March 19, 2009

Survey Results: The Farm Bill

I can't say I was surprised to learn that 70 percent of Small Bites' latest poll respondents classify themselves as being "not at all" familiar with the Farm Bill and an additional 22 percent as "having heard of it, but not knowing any details."

The Farm Bill is, at its most basic, a document that dictates farm and food policy in the United States (ranging from food stamps to farm subsidies to conservation programs to the School Lunch Program).

Of course, "basic" is an understatement when you consider that the latest Farm Bill spans almost 1,500 pages and is infamously verbose and convoluted.

If you are interested in a "Farm Bill 101" lesson, I highly recommend this article.

Up for review every five years, its latest revision took place in 2008.

Although the entire Farm Bill affects food production, trade, and policy, the two most relevant sections to nutrition are title IV (Nutrition) and title X (Horticulture).

Click here to see what has changed in title IV as a result of the 2008 Farm Bill
, and check out this page to see what is new in title X.

Lastly, this page succinctly highlights a variety of "good news" emerging from the 2008 Farm Bill as far as local foods and consumer benefits are concerned.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Andy, I couldn't find your email on your blog so I hope you don't mind me posting this here.

I’m working on behalf of Compassion in World Farming at the moment and I’m looking for relevant bloggers to talk about our work. I thought your blog would be relevant to potential supporters.

Our latest news can be found at http://ciwf.org/news and our latest campaign is about the honest labeling of food, which I thought might be of particular interest to you.

We also have information about food here http://www.ciwf.org.uk/your_food/ including our supermarket survey and compassionate shopping guide.

If you do get chance to feature us it would be much appreciated. Let me know if you do.

Best regards,

Beth

p.s. you can follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/ciwf