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| Left to right: Roger Johnson, president National Farmers Union, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), Annie Cheatham, president, New England Farmers Union; Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), unknown young woman, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). | |
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| Senator Bernie Sanders receives the Golden Triangle Award from the National Farmers Union, the organization's highest award, for his leadership on the dairy crisis. With Senator Sanders at the Washington, DC event on September 14, 2009 is Annie Cheatham, president of New England Farmers Union and Roger Johnson, president of National Farmers Union. | |
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| Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and New England Farmers Union President Annie Cheatham. | |
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| Carol Browner at Whitehouse Eisenhower Office Building. | |
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| USDA Secretary Vilsack at USDA Jefferson Auditorium. | |
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| Jim Messina at Whitehouse Eisenhower Office Building. |
for Washington, DC Fly-In
A brief summary of the National Farmers Union Fly-In, Washington, DC, September 14–16, 2009
Over 200 members of National Farmers Union attended the fly-in. Noah Fulmer from Farm Fresh Rhode Island joined me to represent New England. He and I brought a lot of experience with regional food systems, and because I had visited Capitol Hill in March, I knew many of the staff we met. We also visited all four Rhode Island offices since Noah works with all of the nearly 600 farmers in the state. We visited 16 Congressional offices and met with staff in addition to Senator Jeanne Shaheen-NH and Representative Rosa DeLauro-CT. NFU legislative staff had prepared talking points for us on five issues: dairy, climate change legislation, renewable electricity standard, TRADE Act (Representative Mike Michaud-ME introduction), and Rural Health Care.
Positions advocated for each were:
Dairy: Maintain the $350 million amendment by Senator Bernie Sanders (VT); co-sponsor Milk Tariff Equity Act (Senator Charles Schumer-NY); cosponsor Family Dairy Preservation Act (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand-NY); launch a Federal Milk Market Order review; launch antitrust investigations at Department of Justice; establish a long-term supply management program.
NFU and Senator Sanders sponsored a press conference on dairy (complete with Maggie the cow from Maryland). Attendees in addition to Sanders were Senators Patrick Leahy-VT, Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar-MN, Mark Udall-CO, Schumer, and Robert Casey-PA. Media were well represented. On all of our Congressional visits, we discussed dairy in detail, and all offices were aware of the crisis and were committed to working on it.
Climate Change: NFU supports policies that don't subject agriculture to an emissions cap; gives 5% of the allowances to ag sector; USDA is exclusive agency for implementation; early actors will be recognized. Senator Shaheen is working on legislation to allow forestry to be included in carbon credit programs. Other New England offices were very interested in this and we provided some networking as we made the rounds. I talked with Senator Shaheen about this and she looks forward to NFU help.
Renewable Electricity Standards: NFU calls for support of the RES standard which will support wind and biomass development in New England.
TRADE Act: Support Representative Michaud's bill, the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act which mandates trade pact reviews, establishes uniform standards, protects workers in developing nations, and restores Congressional oversight in future agreements.
Rural Health Care: NFU supports the public insurance option, universal health care, support for rural hospitals, allowing farmers to pool together and negotiate for better insurance rates and plans, emphasis on prevention and wellness by developing and strengthening regional food systems, and allowing farmers to deduct cost of health insurance premiums as business expenses.
We also discussed food safety with a number of offices and let staff and members know that NFU has said it wants to take a leadership role in the Senate debate. NFU President Roger Johnson has asked NEFU, California FU and others to weigh in with "must haves" and "ways to implement." We are also talking with Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, and Pennsylvania Sustainable Ag Association on this effort. We asked Representative DeLauro to add to this effort and agreed to share our working paper with her staff before sending it to NFU.
There are more details on each of these, but this gives you the gist. All offices were in support of everything except a staffer of Senator Joseph Lieberman-CT who said they don't support cap and trade. Otherwise, we didn't encounter any resistance. Several people thanked us for coming, for keeping them in touch with NFU positions. Many said that "Farm Bureau is the only group we hear from, and it's nice to have NEFU weigh in."
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack met with us for one hour at the USDA, and reiterated his commitment to ag. "This administration is prepared to make investments in the rural economy," he said. And he listed four major initiatives:
- Energy
• Speed up process for rules on rural energy and make grants;
• Help farmers use non-productive land more productively. - Climate Change
• Help rural families reduce use of energy and become more energy efficient. Net opportunity with carbon credit offsets is $20B. Current net farm income is $54B. So this is a huge opportunity to put more $$ in farmers' pockets. - Broadband
• $2.5B for broadband development which will leverage up to $9B - "Know Your Farmer/Know Your Food" initiative
• Create better regional food systems;
• Help institutions get access to regionally produced food;
• Build processing plants;
• Support distribution channels;
• Raise visibility of farmers markets and other direct market outlets.
We also heard from Joe Glauber, Chief Ag Economist at USDA; Michael Scuse from the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services division at USDA, and John Ferrell, Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. John has reached across to the Justice Department to launch a series of meetings about the concentration of dairy processing. This is something that NFU has been pushing for some time, and finally someone at USDA is doing something about it. Very promising new direction for dealing with the dairy crisis.
At the White House we met with Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy on energy and the environment (mostly climate change positions of the administration); and with the health care leaders at the White House. Senior Advisor David Axelrod's deputy also met with us. All of the White House staff focused on climate change and health care—their major priorities at this time.
There were several receptions in addition to the press conference and many members of the Senate and House came for brief remarks and to receive Golden Triangle Awards from NFU. I also had a chance to talk with Dallas Tonsager, Undersecretary for Rural Development, and he said he would be happy to come to New England for a tour sponsored by NEFU if that would be helpful.
It was a full three days which ended with a NFU board meeting. Roger announced to the rest of the board that NEFU has submitted a $110,000 grant proposal to NFU for membership development and capacity building. And he has deputized Claudia Svarstad, Vice President of NFU, to move this proposal to next stages. She will visit New England from October 19–23 along with Stan Brown, an expert in insurance from the Midwest Insurance Agency. Our goals for her visit will be to visit with the Cranberry Growers and the Hook Fishermen Association staff and members on Cape Cod, perhaps hold a face-to-face NEFU board meeting; explore insurance packages that might be development for NEFU members; and write a one to two year strategic plan for NEFU's growth. Once that trip is over, we will prepare further materials for NFU board consideration since our proposal will have to be approved by the NFU Board of Directors in December.
NEFU nominated Robert Wellington of Agri-Mark to the USDA Dairy Task Force that Secretary Vilsack is creating, and the NFU board voted to put his name forward. I also nominated Steve Taylor, former commissioner from NH, but because of a confusing process at the board meeting, that nomination was not voted on by the full board. I will send an email to the USDA from NEFU with Steve's nomination. Senator Shaheen told me she was also nominating Steve Taylor.
In other news, the board of NEFU has agreed to ask NFU's PAC to make a contribution to Martha Coakley's Senate race in Massachusetts, and we may have an opportunity to meet with Attorney General Coakley when Claudia Svarstad is in New England.
Membership development continues with the NEFU board challenged to sign up 10 members each by end of October. And we received a call over the weekend from a dairy farmer in Utica, NY, asking for membership information. She said, "We are really impressed by what NFU has been doing on the dairy crisis." I will be mailing her membership brochures this week.
We are also preparing to do a membership mailing this fall and Connie Clarke, new member, is working on creating a database for us at this time. Thank you, Connie.
Please send me any questions and comments. Enjoy.
Annie Cheatham
Click here to become a member of the New England Farmers Union.
