First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who took the time last week to sign the petition, make calls, tell friends, etc. about the Senate’s budget vote.  As a refresher, there were three big pushes we had:

1. to push funding for the beginning farmer programs that had been left high and dry in New Years Eve Farm Bill extension;
2. to fix the problem with the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which had been updated in a way that didn’t allow for new 2013 applicants to the program;
3. and to pass the Tester amendments that were intended to strip away two anti-farmer provisions to the budget – one on GMO’s and one on the meatpacking industry.  For more of a refresher, check back on some of last week’s blog posts.

So how did things turn out?  Well, we had a mixed success.  Of the three pushes, we did get one: CSP was fixed so that farmers can apply for it in 2013.  This may not seem like a huge victory, but it really is: CSP helps countless farmers every year institute conservation practices on their farm (everything from riparian buffers to reducing pesticide drift to building pollinator habitat) that would be cost-prohibitive otherwise.  So we are enthused that the USDA will be able to continue supporting those amazing practices across the country.  (And, as always, this isn’t the end of the process – we’re going to stay with this to make sure it makes it through the House and into actual law.)

Unfortunately, of course, that means that we didn’t get funding for the rest of the programs, and we weren’t able to strip back those two anti-farmer riders on the budget bill.  So let’s take a look at both of those:

First, in terms of the stranded programs that were once again left unfunded (this is that long laundry list that we’ve been focusing on, including the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, Organic Cost-share, and much more), we don’t have a lot of options left for short term solutions.  We will keep working on it, though, and let you know if there are other opportunities.  However, the big picture is that we should start focusing more on the next five-year farm bill (that will hopefully be done later this year) and less on correcting the short-term Farm Bill extension we’re currently under.

Second, the trouble in stripping the riders had to do with the Senate’s extreme urgency to pass the budget bill (the deadline to avoid a government shut-down is next week!).  There were nearly 100 amendments proposed – some good and some bad – and ultimately a compromise was made where almost all of them were left out in order to facilitate the budget’s passing.  So while it’s not great, this was really a result of the government’s extreme polarization that forced things to come so close to the edge, and thus need an eleventh-hour solution.  We do want to give a shout-out to Senator Tester, who was the only Democratic Senator to vote against moving forward with the bill.  He remained dedicated to the end to his amendments, and we applaud his efforts on our behalf.

So regarding these nasty riders: yes, they are bad.  The silver lining, though, is that they are in a 6-month budget bill, so they aren’t permanent.  Next fall we will get a chance again to pull them back and fix those anti-farmer (and anti-justice!) travesties.

OK, well that’s the brief recap from Washington over the past week.  We got a lot of emails from folks saying they made their calls, so thank you for making a difference!  We also got feedback from multiple legislators’ offices saying they’d been swamped with calls, so great job!  This is only the beginning of a groundswell of support for these pro-farmer, sustainable-agriculture programs, and regardless of this week’s votes, we are so psyched to be at the beginning of an evolutionary shift in government’s views on farming!