"White bread cost an average of 85 cents a pound in 1998 and $1.03 in February 2006. The price rose to $1.32 a pound last month, according to federal data."

Food prices are going up. This hits the poorest the hardest and food riots are occurring around the world. Every 1% increase in food prices produces about 16 million more hungry people per year. We are headed in the wrong direction if we don't do more to restructure agriculture and food policy, and reduce the amount of grain going into the mouths of livestock and into the tanks of the middle class and rich.

I still don't like the Vilsack nomination, but this is a good attempt to "talk me down".

The Oakland Institute cuts through the confusion and opportunism in the debate on the global food crisis driven by increasing food prices. Three straight-forward recommendations are offered: (1) Strengthen the safety net and raise the extra $500 million for food aid by May 1, (2) Development policies should support a shift from food import to food self-sufficiency, and (3) Government and trade policies that encourage food sovereignty through protection of consumers, poor farmers and agriculture as a central part of a nation's economy.

AN AMENDMENT to the 2007 farm bill that would have limited federal payments to well-to-do farmers failed in the Senate yesterday. The vote was 56-43 -- in favor of the measure. How can a bill backed by a substantial bipartisan majority not pass? Welcome to the wonderful world of agriculture politics.

Is limiting federal subsidies to farmers with incomes over $750,000 unreasonable?

The Bush administration, setting the stage for another confrontation with Congress over a major spending measure, issued a veto threat yesterday against the Senate version of the $288 billion farm bill.

Agricultural policy is not sexy. You probably don't know the intricacies of "loan deficiency payments" or "base acreage," and you probably don't care. This was once an agrarian nation, but now there's a less than 1% chance that you're a farmer, and if you are, you're probably part time; the average farm family gets 82% of its income from nonfarm sources. We're not a people of the soil anymore, and for most of us, our eyes glaze over when we see farm statistics like the ones in that last sentence.
But farms still cover most of our land, consume most of our water and produce most of our food. If you eat, drink or pay taxes--or care about the economy, the environment or our global reputation--U.S. agricultural policy is a big deal.

Almost everyone knows what needs to be done. The Senate should just do it.

Earlier this year, the Democratic-led House passed a $286 billion bill little different from the subsidy-laden one passed by the Republican-led House five years ago. If the Senate, which is about to begin work on its bill, cannot produce something substantially better than the House, President Bush should not hesitate to veto the final version.

President Bush, who has generally been on the right side of the farm issue, should think seriously about vetoing a deeply disappointing farm bill.

Higher prices, partly due to demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash American food aid to its lowest level in a decade.

"A critical step was taken in July when key WTO committees proposed a framework with ranges of reductions in trade barriers. In agriculture, the WTO committee recommends slashing the U.S. cap on annual trade-distorting support to $13 billion from over $16 billion and cutting the highest E.U. farm tariffs significantly. They also propose a range of cuts in developing countries' industrial tariffs."

In the past few years protecting the environment has emerged as a religious issue. Now, something similar is taking place in the way people of faith view their daily bread.

"A decade ago, few would have thought to analyze the efforts of eat-local zealots. But now, farmers' markets are booming, celebrity chefs are proudly decorating their menus with the names of nearby farms, and a steady stream of best-sellers is urging us to "come home to eat" (to paraphrase the title of Gary Paul Nabhan's popular 2001 book).

That surge has earned attention both positive and negative, and landed local-food advocates in a valuable position. By sniffing out easy sloganeering, a movement's critics can help it hone and deepen its analysis -- and reach the next level of acceptance. "

CARE, one of the world's biggest charities, said that American food aid may hurt the people it aims to help.

"U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Monday at the Iowa State Fair that the Conservation Security Program will be part of the 2007 farm bill, 'or there won't be a bill.' "

"Hovering above all the good bits and nasty pieces of the measure is that it would do little to change our corrupt system of paying subsidies to some of the wealthiest nonfarmers in the world. Nor does the House address the fact that the bulk of the money intended to maintain diverse and competitive family farms would go to a handful of Southern states that overproduce crops like rice and cotton."

"Sustaining the subsidies in the farm bill was an unfortunate bid to keep farm-state Democrats happy (even President Bush pushed for larger reforms) and she has rightly taken much heat for it."

The good news is that there is a core group of influential farm state senators ready to break with the past and with the lobbyists for big agriculture.

Baptists and other Christian groups are asking Congress to seize an opportunity to reform the way the government relates to farmers—for the sake of the poor in the United States and around the globe, they say.

A group of Christian leaders have urged House members dealing with the 2007 Farm Bill to consider re-prioritizing how the government doles out support for farm subsidies, food stamps, rural development and foreign aid.

Incredibly, the House is poised to approve a subsidy-laden farm bill more nearly suited to the Great Depression.

WHEN THE Democrats took over Congress in November, they promised to legislate differently from their predecessors. Given the slimness of their victory and the voters' pronounced anger at Washington, they had a mandate to dispense with the worst manifestations of craven interest politics and to push for basic reforms in ethics and procedure. Now Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and the rest of the new House leadership are in danger of failing a major test of their commitment to change.

At issue is the massive system of farm subsidies -- federal giveaways that cost all Americans but benefit few -- that is set for reapproval on the House floor later this week. Currently, half of the cash the country pours into farming goes to only about 20 congressional districts.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed off Friday on a five-year farm bill that would keep multibillion-dollar subsidies flowing to cotton, corn and a handful of other crops, deeply disappointing Bay Area food and environmental activists who had hoped that Congress might shift federal farm policy this year to combat obesity, air and water pollution and industrial farming.

Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of the anti-poverty group Oxfam America, singled out for criticism a measure outlined by Peterson. It would lower the ceiling for individuals receiving farm subsidies from $2.5 million to $1 million in adjusted gross income. The Bush administration has proposed a deeper cut to $200,000.

"It's a sad day when the Democratically led Agriculture Committee is a better friend to wealthy special interests than the Bush administration," Offenheiser said.

The next challenge is farm policy. Again, Pelosi faces an entrenched committee chair, this time Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota. A decade ago, Peterson came to prominence by co-founding the "Blue Dog" Democrats to support budget discipline. Now he wants to spray taxpayers' money at farmers, even though farm country is already high on ethanol.

. . .

The form of these payments is straightforwardly outrageous. In 2004, "very large" family farms, with an average income of $273,000, received one-third of the booty, according to the Agriculture Department. The marvelous database created by the Environmental Working Group shows that the beneficiaries in the top 1 percent each pocket $125,000 in subsidies per year. Wait: 125,000 smackers from Uncle Sam per year. The average gross income in the Zip codes of those same top recipients was $45,853.

MOLENAARSGRAAF, Netherlands - Dutch farmer Nils den Besten wants to double the size of his 70-cow herd and begin using robotic milkers in three years.

He says he doesn't need government handouts to do his job. As the European Union begins cutting its farm subsidies, den Besten figures he'll lose more than 20,000 euros per year (roughly $27,000). But he's ready to rely on the free market and says farmers in the United States shouldn't receive a guaranteed income, either.

Long known for their liberal politics, many Europeans are getting increasingly conservative when it comes to agriculture. And as Congress prepares to pass a new farm bill, European critics are rankled that Washington is not moving to eliminate trade-distorting subsidies. They fear the payments are hurting farmers in the expanded 27-member European Union.

Legislators are offering an approach to reforming the country's farm bill that actually improves on the Bush administration's.

In the World Cup for agriculture lobbyists, the grass-roots fight to renew the Farm Bill pits groups of God and grain against each other.

The Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill is a network of 16 faith-based groups formed this year to argue that subsidies hurt poor farmers in developing countries and benefit rich farmers in the United States more than the rural poor. The coalition faces skepticism from agricultural trade associations and Congress, where members are beginning to draft the Farm Bill. The bill covers a multitude of issues, including conservation and environmental programs, but the subsidies have emerged as a flash point. Aides expect the bill to hit the floor in June or July. Most of the bill's provisions expire in September.

Could the farm bill give the new Democratic Congress a chance for dramatic reform -- and perhaps even a way to collaborate with President Bush?
It's hard to believe. Arcane, incredibly complex, the New Deal-born system of targeted subsidies, $15 billion worth last year, is regularly pushed through Congress by farm region legislators in the thrall of big commodity farmers (chiefly in corn, rice, cotton, wheat and soybeans).
Sixty percent of America's farmers and ranchers get nothing from the program. And virtually none of the benefits go to farms producing the vegetables and fruits the Agriculture Department's own "food pyramid" says we should be emphasizing for our health.
Still, urban legislators have mindlessly gone along with past farm bills, especially fearful of loss of support for food stamps (also authorized in the farm bill) if they don't. And President Bush, after first supporting major subsidy cutbacks in 2002, backed down under political pressure from Southern cotton interests.

University of Kentucky agriculture economists are predicting a record year for Kentucky farmers in 2007.

In an economic outlook released Thursday morning at the Kentucky Farm Bureau convention in Louisville, UK economists said they expect cash receipts next year to reach a state record of $4.296 billion.

The economists based their prediction on expected growth in corn, wheat and soybean prices.

The outlook assumes normal growing conditions and no major disease outbreaks.
The economists also estimated that 2006 cash receipts will come in at $4.1 billion, which would be the second-highest on record. The state's best year for farm receipts was 2004 when $4.13 billion came in.