USDA Secretary and Deputy Secretary Share Support for Small to Midsize, Diverse Farms at a Meeting in Milwaukee

Published: Sep 2024
By: Lori Stern

August 19th was a great day overall of connecting with USDA folks in Washington DC and Wisconsin on behalf of Marbleseed and small to midsized organic farms. We gathered at Central Standard Kitchen. Folks there were able to showcase their project with the DeLong Company and local farmers through Climate Smart. I was humbled to be invited to an intimate, round table pre-meeting of Wisconsin ag leaders with Deputy Secretary Torres Small (Secretary Vilsack was unable to attend at the last minute) and a mix of farmers, business owners, tribal entities, those involved in urban conservation, and farm-worker housing. I also was able to chat with so many farmers and partners between the small round table with Deputy Secretary Torres Small and the larger public town hall that Secretary Vilsack did attend.

The Morning

I had comments prepared given the Marbleseed experience with the current, historic investments in organic and smaller farms managed by historically under-represented farmers.
Here are my comments shared during the morning roundtable.

Organic agriculture is a soil-based, systems approach to farming. We view our work as an organization through this lens of connection. The many initiatives started under President Biden and current USDA leadership have enabled Marbleseed to support farmers in critical ways. These programs made investments that have enabled us to work with farmers to implement our mission through the entire value chain.
For example:
• We are mentoring producers to implement organic and conservation practices and deepening our organic transition resources through the Organic Transition Initiative.
• We are studying meat processing infrastructure, knowing the need for farmer access to facilities that can result in living wage jobs in rural communities.
• We have contracted with over 125 historically underserved farmers through the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, that has resulted in farming and food access with dignity across WI.
• And we are measuring the climate impact of organic alongside conservation practices as the lead in a Climate Smart Partnership grant.

Improvements Marbleseed would like to see:

The Marbleseed community would love to see future and more permanent program investments from USDA such as:

1. Beyond continuing LFPA, we need nutrition programs that include federal procurement support and requirements that provide the small and medium sized, historically underserved and organic producers that have been feeding communities through LFPA, ongoing markets and provide their communities with the culturally relevant and healthy food they deserve.
2. We need wholesale price lists that reflect the true cost of production for farmers at smaller scales.
3. Develop a farm safety net that meaningfully supports diversified, organic operations and truly compensates for the risk that transitioning to organic creates as farmers learn new ways of farming that include (for example) cover crops, double cropping, perennial grains, and extended rotations.
4. Finalize the Packers and Stockyards act rule-making. The pandemic showed us how critical redundancies in the system are.
5. “Get big or get out” thinking created fragility in our food system and inequity in the deployment of OUR tax dollars. This USDA has also done work on equity and examined the programs and processes that have marginalized farmers of color, Indigenous farmers, women and under-resourced beginning farmers. We would like to see a USDA that implements the recommendations of the Equity Commission.
6. Marbleseed would like to see a re-instatement of the organic position at USDA to keep these efforts alive and connected.

The Town Hall

The public meeting kicked off with comments from Graham Adsit, a medical doctor and organic grain farmer, as well as the folks from Central Standard and XX DeLong, who are all part of the DeLong project. Marbleseed also has been funded to engage organic grain farmers in a Climate Smart project. Interestingly, Vilsack characterized “Climate Smart” as the bridge between conventional and organic…a way to give farmers and consumers a middle ground. A perspective I had not heard until that Monday.

Both Vilsack and Torres Small spoke of the need to support small to mid-size farms. They highlighted how our current system has resulted in the loss of over 500,000 farms since 2017.
They bemoaned the fact that arguments over reference prices are holding up a new Farm Bill. While pointing out that many other subsidy programs at USDA only meaningfully benefit 6% of farms. I came away feeling frustrated. If those at the top know the numbers, and it is not the ag system we want, there are way more of us. Vilsack gave what has become known as his “white board” presentation that illustrates the new system USDA has launched alongside the current, “free market” driven one and he gave reason as the fact that 86% of farm operations require off-farm income, USDA is trying to create multiple sources of income on farms so that these farms can be economically viable on their own. These are all still voluntary, still limited in availability, still market driven. The afternoon, public town hall discussion went back to rural economic development in several ways.

LFPA and food security programs funded by IRA and ARPA were discussed at the public Town Hall. Alondra Cano (new on Marbleseed staff) raised the issue of culturally relevant foods and access to markets. Vilsack and Torres Small both were eager to address those as emerging markets to be supported.

Although the next Farm Bill is not likely on any near horizon, it was heartening to know that at least we all are on the same page about how we define the problems faced by small to mid-sized producers and the history of discrimination and displacement that is the basis of US Ag. What we can do about it and how fast is where we have collective work to do.