Lobbyist For A Day
About a month ago I was invited by the Minnesota Farmers Union to attend their fall “fly in” event where I will join farmers from across our state and across the country too to lobby for farm and rural policy in Washington D.C. It’s a busy time of year for our family with back to school, the farm still producing in full swing and the seasons changing but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. It’s not everyday you get an invite to potentially meet with your congressional delegation to advocate for yourself.
In the prep call that the Minnesota Farmers Union held they emphasized telling a personal story as it relates to farm policy. There’s a lot of federal farm policy that doesn’t support farms like mine. Most of the money, most of the programs, and most of the investment in farming goes to corporations, large corporate farms, and commodity farms (in that order). One of the few programs that helped and benefited not only farms like mine but our community more broadly was the Local Foods Purchasing Assistance (LFPA) program. Essentially, you can think of it as the Federal Government subsidizing local food production in a similar way to how commodities like corn and soybeans are subsidized.
Sadly, LFPA was canceled with the new administration which we talked about and described earlier this spring. I understand that tucked into the new farm bill is a version of LFPA which I intend to encourage my representatives to support. Not only does LFPA benefit farms like mine but it also benefits businesses that purchase goods from our farm to process into ready to eat meals for a variety of people including children and food insecure folks. Further, LFPA really helped us last season when we experienced catastrophic flooding and hail. It allowed us a market outlet for our seconds and produce that wasn’t fit for our market stand or CSA boxes giving us a much needed source of income when many of our crops were flooded out or damaged.
I’m looking forward to the opportunity to share my story, our farms story, and the impact these programs can have on our community. I look forward to writing the follow-up blog to let you all know how it went!
