Last Thursday, July 26th, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Farm Bill without any significant subsidy reform. It missed a rare opportunity to overhaul US trade distorting subsidies that benefit large, corporate operations at the expense of family farmers, rural communities, and efforts to reduce global poverty. It made minimal progress in funding for nutrition, conservation, and rural development programs.

Although the Fairness Amendment was defeated, our advocacy for it helped bring about other benefits. In the hours prior to the vote, House leadership negotiated last minute funding increases for various programs, in effect siphoning votes away from the Amendment from key groups like domestic nutrition advocates, foreign food aid supporters, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

These are among the improvements that now appear in the House version of the Farm Bill :

-$4 billion for domestic hunger prevention programs
-$1.6 billion for healthier food systems, including more fresh fruits & veggies for school lunches and funding for organics
-$1.1 billion in mandatory spending for McGovern-Dole, a program to provide lunches for children in Africa
funds to support settlement of USDA racial discrimination lawsuits
-$150 million for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers
a tighter income eligibility standard for farm subsidy recipients, lowering the maximum eligible income to $500,000 from the previous $2.5 million.
-Closing loopholes for abuse and fraud through the elimination of the 3-entity rule, and direct attribution of payments.

Our will is as strong as ever, and we will now take this fight to the Senate for the next round of the law-making process. Thanks to our efforts, public outcry for subsidy reform has risen to new heights, and Congress will continue to feel the pressure.

As we go forward to consideration of the Farm Bill in the Senate, let’s make sure that we continue to move in this positive direction. In the weeks to come, we need to emphasize to our Senators that in addition to what the House accomplished, they need to address trade distorting subsidies. These specific types of commodity subsidies continue to contribute to farm consolidation, environmental problems, and decline in rural communities. They also cause surplus production that devastates rural communities in the poorest nations around the world.

Thank you so much for all your tremendous work in this endeavor. Let us now go forward and work for a Farm Bill that truly addresses hunger and poverty around the world. Take a moment to rest and pat yourself on the back for putting some muscle into the grassroots democratic process. Then let’s get back to it!