Graham Unangst-Rufenacht, Rural Vermont’s Policy Director, reports on the National Family Farm Coalition Summer Board Meeting:
The National Family Farm Coalition held its annual Summer Board Meeting remotely for the first time this year over the past couple weeks. In January I traveled as a member of the Board to Birmingham, Alabama for our Winter Board meeting – and though I was looking forward to seeing folks again in person from all over the country and growing those relationships, it was great to see new and familiar faces even if we were all doing so through our screens.
The meeting was broken up into three separate 2.5 hour sessions on different days with particular focus points:
o Meeting, Updates, Strategic Development
o Dairy
o Racial Justice and Xenophobic Language
Two of NFFC’s primary campaigns right now are strategic planning and advocacy for a just and equitable national dairy policy, and working to oppose corporate land grabs and corporate farmland investment. In our dairy session, we heard from a panel of small dairy farmers from across the country (including VT) representing different types of commodity dairy markets: Organic, Non-GMO, and conventional – as well as a farm selling breeding stock as a niche market. Despite these different markets, it’s amazing and infuriating to hear the similarity of economic stress and circumstance (cutting back on feed as indebtedness grows, at the end of lines of credit, no room for the next generation), and in identifying some of the primary problems with the dairy market:
Milk checks are based on “component pricing” (the value of components of milk sold on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange), and no longer on “parity pricing” (based on cost of production at the farm, which was entirely lost under the Reagan presidency). One farmer described this as a “political problem”, “disenfranchising dairy and the rural class” as the component pricing system takes them and their negotiating power out of the equation.
Market consolidation and Concentration, lack of anti-trust enforcement, and a consistent “go big or go home” narrative across generations. Dairy is second only to livestock in consolidation making it very vulnerable to economic shock and discrimination against small operations.
o No room or potential for new dairy farmers or next generation to continue.
o FDA allowing new components in milk and new industrial processes such as ultra-pasturization.
o Enforce and strengthen the Organic standards.
One farmer said, “the primary issue has always been to pay bills regardless of how hard you work”. Another described how her family was 2 years from paying off the farm prior to Hurricane Irene, and now has over a half million dollars in debt.
NFFC is in process of refining a ten point plan including:
o Floor price based on cost of production vs. component pricing (based on herd size, already calculated by the USDA)
o Supply Control not based on a quota system
o Simplifying the pricing and pooling system
o Creating a single market for conventional, and a separate market for Organic
o Regular USDA review of domestic and export consumption to inform supply management
o Oversight by producers and regular hearings
o On-Farm Processing and direct sales
o A path for new producers
o Trade policy and COOL (Country of Origin Labeling)
If you’d like to hear more about NFFC’s dairy work, or provide your input – please be in touch.
Dakota Rural Action and RAFI led our second training on Xenophobic language and its use in our media, culture, and lives consciously and unconsciously. We focused on narratives around corporate entities such as Smithfields, and how language can be used as a dog-whistle to cloak particular aspects of the business (making them feel more familiar, homey, etc.) while also creating an “other” (identified as less than, at fault, etc.). For example, in particular media we read about Smithfields processing issues, they are referred to as a “Virginia based company” – as opposed to identifying it as a subsidiary of WH Goup of Hong Kong. And, rather than accept responsibility for the dramatic number of COVID-19 cases at their plants based on very poor practices – they blame it on immigrant workers who they say spread the virus outside of their plants because of their living habits. We discussed as foundational understandings to our call the reality of White Supremacy, and that “whiteness has claimed rural America”. As predominantly white led and constituted organizations and individuals on the call, these conversations were also critical to have to understand more about how people understand and respond to this language. We are all called to explore how the language we, and the organizations we represent and support, use may create insiders and outsiders, how it may imply judgement based on “otherness”, how it may feel hurtful to some people and lead to more explicit forms of racism, xenophobia, etc..
Rural Vermont is excited to continue and grow its relationship with NFFC and has been doing some work based in VT with them around the Corporate Farmland Investment campaign which we hope to be in touch about soon.
