Ironically, I think Monsanto probably doesn’t spend a lot of external or obvious energy on the farm bill because they know that they don’t need to. They have won in the courts. Monsanto produces high-yield GMO-patented hybrid soybeans. A farmer in Ohio was growing Monsanto soybeans and the farmer next to him was growing non-Monsanto soybeans.

And, as farmers do, they tend to keep back 5% of the crop to plant for next year. And as crops are known to do, they get fertilized by animals that move across airspace. Their seeds are carried by wind currents and by bees that don’t necessarily know a field’s borders. So, crops of the farmer who was growing non-Monsanto soybeans were fertilized to some extent by the Monsanto soybeans and they hybridized. As a result, the seeds that he was then planting the next year had high production and were very similar to the Monsanto soybeans. Monsanto sued him and in federal court they won. He was planting the seeds of the crops that grew in his dirt, and it was against the law for him to plant them the next year. He lost that case in federal court. So Monsanto doesn’t really care as much about the farm bill with regard to the sale of our kind of seed because the courts are taking care of that. So, all they about within the farm bill concerns subsidized soybeans, because we know we’ve got this market cornered. No one can grow their own soybeans. There’s no heritage soybeans. And that’s a separate item that’s not part of the farm bill. However, it might be possible to enter this provision into the farm bill.

The farming industry has seen all the same things that the health industry has seen. Consolidation, monoculture of specialization. So farmers don’t typically grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rye, 10 different crops. They tend to grow one crop, maybe two.

Jeremy

Jack, as I understand it, you would like us to consider the farm bill and the USDA as areas that historically have not been a focus of healthcare leaders–because those matters are for the farmers. It’s in a different committee—not involved with the oversight of health. So, there’s not really a health lens looking at farm bill impact in a way that is the case with other products. So, I guess the question would be: if we put a health impact lens onto the farm bill, what interesting things might pop up? Where are the lever points? I agree with you that it would be very difficult to get into crop issues. Crop policies are probably laden with advocacy groups. I imagine every single crop has got the kind of advocacy that we find with tobacco. Each of the crops probably has its advocates who are locking in the money. It’s interesting to note that crop-related policies are not the largest portion of the farm bill. Jack, you indicated that the nutrition piece is 60 to 70% of the farm bill dollars. This might be a place for healthcare to put some energy.

Jack

Possibly, but I think the SNAP program and the nutrition program have adequate advocates–with hundreds of organizations, social services, and health-oriented groups that fully advocate on behalf of the poor and underserved communities. The agriculture community focuses on crop insurance and subsidies. I don’t think there is any group of clinicians or other healthcare providers who are linking the three components of this bill–as Gay did. Gay went right to it. She asked: why do we let them wax apples? Why do we let them put this ingredient in the processed food? Why, why, why? I don’t think there is an adequate response from healthcare to the interface between these components. And we say, well, it’s the ag bill. Yeah, it has SNAP. We support SNAP. Got it. Okay.