching, elimination of most or all agrochemical fertilizers, signicant reduction per
acre of water usage, nitrogen xing through on-farm manure use, measurable energy reduction per acre farmed, greater use of integrated pest
management, contour farming, and increased direct sales from farm to consumer or intermediated sources to reduce transportation. Indeed,
these and many other practices are incentivized through an existing farm bill program, discussed later in the chapter, called the Conservation
Stewardship Program, which lays out a more detailed list of practices that have been determined through consensus as key farming practices
that maximize environmental benets. See Natural Resources Conservation Service, CSP (Dec. 9, 2011), available at http://www.nrcs.usda.
gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1046211.pdf.
4. M P, T O’ D: A N H F M 34-35 (2006).
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. See generally id.
8. Id. at 256; R W. C, T S-T E: P E 65 (1974) (calling the inecient Soviet
industrial agricultural system “unreliable, irrational, wasteful, unprogressive—almost any pejorative adjective one can call to mind would be
appropriate”); C R. MC, E: P, P P 900 (1975) (arguing that the Soviet industrial
agricultural system was “something of a monument to ineciency”).
9. P, T O’ D, supra note 4, at 256.
10. See id., at 256-57 (discussing the benets of a more local agricultural system as compared to the current industrial agricultural system).
11. See, e.g., Eliot Coleman, Four Season Farm, http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/ (last visited Nov. 9, 2012). Many scholars such as Eliot Cole-
man believe that any nationalized system of agriculture—conventional or organic—is inecient. us, these critics advocate for a localized
agricultural system with no national standards, subsidies, or framework for regulating agriculture. Id.
12. D I, F F: T C’ G F F B 80-83 (2007). New Zealand is one of the few nations that
has eliminated agricultural subsidies altogether. In 1984, New Zealand eliminated all subsidies for farming and the results have been ver y
positive. In fact, New Zealand has seen “an energizing transformation of the food and farming sectors . . . [and] [p]rotability, innovation,
and agricultural diversity have returned to farming.” Id. Both farm output and farm income are on the rise in New Zealand. Id.
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