Paying the Farm Bill

• Author: William S. Eubanks II
• Position: Who wrote this article as part of a larger LL.M. thesis at Vermont Law School, is an associate attorney at the Washington, D.C., public interest environmental law firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal
• Pages: 56-75

Page 56 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, July/August 2010

en v i r o n m e n T a l la w re P o r T e r

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

William S. Eubanks II, who wrote this

article as part of a lar ger LL.M. thesis

at Vermont Law Sch ool, is an associate

attorney at the Washing ton, D.C., public

interest environment al law rm of Meyer

Glitzenstein & Crystal. This articl e rst

ap pea re d as “A R ott en Sys te m: S ubs id iz-

ing Environmental Degradat ion and Poor

Public Health Wit h Our Nation’s Tax Dollars,” 28 Stanford Env iron-

mental Law Journal 213 (2009) and in the June 2009 issue of The

Environmenta l Law Reporter.

O

ne statute has the most signif‌icant

environmental impact of any law en-

acted by Congress. But it’s not the

Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act,

the Endangered Species Act, or any of

the myriad measures passed in the 1970s. Nor is

it an energy bill. Rather, it is a law that af‌fects all

aspects of the ecosystem and the lives of the peo-

ple who inhabit it and depend on it. In addition

this legislation drives public health policy in the

United States and is a predominant reason that our

nation suf‌fers from record levels of obesity, heart

disease, diabetes, and asthma. is statute also

implements policies that result in severe malnutri-

tion and hunger, both domestically and abroad.

e law strips rural communities of their senses of

identity, cultural values, and heritage. Lastly, this

measure encourages overproduction, trade distor-

tion, and depression of world market prices, which

drive immigration toward the United States from

the developing world.

Most people will be surprised to learn that the

statute is the Farm Bill. How can something called

the Farm Bill af‌fect all of the sectors of society

mentioned above? is question demonstrates one

of the inherent problems with attempting to re-

solve the dif‌f‌icult problems created by the Farm

Bill: the law is much more than a mere measure for

farmers, but its deceptive name prevents the public

from recognizing its true costs. Writer Michael Pol-

lan argues that Farm Bill reform must start “with

the recognition that the ‘farm bill’ is a misnomer;

in truth, it is a food bill [among other things] and

so needs to be rewritten with the interests of [the

public] placed f‌irst.”1 us, it is time to summon

the courage demonstrated by environmentalist Ra-

chel Carson in the 1960s and apply her message to

the new cause of reforming our nation’s agricul-

tural policy:

We urgently need an end to these false assuranc-

es, to the sugar-coating of unpalatable facts. It is

the public that is being asked to assume the risks.

. . . e public must decide whether it wishes to

continue on the present road, and it can do so

only when in full possession of the facts.2

1. Michael Pollan, You Are What You Grow, N.Y. Times

Mag., Apr. 22, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.

com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html?pagewante

d=1&_r=1.

2. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring 13 (Mariner Books 2002)

(1962).

JULY/AUGUST 2010 ❧ Page 57

Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, July/August 2010

e History of Agricultural Policy

e United States has a rich rural history that still

inf‌luences the public’s perception of domestic agri-

culture in the 21st century. Soon after our nation

declared independence, omas Jef‌ferson and oth-

er political leaders encouraged a “national agrarian

identity.”3 Jef‌ferson envisioned the United States as

a democracy composed of yeomen farmers whose

impeccable virtues would propel the young nation

to stability.4 When Jef‌ferson became president, 95

percent of the nation’s population worked full-time

in agriculture.5

By the early decades of the 20th century, the

commercialization of agriculture, coupled with

the multitude of employment options in America’s

capitalist economy, led to

a decreased proportion

of Americans in the farm

sector. In just over a cen-

tury, from 1801 to around

1910, the percentage of

citizens who farmed full-

time had dropped to only

45 percent.6 Within a few

decades, those remaining

farmers suf‌fered severely

from the Great Depres-

sion. During the early to

mid-1930s, nearly 40 per-

cent of the nation’s popula-

tion, including a large por-

tion of the farming popu-

lation, was grinding out an

impoverished subsistence as bank foreclosures and

economic downturn resulted in dif‌f‌icult times.7 At

this point, one in four Americans still lived on a

farm.8 Although poverty af‌fected all sectors of soci-

ety, many scholars contend that the farming econo-

my was the hardest hit because of the convergence

of bank closures, home foreclosures, drought, dust

3. Dennis Keeney & Loni Kemp, A New Agricultural Policy for

the United States 6 (2003), available at http://www.mnproject.

org/pdf/A percent20New percent20Agriculture percent20Poli-

cy percent20for percent20the percent20U.S. percent20by per-

cent20Dennis percent20Keeney percent20 percent20Lo..pdf.

4. See id.

5. Daniel Imhof‌f, Food Fight: e Citizen’s Guide to a Food

and Farm Bill 33 (2007).

6. Id.

7. Id.

8. Id.

storms, and f‌loods.9 ese economic and meteo-

rological woes were the visible culprits that led to

the “farm crisis,” but the underlying cause for the

problem escaped scrutiny because it was obscured

from public view. e farm crisis was “triggered not

by too little food, but by too much.”10 e nation’s

overzealous planting during the 1920s, combined

with advances in both mechanization and soil in-

puts, led to vast overproduction of most crops.11

is immense surplus benef‌ited “distributors, pro-

cessors, and monopolists who were increasingly

dominating the food system,” but seriously cur-

tailed the prof‌its of farmers as domestic and global

crop prices fell dramatically.12 When prices fell

below costs of production, farmers could no lon-

ger stay af‌loat: total farm income dropped by two-

thirds between 1929 and

1932; 60 percent of farms

were mortgaged in hopes

of surviving; and by 1933,

the price of corn registered

at zero and grain elevators

refused to buy.13

Recognizing the impor-

tance of farmers in preserv-

ing our nation’s food sup-

ply, the federal government

acted quickly to enact an

agricultural bill to tempo-

rarily protect small farms.

is response to the cri-

sis, called the Agricultural

Adjustment Act of 1933,14

“emerged as one of the

most ambitious social, cultural, and economic pro-

grams ever attempted by the U.S. government.”15 As

part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal

agenda, the 1933 Farm Bill ambitiously sought to do

many things: bring crop prices back to stability by

weaning the nation from its af‌f‌inity for agricultural

overproduction; utilize surpluses productively to

combat widespread hunger and provide nutritional

9. Id. at 33-34.

10. Id. at 34.

11. Id.

12. Id.

13. Id.

14. Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, ch. 25, 48 Stat. 31

(codif‌ied as amended in scattered sections of 7 U.S.C.). e

text of the original Act is available at http://www.national-

aglawcenter.org/assets/farmbills/1933.pdf.

15. Imhof‌f, supra note 5, at 34.