The 2023 farm bill should empower farmers to feed America

American agriculture policy has failed. Our country is currently facing a nutritional crisis, desperation among farmers, and a reckless trade imbalance. This situation didn't happen overnight and it represents an approach to agriculture policy that has failed farmers and families, and has put our national security at risk.

How is it that the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, which boasts such a rich legacy of farming, can't even feed its own people? With the farm bill up for reauthorization this year, it's time to change what's not working.

Our food system fails farmers by forcing them to choose between the factory farm model or losing their land. Industrial Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) displace American farmers and transfer animals from the land into confined buildings. This has had a consolidating impact: fewer, yet larger farms, all while tens of thousands of farms have gone out of business.

In fact, between 1935 and 2021, the U.S. lost 4.8 million farms. One main reason is that agriculture policy is consolidating land into the hands of the largest farms and corporations and denying first-time farmers a point of entry.

Farmers are often rich in land, but poor in cash — struggling to make ends meet in hyper-consolidated and vertically integrated markets. Farm debt is forecast to have reached an all-time high in 2022 at $502 billion. Farmers are often forced to take out loans on their land just to keep their farms running year to year.

But it's not just farmers who bear the brunt: Communities suffer as well. Those policies that foster consolidation and benefit Big Ag also turn off the spigot of revenue that once flowed back into rural communities, contributing to more poverty and less self-reliance.

Farm policy was once designed to keep prices low for consumers. Now, it helps foster consolidation and determines what foods do or don't make it to grocery store shelves. Our agriculture system incentivizes industrial farms that produce livestock feed, a phenomenon called the "Feed-Meat Complex."

This financial mechanism backs farmers into a corner and hurts families' nutritional needs by making it all but impossible to grow the fruits and vegetables American families need.

It also causes us to be reliant on other countries for the nutritious foods our own government recommends. In 2019, for the first time in more than 50 years, the U.S. agricultural system ran a trade deficit — we imported more food than we exported. The USDA forecasts the U.S. will again run a deficit in 2023 for the third time since 2019. That's a devastating revelation for a nation that prides itself on self-sufficiency.

American farm policy literally fails to put its money where its mouth is.

Government programs like MyPlate and the Food Pyramid recommend we fill 50 percent of our plates with fruits and vegetables. Yet the majority of government funding in agriculture supports corporate-controlled livestock and poultry operations and the production of animal feed crops.

According to the CDC, poor nutrition is a leading cause of illness. Increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are the main consequences of poor nutrition. In turn, the USDA notes an unhealthy nation leads to increased health care costs and decreased productivity.

This crisis will only change with a shift in policy that empowers American farmers to grow the food we need for better nutrition here at home.

American farmers know best how to produce enough nutritious food for all families to lead happy, healthy lives. Instead of trusting farmers, our agriculture policy has capitulated to deep-pocketed multinational corporations whose primary concern is not whether American families have access to the healthy food they need to thrive.

The 2023 farm bill must change that. We can't afford to wait another five years.