PROGRESSIVE PLAYBOOK > MAKING THE FOOD SYSTEM MORE JUST, RESILIENT, AND HUMANE THROUGH THE 2023 FARM BILL
Making the Food System More Just, Resilient, and Humane through the 2023 Farm Bill
INTRODUCTION
The 2023 Farm Bill presents an opportunity to build a more just, resilient, and humane food system. This can be achieved through policies that create fair markets, improve resiliency, and address the climate crisis. A Farm Bill that invests in sustainable, diversified, and humane agricultural systems will support independent family farmers, local food systems, and sustain America’s farmlands for generations to come. This explainer outlines several priorities that can help achieve these goals.
These recommendations were compiled with input from the American Friends Service Committee, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, Center for Food Safety, Climate Justice Alliance, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Farm Action Fund, Farmworker Association of Florida, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, National Family Farm Coalition, Rural Coalition, Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), UPR Resiliency Law Center, World Farmers, and National Young Farmers Coalition.
Rein in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and Industrial Livestock Corporations
Enact a large CAFO moratorium and provide a voluntary buyout for farmers who want to transition away from the industrial livestock/ poultry system.
Strengthen the Packers and Stockyards Act so that it has the power to protect livestock and poultry producers from anti-competitive practices.
Improve labeling standards, including by:
Requiring mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL) on beef, pork, and dairy products.
Prohibiting imported meat products from being labeled “Product of U.S.A.”
Expanding testing for “raised without antibiotics” labels approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).
Create transparency in animal raising claims on meat, dairy, and egg labels.
Hold corporate integrators responsible for pollution and CAFOs’ other harmful effects.
Disqualify subsidies to CAFOs through the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
Disallow the use of funds for anaerobic digesters for CAFOs from any USDA Program.
Impose payment limits on risk management and commodity programs (see the Rural America Preservation Act of 2012).
Focus USDA Procurement Programs to Build a More Humane, Resilient, and Local Food System
Require that USDA establish purchasing targets, set-asides, and lift barriers for the purchase of foods grown by independent, socially disadvantaged, and beginning farmers and ranchers.
Require the federal government to procure a wide variety of foods that meet higher standards such as organic, nutrient dense, higher-welfare/humanely raised, meat raised without routine antibiotics, grass-fed, and plant-based sources of protein.
Require that USDA contracts purchase a set amount of locally-produced products.
Prohibit USDA from procuring foods from vendors with serious, willful, or repeated violations of federal labor laws.
Improve labor standards and strengthen the resiliency of federal food purchasing contracts, including by:
Improving wages for food processing workers to reduce employee turnover and enhance the stability of federal food purchasing.
Establishing procedures for covered food contractors to meet with worker health and safety committees.
Ensuring workers have access to paid family and medical leave.
Requiring food contractors to provide evidence that they have entered into labor harmony agreements with labor organizations that represent or are seeking to represent the contractor’s workforce.
Authorize school districts that are unable to source foods that are consistent with a policy adopted by the School Food Authority to buy the products on the commercial market and be reimbursed by their state agency using their commodity allocations.
Require that the USDA establish a target for reducing emissions associated with it’s procurement and a corresponding implementation strategy.
Increase Tribal sovereignty and self-determination so that Indigenous people can access and support the production of fresh, local and traditional foods.
Reauthorize and provide $10 million in mandatory baseline funding for the Pulse Crops Program to provide free pulses and pulse products to schools.
Increase Resiliency in our Food System
Strip corporations of excessive market control and control of food supply chains by:
Reviewing the largest megamergers of the last two decades.
Creating a new special investigator at USDA to increase competition in livestock markets.
Requiring large meatpackers to procure a percentage of their livestock in cash markets.
Invest in local and regional food systems, including by:
Increasing Local Agricultural Marketing Program (LAMP) funding to $500 million.
Providing $1 billion in additional funding to the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loans and Grants program to support local and regional vegetable, fruit, and nut processing.
Increasing schools’ abilities and directives to support regional food systems, such as by boosting mandatory funding of the Farm to School Act to $15 million and increasing the maximum grant award to $500,000, and allowing schools to use “local” as a product specification in their procurement requests.
Increasing investment in community food projects that address food security in urban, low-income areas.
Adopt disaster relief requirements that improve equity for farmers, ranchers, and processors of different sizes and backgrounds.
Provide COVID-19 related support, including by deferring payment on direct farm loans for at least one year after the end of the health emergency, and reducing the interest rate on direct farm loans to 0% until two years after the end of the health emergency.
Increase Puerto Rico and other territories' food sovereignty to increase resilience and provide access to local and fresh food.
Shift government funding programs away from commodity feed crops and toward raising food for people. This transition must be done so that it does not cause job loss and, instead, leads to better, safer jobs.
Expand crop insurance options to support more diversified production models, like the recent microinsurance program.
Protect and Expand Land Access and Tenure
Establish a new initiative to fund community-led land access projects. This USDA funding should be available to Tribes, municipalities, non-profits, and cooperative entities with priority for projects led by, and benefitting, Socially Disadvantaged and Economically Distressed farmers and ranchers.
Establish a new office and coordinating position within the Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) mission area, focused on equitable access to land and centering the needs of small, beginning, urban, and BIPOC farmers.
Amend and fund the Commission on Farm Transition established in the 2018 Farm Bill to study land access and transition and inform policy-setting that facilitates equitable access to land.
Seat the Tribal Advisory Committee authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill.
Secure the purpose and functions of the USDA Equity Commission in the Farm Bill, providing a permanent statutory grounding and operational framework for the critical long-term work of the Commission.
Develop a pre-approval and pre-qualification process for Farm Service Agency (FSA) Direct Farm Ownership Loans.
Relevant Legislation
H.R. 797 (118th) (Rep. Khanna — D-CA-17) / S. 271 (118th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Farm System Reform Act imposes a moratorium on large concentrated animal feeding operations; requires Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef, pork, and dairy products; and revises policies related to the marketing of livestock, poultry, and meat.
H.R. 1167 (118th) (Rep. Adams — D-NC-12) / S. 96 (118th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Justice for Black Farmers Act requires the USDA to provide assistance to address historical discrimination and disparities in the agricultural sector.
H.R. 2534 (117th) (Rep. Spanberger — D-VA-07) / S. 1072 (117th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): Climate Stewardship Act provides federal funding for states, Tribes, local governments, and other jurisdictions to practice climate stewardship, including through farm and ranch conservation activities.
H.R. 7291 (117th) (Rep. Gooden — R-TX-05) / S. 52 (118th) (Sen. Thune — R-SD): The American Beef Labeling Act reinstates mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef.
H.R. 798 (118th) (Rep. Khanna — D-CA-17) / S. 270 (118th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Protecting America’s Meatpacking Workers Act expands protections for meatpacking workers and provides funding for enforcement activities.
H.R. 7827 (117th) (Rep. Pocan — D-WI-02) / S. 4245 (117th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act imposes a moratorium on certain large agricultural and retail-related business acquisitions. It also establishes the Food and Agriculture Concentration and Market Power Review Commission to address market concentration.
S. 2036 (117th) (Sen. Tester — D-MT): The Meat Packing Special Investigator Act creates an Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters within the USDA to investigate and prosecute violations of the Packers and Stockyards Act by packers.
H.R. 7107 (117th) (Rep. Jones — D-NY-17) / S. 3827 (117th) (Sen. Warren — D-MA): The Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act prohibits anti-competitive mergers to prevent consolidation that leads to higher prices and poor working conditions.
S. 269 (118th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Protect America's Children from Toxic Pesticides Act would prohibit the use of more than 100 pesticides that have proven harmful to people and the environment.
H.R. 805 (118th) (Rep. McGovern — D-MA-02) /S. 272 (118th) (Sen. Booker — D-NJ): The Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act would establish the Office of High-Risk AFO Disaster Mitigation and Enforcement at the USDA.