As the farm director at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, I am surrounded daily by the breathtaking and ancient abundance of the land (dozens of potatoes grown from one! sugary sap dripping straight out of a tree trunk!)

At the Adamah fellowship program, we respond as generations before us have. We express our awe and gratitude at each ripening by using the same words our ancestors used to express theirs “שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה” (has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season).

Adamah fellows spent last week in big sun hats and layers of sunscreen, walking up and down rows of growing vegetables laying out water-conserving drip lines to keep crops hydrated in record high temperatures. Farming lays bare the tenderness of our role within larger ecosystems, weather and precipitation patterns, the world.

For this experience too we look to our tradition. How to make sense of ourselves as vulnerable to and partners in the cycles that sustain us?

On a personal level, Jews have always taken seriously the connection between what happens in farm fields and what is ethically and spiritually fit- kosher (כָּשֵׁר)– to put into our bodies. We have also always thought on a systems level with respect to farming and our broader society. Growing up in a suburb, my Jewish education gave me the barest familiarity with Jewish agricultural wisdom. It wasn’t until years later, after learning to coax a whole head of lettuce out of a tiny diamond shaped seed and other secrets revealed by my farming career, that I recognized the commonality between the biblical practice of laying land fallow- shmita ( שְׁמִטָּֽה)– and the modern movement to farm more regeneratively with cover crops for soil health, or of leaving the corners of one’s fields for those in need- pe’ah (פֵּאָה)- and today’s hunger safety net. It is deeply Jewish to take a systems approach to feeding ourselves well and for the long term. 

That is why Adamah continues to build on our long legacy of engaging in Farm Bill advocacy. A huge piece of legislation that is currently up for reauthorization, the Farm Bill shapes what food we fill our tables with and how it is grown. With programs relating to climate, hunger, water conservation and pollution, equity across our food system, local food availability, forestry, research, and inflation, the Farm Bill presents a powerful opportunity to invest in a more just and resilient modern food system.

In partnership with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, an alliance of grassroots organizations of which we are a member, Adamah has honed priorities for 2024 Farm Bill advocacy including conservation incentives for farmers to mitigate and adapt to climate change, nutrition funding, sustainable agriculture research, justice initiatives, and food safety net reform. Join us by learning more and taking action!

Join Adamah’s Farm Bill Campaign

Farming in a heat wave is exhausting. And yet, under the care and attention of young Jewish farmers, cabbage leaves are folding over one another to make beautiful heads and tiny tomatoes are forming below bright yellow flowers as you read these words.

Farmers and eaters alike are confronted with the big question of what to do with these two experiences – the wonder at our luck to be on such a bountiful planet and the awareness that our ways of relating to the land have big consequences.

Between rows of carrots, with the music of hens clucking, with the hope of gentle rain clouds forming in the distance, we bear daily witness to stark realities on the farm, and we choose to take action in joyous community rather than be stilled by overwhelm. Join us.

Best,

Janna

Janna Siller
Farm Director and Advocacy Coordinator

Join Adamah’s Farm Bill Campaign

The post Take Action with Adamah’s Farm Bill Campaign appeared first on Adamah.

This process presents a historic opportunity to 1) lower the nearly one third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions spewed by the food system; 2) reshape food production and distribution toward justice and equity; and 3) lean into Jewish food and farming wisdom that paints a vision of food sovereignty for all.

Recently passed other legislation, including the game-changing Inflation Reduction Act, has laid the groundwork for decarbonizing our economy. Now it’s time to spring into collective action to build on this momentum, transforming our food system toward justice and climate resilience.

Ways to Take Action with Adamah’s Farm Bill Campaign

Farm Bill Webinar and PDF

Watch our webinar to learn more about the Farm Bill and how your voice can make a difference. Check out our supplement to the webinar PDF to understand how critical the Farm Bill is to our food system and how you can weigh in.

Call your Representatives

Take a few minutes to call your representatives and ask them to support The Agriculture Resilience Act, a roadmap for reducing emissions from agriculture to net-zero by 2040. This bill lays the groundwork for centering climate action and equity in the Farm Bill process moving forward. Make it easy and quick by using our handy script. 

Rally

Join Adamah at the Rally for Resilience March 6-8th in Washington DC! Demand a just and climate-friendly 2023 Farm Bill along with farmers and eaters from across the country

The post Adamah Farm Bill Campaign appeared first on Adamah.

Join a robust, intersectional movement from a Jewish perspective! There has never been a better time for working together on behalf of our food future.

A Just and Climate-Friendly 2023 Farm Bill Could Help the Food System…

• bring its emissions to net-zero by 2040
• adapt to a changing climate
• prioritize racial justice
• reduce food waste
• incentivize land, soil, and water conservation
• increase equitable access to healthy, fresh food
• uplift community-led land use and food sovereignty

Seven Ways to Take Action with Hazon’s Farm Bill Campaign

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Advocacy Alert Email

Sign up for our advocacy alert email list. We’ll let you know when your voice is needed without overwhelming your inbox. You don’t have to track the daily twists and turns of food and environmental policy on Capitol Hill in order to be heard!

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Farm Bill Webinar

Watch our webinar to learn more about the Farm Bill and how your voice can make a difference.

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Farm Bill PDF

Check out our supplement to the webinar to understand how critical the Farm Bill is to our food system and how you can weigh in.

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Call Your Representatives

Take a few minutes to call your representatives and ask them to support The Agriculture Resilience Act, a roadmap for reducing emissions from agriculture to net-zero by 2040. This bill lays the groundwork for centering climate action and equity in the Farm Bill process moving forward. Make it easy and quick by using this handy script.

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Rally for Resilience

Join Adamah at the Rally for Resilience March 6-8th in Washington DC! Demand a just and climate-friendly 2023 Farm Bill along with farmers and eaters from across the country.[/tab]

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Next Steps

We will likely have drafts of the Farm Bill coming out of the House and Senate agriculture committees by mid-spring 2023 with votes hopefully coming in the fall of 2023. Keep an eye on your inbox (assuming you’ve followed action step number one and signed up for our advocacy email list) and take action by calling your representatives to demand the passage of a robust bill full of climate solutions and justice initiatives.[/tab]

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Rest! Relax!

You’ve taken six incredible actions toward a more just and climate-friendly food system. Jewish tradition teaches us that the essential work of protecting our beautiful world and of pursuing justice go hand in hand with the experience of pausing to marvel at our profound opportunity to do so.[/tab]
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Building on centuries of Jewish wisdom, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Z”L said that “The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

Terrible, fixable wrongs exist in the food system. Thirty-five million people in the U.S. confronted hunger in 2019 while 30-40% of food produced was wasted, accounting for millions of tons of unnecessary pollution and trillions of gallons of irrigation water used to no effect.

While Heschel left us guidance on combating indifference and taking responsibility, he also taught us to wake up in the morning and feel the radical amazement of being alive, to seek happiness through wonder. Join us in eschewing the practice of doom scrolling through all that is wrong in favor of the very Jewish twin practices of action and awe.

“When we start to see the choices that are not available, we can begin to see the role of political power in our daily lives. Who decides what options are available for us to choose in the first place?”

– Dr. Leah Stokes, from her essay A Field Guide for Transformation in the All We Can Save anthology.

Want to learn more about the brilliant work being done around food system reform and the opportunities ahead of us? Check out some recommended resources here.

We are grateful to our partners in food system advocacy with whom we work in coalition including the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The post Hazon Farm Bill Campaign: for Justice and Climate Resilience appeared first on Adamah.

We are tracking opportunities for the Jewish community to tip the scales toward effective policy. Join our advocacy alert list and we’ll call you to action (well, we’ll email you to action) whenever a groundswell of grassroots voices would make a difference.

Sign up here to receive Hazon’s Advocacy Alerts!

Does calling your legislator and asking them to support, or oppose, an upcoming bill sound intimidating? We’ll make it easy by providing a clear script. You don’t need any prior understanding of what a filibuster is or what political infighting is happening in which relevant subcommittees!

Does commenting on a Department of Agriculture rulemaking process sound kind of boring? We’re not going to lie, it is. But with our help, it will take only five minutes or less out of your day!

Jewish heroism has never been limited to the story of young David with a loaded slingshot or Judah Maccabee with his shield. Our work on behalf of a just and abundant future has mostly manifested as stories of individuals joining together to collectively do the small, and sometimes boring, and sometimes intimidating, work.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the food system accounts for more one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thirty five million people in the U.S. confronted hunger in 2019 while 30-40% of food produced was wasted, accounting for millions of tons of unnecessary pollution and trillions of gallons of irrigation water used to no effect. 

Join us in heeding the call of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Z”L who said that “The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

While Heschel taught us to take action, he also taught us to wake up in the morning and feel the radical amazement of being alive, to seek happiness through wonder. At Hazon, we recommend heeding both of his teachings by trading out your doom scrolling practice for a practice of acting on our advocacy alerts, freeing yourself up for more radical amazement and more wonder with the knowledge that you spoke up at this pivotal moment in history.

Advocacy Alert: October 2022

Join Hazon’s Farm Bill Campaign over the next fourteen months as we take up the mantle of steady persistence that has achieved so much in climate advocacy. 

Where do we start in our Farm Bill journey? By voting in the election on November 8th! Turnout in these upcoming midterm elections will foretell what kind of climate action we get in the 2023 Farm Bill, among a great deal else.

• Make a plan to vote ahead of election day, Tuesday November 8th. 

Studies show that getting your vote across the finish line is often dependent on having made a plan for how you’ll vote far ahead of time. Polling location information can be shifty, ballot request deadlines can sneak up on us. Click here to make your voting plan now!

and

• Join our partner organization, Dayenu, for their chutzpah 2022 campaign, a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort focused on climate-concerned and Jewish voters in key states. Whether it is your first time phone banking or it’s an old habit, Dayenu offers all the training, framing, encouragement, and logistical support you’ll need to help save democracy one call at a time.

Stay tuned for further Farm Bill action opportunities after the election.

Advocacy Alert: December 2021

This week’s Torah portion culminates with a perceived dead end. Pharaoh refuses Moses’ entreaties for liberation, leaving Moses despondent and confronting a crisis of faith.

We heard another famous ‘no’ this week, this time from a senator whose vote was critical to the passage of historic climate and social legislation – the Build Back Better Act. While the stalled nature of the bill is a major setback in our work toward resilience and equity, and while it is fair to take some time to feel the disappointment of this dead end for 2021’s policy momentum, we have so much to gain by continuing to believe in the power of our persistence.

There are a lot of unknowns at this crossroad. Will the Build Back Better Act be revised and reintroduced in 2022? Will pieces of it pass via other legislative maneuvers? We have some assurances that the transformative food and farming provisions that advocates fought so hard for, including conservation program funding and sustainable agriculture research, are some of the less vulnerable pieces of the legislation.

2021 Sustainable Food and Farming Policy Wins

Build Back Better wasn’t our only vehicle for increasing the sustainability of food systems. Of course the bipartisan infrastructure package was signed into law and included investments to support farms, pollinators, and moving away from fossil fuels in food transportation. We also saw a wholesale shift in administrative support for sustainable farming and racial justice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency with bans on dangerous pesticides, restored water protections, investment in agroecological research, support for local food, and more. Pandemic aid made its way to farmers who use conservation practices like cover cropping. The Agriculture Resilience Act, a bill that sets the stage for net zero emissions for agriculture in the 2023 Farm Bill, was introduced in congress and gained a wide range of cosponsors.

How to take action

If you have been dreaming of increasing your participation in the steady work of preserving our democracy by participating in it, we’ve got you covered! Here are some ideas for how to integrate advocacy into your life:

• Learn more about the wins and challenges for sustainable food and farming discussed above on our recommended reading page.
• Keep an eye out for food and farm advocacy alerts on this email list.
• If your organization is a Hazon Seal of Sustainability site, tap into our advocacy resources.
• Join Adamah for our virtual, all-ages cohort this spring called Adamah at Home. One component of the program will include teachings on advocacy.
• Join some of our partners in Jewish environmental advocacy: Dayenu, Jewish Climate Action Network, and Jewish Earth Alliance.
• Attend the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest coming up January 10-14.
• There is so much room for each of us to impact hyper local decisions! Consider getting involved in specific issues in your area. Such efforts can be wonderful ways to connect with your neighbors while creating the world as we wish it to be. Find some inspiration in this database of policies set by local communities to support local food systems.

Leaning into community (safely) can be an antidote to the overwhelm of this difficult moment of the ongoing pandemic and of this inflection point for the climate crisis and justice movements. We hope you’ll join us over the coming year in lifting our voices as a means of nourishment, of hope, and of honoring our tradition of persistence.

Advocacy Alert: July 2021

View this alert as a PDF

BACKGROUND

Imagine if Congress took transformative action on climate change and agriculture through a racial and economic justice lens. How different would our food system look in two, five, ten, or fifty years if our country made a serious investment this year in just, climate-friendly agricultural solutions? Imagine how much more ‘fit to eat’ our food would be!
We have an opportunity to make progress on that vision today. Congress is currently working on legislation that offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fund climate-friendly agriculture conservation practices, climate and agriculture research, and resilient local supply chain infrastructure. Let’s remind lawmakers in the House and Senate that their constituents want them to take bold, transformative action for the future of our food system.

HOW TO HELP

Take a few minutes to call your legislators. You have two Senators and a Congressperson.

Dial: (202) 224-3121

Tell the operator that you’d like to speak to one of the senators for your state. Use the provided script and feel free to add details about why you care. Go ahead and leave a message if no one answers. Hang up and dial the switchboard again to ask for your other senator, and then again for your representative in the house.

SCRIPT

Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a constituent. I am calling about pending infrastructure legislation. I hope that the [SENATOR or REPRESENTATIVE] will support a just transition in the food system by investing at least $200 billion to help farmers adopt climate-friendly practices, allow researchers to develop climate-resilient crops, and support local and regional supply chains. Historically marginalized farmers should be intentionally included in these investments to correct for past discrimination. Can I count on your office to champion this critical funding for a resilient and climate-friendly food system?

Thank you.

Advocacy Alert: May 2021

View this alert as a PDF

BACKGROUND

Congress is writing an infrastructure bill with a great deal of climate mitigation potential. They need to hear from their constituents that climate is a priority in order to make the bill as ambitious as it needs to be. 

HOW TO HELP

Take a few minutes to call your members of congress to tell them you want sweeping climate legislation.

You have two senators and a representative in the House of Representatives. Dial: (202) 224-3121

Tell the operator that you’d like to speak to one of the senators for your state. Use the provided script and feel free to add details about why you care. Call back to ask for your other senator, and then again for your representative in the house.

SCRIPT

Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a constituent. I’m calling to tell you that I want ambitious climate action in the upcoming infrastructure package. The plan should include (choose any or all of the items on the below a-la carte menu of climate solutions.): 

• clean electricity standards 
• investment in renewable energy 
• the establishment of a civilian climate corps
• incentives for farmers to use climate-friendly practices
• a guarantee that 40% of investments will go to disadvantaged communities

Thank you.

Advocacy Alert: April 2021

Advocacy Alert: March 2021

Advocacy Alert: January 2021

Introduce yourself to your legislator! The 117th Congress began it’s session yesterday, January 3rd, with greater potential for climate action than ever in history. The more your members of congress hear from you, the more accountable they are on the issues you care about. For now, just say hello by filling in the blanks of the below script and sending one copy to your congressperson, and a copy to each of your two senators. When you find your folks using the links in the previous sentence, just click through to the contact pages on their websites to find their email address or a contact form.

Dear (Senator or Congressperson) ________________,

The urgent need to put the full weight of the federal government behind a just and climate-smart food system will greet you on day one of the upcoming legislative session. As a constituent living in ___City, State_________. I hope you will rise to the occasion on behalf of our collective future. We have the technology and the know-how to reform the ways that we grow and distribute food. All we need is the political will and I hope that you will have the courage to  incentivize regenerative production models and to penalize pollution; to make healthy food accessible to all regardless of income; and to drastically reduce the amount of food that goes to waste.

Throughout the coming months I will be following up with your office to advocate for just and climate-smart policies with respect to food and farming. I am hopeful for all that we can accomplish.

Thank you,

_______Your Name_______

The post Take action for a just and climate-smart food system appeared first on Adamah.

It is springtime on the farm which means that seedlings are sprouting in the greenhouse, the peepers are singing at dusk in Lake Miriam at Isabella Freedman, and lovers of food and earth are calling congress about agricultural appropriations. Thanks to millions of grassroots actions, the 2018 Farm Bill was passed with many important programs for sustainable agriculture and healthy eating. However, many of those programs need to be funded annually by Congress through the appropriations process.

Appropriations is a process full of nitty-gritty details and back-and-forths so it can seem off-putting to engage with. However, urging a healthier and more sustainable world for everybody hinges on it and you can participate without going cross-eyed with the fine print! Below is a script that we at Hazon recommend you use when calling your member of Congress. You can read more about each of the issues, however, you don’t have to to make a difference and call!

While your individual Senator or Representative might not be on the agricultural appropriations committee and thus might not have influence over the draft appropriations bill, it is very useful for them to know where you stand as a constituent so they can make public statements that may sway those on the committee or submit formal requests to the committee.

Our asks include:

• • No cuts to mandatory funding for Farm Bill conservation programs, including the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

• • $10 million for the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach (FOTO) program, which houses the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program (“Section 2501”).

• • $20 million for the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP), which houses the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) and Value Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program.

• • $45 million for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension (SARE) program.
  • Tell the USDA not to move the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of Washington.

You can look up the names and contact info for your two senators and your house representative here or you can use the switchboard numbers below.

The post Farm Bill: Update and Action appeared first on Adamah.

Keep reading to learn more about the good and bad of the law, about the work ahead in influencing implementation, and crucial action steps you can take today. If you don’t have time or energy to absorb the details of our update but want to join the throngs of individual citizens nudging those in power toward a more equitable and climate-friendly food system, you can skip to the script at the end and call your legislators! The overwhelming state of our national politics won’t stop the Jewish community from participating in the greatest work of our generation: combating climate change and inequity.

Update

Passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which became law on December 20th, was critical to the continued basic functions of the farming and food systems in the U.S.

Hazon applauds lawmakers for slugging their way to a 2018 Farm Bill and for including some key provisions to further sustainable agriculture and healthy eating. Some of the biggest wins in the bill include permanent funding for organic research, training opportunities for farmers, and purchasing incentives for SNAP recipients to buy from local farmers. Importantly, the Conservation Stewardship Program was preserved despite threats to cut this key environmental program. Unfortunately, its long-term CSP funding was cut.

We are also disappointed that the bill does not do more to comprehensively address the climate crisis or inequities in the food system. In fact, the bill expands subsidy loopholes for the nation’s largest commodity “growers,” mostly non-farming conglomerates. The money going into those subsidy checks should be redirected toward supporting agricultural reform in the direction of regenerative farming that sequesters carbon, and toward regional food systems that improve the accessibility of healthy food. There is a great deal of work ahead for food and farming advocacy!

Nutrition Assistance
Attempts to impose hindrances for SNAP eligibility were rejected in the law and thus food assistance will be administered at the funding levels approved at the previously reduced levels of the 2014 bill. However, when the president signed the bill into law he said that he intends to put eligibility restrictions in place through the USDA in implementation. This is a good example of how our voices matter going forward even though the farm bill has been signed into law already. The upcoming appropriations and rulemaking processes will determine whether or not families who need food assistance are deprived of access.

Conservation
As with nutrition, the final 2018 Farm Bill’s conservation title looks closer to the Senate’s draft, which is a good thing because the House draft had weakened conservation programs dramatically. Some of the good news is that the Conservation Stewardship Program was not eliminated as threatened and certain measures were taken to strengthen existing programs. Some of the bad news is that long term funding for the CSP AND EQIP programs were reduced by five billion dollars.

Crop Insurance and Commodity Programs
The farm bill’s twin safety net elements – commodity programs and federal crop insurance- largely maintained the status quo despite desperate need for reform. One huge step backward is that the bill expanded egregious subsidy loopholes ensuring that the nation’s largest commodity “growers” receive huge subsidy checks. The bill does expand risk management services in certain small ways to better support diversified growers and local food markets.

Research
Good news – permanent funding for the Organic Research and Extension Initiative was established and funding was also authorized for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program as well as the Specialty Crop Research Initiative and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

The law also went as far as it could in fighting the Trump administration’s plans to move and reorganize the federal ag research departments the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Lawmakers dictated that the agencies must stay in Washington DC but the USDA still claims to be going forward with the move. The fight on this is not over.

Beginning and Socially Disadvantaged Farmers
The bill provides important mandatory and permanent funding for FOTO, Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach, a program that sustainability advocates fought hard to support.

Local and Regional Food Systems
The 2018 Farm Bill makes some great investments in this area. It combines two previous USDA programs into the new Local Agriculture Market Program, providing it with $50 million per year in mandatory, permanent funds. It also reauthorizes the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives program, now called the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentives Program, and provides it with $250 million over 5 years. Unfortunately, the Farm to School Grant program did not receive mandatory funding.

Hemp
The 2018 Farm Bill legalized the growing of cannabis plants as long as they contain .3 percent or less THC. The legalization allows growers to produce hemp for food and fiber but regulates it heavily.

Summary

The major highlights are that funding for SNAP, conservation, and strengthening organic and local food systems were not as gutted as the 2018 house draft had threatened. Certain dangerous anti-environment riders were also not included.

The lowlights are cuts to long term conservation funding, the failure to make much-needed crop insurance and commodity subsidy reform, and the failure to address issues like low farm income or farm consolidation.

Next Steps

After the passage of the Farm bill, the next step for lawmakers is to determine how the law will be implemented. This process, called appropriations and USDA rulemaking is really the meat of how the policy plays out. With FY19 appropriations recently passed, after a long delay due to the government shutdown, the work ahead is to pay attention to USDA rulemaking, particularly with SNAP accessibility, the location of research agencies, and conservation, and to pay attention to FY20 appropriations.

For the moment there isn’t much to say on Farm Bill implementation while we are in a space between the two appropriations bills. Hazon has two current recommended actions. One is quite broad and one is quite specific, but both support the future of a more equitable and regenerative food system!

ACTION

1) Legislators report that support for climate change action is very low on the list of issues that they hear most about from constituents. We need to change that, flooding the telephone lines of our representatives to make sure they know that voters are paying attention to their actions on climate change.

While the Green New Deal is only one of many potential strategies for addressing climate change, it is the most prominent one on the table at the moment. It won’t get anywhere with the current makeup of the Senate, so there is no chance of it becoming law until after the next election cycle (for which we will have record voter turnout, right???), but with an eye toward possible success in 2020, it needs to gather momentum with the support of as many MOCs (members of Congress) as possible. If legislators hear massive public support for the GND, they are more likely to believe that climate change is an issue voters expect them to center. Many legislators have already come out in favor of the GND but it is still important for them to hear from us so that, in the face of opposition, they can say “I received an overwhelming number of calls from my constituents expecting me to take action on climate change.”

You can look up the names and contact info for your two senators and your house representative here or you can use the switchboard numbers below.

2) The people whose hands produce our very sustenance do not have the same legal protections as almost anyone else in the American workforce. At Hazon, we believe in a big tent of food system reform. What does a more equitable food system look like for all? Here is a good start:

The post Food and Farm Policy: Update and Action appeared first on Adamah.

The shift to an incoming house of representatives that is more committed to preserving food assistance and conservation funding after the 2018 midterm elections pressured the current congress to pass a farm bill that is more of a status quo than the conservation-slashing, poverty-worsening revamp that many in the house pushed for this summer. Thanks to high voter turnout in November and a huge wave of phone calls to our representatives from farmers and eaters alike, small but crucial programs will be funded rather than eliminated including organic research, the local agriculture market program, and supports for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers. Another huge win is that, despite a few concessions to the timber industry, the push toward legalizing expanded clear cutting was not included in the bill.

And yet the relief is tempered. The bill cuts long-term funding to the Conservation Stewardship Program and it expands loopholes in subsidy payments to the operators of the wealthiest mega-farms and their non-farming family members. Climate change denial is threaded throughout as the bill fails to restructure our food system in favor of mitigation and adaptation.

Hazon’s Jewish missions of sustainability, health for all, and climate justice yoke us to the enormous task of staying engaged with an ever changing and chaotic legislative scene. The 2018 Farm Bill is a vast improvement over what we could have ended up with this year with respect to our Jewish values of providing a hunger safety net in our communities and farming in tune with the needs of land and animals. We at Hazon are grateful to all of our constituents who called their legislators and who got out the vote in November.

The post Hazon Perspective: Farm Bill Update appeared first on Adamah.

On September 30th Congress allowed the 2014 Farm Bill to expire without a new bill in place or an extension passed. Thus, the following key programs, among others, will no longer be funded:

• Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG)
• Outreach and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program (2501)
• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP)
• Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI)
• Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP)
• Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives (FINI) Program
• National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program (NOCCSP)
• Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP)
• Conservation Reserve Program- Transition Incentives Program (CRP-TIP)

It also means that long-term conservation programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP), programs that protect farmland for future generations and help farmers adapt to climate change, will be on hold until Congress can do its job and pass a new bill.

What can you do? First, take action immediately to tell your elected officials how unacceptable this is. Second, it’s an election year. Every Representative and 1/3 of the Senate is on the ballot. This month, as they hold campaign rallies and events in your town, show up! Tell them young farmers need a permanent farm bill.

The post Farm Bill Update appeared first on Adamah.

Dear All,

I hope you had a good and strong Yom Kippur.

Someone yesterday asked me: how do we take all this intensity and good intentions and vulnerability and desire to change and actually integrate that into our real lives?

And my immediate response – which, on reflection, I think was absolutely right – was that’s exactly what Sukkot is for.

Because here is this festival – Sukkot – which literally celebrates our new openness. Instead of just walling ourselves off from other people and other issues we open ourselves to our neighbors and the world around us. And now, instead of teshuva done in a necessarily heavy way – noting our failures, apologizing, promising to do better – now we have a sense of our best selves and so we do teshuva from a place of joy and celebration.

So – may your best intentions for yourself come to fruition. And if you fail – get back on the horse.

And that’s literally the perfect segue to two things.

First – the Hazon Book Club. I told you that for the first time ever we were inviting people to read a book together – Richard Powers’ The Overstory. It is an intense, beautiful, astonishing, remarkable novel. Excellent Sukkot / fall season reading. (Here’s the frontpage NYT review by Barbara Kingsolver which in my case I read only after I’d read the book, but which I commend if you’re interested.) I was thrilled that The Overstory has just been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. The prize is announced on October 16th, and we’re going to do our book club – via Zoom – from 8:30 to 10 PM EST on Wednesday, October 17th. Put this in your calendar – and do not try to read this book in 24 hours…

Here’s the other important and timely piece of teshuva – the Farm Bill and the midterms.
I asked Janna Siller, our Adamah Farm Director, to explain what’s happening.
Here’s what she wrote:

We head into Sukkot thinking about the Farm Bill – just like in 2012. Agricultural policy is tightly linked to climate change and to public health. The most recent Farm Bill, passed in 2014, was like all its predecessors a weird omnibus bill, whose impacts are vast and varied. It includes, on the one hand, huge support for agricultural systems that emit devastating amounts of greenhouse gases. It helps make many of our most accessible foods some of the least healthy ones. However, that same bill also includes federal programs that are designed to combat climate change through carbon sequestration while making fresh, organic fruits and vegetables more available to citizens of all income levels.

This giant piece of legislation that shapes our food system, with funding for everything from hunger relief to agribusiness subsidies, is currently set to expire on September 30th.

Members of Congress have had radically different takes on how a 2018 replacement Farm Bill should look, with many powerful legislators pushing to greatly reduce food stamp benefits for the economically disadvantaged, to eliminate conservation incentives for farmers and to de-fund programs that support organic growers, local food systems, and beginning farmers.

As we prepare to sit together in our sukkas and highlight the fruits of the earth, we invite you to participate in the process of legislating what kind of bounty may or may not be produced for us to share in our sukkas in coming years. If you want to stay up to date on policy shifts, we recommend the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) website.

But you don’t need to know all the ins and outs in order to call your legislators or sign on to this letter urging them to join the many in Congress working toward a brighter food system. Let them know that you’ll be paying attention to their actions around food system policy and that you hope they will support a 2018 farm bill that protects conservation programs and preserves SNAP benefits without added work requirements.

And to Janna’s comments I’d add: Voting in the midterm elections this November is crucial. In any race and at any level of government, (and with the Carolinas still underwater, and funerals of flood victims still underway) we should be voting for (a) whichever candidate seems to be most serious about environmental protection and (b) whichever candidate takes the need for sustainable food systems most seriously. Encourage all candidates to vote for farm policies that reduce the causes and mitigate the effects of climate change, incentivize farmers to prioritize the long-term health of our soils and bodies, and ensure that we all have enough healthy food to eat.

Here at Hazon, we have been taking stock and accounting for the environmental footprint of the farm products we consume. Practicing nutritional teshuva, we made groundbreaking new commitments to animal welfare with the help of the Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA) as featured in their latest newsletter. I write this right after the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco and the nationwide supporting events (in which Hazon took part in NYC), and right before next week’s NYC Climate Week, which I strongly commend.

Shabbat shalom, shana tova, and chag sameach,

Nigel

The post Hazon Book Club, Sukkot, the Farm Bill and the midterms appeared first on Adamah.

When 2012 was coming to a close, the government was in the process of making series decisions about whether to jump off the fiscal cliff or turn around and climb down.One of the central tenets of this challenge is, of course, food. The 2008 Farm Bill expired at the end of September 2012, and a new one has not yet been set in place, which could cause reversion to a 1949, Farm Bill, which was the last time long-term legislation was passed. The cost of not extending parts of the 2008 Farm Bill or passing a new one for 2013, is that milk was said to sky rocket to approximately $7 per gallon from the average $3.65 per gallon it costs now.

In 2012, the Democrat-controlled Senate drafted a version of a new Farm Bill for 2013, which the Republican-controlled House rejected followed by a failure to come up with their own version. With time running out and the threat of sky-rocketing dairy prices, Senate voted on January 1 to extend parts of the 2008 farm bill through September 2013, to keep the cost of dairy down. Parts of the Farm Bill regarding organic and sustainable agriculture, were left of out the bill. Of course, this is only a band-aid, and is particularly disappointing to farmers who were hoping for long-term change. The extension of the 2008 Farm Bill will give the government 9 months to work on creating a new 5-year plan.

For the most up-to-date information on the Farm Bill, continue reading:

Fiscal Cliff and the Farm Bill [FarmPolicy.com]
Senate Approves Farm Bill Extension, Aims to Prevent Milk Price Surge [Detroit Free Press]
Farm Bill Update: New Year But Same Old Shenanigans [FoodandWaterWatch.org]

The post $7 per Gallon: The Cost of Not Passing a New Farm Bill appeared first on Adamah.

September 28th 2012 / 12th Tishrei 5773

Dear All,

Sukkot starts on Sunday. It’s one of my favorite holidays: Sitting in a succah; the lulav and etrog; celebrating the harvest; feeling exposed to the world – in good ways; thinking about relationship to place – both locally, and in relation to Israel. Celebrating the change of season.

Liz and I are going to Isabella Freedman for Sukkahfest this Sunday – Freedman being the perfect place to spend Sukkot, as the New England leaves start to change color; and Sukkot being the perfect time to be at Isabella Freedman, especially since this year the succah, which is huge and beautiful, has a solid foundation, and thus won’t slide into the mud if it rains, which the weather forecast says is statistically unlikely. (Sukkahfest is almost sold-out, but to get one of the last reservations, or to join a list for cancellations, check Isabella Freedman’s website.)

This year, Sukkot will also coincide with the legal expiry of the current Farm Bill. What a long strange trip it’s been: a multi-year journey to a vital and complex piece of legislation, that’s not now going to proceed. I’ll say more in a moment about what I think will happen. But, first, in terms of the background:

1. the Senate Agriculture Committee, and then the full Senate, voted for a proposed piece of legislation that was quite good in various respects. A prescient article in Mother Jones on June 22nd said that it could have been worse – and that the House version would be worse.
2. The House version in due course was indeed a lot worse, including more than $12 billion in additional cuts in food stamps, but it only went through the House Ag Committee; it didn’t go through the full House, nor then get reconciled; and now Congress is on recess, which is why the 2008 bill will now expire;
3. An article in the New York Times on September 12th contains a more radical critique of the Farm Bill, and one that I think is valid: The Farm Bill Should Help the Planet, Not Just Crops
4. the Senate version – though not the House version – included $100m to support DoubleUpFoodBucks, which we argued for strongly. I hope that this provision makes it through into the 2013 versions. Similarly, there’s a trenchant piece by Jonathan Zasloff just up on the Jew & the Carrot, specifically about the foreign aid provisions of the Farm Bill. As a proportion of the overall farm bill, these provisions are relatively tiny, but their impact is significant. This is one of the areas where the Jewish community may be able to make a difference: If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention

So what happens now? Nothing will happen till a new Congress takes office, after the elections. Probably at some point this winter an extension of key provisions of the last Farm Bill will be approved, for a limited time. That will then shuffle consideration of a full-scale new Farm Bill into 2013.

For now, therefore, I’d say: watch this space. Don’t be deterred by a sense of disempowerment. Certainly – of course – you should vote in this fall’s congressional and presidential elections (and the smaller elections as well – the new West Wing Reunion video, encouraging you to vote, is superb). And certainly you should carry on learning about the Farm Bill, and about how we could develop more sustainable food systems in this country. There’s news and links – including a live twitter feed – at www.hazon.org/farmbill.  The Jewish Farm Bill Working Group, of which we are founding members, will regroup after the chagim to figure out if/how we can seek to make a more sustained impact. (This year we made a reasonable start).

The single most valuable thing you can do is to learn about the issues, and get directly in touch with your elected officials. A comprehensive Farm Bill should be supporting and strengthening sustainable food systems, providing support for people in need, and reducing the amount of taxpayer money that goes to industrial monoculture – either directly, via subsidies, or indirectly, via mispriced crop insurance.

Sukkot comes to celebrate the harvest, to remind us of our vulnerability, and to inaugurate – we hope – a period of rains that will enable next year’s crop to grow healthily. Kein yehi ratzon – may this be a year of health and sustainability for us all.

Shabbat shalom, chag sameach,

Nigel Savage

Executive Director, Hazon

The post Sukkot and the Farm Bill appeared first on Adamah.

Just to recap: Congress left DC in July with a Farm Bill mess: 5-year Farm Bill legislation was moved aside in the House for a Disaster Relief Bill, which was turned into discussion about a one-year  short term bill while the Senate was holding on to the version of the Farm Bill they passed in June. Ultimately, the session closed and the two houses couldn’t agree on what type of bill to pass, let alone what the details of the bill would be.

Congress returned from recess Monday with the current Farm Bill set to expire on September 30, with many rural parts of the country still reeling from this summer’s devastating drought. Members of Congress who are up for election in affected areas felt the pressure, while they were back home, to come back to DC and pass a bill before the September deadline and November election. Members of Congress who are up for election in areas less directly impacted by the Farm Bill consider that they would be better served not to have to vote on a bill before the November election – this November’s election isn’t going to just decide who is president of the United States, but will also dictate what food is on our plate.

So, what are our options? The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition suggested that there are three options for moving forward:

1)    Congress Passes Farm Bill Reauthorization in September – this option would most likely result in the strongest legislation with the best outcomes for farmers and eaters, and is supported by advocates from agribusinesses to organics. Even today, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow called on the House Leadership to take up the Farm Bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee in July and get a 5-year bill onto the House floor.

2)    Some Sort of Extension of the Current Farm Bill – this is the more likely outcome, although what type of extension is very unclear.

3)    No Action on Farm Bill in September – technically the Farm Bill would revert back to the permanent farm laws that date from 1949. Although, in practice, this would be closer to a general slow down for programs and funding.

So, what should you do? With 8 working days in the House and 12 working days in the Senate before the current Farm Bill expires, now is the time to contact your elected officials (senate.gov and house.gov) and let them know that you want a 2012 Farm Bill passed by September 30.

Sign the Hazon Petition for Sustainable Food Systems

The post Congress Back at Work… But Not on the Farm Bill appeared first on Adamah.