The 2007 Farm Bill: who is gearing up for a food fight, and why you should care

Every four to six years, Congress hunkers down to write, debate, and pass the Farm Bill, a mammoth piece of legislation with sweeping implications for a surprisingly broad range of issues.

If you care about wetlands, or advocate for the hungry, or believe in better nutrition for schoolchildren, or just want to keep breathing clean air, you should pay attention to the Farm Bill. You will also want to follow the debate and horse trading around the omnibus bill -- which have already started and promise to kick into high gear this summer -- if you are concerned about issues as diverse as water quality, sprawl, genetic engineering, renewable energy, food safety, biodiversity, organic farming, corporate control of the food system, and the reinvigoration of rural America.

The 2002 Farm Bill generated some $80 billion in new federal spending, and much of it benefited large-scale producers and corporations that are running small-scale family farmers out of business. The 2007 bill will set key policies from then until 2012 and, no matter what deals are ultimately cut, will also be worth tens of billions. Consequently, lobbyists from multinational corporations and environmental organizations, family-farm advocates, tax reformers, and consumer-interest groups are working their legislators and each other.

And stakes are high. Four years ago budget surpluses abounded and Democrats controlled the Senate. As a result, programs that encourage sustainable farming and rural development made it through agriculture committees and into the 2002 Farm Bill. But given recent tax cuts, natural disasters, and the cost of waging war, Congress might feel less generous.

One of the most contentious issues promises to be the fate of commodity subsidies. What began as a progressive attempt to lift farmers out of the Great Depression has ballooned into a corporate boondoggle, as the government doles out billions in subsidies every year to growers of already overproduced staples like corn, soybeans, and wheat. The overwhelming majority of that money goes to massive farms and bloated cooperatives. In other words, subsidies wipe out family farms, promote toxic chemical farming, and gut market prices on staple grains, skewing the advantage to large food and agribusiness corporations.