Introduction to the Farm Bill

The U.S Farm Bill is a complex omnibus (meaning it contains many different elements) passed by the U.S. Congress every 5-10 years. The Bill contains billions of dollars in funds for agricultural subsidies and farm relief programs, hunger relief and emergency food aid, environmental conservation programs, and many other government programs. The Farm Bill is the major source of U.S. agricultural policy. Because of its diverse and lengthy agenda (the last Farm Bill was over 1400 pages), support and opposition to the Bill cannot be easily drawn along traditional political lines. Some have suggested that the Bill be called the Food Bill, because it has an impact of every single thing we eat.

The organized Jewish community was largely in favor of the 2008 Farm Bill, primarily because of its increased funding for hunger relief programs. For example, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) ran a “food stamp challenge” encouraging people to live for a week on the amount of money one receives in food stamps and try to achieve a balanced diet. Jewish groups such as the JCPA and the Reform Action Committee (RAC) hailed the passage of the Farm Bill as a victory for social justice.

The Jewish community did not address the larger issue of agricultural subsidies, which comprise the majority of agricultural subsidies associated with the Bill.  In a November, 2007 editorial in the New York Times, Michael Pollan criticized the focus of many groups on the positive policies of the Farm Bill (such as the hunger title), while ignoring the crop subsidies that form a vast percentage of the Bill.

We now have about 5 years before the next Farm Bill.

It is time to ask: What would a Jewishly informed Farm Bill look like? Should we focus on strengthening some of the programs in the Bill? Or should we address the broader implications (both in the United States and internationally) of food subsidies and farm policy? Are they a Jewish issue as well?

We are suggesting looking at the U.S. Farm Bill through the lens of another agricultural cycle, the Shmita. What Jewish values can we learn from the Shmita and how can we apply them (as well as other mitzvot) to the various aspects of the Farm Bill? Let’s begin this conversation.

The Values of Shmita

The Shmita is mentioned three times in the Torah. It was the final year of a seven year agricultural cycle: the land was not harvested, debts were cancelled, and indentured servants were set free. The institution of Shmita was concerned both with agriculture preservation (the soil was renewed by lying fallow) and the alleviation of entrenched poverty. These two aspects were deeply connected. Farming is a risky business, with crops often failing. Farmers borrow at the beginning of a season with the hopes of paying back the loan with the profits of the harvest. Just one season of drought is devastating.

Let’s look at the three texts:

Shemot (Exodus) 23:10-11:
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat.”

The concern here is for humanitarian and social conditions: the land rests and the poor, who would have fewer resources to prepare for the Shmita, must not go hungry. These verses are part of a larger social justice contract creating a civil society. The verses that precede the Shmita (6-9) call on the historical experience of the Exodus to demand protection for the resident alien; those after (12-13) extend the complete rest of Shabbat to non-Israelites. The society that God envisions for the Israelites does not oppress its most vulnerable members in the name of God’s commandments.

What Jewish values can we learn?

• We have an obligation to alleviate hunger in our midst, even in difficult times (no one could plant during the Shmita)
• We can’t overuse the land. The land also gets its Shabbat.

Devarim speaks exclusively about the remission of debts: during the Shmita, all debts were cancelled. There are three parts to its message: the law about the remission of debts (including that debts to foreigners are not cancelled), an ideal vision of a society without poverty and God’s blessing, and the realistic acknowledgement that the poverty will never fully be eradicated, coupled with the injunction not to cease lending to the poor out of a fear that the debt will be cancelled during the Shmita.

Verses 7-11 have always served as a challenge to me. The image of the poor person calling out to God because they are oppressed is striking and shaming. Whatever God may demand of us in the Shmita, it is not an excuse to be stingy towards the most needy. Whatever blessings we receive from God, there will always be poor people among us, and we have an obligation to be generous towards them. I am not sure where to draw the line here between personal virtue and collective policy, but there is a clear mandate to support the needy in our own community even during times of scarcity such as the Shmita. If this is true during tougher times, how much more so during times of blessing.

I would like to suggest the following overriding values for a Jewishly informed farm bill:

• The alleviation of hunger
• A environmental concern for the exploitation of agricultural land
• A duty to ease poverty, beginning with those in our own communities, and extending in influence to our country and our world, since in today’s global economy every person is truly our kinsman

These values could either be implemented on a micro level, with a focus on the parts of the farm bill that we could have a significant impact on (such as conservation programs or hunger relief), or on a macro level, with the Jewish community becoming involved with the broader discussion over agricultural subsidies, international trade, and the effects of American agricultural policy on worldwide poverty and hunger.

Do you agree with the values extrapolated from Shmita? Are there additional ones that you want to add? Can you suggest a better framework for linking the Shmita to the Farm Bill?

A Jewishly Informed Farm Bill? Some possible scenarios

Below are some scenarios for how the Jewish community might approach the Farm Bill. I’ve written them to be somewhat provocative—the goal is to stimulate conversation.

Scenario 1: The Jewish community should continue to focus on domestic hunger relief

• Millions of people in the United States are hungry or are food insecure, including many Jews.
• It is shameful that children go to sleep at night wondering if they will eat enough the next day.
• Hunger relief should be expanded to provide nutritious food.
• We have an obligation to American citizens before we help those around the world.
• Hunger relief is an area where we can have a clear impact and where we have a proven track record of making a difference. We should build on our successes.

What do you think? At the Passover seder we say, “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” Many Jewish communities operate food pantries and soup kitchens. We can see the direct impact of a focus here. But one might argue that only addressing hunger fails the needy on a deeper level, because it does not create sustainable change.

Scenario 2: The Jewish community should focus on hunger relief and expansion of conservation programs

The above arguments, plus:

• American farmland and open spaces are disappearing at an alarming rate, and need to be protected.
• More money is needed to help water and wildlife habitats, to ensure the protection of endangers species.
• The conservation title provides incentives for farmers engage in environmentally sound practices.
• The Jewish community is slowly becoming more environmentally aware and working to expand conservation program furthers those efforts.

What do you think? Is this how we expand the Shmita’s notion of the sabbatical for the land? Is this the best expression of Jewish environmental values?

Scenario 3: The Jewish community should become involved in relief towards small farms and a national focus on sustainable agriculture

• The Farm Bill largely benefits agribusiness while small farms continue to disappear. Industrial farming is associated with pollution and waste, and is not generally produced in sustainable ways.
• While the current Farm Bill increases funding for farmers’ markets, more funds are needed to make these available across the country and to make fresh, local food available to all levels of society.
• There would be no need for some aspects of the conservation title if farming practices were changed.

What do you think? In Bereishit (Genesis), humans are charged with the stewardship of the earth as part of our right to eat from it. How do we react if the methods with provide us with sustenance also destroy our environment? How do we effect change that is complicated than changing our personal behaviors (like using a florescent bulb or driving a Prius)? How can Jewish notions of creation and holiness help us preserve our environment?

Scenario 4: The Jewish community should begin a serious discussion about the commodity titles of the Farm Bill, because of their effect on the national diet, international hunger, and the environmental impact of industrial farming

• In his groundbreaking commentary of Leviticus, Jeremy Milgrom called for the laws regarding land tenure, the Shmita and the Jubilee, to be a call to action for the relief of international poverty and the remission of debts to the World Bank. The Farm Bill, because of the amount of surplus crops dumped into the overseas markets, has an effect on food prices around the world. In today’s global economy, “our kinsman” is every citizen of the world.
• There will be no meaningful change in the way Americans eat until agricultural subsidies are addressed. These subsidies ensure that certain foods are artificially less expensive than their true cost. This includes many unhealthy foods, which are cheaper than produce (which is largely unsubsidized). The subsidies lead to a world in which many poor people are starving…and many others are grossly obese.
• The subsidization of corn for ethanol is a false environmental choice. Industrial corn is grow using large amounts of petroleum-based fertilizer, meaning that it does not save fossil fuel to use it instead of gasoline. Less than 1% of American corn is sweet corn for direct human consumption. The shift of many farmers from growing wheat to growing corn for ethanol is a factor in rising global food prices. It is immoral that people starve so that we can continue to drive SUVs.
• The Jewish community should not back down from discussing complicated issues that will force us to address our own consumption patterns. If our current food system continues, the needy among us will cry out to God and we will have incurred guilt for our silence.

Taking on the Farm Bill on such a vast scale would be a huge undertaking and a major shift in emphasis for the Jewish community. And yet, it is precisely such an investment that is necessary to create any sort of meaningful change. Is the Jewish community ready to make this kind of investment by 2012? Is this a wise use of Jewish communal resources and political capital?

Scenario 5: The Jewish community does not need to discuss the Farm Bill

Some arguments against a Jewishly informed Farm Bill:

• Agricultural policy falls outside the scope of halacha and Jewish concerns. This is not a Jewish issue.
• There are more pressing Jewish issues to discuss, such as [_____]. Why should Jews discuss the Farm Bill ahead of keeping Shabbat/giving tzeddakah/marrying other Jews/supporting Israel/etc.
• Separation of state and religion means that the Jewish community should not involve itself as a community with national policy. Individuals can choose to be involved, but as citizens, not as Jews.

These are somewhat caricaturized responses, but they are legitimate objections. Do you agree with these concerns? What else would you add? If you are in favor of a Jewish discussion on the Farm Bill, how would you answer these points?

Scenario 6: You’ve missed the point! Here’s what I think a Jewishly informed Farm Bill would look like

There is much more to the Farm Bill—and to Jewish activism—than what is started here! Where do you think the Jewish community should put its efforts over the next five years? What do you hear when you think of a “Jewishly informed Farm Bill?”