A Smart Read and an Action Item

natasha wrote yesterday at Daily Kos about all she sees wrong with Blumenauer and Kind's Farm 21. Some of her points are very convincing, others maybe less so-- but the fact remains that I find her one of the most persuasive, intelligent, and balanced voices covering this stuff. She also writes over at Pacific Views.

The thing is, I don't especially like farm subsidies. I don't really want to be put in the position of arguing for them. But there isn't a full range of choice here. There's electoral suicide and renewed waves of farm country bankruptcies, or there's the status quo with some moderate but perhaps effective improvements.

Some of these modest efforts she'd like to see championed instead: preventing Community Food Projects from relying merely on discretionary funds (making it essentially an optional program when money is distributed); a $40,000 direct payment cap for commodity programs; and full funding for the Conservation Security Program.

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This would also be a good time to contact your Congressperson, right now today, if you are going to do it at all, and tell them to vote for the Ryan amendment, which will do a better job of limiting the size of farms that can receive subsidies than the Farm Bill as it currently stands. You can use this contact page, if you like. I did. Not that Denny Rehberg (R-MT) is going to listen to me... but hope springs eternal.