Urge Congress to Give Poor Farmers a Fighting Chance
Rebecca Young, Care2 Action Alerts
help small farmers and poor farmers who struggle to
make a living. But while farm subsidies started during
the Great Depression with these good intentions, today
the reality is very different.
Congress will debate a new Farm Bill this year urge
your representative and senators to support farm
reform that helps poor farmers at home and abroad!
http://go.care2.com/e/R8bE/hdXh/d5IW
Here's how our farm policy works: Only one-quarter of
all farmers receive commodity subsidies. Of these, the
largest 10 percent of producers receive about 75
percent of payments.
The US government has spent as much as $20 billion a
year on these subsidies. And loopholes in the current
Farm Bill allow some of the largest farmers to collect
subsidies in excess of $1 million, while many
struggling family farms get nothing.
On top of all this, our current farm policy is bad for
the environment. Farm subsidies are often associated
with the plowing of environmentally sensitive lands,
overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, and soil
exhaustion due to the emphasis on a small number of
crops. Because so much of our farm funding goes to
subsidies, three out of four farmers who seek federal
support for conservation programs are turned down
because of lack of funds.
So what would a reformed Farm Bill look like? It would
reduce misguided agriculture subsidies and redirect the
money to the programs that need it most: conservation,
nutrition, rural development, and the research and
development of renewable sources of energy.
More than 75 percent of the world's poorest people
rely on farming to make a living, many making less
than a dollar per day. We have a chance to help
farmers in the U.S. and around the world by calling on
Congress to do the right thing and reform the Farm
Bill. Sign the petition today to tell Congress to put
your tax money to work for farmers, families, and our
future: http://go.care2.com/e/R8bE/hdXh/d5IW
Thank you for taking action today,
Rebecca Young,
Care2 and ThePetitionSite team
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