
Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Farm Bill, which fails to make meaningful reforms to correct this imbalance in our food policy:
1. “Direct Payments” Bait and Switch
The Farm Bill eliminates the “Direct Payments” program—long the poster child for wasteful agricultural subsidies, known for handing out checks to rich landowners who don’t even farm. But in a political sleight of hand, the bill plows more than half the savings from cutting Direct Payments into a new subsidy program that will continue to give handouts to large agribusinesses that don’t need our tax dollars.
The new “Shallow Loss” programs would lock in the record high prices of recent years. A study commissioned by the Environmental Working Group found that if prices fell, the new program could cost taxpayers $20 billion more over the next decade than the discredited “Direct Payments” program.
2. Big Profits Mean Big Subsidies
Since 1995, just four percent of agribusinesses have made off with three quarters of the subsidies. Yet the bill does next to nothing to reduce or eliminate subsidies for agribusinesses with high incomes. For millionaire farmers, the checks will keep on coming.
3. No Caps Mean Million Dollar Checks
The bill fails to put any cap on how big a check an agribusiness can receive to help pay its insurance bill. Currently, taxpayers pay more than 60 percent of the premiums for insurance that compensates agribusinesses for poor yields, price declines or both. On top of that, taxpayers pay 15 private insurance companies $1.3 billion to run the program.
Because the program has no caps, 26 agribusinesses have received more than $1 million in a single year, while 80 percent get $5,000 on average, according to a study from the Environmental Working Group.
Instead of reining in this program and capping how much agribusinesses can receive, the bill would actually expand it.
4. Paying to Market Big Macs and Underwear Abroad
The Farm Bill makes no changes to the $200 million per year Market Access Program, which has subsidized ad campaigns for giant agricultural companies and their trade associations. Companies receiving funding have ranged from McDonald’s to Fruit of the Loom. Taxpayer money has even been used to pay for a reality TV show in India to promote cotton. Companies are perfectly capable of buying their own airtime—they don’t need taxpayer dollars to subsidize their ads.
5. Subsidizing Junk Food
At a time when America faces an obesity epidemic, billions in subsidies underwrite the production of junk food additives. Between 1995 and 2012, U.S. PIRG research found that $19.2 billion subsidized four common junk food additives, including high fructose corn syrup. That’s enough to buy every kid under 18 eight 2-liter bottles of soda every year. By contrast, the subsidies for apples—the only fruit or vegetable that gets significant subsidies—would pay for less than half of an apple for each taxpayer.
Visit EcoWatch’s FOOD and HEALTH pages for more related news on these topics.
At first glance, you wouldn't think avocados and almonds could harm bees; but a closer look at how these popular crops are produced reveals their potentially detrimental effect on pollinators.
Migratory beekeeping involves trucking millions of bees across the U.S. to pollinate different crops, including avocados and almonds. Timothy Paule II / Pexels / CC0
<p>According to <a href="https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/israeli-kitchen/beekeeping-how-to-keep-bees" target="_blank">From the Grapevine</a>, American avocados also fully depend on bees' pollination to produce fruit, so farmers have turned to migratory beekeeping as well to fill the void left by wild populations.</p><p>U.S. farmers have become reliant upon the practice, but migratory beekeeping has been called exploitative and harmful to bees. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported that commercial beekeeping may injure or kill bees and that transporting them to pollinate crops appears to negatively affect their health and lifespan. Because the honeybees are forced to gather pollen and nectar from a single, monoculture crop — the one they've been brought in to pollinate — they are deprived of their normal diet, which is more diverse and nourishing as it's comprised of a variety of pollens and nectars, Scientific American reported.</p><p>Scientific American added how getting shuttled from crop to crop and field to field across the country boomerangs the bees between feast and famine, especially once the blooms they were brought in to fertilize end.</p><p>Plus, the artificial mass influx of bees guarantees spreading viruses, mites and fungi between the insects as they collide in midair and crawl over each other in their hives, Scientific American reported. According to CNN, some researchers argue that this explains why so many bees die each winter, and even why entire hives suddenly die off in a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.</p>Avocado and almond crops depend on bees for proper pollination. FRANK MERIÑO / Pexels / CC0
<p>Salazar and other Columbian beekeepers described "scooping up piles of dead bees" year after year since the avocado and citrus booms began, according to Phys.org. Many have opted to salvage what partial colonies survive and move away from agricultural areas.</p><p>The future of pollinators and the crops they help create is uncertain. According to the United Nations, nearly half of insect pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, risk global extinction, Phys.org reported. Their decline already has cascading consequences for the economy and beyond. Roughly 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops around the world depend on bees and other pollinators for free fertilization services worth billions of dollars, Phys.org noted. Losing wild and native bees could <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wild-bees-crop-shortage-2646849232.html" target="_self">trigger food security issues</a>.</p><p>Salazar, the beekeeper, warned Phys.org, "The bee is a bioindicator. If bees are dying, what other insects beneficial to the environment... are dying?"</p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Australia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is home to more than 7% of all the world's plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. One such species, the Pharohylaeus lactiferus bee, was recently rediscovered after spending nearly 100 years out of sight from humans.
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