Guest post: Iowa electeds siding with corporate interests on new Farm Bill

By siding repeatedly with corporate agribusiness on the Farm Bill reauthorization and not sticking up for family farmers, Iowa’s congressional representatives have let us down.

It’s hard to imagine fall without the humming of combines and trucks moving harvested crops across the countryside. Here on our farm, we’re done with beans and we’ve started on corn.

Harvest is always an interesting time of year, but it’s not a pretty picture right now. Corn and soybean prices are well below cost of production, and the next few months don’t look much better. Given the lack of action on Farm Bill re-authorization and the Nov. 5 election, I wonder what Iowa’s US House members are doing to deliver for those of us in rural America.

All of them—Reps. Zach Nunn, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson, and Randy Feenstra—are not getting the job done. Instead of fighting for family farmers and our livelihoods, they’re either siding with the corporate ag giants or ignoring the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to us.

I’ve been active for nearly 25 years on farm policy issues, and this is one of the most corporate-friendly Iowa delegations I’ve ever seen.

Over the past 18 months, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) Action members have met with our House members and their staff to dig in on Farm Bill issues. We’ve asked them on repeated occasions— both in Washington DC and back here in Iowa—to support legislation and policies that would:

• Stop USDA from using taxpayer money to subsidize corporate-backed factory farms;
• Establish tougher environmental standards for factory farms that pollute;
• Make sure federal conservation programs support family farms, not factory farms;
• Break-up giant meatpacking monopolies and restore competition in livestock markets;
• Ban packer ownership of livestock;
• Establish mandatory country-of-origin labeling to help small and mid-sized cow-calf producers get a better price for their product, and let consumers know if they’re purchasing beef that was born, raised and processed in the US.

We’ve also asked them to champion policies that would establish fair farm prices and grain reserves, and cut down on fencerow-to-fencerow overproduction.

To date, none of Iowa’s congressional reps have stepped forward to support these policies. They’ve either ignored us or avoided giving us a straight answer.

And on top of this, Randy Feenstra and Zach Nunn—who both sit on the House Ag Committee—voted this past May for a Farm Bill that was a big gift to corporate ag. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who sits on the same committee, called it a “disaster for America’s farmers.”

The House Committee’s Farm Bill failed to strengthen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, despite overwhelming public support for cracking down on the giant meatpackers. And it included the EATS Act, an anti-local control measure developed by Big Ag groups that would stop state and local governments from enacting standards to protect us and our water from polluting factory farms.

And even though they’re not on the House Ag Committee, both Hinson and Miller-Meeks have been vocal supporters of EATS. That’s just not right.

By siding repeatedly with corporate agribusiness and not sticking up for family farmers, Iowa’s congressional representatives have let us down. In fact, I’ve been telling friends and neighbors we need a new crop of US House members here in Iowa. And that’s how I’m voting Nov. 5.

Barb Kalbach is a fourth-generation family farmer from Adair, registered nurse, and longtime member of Iowa CCI Action. She can be reached at [email protected]