Farm Bill 2018: Striving to Build Socio-economic Equity in our Food System

As Congress moves forward with reauthorizing the farm bill, it is critical that the voices of farmers and food/farm advocates who are speaking up for racial equity and justice are heard. The 2018 Farm Bill is the exact right opportunity to address racial inequities in our food/farm system, as well as an opportunity to set the stage for future equity-forward bills which will need re-authorizations.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has outlined a series of policy solutions designed to address the challenges facing farmers of color today in their recently published 2018 Farm Bill platform: An Agenda for the 2018 Farm Bill. Please check this resource out and share ideas, discuss, and build our voice so we can let representatives know that Equity is important!

Food Solutions began a challenge for the month of April throughout which you are guided to engage intimately with the unconscious ways we affirm systems the engender conflict and challenges for people of color.

Moreover, we must cultivate a critical lens to understand the challenges we are faced with, and to comprehensively address our current state of inequity in the farm bill and our food system. The Center for Social Innovation has outlined strategies for us to assess entry points for change and to determine ways that we can work together. Check out their report here and analysis of what it means to build a racially equitable food system – from field to farm to fork – with steps toward achieving that goal. I think it starts with getting to Know Your Farmer and Know Your Food!

Also, in the latest news, Wall Street Journal recently published an article concerning House Speaker Paul Ryan’s long-sought goal of overhauling welfare programs like SNAP. As Republicans prepare to release a new, five-year farm bill that would impose tougher work requirements to get food stamps, we need to build our voice to ensure that fresh, local, even organic food be made available to all people everywhere, and that it stays a priority for our policymakers. 

Monsanto’s Day in Court Marks the Beginning for More Transparency and Regulation, We Must Keep the Pressure On to Hold Conglomerate Companies Accountable!

Earlier this year, U.S. Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee organized a full committee hearing titled, In Defense of Scientific Integrity: Examining the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph Programme and Glyphosate Review; “the irony of the descriptor is not lost on those who have been following Smith’s efforts to derail and defund this cancer research agency,” according to Environmental Health News.

Civil Eats reported that this court hearing, held on February 6th, was the first time that “Monsanto scientists faced off against three top scientists who had served on the U.N.’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which in 2015 labeled glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.” It was also the first time the three U.N. scientists had spoken in detail about the data and analysis underlying their decision. Though this information was presented accurately as fact and crucial for public health, the scientists presenting were consistently put down by Smith and some of his colleagues. 

Photo taken from Time Magazine article (2017), Why Researchers Are Concerned This Pesticide May Cause Cancer.

That is because Monsanto has bought off government officials to demoralize and dismiss scientists regarding their concerns of Glyphosate, a chemical used in pesticide products like Roundup, and it’s risks associated with cancer. If you wish to join us in defending the scientists and demanding that the Trump administration keep conglomerates like Bayer-Monsanto from getting too big for regulations in the name of public good, then please rally with us on Saturday, April 14th in the March for Science. There will be a march in East Meadow and Riverhead, in addition to Washington Square Park and Washington DC. Find more details online here. 

Read more from Civil Eats about a current court case involving Lee Johnson, a 46-year-old resident of Vallejo, California who developed a severe skin rash in 2014, two years after he started spraying Roundup as part of his grounds keeping job. He read and followed the directions on the label, written by Monsanto, yet the rash turned into an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. Doctors estimate Johnson has six months left to live.