Walz supports LSP Farm Bill priorities
2/23/07
By Wanda Hanson
LEWISTON, Minn. — The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) organization was well prepared for Representative Tim Walz's visit to its Lewiston office on President's Day. Members, intent on making key points, met 45 minutes ahead of Walz's appearance to go over their finely tuned agenda and follow up questions. Aware of Walz's speaking skills and charismatic presence, the group worried they might not have the opportunity to present their ideas.
Walz quickly put any concerns to rest as he assured the group, "I know what I don't know; I'm here to listen." Walz, a member of the agriculture committee and the sub-committees on energy and commodities, assured the LSP that the next farm bill would be written from the ground up from the subcommittees, a process he called good for rural America. He listened carefully to each question, making notes as he listened and responding to the question precisely with few generalities.
The audience for the visit was a decidedly mixed one; long-time farmers-dairy, sheep, organic-sat next to people from the Twin Cities and Rochester who called themselves "just consumers," interested in where their food came from.
The Land Stewardship Project, which, according to its website, has a mission "to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities," has been in existence since 1982. Members of LSP took turns presenting their agenda to Walz.
Farmer Brad Hodgson urged Walz to help build a bigger Conservation Security Program to promote conservation on farmland. Walz replied "nothing was more popular than CSP across the country" and agreed the application procedure needed to be simplified and made continuous. He advocated fully funding CSP and expanding it to state or even nationwide. CSP has had $4 million stripped from it since 2002. Walz informed the group that full funding of CSP ($7.5 billion) was equal to only six weeks of U.S. spending in Iraq.
Alison Deutsch urged Walz to support a Beginning Farmer Act. Deutsch, a graduate of the 2005-2006 beginning farmer course, explained how it helped her with planning and goal setting, with networking to find a farm to purchase, and it supplied one-on-one mentoring as she began farming.
Jon Peterson, a mentor in the program, pointed out the need for access to capital by beginning farmers and called for incentives to retiring farmers to sell farms to beginning farmers.
Replying, Walz declared he "unequivocally, absolutely" supports such legislation and noted funding is the real issue, pointing out that less than six percent of the money was ever actually allocated in the past.
Mark Schultz, LSP Policy Program Director, asked Walz about creating a sustainable agriculturally based energy policy. Such a policy would include energy conservation of farm energy and the establishment of local food systems, thus eliminating the long distance transporting of food. Development of cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass and other plant materials and wind farming would be encouraged.
Walz answered that over the next ten years the administration would be spending $1 billion on this policy-not enough in his opinion. He related the story of the thirty year long wait to install solar panels on the Department of Energy building and noted that by July the building would be selling energy back to the power company.
Jon Peterson asked Walz to help with reforms to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Peterson related he was unable to get EQIP funding because he wasn't a big enough pollution hazard. LSP is calling for a reduction in the cap from $450,000 to $150,000 or less in order to increase the number of farms able to receive funding. Currently, the program is being used by large confinement operations as an expansion tool to build more manure lagoons according to Peterson.
"COOL is cool," declared Jack Warthesen as he encouraged the passing of a mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for meats. "You can find out where your shirt is from, but not where your meat is from."
Walz asked for counter arguments as he wondered how to answer pork producers opposed to the labeling. While producers claim people don't care where their meat comes from, they claim mandatory labeling penalizes them.
The hour-long meeting closed with an invitation from LSP to Walz to attend a farm tour in the spring. Walz assured the group he'd be happy to come; he also encouraged people to visit him in Washington and to write him emails or fax him (507-388-6181) with any concerns, promising to respond.
Copyright 2007 • Fillmore County Journal
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