Called By Our Faith To Act For A Climate-Smart Farm Bill

This year, we have a critical opportunity to advocate for a climate-smart agricultural sector that advances justice. We have an essential role in showcasing that faith advocates see a moral imperative for a proposal that shifts to a greener, more sustainable, more regenerative approach. This is in deference to our relationship to the interdependent web of all life while also looking to be just and seeking to address inequities.

The five-year proposal now being drafted offers the chance to reduce hunger, promote environmental stewardship and promote fairness to all farmers and farmworkers. Our UU values call on us to advocate for a Farm Bill that brings about fairness, especially to farmers and farm workers of color who have been left out of earlier bills, and that encourages the production of sustainably grown, healthful food rather than commodity crops grown in ways that deplete the soil and pollute our waterways. The current Farm Bill expires on September 30, 2023, so both the House and Senate are actively working on drafting a new five-year Farm Bill. Our Representatives and Senators need to hear from us now so that the Farm Bill, as enacted, reflects our UU values.

Our engagement represents a significant chance to help shift the culture and focus of the Farm Bill moving forward to improve its posture on sustainability.  For that purpose, we envision a proposal that incentivizes fruit and vegetable cultivation and small or family farmers and ranchers over Big Ag and feed crops. We want to see funding for regional supply and distribution networks developed in furtherance of our neighbors’ social safety net nutritional support, and healthy diets. (What we need to eat to remain healthy should not be considered “specialty crops.”) We want a proposal that prioritizes communities over corporations. We want the agricultural sector to work in regenerative ways: it must stop contributing to air and water pollution through mega-farms and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and thus creating impacted and environmental justice communities as a consequence.

The true cost of American agriculture must cease to be low nutritional density foods leading to poor health outcomes, Food Deserts in low-income communities (urban, suburban, and rural), and Sacrifice Zones. We must begin to restructure our approach and the incentives within this key component of our economy and society. We must help Congress recognize that the agriculture sector of the economy needs to play a vital role in our response to climate change. Our approach to agriculture needs to become a sail for sustainability policies rather than an anchor for an economy dependent on fossil fuels, methane byproducts, and other unsustainable practices.