Organic Farmers want their piece of the Farm Bill pie
On Wednesday, organic farmers testified before the House Agriculture committee, asking for their fair share of the money that gets handed out every year as part of the Farm Bill - $25 billion alone to industrial farmers who grow commodity crops like corn. Believe it or not, these agribusiness companies even get marketing funds from the government as part of the farm bill. But the organic farmers aren't asking for that much. From the article:
Organic growers face an uphill battle against the entrenched commodity groups that get the lion's share of farm spending. Mostly, they asked at Wednesday's hearing not for direct aid, but for an added share of the research and education money, as well as better statistical collection to convince bankers to make loans.
Seems reasonable to me. In fact, they should get a lot more than that - purchases of organic foods increase by 20% every year, and we're already having trouble meeting demand for organic foods. And by increasing organic farming, maybe we can move again towards supporting small, family farms instead of large, industrial farming operations.
