HEAL Food Alliance Opposes Policies in House Farm Bill, Including Exclusion of Workers, Cuts to SNAP, and Removal of Support for Climate-Related Programs
May 17, 2024 – Today, after an extreme delay, the House Agriculture Committee released its 2024 Farm Bill, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024. The HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance opposes the committee’s short-sighted recommendations for the bill. Even with the delay, the House Farm Bill falls far short of […]
Farmers, Food and Farm Groups Oppose Partisan Efforts to Weaken New Federal Rule Addressing Discrimination in Agricultural Lending
NATIONAL (May 15, 2024) – Today, 130 organizations including the HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, the National Young Farmers Coalition, the Rural Coalition, the Center for Responsible Lending, and Self-Help, a national CDFI, sent a letter to Congress opposing multiple targeted efforts by Republican lawmakers to weaken, overturn, and provide exemptions to Rule […]
Statement: HEAL Recognizes Draft of Senate Farm Bill For Historic Inclusion of Food & Farm Workers
HEAL Food Alliance Recognizes The Draft of Senate Farm Bill For Its Historic Inclusion of Food and Farm Workers and Its Effort to Provide Safe and Dignified Working Conditions May 3, 2024 – After much delay, on Wednesday the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) released a proposal for the […]
HEAL Statement on House Democratic Principles for the Next Farm Bill
February 8, 2024: On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee Democrats published a memo laying out the principles the next farm bill should include to win the support of the House Democratic Caucus. In response to the memo the HEAL Food Alliance issued the following statement: The HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance is glad […]
Dysfunctional Congress Left American Farm Workers in Limbo
*note: This op-ed was originally published in the the Opinion section of the Messenger on October 18, 2023 Dysfunctional Congress Left American Farm Workers in Limbo By Jose Oliva and Sophie Ackoff Although Congress was able to make a deal this weekend and avoid a government shutdown, the 21.5 million people working in the food […]
Bills, Bills, Bills: Nine pieces of legislation that could push the Farm Bill in the right direction
As part of the farm bill process, members of Congress introduce “marker bills” to try to get provisions included into the larger bill. We do not expect Congress to pass marker bills as standalone bills – they are often not politically feasible to pass on their own. But they do get people talking and help build momentum for policies that should be included in the larger (“omnibus”) bill. Marker bills are also an opportunity for advocacy, enabling community groups and legislators to work together to address issues that impact our food system and our lives.
It’s time to center climate justice and real climate solutions in the Farm Bill!
Real solutions to the climate crisis already exist – on fields and farms, in communities, grassroots organizations, and in agricultural collectives.
Currently, the Farm Bill props up industrial agricultural practices and corporations that wreak havoc on our ecosystems while polluting our air, water and food, including their false climate solutions that perpetuate extraction and exploitation.
It’s time to address food insecurity in the Farm Bill!
Community care is ensuring every person has access to sustainable, nourishing food they can afford.
Nutrition in the US is most often decided, not by personal or individual choice, but by where you live, what you do, and what you can afford to buy. And for communities of color, food apartheid and systemic racism further limit the nutritious food we have access to.
It’s time to invest in communities and break up corporate power in the Farm Bill!
Corporate agribusinesses, through consolidation, have amassed massive power over food production lines, controlling each step from “farm to fork.” Before I joined the HEAL Food Alliance as an Organizer, I supported beginning farmers and livestock producers in the Midwestern “corn belt,” a region dominated by commodity farming and the base for many large corporate agribusinesses.
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