(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Harkin Compromise on the Farm Bill [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-27 Introduction: Restoring a Farm Justice Farm Bill Iowa’s Tom Harkin has been the greatest Senator of the past 40 years on the Farm Bill, because of his leadership in introducing proposals to restore true Democratic Party farm programs. In 1985 Harkin introduced the “Farm Policy Reform Act,” (sometimes called the Harkin-Alexander bill, as it was co-sponsored by Representative Bill Alexander, [D-AR]). See more information here: (“The Farm Policy Reform Act of 1985,” https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/10/the-farm-policy-reform-act-of-1985/). In 1987 he introduced another version of the bill, “The Family Farm Act,” sometimes called the Harkin-Gephardt bill, (with Representative Richard Gephardt as a co-sponsor in the House). See more information here: (“Family Farm Act of 1987,” https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/12/09/family-farm-act-of-1987/). Over the years, Harkin continued to push this approach, along with other rural populist Democrats land presidential candidates. This changed for all of them when Harkin became Senate Agriculture Chairman in 2001, in what I call “The Harkin Compromise.” Harkin surely saw this change as a good one for Democrats, such as on the rural vote. Since the Harkin Compromise, however, Democrats have gone steadily downward on the rural vote, such as in his home state of Iowa, where there are no longer any Democrats in Congress. (On this point see “The Rural Trump Vote: Who's behind the trauma,” https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/the-rural-trump-vote-whos-behind-the-trauma.) The text below is an excerpt from a longer piece, “Subsidies vs Price Floors in Farm Bill History, Revised,” which is found here: (https://familyfarmjustice.me/2016/05/25/subsidies-vs-price-floors-in-farm-bill-history-revised/). Harkin on the Donahue Show in Cedar Rapids in 1985 "One of the sad things, I think, about America today, is that, because of the way we run our political campaigns, and the way we advertise on television, and all the slick advertising and everything, that we have really divorced those we elect to office from the policies that they enact. And it's really a sad thing. There's no political accountability any longer in America. I see people running for office today that have voted for every one of these programs that have decimated rural America, and yet they're very high in the polls and people are going to re-elect them because there doesn't seem to be any political accountability any more." The Harkin Compromise In 2002 when Tom Harkin became chairman of the Senate Ag Committee he switched sides. He stopped advocating for price floors and supported a greened up version of the 1996 Farm bill, “Freedom to Farm,” the worst Republican Farm Bill since Herbert Hoover’s lack of any adequate response to the farm Depression of the 1920s-30s. That goes for 2002, 2008, [and 2014] also. In 1985, 1990 and 1996, however, Harkin and the other Democrats in Congress and running for President (ie. Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, Paul Wellstone, Paul Simon, Gary Hart, George McGovern, Mike Dukakis, Joe Biden,) totally rejected this kind of a farm bill. With Harkin in the chairman roll, however, all of these Democrats in Congress changed course and followed Harkin in what I call “The Harkin Compromise,” his “green” version of Freedom to Fail. During the 1980s mainline churches also supported this kind of farm bill. Today they support some version of a greened up Freedom to Fail, as do most other progressive groups including the Food Movement, Environmental Movement and Sustainable Agriculture Movement. This occurs, surely, either because they believe free markets work, (National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition?) or because they don’t really know “what” a farm bill is, (other 21st century progressives). Efforts are underway to get them all on board for farm justice, to stop then from supporting mere subsidy reforms, (erasing the yellow line on the aqua chart above), for the benefit of animal factories, junk food makers, and export dumpers. Sustainable and Organic farmers are a special case. During the 1990s in trying to stop Freedom to Farm, the Family Farm [Justice] Movement worked hard to bring in sustainable and organic farm coalitions, (SAWGs, NCSA, SAC,) but failed, and [these other groups] have consistently supported some version of Green Freedom to Fail, [mere subsidy reforms, such as green subsidies or caps], combined with no price floors or supply management [to make CAFOs, junk food makers and export dumpers pay fair prices to farmers]. Their policies provide or would continue multibillion dollar below cost gains for CAFOs and even bigger gains for Cargill and ADM. Sustainable/organic folks have won greener subsidies like organic EQIP and CSP, but at the cost of massive subsidization for unsustainable animal factories to compete against them and drive down their premium prices. Likewise, when Michael Pollan, in Food Inc. and Fresh, speaks of cheap junk foods, he’s referring to “green” versions of Freedom to Fail policies, [for the cheapest of corn, milk, cotton, rice, soybeans, etc.]. So when Pollan speaks of “subsidized corn” it’s misleading. The low/no price floors caused the low prices and the cheaper high fructose corn syrup and corn/soy transfats, as can be seen historically. The subsidies prevent the destruction of farmers. The bigger the farm, the bigger the losses to be compensated by bigger subsidies. Again, this is rarely mentioned when bashing farm subsidies. (Of course there are some economies of scale with larger farms, which changes their need somewhat, even as they have the biggest reductions in value.) So ending, greening, and/or capping subsidies are not policies that address the biggest CAFO benefits, processor benefits, ethanol benefits, or exporter benefits against LDC farmers. By the way, “family farm” advocates and their friends (ie. La Via Campesina with 200 million members) lost over and over on the price floor issue (without much food/consumer/environmentalist/organic help, and still today without help). So some farmers invested in ethanol to try to raise prices (and end processor below cost gains, dumping on LDC farmers). The idea is that when farmers lose money on corn, they’ll make some money it on ethanol, and if they make money on corn, they’ll lose money on ethanol. It’s a kind of risk management. No where have I seen this understood in the progressive community outside of NFFC related groups. (Least Developed Countries are 70% rural. The US has long had huge export market shares of some commodities, bigger than the middle East in Oil, but our leaders tried to get low world prices, not high world prices with it’s clout, (clout of well above 50% export market share for corn and soybeans, for example, or up to +80%, but less each decade). 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