The Farm Bill and Hunger in America

from USDA

Food and agriculture and farm policy in the United States is complicated. I believe that we as a nation should be able to feed ourselves and ensure that all Americans have food security. Though agriculture represents only 1.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) the U.S. Department of Agriculture manages a budget of $145 billion (in 2012) about 4% of the Federal expenditures funded and managed under a series of five-year farm bills. In 2012 over $107 billion of the $145 billion Department of Agriculture budget went to the food stamp program (officially called the supplemental nutritional assistance program, SNAP). In 2014 due to an improving economy that is projected to fall to 72%. The food stamp program in its modern form was created in 1964 to address hunger in America. Yet, there is still food insecurity in the United States and it is unclear if the Farm Bill is achieving its stated and unstated goals.

from CBO

Once, the United States was an agricultural nation, it was settled and built by farmers. That is no longer true, but the Farm Bill a more than 1,000 page colossus has its roots in our history. Though the federal government dabbled in farm and water policy to settle the west the era of permanent government participation in agriculture truly began with the Agricultural marketing Act in 1929 that created the Federal Farm Board to stabilize prices. As a result of World War I and the Russian Revolution which created a tremendous demand for food, food exports from the United States and the real inflation adjusted) prices for food soared in the 1920’s, but then collapsed as European and Russian agriculture returned to production and farm yield increases and expansion of acres under cultivation produced massive farm crop surpluses.

In the 1930’s the Great Depression followed by a severe and extended drought caused widespread hardship in rural America. The demand (in America and for export) for crops and livestock fell and then the drought hit. Millions of acres that had been plowed up to grow crops were dry and barren. The native vegetation that had historically held the soil in place during droughts was gone. The Great Plains of America experienced massive erosion characterized by dust storms that reached the east coast. This devastation caused the most significant migration in American history out of the mid-west. At the time the United States was predominately an agricultural nation and in response Congress passed a series of bills on soil conservation, crop insurance, farm price supports and nutrition assistance. In the 1930’s farm policy was characterized by attempts to fix prices or quantities of food grown or improve the rural economy. All of which pretty much failed. Subsequent attempts at managing the agricultural sector saw no greater success.

Nonetheless, every five years with changing goals and details Congress has managed to pass a new farm bill. The ability to pass the Farm Bill is due mostly due to the coalition created by including nutritional assistance in the farm bill. The various farm bills generally cover five areas:

• Loans. Farmers borrow funds from the government using their future harvest as collateral. The farm bill specifies the rates on the loans and if the market price is below the loan rate, farmers deliver the crop in lieu of payment.
• Commodity Payments. There are several types of payments given to farmers to provide income support. These tend to be for grains and commodities not fruits and vegetables and are paid based on historical production. These payments are made to the farmers who receive them whether or not the crops are grown. There are also price support payments that come into play if market prices are below target prices in the legislation. 
• Conservation Reserve Allocation. The Farm Bill authorizes a certain number of acres of farmland that can be taken out of production and put to conservation purposes for a period of 10 years. Landowners are paid annually for these fallow acres. Eligible lands are generally degraded or fragile lands and the program is intended to protect the soil from erosion and the streams from herbicide, pesticide, fertilizer and soil laden runoff. 
• Crop insurance. In recent farm bills crop insurance has become more important. The government subsidizes the cost of insurance to protect farmers from the risks of weather and price fluctuations. 
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance. Food stamps provide financial assistance to poor families. In 2012 47 million people received food stamps. Though in its earliest form the government handed out the excess food bought from farmers, today the program is financial providing up to $167 per month per person. 

Farm policy after World War II focused on a series of legislative actions aimed at increasing farmer income, providing a food safety net for the poor and investing in infrastructure for rural America. The result of farm policies from the end of World War II until 1970 was the creation of massive grain surpluses that the government bought under the farm loan program. In 1962 the U.S. government held wheat stocks that equaled 80% of the world’s wheat production that year (Cuellar, Lazarus, Falcon and Naylor 2014). These wheat stores were used for food aid shipments during the 1960’s; by 1980 the surpluses had largely disappeared due to changes both in the world market for grains and loan prices for grains.

In each generation of congress the Farm Bill has changed and morphed. The historical favoring of grain crops impacted the make-up of the American diet. These days food stamps and the nutritional assistance programs represent 70-75% of the $145 billion budget. Payment to farmers in the form of direct payments, deficiency payments from the loan program and insurance payments account for about 13% of the budget. Conservation programs account for about 7% and all other programs account for 6% of the budget. Some of these agricultural other programs are really important to the future of food in America, but also tucked into the budget of the Department of Agriculture are a portion of the government support for the crop-based bio-fuels ($320 million) and funding for Climate Centers. The small amount of funding for biofuels belies its impact. Biofuels and the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) created under the Energy policy Act of 2005 have had a profound impact on agriculture in America and the costs of the farm programs.

Since passage of the Renewable Fuels Standard corn acreage in the United States increased by almost 30%, replacing other crops and removing land from the conservation reserves program. Corn prices rose from $2.42 to almost $7 a bushel in 2012; however, last week the price of corn has fallen to about $3.35 a bushel. The USDA is predicting a 14.03 billion bushel corn crop this year, despite farmers planting fewer acres this year than last. Perfect weather is producing a bumper crop and the demand for corn is down. In recent years about 40% or so of the corn crop has gone to the production of ethanol under the RFS. But the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) has indicated that they will propose to cut the RFS for 2014. This is a response to the fixed volume of ethanol that is required under the RFS. Annual U.S. gasoline use has declined from its 142-billion-gallon peak in 2007 to about 133 billion gallons in 2012 and ethanol now represents 9.74% of gasoline. There appears to be a practical limit of 10% of ethanol in gasoline.

The food stamp programs provides a safety net for low-income households in times of high or volatile food prices that are often caused by the bio-fuels program and the agricultural programs themselves. It is unclear if the coalition created by combining food stamp programs and farm subsidies can survive in 21st century America where the agricultural economy employs so few. In addition, new “critical” issues are driving our nation’s food policy. Nutrient pollution and algae blooms in our nation’s water supplies, genetically modified organisms, obesity, climate change, immigration are all impacting farm policy. What is clear is that one in six American households is classified as having food insecurity. By this measure our policies have failed. It is inexcusable that there is hunger in America.

from USDA

Using Up the Ogallala- The Groundwater Footprint of the U.S.

The High Plains aquifer commonly known as the Ogallala aquifer (because the Ogallala formation makes up about three quarters of the aquifer) became news and burst into public awareness due to the protests associated with the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline has been very controversial. Most of the environmental controversy has focused on the porous soils of the Sandhills and fears of a possible oil leak into the Ogallala aquifer which is one of the nation's most important agricultural aquifers. Moving the pipeline away from the aquifer or piping the Canadian oil through British Columbia should mitigate concern for contamination to the Ogallala, but oil leaks are a minor problem. Really, the oil does not move quickly or spread easily through the sedimentary deposits of the High Plains aquifer. There is a much bigger threat to the Ogallala; the aquifer is being depleted because the groundwater within it is predominately non-renewable. This groundwater aquifer that spans and estimated 174,000 square miles is the primary source of water for the High Plains. This was open range land until the groundwater from the aquifer was used to turn the range land into irrigated crops. However, according to John Opie in “Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land” this is essentially fossil water that was generated 10,000-25,000 years ago by the melting of the glaciers of the Rockies.

Water level declines in the High Plains Aquifer since 1958 

The High Plains aquifer is the most intensively used aquifer in the United States and 97% of the water is used for irrigation. Groundwater withdrawals from the High Plains aquifer represent about 20% of all groundwater withdrawals within the United States and have turned the dry range land in the center of the country into the breadbasket of the world. There are only about 2.5 million people living within the High Plains aquifer. With the grains we grow and export we are exporting our water reserves and possibly the future of the region. The High Plains aquifer is being depleted (and contaminated) by irrigation. In the central and southern High Plains water levels have fallen from 50 to more than 150 feet primarily in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.  

In  the past year Drs. Tom Gleeson, Yoshihide Wada, Marc F.P. Bierkens and Lodovicus P.H. van Beek each a distinguished voice in groundwater research have pulled together to try to popularize the concept of Groundwater Footprint in order to focus attention on the sustainability of groundwater use. While I think the “global groundwater footprint” is not particularly useful beyond seeing how important groundwater use is globally, their groundwater footprint concept may end up being a very powerful tool. Water is regional and while the authors of “Water Balance of Global Aquifers Revealed by Groundwater Footprint” point out that some groundwater consumption can be transferred to an adjacent aquifer (they use the Upper and Lower Ganges aquifers in India as their example) more often water use and recharge are a dictated by local conditions. An excess of water along the Amazon basin is not particularly useful to Saudi Arabia. However, the authors measurement of “groundwater footprint” is really a measure of groundwater sustainability. A groundwater footprint is a simplified tool to see the water balance between recharge and use of an aquifer and could be used to include groundwater sustainability in developing water, economic and agriculture policies using the virtual water and water footprint analysis. If the water use is not sustainable, then ultimately we are not sustainable.

Groundwater footprint, as the authors point out, could be used with the satellite-based Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) to quantify groundwater depletion. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Texas, and the Hydrological Sciences Branch at NASA GSFC have worked in partnership to apply GRACE and GLDAS to real world groundwater monitoring. As these tools develop, the groundwater footprint could end up being an intuitive management tool. The authors found that 80% of the world’s aquifers are not being depleted, but that of the 20% that are being depleted are being depleted at such a vast rate that the global average footprint is of unsustainable groundwater use. In the United States the High Plains and the Central Valley aquifers are being depleted. We as a nation need to examine our agricultural policies and incentives, even our energy policies (corn for ethanol is squandering 40% of the corn crop and the non-renewable water in it to dilute gasoline) and the way we value and price water to ensure that we will have food in the future. 

Who will Control your Water

Fresh water supply poses a real and looming environmental risk. Regional shortages of water will drive decisions that will impact our future.

According to the US Census Bureau there are 312 million people in the United States. The water that exists on the planet is finite, but always moving as part of the water cycle or hydrologic cycle, on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. The good news about water is that “on average” the United States uses less than 8% of the water that falls as precipitation within our borders annually. Unfortunately, precipitation varies from that average significantly on a regional basis and over time, and our need for water is often greatest where there is the least precipitation because of the need for irrigation. In addition, only the cities on the great lakes have adequate precipitation and water storage to supply their population’s water needs, so our urban center have become very used to thinking of appropriating water from nearby regions to the cities.

As population rises, the demand for fresh water for drinking, domestic use, for industry (especially power generation) and for agriculture increases. The demand for food and the water that is essential to produce food grows with population and wealth. Globally, farming is estimated to account for 60% -70% of fresh water use. Irrigated agricultural consumes over 75% of the water in California, which produces 17.6 % of U.S. crops, and 7 % of the U.S. livestock and livestock products. California produces about half of U.S. grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Several of these crops are currently produced only in California. In the United States we have used the various complicated, layered and hidden subsidies within the various “farm bills” and subsidized water to complicate the business of farming and obscure the true costs of food in America.

This past spring, even as the Mississippi River basin was inundated with water, large portions of the arid west were struggling with drought. Farmers in the west pumped groundwater (unsustainably) to produce their crops. Regional water supply and allocation of that water is a growing problem especially in the western states which are arid, dependent on irrigation and have multi-state water right compacts. One of the best known of these Compacts is the 1922 Colorado River Compact, negotiated by the seven basin states (Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, California, ) divided the Colorado River basin into upper and lower portions, allotted consumptive use of the Colorado’s water on the basis of territory rather than prior appropriation. Before this agreement was negotiated allocation of water rights (ownership) was based on historic use, first to use the water owned it in perpetuity. In a land where water was wealth and all water was diverted from its natural location, this was how it was done. The allocation of water rights based on territory allowed development to proceed in the lower basin (essentially California) while safeguarding supplies for the upper basin. Then, as now, California's growth and demand for water was viewed with concern by her neighbors.

The problem is that the allocations promised were more than 100% of the water available and the demand for water has exceeded the supply. Specifically, the amount of water allocated under the Colorado Compact was based on an expectation that the river's average flow was 16.4 million acre feet per year. Subsequent tree ring studies, however, have concluded that the long-term average water flow of the Colorado is significantly less. According to the University of Arizona, a better estimate would have been 13.2 million acre feet at the time of the Colorado Compact and the records going back to paleolithic times (more than 10,000 years ago) indicates periods of mega-droughts in the distant past. During the drought of 2001-2006 the Colorado River flow was estimated at 11 million acre feet and hit a low of 6 million acre feet in 2002. The situation was critical bordering on regional rationing when the drought ended. More than 23 million people of the lower basin are at least partially dependent upon the water resources of the Colorado River. Almost 74% of them reside in the greater Los Angeles and San Diego areas. The deep snow pact and rain of last winter in northern California has taken has taken emergency rationing off the table- until the next drought.

Population growth, increased food production and increased power production all consume more and more water. The water available from the Colorado River has not increased with the increased demand and may even be falling. Even without climate change, paleoclimate records show a history of tremendous droughts in the region, and now more than 35 million people (in the upper and lower basins) depend upon the Colorado River’s waters for their water supply. The need for water is always growing. California is the most populous state in the nation and Nevada was identified as the fastest-growing state in the country in the 2010 census growing over 35% since 2000. Despite aggressive conservation activities the region simply does not have enough water to meet the projected demand. Las Vegas, was in the midst of a building boom when the drought hit. While adding 400,000 people they were able to reduce water use by a third by the implementation of draconian conservation measures. This was city and suburban consumption, not agricultural or power generation use of water which is much more difficult to cut.

The states of the Colorado Compact need more water. Overuse is killing the Colorado water basin which suffers from decimated aquatic ecosystems, overdrawn and irreparably damaged groundwater aquifers, and polluted agricultural and urban runoff. California has focused all its attention on developing a plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions which is unlikely to prevent climate change, but they have failed to develop a workable water budget (or a balanced state budget for that matter). For two decades the Pacific Institute has called for a revamp of river management to protect endangered fish species and critical ecosystem elements, free up water for restoration of the Colorado River delta, and eliminate long-term groundwater overdraft throughout the basin. California and the other Colorado Compact states could not face the simple fact of a limited water supply and ignored the warnings, preferring to think about that tomorrow.

Even the conservation measures implemented in Las Vegas and throughout the region are not enough to ensure the long term water supply. The Southern Nevada Water Authority has requested to build a pipeline to transfer 65 billion gallons of water from northern Nevada to Las Vegas. The state will decide in January whether to proceed with that plan. The project has encountered stiff opposition from conservationists and rural communities against tapping northern groundwater to fuel more growth in southern Nevada. The pressure to push the project forward is off after the large snow pact of last winter inundated the area in the spring thaw and filled Lake Mead for the first time in a decade. Lake Meade sits on the Nevada-Arizona border and was formed in 1935 after the construction of Hoover Dam. Lake Mead and the upstream Lake Powell are the major water storage facilities in the Colorado Compact system. Roughly 96% of Lake Mead's water comes from melted snow in the upper Colorado River basin states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Las Vegas is only one small area of the Colorado Compact. Regional politics demands maintaining a vibrant agricultural sector, quenching the thirst of growing urban and suburban, growing economies that also demand water for power and industry, despite the limitations of the water supply. Politicians do not seem able to make the hard choices that will balance their water budgets. Instead the politicians came up with the idea to investigate the “Long-Term Augmentation of the Water Supply of the Colorado River System.” The study commissioned by the Colorado Compact states and the federal government identified 12 long-term augmentation options: desalination of both brackish water and ocean water, coalbed methane produced water, recharging groundwater from other surface sources, reduction of consumptive use of water for power generation, reservoir evaporation reduction, storm water storage, vegetation management, importing water via boat, water reuse, weather modification, and importation of water from the Midwest. Former Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson suggested “compacts” with the great lake states to import water to the drier western states under a federal water Czar. One of the ideas explored by the Southern Nevada Water Authority is to pipe 1,000 cubic feet of water per second from the Mississippi River 1,000 miles west to the Colorado River. They estimated that this aqueduct-pipeline would cost $11.4 billion to construct and an unknown amount of money to operate and maintain. Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who is responsible for ensuring that the 2 million residents of Las Vegas have water argues that this plan could flood proof the Mississippi River Basin while recharging the depleted Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains and maintain and increase agriculture on the eastern side of the Colorado River. The plan is to remake nature with a modern era of big infrastructure projects rather than accept the limits of nature and locating large water use projects where water is plentiful. Water control and allocation would be another federal power under this water augmentation plan.