Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has introduced a regenerative and organic version of the Farm Bill.
The Food & Farm Act represents our best hope for saving our farmers, farms and soil. But this bill won’t stand a chance unless Congress gets behind it.
TAKE ACTION! Ask your Member of Congress to cosponsor the Food & Farm Act!
Please use the form on this page to send an email to your Member of Congress. When you enter your address, the phone number for your U.S. Representative will come up. Please call your Representative’s Washington, D.C. office and ask him or her to cosponsor the Food & Farm Act.
We need the Food & Farm Act! It’s our best hope for reversing the most disturbing trends threatening our food security: the loss of farmers, farmland and soil.
No farms, no food
We should all be concerned about what Farm Aid is calling the “Looming Crisis on American Farms.” Even the Wall Street Journal says, “The Next American Farm Bust Is Upon Us.”
Compared with the 1980s Farm Crisis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) chief economist Rob Johansson warned in his just-released 2018 forecast that “current levels of debt are approaching the levels we saw back in the 1980s.”
During that decade, bankruptcies and foreclosures contributed to the loss of 296,360 farms (there were 2.4 million farms in 1980 and only 2.1 million by 1990).
In 2015-2016, the U.S. lost 8,000 farms and a million acres of farmland.
More farm losses are expected, as farm debt increases, and farm incomes stay low.
Net farm income has declined 52 percent since 2013, and is expected to remain flat over the next 10 years.
In 2018, inflation-adjusted net farm income is expected to drop to the lowest level since 2002. In 2018, the projected medium farm income is -$1,316 per household.
In real terms, this means most farmers lose money growing our food.
There is a direct correlation between farm economics and farmer mental health. The current economic pressures are why the suicide death rate for farmers is more than double that of military veterans.
No soil, no farms, no food
As important as it is to keep farmers on the land and protect farmland from development, there’s another urgent food security crisis looming: soil loss.
In the U.S., soil disappears 10 times faster than it is naturally replenished, causing a $44-billion loss in annual productivity. More than 50 percent of America’s topsoil has already eroded.
The United Nations warns that if current rates of degradation continue, all of the world's topsoil could be gone by 2075.
Congressman Blumenauer’s Food & Farm Act would save our farmers, farms and soil. Please write and call your member of Congress today!
