Organizational Sign-on Letter

This organizational sign-on letter will be sent to California Senators Feinstein and Boxer, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and the Chairman of the House and Senate Ag committees. Sign-ons to this letter will help communicate our vision for the Food and Farm Bill to key decision makers and will add strength to the letter that will be sent by California legislators to Rep. Collin Peterson, Chairman of the Ag Committee.

To sign on, please send your name, organization, city and zipcode to Aleta@foodsecurity.org

May 1, 2007

Dear Representative/Senator x,

This is a critical year for our country’s food and farming system. Over the next several months, Congress will be writing legislation that will profoundly affect what we eat as well as how food is produced, distributed and purchased across the United States. As you consider proposals for the next Food and Farm Bill, we urge you to support initiatives that increase access to high-quality fresh and healthy foods for all Americans, support family farms, promote local food systems and connections to regional agriculture, and leave a legacy of healthy land, water, and air for our children.

Despite being the country’s major provider of fruits and vegetables, many low-income communities and communities of color across California lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods. This lack of healthy food choices contributes to the alarming increases in rates of obesity and diet related diseases.

Current farm bill subsidies exacerbate these problems by encouraging an abundance of “cheap” highly processed, calorie dense and nutrition deficient food in our low-income communities and schools.  Furthermore, these commodity payment programs are highly trade distorting and lead to illegal and unjust dumping of agricultural products that depress prices and hurt farmers in developing countries. In contrast, federal farm policy has done little to encourage fresh fruit and vegetable production or consumption, counter to USDA nutrition guidelines.

While many in our communities struggle to eat healthy, many specialty crop producers, especially small, mid-sized, beginning and minority growers farming on the doorsteps of our urban communities, struggle to access markets and keep their farms viable. California, in particular, is facing continued rapid loss of farmers and farmland and environmental challenges in our farming communities. We value the environmental benefits that farms can provide to our urban communities by preserving open space and the quality of our air and water and protecting wild life habitat. Yet farmers need more support to preserve and protect these valuable resources.

Finally, with hunger and food insecurity on the rise, we must strengthen the safety-net for food insecure families. According to USDA, 1.5 million California households live with hunger or the threat of hunger. Yet at the same time, 54% of eligible families do not participate in the Food Stamp Program.

The 2007 Food and Farm Bill is a historic opportunity to help reverse the alarming trends of hunger, poor health, failing farms and environmental degradation. We can not let another Farm Bill be enacted that perpetuates the status quo. California legislators can make all the difference by supporting payment limitations on commodity programs and shifting resource into areas that will deliver far greater public benefits. Programs that strengthen local food systems and increase access to healthy foods deliver important environmental and health benefits for our state, as well as economic development benefits in urban and rural areas.

Specifically, we strongly request that you urge the leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to support the following Farm Bill priorities:

Improve Access to Healthy Food

• Expand food stamp benefits, streamline the application process and extend eligibility to include single adults and documented immigrants and modernize Food Stamp Nutrition Education to allow comprehensive public health approaches that support community food security interventions.
• Increase funding for food banks to purchase, store and distribute fresh produce.
• Expand the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program to $60 million and expand the scope of the program to include projects that supply healthy local foods to underserved communities.
• Expand Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Pilot Program to schools nationwide to $300 million
• Expand Section 32 Specialty Crop Purchases to $400 million and DOD Fresh Program to $125 million
• Increase funding for Farmers Markets Promotion Program to $25 million and WIC and Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs to $60 million respectively.

Encourage Strong Local and Regional Agricultural Economies

• Provide “fair share” funding for organic agriculture research, extension and conversion, by matching federal resources to market demand.
• Expand the Value-Added Producer and Rural Business Enterprise and Opportunity grants to increase market access through innovative marketing, distribution and business ventures.
• Increase support for processing, distribution, and information technology infrastructure that will assist farmers, especially family and minority farmers, to better access markets.
• Allow geographic preferences and increased flexibility within all Federal nutrition programs, including the DoD Fresh Program, to bring new markets to local and regional farmers.

Protect the Environment and the Future of Agriculture

• Fully fund the Conservation Security Program (CSP) and expand EQIP funding to $2 billion.
• Expand the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program to $300 million per year in order to protect farmland on our urban edges.
• Fully fund the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development and Outreach and Technical Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers programs and increase the cost-share for participation by socially disadvantaged farmers in conservation programs.
• Establish a process to provide relief to African American, and other socially disadvantaged farmers who have filed discrimination complaints and lawsuits against USDA.

Many of these provisions are included in various marker bills that have been introduced by members of the Agriculture Committee and others not on the Committee.

We hope you will support these Farm Bill priorities by signing onto the Dear Colleague letter that is being circulated by Rep. Hilda Solis’ office urging Chairman Colin Peterson to support these measures as markup continues on the Food and Farm Bill. We also hope you will discuss these priorities with your California colleagues who are Members of the House Agriculture Committee.

Thank you for taking action to advance food, farm and nutrition policies that will improve the physical and economic wellbeing of our cities and rural communities.

Sincerely,

Include your name, organization, city and zip code