Guest blog post by Sasha Miller, Purplebrown Farmstead and Farm Store

More folks should discuss the farm bill when it renews every five years because it affects so much of our society through its policies and funding allocations. The farm bill not only determines in part what we eat and how much it costs, but also influences the wages of workers, who is able to become a farmer, the level of social support for improving food access, and what type of support is provided at all.

And, in the context of current climate challenges, the farm bill has a major impact on our collective carbon footprint, by encouraging certain agricultural production methods through its policies. For instance, conventional agriculture practices include nitrogen and topsoil runoff, major algae blooms in our lakes, methane pollution from CAFOs, and deforestation of vital forests for pasture and crops. These practices are incentivized through the farm bill and other USDA programs and lead to climate instability, tragic droughts, more frequent floods, wildfires, and more.  

Organic farmers have remained motivated to produce healthy food in healthy soil, in spite of social, economic, and political challenges. Because we’ve always known—and by now sufficient scientific research has proven—that organic practices are essential for healthy soil, healthy food, and a healthy planet. Small organic farms can, and must, carry the awesome burden of nourishing our communities if we are to see a brighter future for our planet.  

Supporting Small and Sustainable

Small organic farms stimulate local economies and keep more dollars in communities, improve the quality of life for neighbors, and create meaningful job opportunities for diverse people. It would be extreme to say that small organic farms can feed the world, but they sure can steer us toward a more stable climate and healthy society. Still, major obstacles remain in place to expand organic production for wider benefit, because our policies are decided by those involved.   

This year, the farm bill can substantially correct the course to positively and immediately affect our climate and social welfare, with a focus on organic production and small, diversified farms. Senator Sherrod Brown, a long-time supporter of small organic farms, is sponsoring several marker bills that promote soil health and climate resilience, support beginning and BIPOC farmers, strengthen regional and local food systems, and invest in organic and sustainable research. All these programs would meaningfully impact our collective future, as part of the 2023 Farm Bill.  

Give the Farm Bill the Attention it Deserves

I encourage everyone to call their representative, talk to a neighbor, and learn more about the 2023 Farm Bill. It doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Do we want to see more quaint little farms dotting the rural countryside, growing organic food, employing local workers, and keeping our communities healthy? Or, do we want to continue with the large polluting farms, increasing weather extremes, and poor rural communities desperate for financial support? The future is clearly related to what happens with the 2023 Farm Bill. 

Take Action

Make Your Voice Heard!

For many, getting the OEFFA conference schedule of workshops, keynotes, and networking events can make you feel like a kid in a candy store.

There’s so much good material to choose from and opportunities to connect with old friends and make new ones, all while working collectively toward a healthier future. The 2022 conference will be no exception.

If you want to see real change in our food and farming system—changes that support organic and regenerative farmers and invest in healthful local and regional food choices—you’re going to want to be a part of these key conversations at the 2022 OEFFA conference, Rooted and Rising, February 12 online and February 17-19 at the Dayton Convention Center:

• An Organic Approach to Farm Policy: Scott Marlow served as the executive director for the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, working to reorient the farm system away from concentration and corporate control to truly supporting family farmers. Join his virtual workshop on February 12 focusing on how we structure farm credit and risk management, and how the availability or lack of capital and access to crop insurance has a profound impact on the farming we see on the ground. 
• Farm Bill Forecast: On February 12, a panel of food system leaders will explore how 2022 will be a formative year for the creation of the 2023 Farm Bill, and the unique opportunities it presents for reorienting the food system toward sustainability. Hear an in-depth conversation from Eric Deeble, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Abby Youngblood, executive director for the National Organic Coalition, and Jonathan McCracken, Senior Policy Advisor for Senator Sherrod Brown.
• How Should Organic Grow?: Patty Lovera, policy director for the Organic Farmers Association, will have a conversation with organic growers and supporters about how organic should grow in the years ahead during this workshop on February 12.
• Organic is Risky? Progress and Challenges of Crop Insurance for Organic Farmers: Jeff Schahczenski of the National Center for Appropriate Technology will focus on organic farmers and the crop insurance tools that do and don’t work during this February 12 workshop.
• Winning a Better Food and Farm System: OEFFA’s new policy team will lead a discussion on February 18 about how to win a better food and farm system, and provide real next steps you can take away from conference.
• The Critical To-Do List for Organic Agriculture: We are excited to welcome back Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While there, she helped establish national standards for organic food and oversee the National Organic Program. During this February 18 workshop, she’ll share insights from her work with the Organic Trade Association, where she is identifying the priorities for organic as we head into the 2023 Farm Bill.

This is just a sample of the critical policy conversations that we hope you will be a part of during the 2022 conference. Please join us as we work toward positive change! Learn more and register at conference.oeffa.org.

This blog a re-posting from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new Pandemic Cover Crop Program (PCCP).

It will offer a $5 per acre premium discount to producers who planted qualifying cover crops during the 2021 crop year and enrolled in eligible federal crop insurance policies.

The PCCP is administered by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) and funds for this program are coming from the USDA Pandemic Assistance for Producers (PAP) program. 

To receive this premium benefit, eligible farmers must file their acreage report with FSA by next Tuesday, June 15, 2021.

For additional details about the program and producer eligibility, click here.

PCCP Background

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many producers to lose revenue which made it financially challenging for them to maintain cover crop systems. The PCCP mirrors popular premium rebate programs in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana that support farmers who use cover crops as part of their rotations. However, unlike these programs, the PCCP is being offered retroactively as a relief program to farmers who planted cover crops this year. 

Farmers have long known the benefits of cover crops and their value is even more evident today as farmers are up against climate change driven floods, drought, and unpredictable weather. Cover crop adoption is an essential practice to build resilient systems and mitigate risk. There is a strong body of research which demonstrates the numerous benefits that planting cover crops has on crop yields, soil health, and farmers’ bottom lines. The announcement of the PCCP indicates that USDA recognizes the data presented by the agricultural research community and the wisdom of farmers who use cover crops.

Despite these benefits, many obstacles remain to broad cover crop adoption. Just over 4.5 percent of land in farms is planted with cover crops – 15 million acres out of 320 million acres of harvested cropland in 2017. As we emerge from the pandemic, it is clearer than ever that there is room for dramatic improvement in these rates and that USDA should support farmers to adopt conservation practices that increase resilience in the face of production and market risk for individual farm businesses as well as our entire food system.

NSAC has long advocated for aligning crop insurance with conservation practices. The PCCP is a welcome support to farmers who have been impacted by the pandemic, and may represent an important first step toward aligning crop insurance with soil and water conservation in the future.

Estimated Impact

The PCCP could cost up to an estimated $75 million (out of the $6.5 billion available through PAP) if all producers who planted cover crops on 15 millions acres received the PCCP premium. However, not all farmers who plant cover crops are enrolled in eligible crop insurance policies; in fact, farmers who adopt cover crops and additional practices to diversify production appear less likely than conventional farmers to enroll in crop insurance.  

For these farmers, especially small farmers, diversified and integrated production strategies are natural risk-management strategies. 

If these farmers were to enroll in crop insurance, the Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program is a natural choice tailored to sustainable producers. WFRP is the only crop-neutral revenue insurance policy available nationwide designed to protect a farmer’s entire operation – insuring all crops and livestock under one policy, not just one crop. NSAC is thus disappointed that WFRP is explicitly excluded from the list of eligible federal crop insurance policies under PCCP. 

“Encouraging cover crops is a good thing,” said Scott Marlow, Long Rows Consulting, in response to the program’s announcement and its exclusion of WFRP. “But we have to be careful that rewarding the adoption of one facet of resilience (cover crops) in one sector of agriculture (crops eligible for standard crop insurance) isn’t reinforcing the drive toward industrialization that got us here in the first place. Are we creating an economic disadvantage against more fundamental elements of systemic resilience like crop diversity, integration of crops and livestock, higher-value and more diverse markets, and diverse farm scales?”

The PCCP was announced on June 1, 2021, giving farmers just two weeks until the June 15 deadline to adjust course at one of the busiest times of the growing season. The accelerated acreage reporting deadline will be a challenge for many farmers who were not already planning to submit their forms early, especially considering FSA County Offices are not yet open to the public without appointments per COVID-19 safety protocol. 

NSAC understands that this is a new program and that an early deadline for farmers to submit acreage reports will enable RMA to process payments before the August 15, 2021 premium billing date, but insufficient notice will hamper the reach and effectiveness of this program. While PCCP is looking at planting decisions made in the past, NSAC hopes that USDA will use this as a first step and extend the program to incentivize cover crop adoption into future planting years.

Improvements Needed

The PCCP will be a welcome support for eligible farmers who have been impacted by the pandemic as they work to maintain their cover crop systems. But this model is not perfect and it is important to recognize its limited ability to bolster food system resilience. 

In the short-term, NSAC urges USDA to implement comparable support for farmers enrolled in crop insurance policies that are excluded from the PCCP, including WFRP, that better serve small, mid-size, diversified, and organic producers. In addition, we recommend that RMA consider extending the June 15 acreage reporting deadline given insufficient notice at the height of the growing season for farmers and reduced accessibility of FSA County Offices. 

Looking ahead, there is a distinct possibility that levels of PCCP participation may be used as a proxy for producer interest or as a test run before USDA introduces a permanent iteration of this program. If true, NSAC recommends that any future program in this mold include WFRP as an eligible crop insurance policy. In addition, we feel that advance acreage reporting submission will only curtail participation, particularly among small or low resource farmers for whom the administrative burden is considerable, and should be extended to match the normal acreage reporting deadline. 

Fundamentally, the PCCP is a relief program designed to retroactively reward farmers who planted cover crops during a financially difficult year. NSAC strongly recommends that any future program created in the mold of PCCP be designed as a proactive initiative to encourage more farmers to adopt cover crops, as well as continue to reward farmers who maintain cover crop systems. 

While a $5 per acre premium is a relatively small reward that may not meaningfully offset the significant upfront costs that farmers face when adopting cover crops for the first time, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program survey suggests that a discount through crop insurance would be one of farmers’ preferred types of conservation payment.

These recommendations to improve PCCP, or shape a future iteration of the program, should be undertaken as a suite of additional actions which USDA could use to more effectively incentivize conservation practices as risk management tools. NSAC and our member organizations look forward to continuing to work with USDA to implement meaningful reforms that align conservation programs with crop insurance to actively bolster the long-term resilience and competitiveness of our country’s farmers.

We recently survived one of the most contentious elections in recent memory. Whomever your preferred candidate, we now have a declared winner in Joe Biden. But what does that mean for sustainable and organic agriculture, local food systems, and conservation policy?

One of the priorities of President-Elect Joe Biden’s agricultural agenda is to strengthen anti-trust enforcement. According to the campaign website, “American farmers and ranchers are being hurt by increasing market concentration. Biden will make sure farmers and producers have access to fair markets where they can compete and get fair prices for their products—and require large corporations to play by the rules instead of writing them—by strengthening enforcement of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts and the Packers and Stockyards Act.”

Action to address concentration and consolidation would have tremendous, positive consequences for sustainable family farmers across the country. The increasing level of concentration and consolidation in agriculture, food processing, and retailing makes it increasingly difficult for all but the biggest and most specialized—and often the least sustainable—to thrive. By allowing more free market competition and development of local and regional food markets and processing infrastructure, farmers can be price makers instead of being forced to be the lowest price takers.

Local and Regional Markets

Biden’s platform also includes the development of local and regional food markets. By partnering “with small and mid-sized farmers to help them collectively create supply chains to deliver fresh produce and other products to schools, hospitals, and other major state and federal institutions, including the Defense Department…these farmers [can] negotiate their own prices.”

Beginning and Early Career Farmers

Importantly, a future for American agriculture requires a crop of new farmers interested, willing, and able to start a farm operation. Access to land, credit, and capitol are common, significant barriers new farmers must overcome, and despite a successful Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program that provides resources for programs, like OEFFA’s Begin Farming Program, the scale of the these challenges requires more resources and attention.

Biden states that he “will expand the Obama-Biden Administration’s microloan program for new and beginning farmers, doubling the maximum loan amount to $100,000…and increase funding for the USDA’s farm ownership and operating loans.” 

Community Development

Farmers, new or old, are the backbone of rural communities that have struggled with the bifurcation of farming to, mostly, very large and very small operations, with those in the middle being squeezed out.  Biden’s platform includes measures to bolster rural communities by expanding broadband to every American and expanding the role of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI), to make up for the fact that almost 40 percent of rural counties don’t have one bank branch.

Organic Agriculture

There are few clear indicators of how this new administration will prioritize organic agriculture, address the ongoing concern over the integrity of the National Organic Program (NOP), or tackle long-overdue issues like integrity with organic dairy production, animal welfare standards, hydroponics, or fraudulent organic grain imports. But, Biden has stated an interest in increasing funding for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, which are important sources of research, outreach materials, and programming for sustainable and organic agriculture.

Conservation

There also indications that farm conservation will be a priority. Specifically, the Biden website states that it will “dramatically expand and fortify the pioneering Conservation Stewardship Program, to support farm income through payments based on farmers’ practices to protect the environment, including carbon sequestration.”

As of this writing, it appears that we will have a divided government with Democrats controlling the executive branch and House of Representatives and Republicans controlling the Senate. If that remains the case, pending two senate runoff races in Georgia, a great deal of what is accomplished may depend upon a spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation, which has been lacking for more than a decade.

OEFFA members care about the integrity of the organic program and the ability of organic and sustainable farmers to make a viable living.  We care about increase in the resilience of local and regional food systems as the globalized food system revealed its fragility amidst the 2020 pandemic.

That’s why “We the People” must hold our decision-makers accountable for their support or opposition to the issues we care about. If you want to be part of that accountability team, contact OEFFA today to learn more!

Guest post from Jeff Schahczenski, National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), Agricultural and Natural Resource Economist

Like many of our favorite movies, the sequel to the Coronavirus Farm Assistance Program (CFAP 2) is an expansion and improvement of the original. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) began taking applications for CFAP 2 on September 21, 2020. The program will end on December 11, 2020. About $14 billion has been made available to fund this relief effort for U.S. agriculture producers impacted by COVID-19.

For Judy Owsowitz, owner and founder of Terrapin Farm in Whitefish, Montana, CFAP 2 is welcome help for the significant losses she experienced this year due to the pandemic. “I chose to not do farmers’ markets this year out of concern for my crew and the public. Many of my restaurants are also struggling. CFAP 2 has simplified access to pandemic relief,” Judy noted.

With a new category of relief payments known as sales commodities, hundreds of specialty crops, aquaculture, nursery crops, and floriculture items are eligible. Relief payments for this wide category of goods are calculated based on the producer’s 2019 sales of these eligible commodities and a declining payment rate that is roughly 10 percent of the value of those sales is provided. So, a farm with a 2019 gross sales revenue of, say, $125,000 would receive a relief payment of slightly more than $12,500. As gross sales increases, the percentage of relief decreases slightly to a bit less than 10 percent.

A highly diverse farm like Terrapin Farm with over 500 varieties of unique vegetables, fruits, and herbs, can simply report total sales revenue from 2019 as the basis of relief payment without having to list each product. “I tried to access CFAP 1 and it was just too burdensome to have to list each crop separately, particularly when the payment was so small for each crop,” said Judy. For CFAP 2, a producer only has to document the total sales of eligible crops in 2019 and an online calculator provided by the FSA will calculate the total relief payment, as well as generate part of the application paperwork.

The larger diversity of crops and livestock products covered by CFAP 2 is significant. In fact, the only items not eligible for relief under CFAP 2 are:

• Hay, except alfalfa, and crops intended for grazing
• All equine, animals raised for breeding stock, companion or comfort animals, pets, and animals raised for hunting or game purposes
• Birdsfoot and trefoil, clover, cover crop, fallow, forage soybeans, forage sorghum, gardens (commercial and home), grass, kochia (prostrata),
  lespedeza, milkweed, mixed forage, pelts (excluding mink), perennial peanuts, pollinators, sun hemp, vetch, and seed of ineligible crops

In addition to sales commodities, there are two additional eligible ways to access CFAP 2 payments:

• Price Trigger Commodities: Barley, corn, sorghum, soybeans, sunflowers, upland cotton, and all classes of wheat; broilers; eggs and milk; beef cattle, hogs and pigs; and lambs and sheep. Relief payment is based on 2020 planted acres, yield, marketing percentage, and a specified payment rate.
• Flat-Rate Commodities: Alfalfa, amaranth grain, buckwheat, canola, Extra Long Staple (ELS) cotton, crambe (colewort), einkorn, emmer, flax, guar, hemp, indigo, industrial rice, kenaf, khorasan, millet, mustard, oats, peanuts, quinoa, rapeseed, rice, sweet rice, wild rice, rye, safflower, sesame, spelt, sugar beets, sugarcane, teff, and triticale. Relief payment is simply $15 per 2020 planted acre.

The addition of the flat-rate commodities is significant, as these were not included in the original CFAP. Many of these flat-rate commodities, particularly some of the ancient grains such as amaranth, einkorn, emmer, flax an khorasan, and spelt, are grown organically, providing important support for organic grain farmers.

Even the Terrapin Farm logo of a turtle munching on a famously sweet Terrapin Farm carrot appears a bit happier, as she struggles through these difficult times. “It’s great to see our federal government become responsive and to recognize how important the full diversity of our local and regional food system really is,” Judy said.

For more details, see the USDA website.

Finally, a payment calculator tool is available that can help you assess whether the CFAP 2 makes sense for your specific situation.

ATTRA specialists are on hand to walk you through what you need to know to receive a share of this government assistance package. Give us a call at (800) 346-9140 or e-mail us at AskAnAg@ncat.org. We’re here for you!