September 13, 2022
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden Jr.
President
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
Re: Demand a Farm Bill that Reflects Your Values
Dear Mr. President,
Every five years, Congress reauthorizes the Farm Bill, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that affects every part of our food system. The next Farm Bill should reflect your values and build on your administration’s actions to date to reduce economic inequality, bridge the nation’s racial divides, end hunger, confront the climate crisis, improve nutrition and food safety, and protect and support farmers, workers, and communities. Such a Farm Bill should:
Center Racial Justice – To reflect your values, the next Farm Bill must advance your administration’s pledge to “confront the hard reality of past discrimination” and address the continuing and devastating reality of systemic racism in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Your Farm Bill must be a racial justice bill that will, in the words of your 2021 Executive Order, “allocate resources to address the historic failure to invest sufficiently, justly, and equally in underserved communities.” Farmers and communities of color, Tribal Nations, and food and farm workers add immeasurable knowledge and value to our food and farm system and make essential economic and environmental contributions. Ultimately, equity and justice must be at the center of every facet of the next Farm Bill if we hope to repair historical and ongoing discrimination against these communities, recognize more fully their contribution to the food and farming system, and eliminate inequities throughout the food and farm economy.
End Hunger - As you have recognized, “too many families do not know where they’re going to get their next meal.” To reflect your values, the next Farm Bill must protect and strengthen food assistance programs to ensure sufficient resources, merit staffing, and access to nutritious food for all people who struggle against hunger and food insecurity as a result of wealth and income inequities often driven by systemic racism.
Meet the Climate Crisis Head On – To reflect your values, the next Farm Bill must also be a climate bill. We will not avoid the worst effects of climate change unless this nation reduces heat-trapping emissions, including from agriculture. Your Farm Bill must invest in research, technical assistance, and financial incentives to enable farmers and ranchers to reduce emissions and to implement farming practices and labor policies that make their farms and workers better able to withstand extreme weather. The next Farm Bill should reward farmers and ranchers who are already implementing such practices, while also enabling others to make these shifts and discouraging farming practices that are harmful to the environment and public health.
Increase Access to Nutritious Food - As you have noted, there are “too many empty chairs around the kitchen table because a loved one was taken by heart disease, diabetes, or other dietoriented diseases,” and related health care costs continue to grow. Poor nutrition is now the leading cause of U.S. deaths—surpassing smoking—and racial inequities in our society frequently leave communities of color without access to nutritious foods. To reflect your values, the next Farm Bill must tackle this crisis by improving nutrition security, which your administration has defined as “consistent and equitable access to healthy, safe, affordable foods essential to optimal health and well-being” for all.
Ensure Safety and Dignity for Food and Farm Workers – The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of the 20 million food and farm workers declared essential to feeding our nation. To reflect your values, the next Farm Bill must invest substantially in the people who plant, harvest, process, transport, sell, and serve our food and administer our food programs, ensuring safety and a living wage, along with access to health care, clean housing, and the right to organize and join a union. The next Farm Bill must protect food and farm workers from pesticides and extreme heat and strengthen the consequences for employers that endanger their workers. Also needed are new avenues to support the aspirations of farmworkers who wish to become farmers, and access to citizenship for workers in the U.S. food chain that does not tie them to exploitative labor practices and systems.
Protect Farmers and Consumers – As you have said, “capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism; it’s exploitation.” You have made competition in the U.S. economy a priority of your administration, and your Farm Bill can and must build on your efforts to promote competition in the food and agriculture sectors. Anti-competitive practices are harming small-scale farmers, workers, and consumers; hollowing out rural communities; and damaging our environment. Your Farm Bill should acknowledge these forms of damage as central criteria in defining anticompetitive food and agriculture marketplaces, while increasing long term investments in local and regional food processing and distribution. In this way, the Farm Bill can level the playing field for farmers and offer more and better choices to consumers.
Ensure the Safety of Our Food Supply – Thousands of people in our country die every year from foodborne illness and millions more are sickened by pathogens in meat, poultry, produce, and drinking water. Recent food safety failures have highlighted gaps in our food safety net that place consumers at unacceptable risks from pathogens. Your Farm Bill must do more to address pathogens that originate on factory farms and to make the U.S. food supply safe for everyone.
President Biden, the undersigned organizations call on you to demand a transformative Farm Bill that fully reflects these values, and that you can be proud to sign.
Sincerely,
A Better Balance
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Access East
AFL-CIO
Agricultural Justice Project
Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA)
A Growing Culture
Alabama State Association of Cooperatives
American Grassfed Association
American Federation of Government Employees, Local 3354
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Indian Mothers Inc.
American Sustainable Business Network
Association for the Study of African American History (ASALH Rochester)
Association of State Public Health Nutritionists
Appetite For Change
Broadway Community, Inc.
California Climate & Agriculture Network (CalCAN)
California Environmental Voters
California FarmLink
Castanea Fellowship
Center for Food Safety
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Center for Wellness and Nutrition (Public Health Institute)
Certified Naturally Grown
City Harvest
Climate Crisis Policy
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Coastal Enterprises, Inc.
Coming Clean
Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)
Community Food Advocates
Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA)
Compañeras Campesinas
Consumer Federation of America
Cultivate Charlottesville
Detroit Food Policy Council
Earthjustice
Economic Policy Institute
Environmental & Public Health Consulting
Environmental Working Group
Equity Advocates
Fair Food Network
Fair World Project
Family Farm Defenders
Farm Action
Farm Aid
Farm to Table - New Mexico
Farmers Market Coalition
Farmworker Association of Florida
Farmworker Justice
Fertile Ground
Food & Water Watch
Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT)
Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC
Food Chain Workers Alliance
FoodCorps
Food for the Spirit
Food Insight Group
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Mississippi River
GC Resolve
Georgia Foundation for Agriculture
Georgia Organics
Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming
Good Food For All Coalition
Government Accountability Project - Food Integrity Campaign
Grazing Reform Project
Green America
Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities
Hand, Heart, and Soul Project, Inc.
Health Care Without Harm HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance
Hempstead Project Heart
Illinois Stewardship Alliance
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
Iowa Environmental Council
Iowa Interfaith Power & Light
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
Kansas Black Farmers Association
Kansas Rural Center
Land Loss Prevention Project
Land Stewardship Project
La Semilla Food Center
League of Conservation Voters
Los Jardines Institute
LunchAssist
Maine AFL-CIO
Marbleseed
Michigan Food and Farming Systems
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
National Black Food & Justice Alliance
National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
National Employment Law Project
National Farm to School Network
National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
National Young Farmers Coalition
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nebraska Appleseed
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
New Orleans Food Policy Action Council
Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance
Northeast Organic Farming Association-Interstate Council
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire (NOFA-NH)
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY)
Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides
Nourish Colorado
Office of Kat Taylor
Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association
Oklahoma Black Historical Research Project, Inc.
Oregon Climate and Agriculture Network
Oregon Tilth
Organic Farming Research Foundation
Organic Seed Alliance
Oxfam America
Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm
Pasa Sustainable Agriculture
Phi Global Farms
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste / Northwest Tree-Planters and Farmworkers United (PCUN)
Pinnacle Prevention
Pesticide Action Network
Plant Based Foods Institute
Post Carbon Institute
Progress Michigan
Public Justice
Rebirth Inc.
RegeNErate Nebraska
Resilience Project
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United
Rowan Food and Farm Network
Roots of Change
Rufty-Holmes Senior Center
Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA (RAFI-USA)
Rural Coalition
Savanna Institute
Sierra Club
Slow Food USA
Small Planet Institute
Socially Responsible Agriculture Project
Society of Behavioral Medicine
Sooner Food Group
Soul Fire Farm Institute
Springfield Food Policy Council
Student Action with Farmworkers
Sustainable Farming Association
Sustainable Food Center
Sustainable Food & Farming Program, UMASS Stockbridge School of Agriculture
Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT)
The Farmers B.A.G.
The Georgia Farm to School Alliance
The Land Institute
TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation
Toxic Free North Carolina
Trust for Public Land
unBox
Union of Concerned Scientists
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
Venceremos
Virginia Association for Biological Farming
Wallace Center at Winrock International
Wholesome Wave
Wild Farm Alliance
Women, Food and Agriculture Network
Women's Voices for the Earth
Worker Justice Alliance
Working Landscapes
Workplace Fairness