TO: Members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate
FROM: HEAL Food Alliance
DATE: December 9, 2024
SUBJECT: In Defense of Our Food System, Workers, and Environment
Over the last four years, you have helped us push the Biden-Harris Administration to advance food and farm systems that are good for our health, our communities, and our environment, and we thank you for your leadership. Looking ahead, we urge you to continue championing a food and farm system that is truly transformative and meets the needs of all.
The HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, our members, and the millions of farmers, food chain workers, and communities we represent are deeply concerned about the outcomes of the recent election and the impacts that Donald J Trump’s campaign’s promises will have on our food system and those who support and rely on it. We remain prepared to work with you and your staff to defend our communities and to cultivate food and farm systems that enable each and every one of us to thrive.
Given the President-elect’s campaign promises and the agenda outlined in Project 2025, threats to our democracy and our food system are ever-present, and now more than ever we need allies and champions in Congress to protect the rights of all people to grow, prepare, and access healthy food without harming workers or the environment.
We are calling on you to be our first line of defense against the erosion of the progress we have already made together and stand firm with working farmers, workers, and our families.
- Protect access to nourishing, affordable food: Ensure the next farm bill expands access to nutrition programs like SNAP, increases funding for other nutrition programs like the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) that makes produce like fruits and vegetables eligible under the program, and VOTE NO on long-term funding limitations or restrictions to SNAP.
- Provide safe and dignified working conditions for workers: Work to introduce and enact legislative protections for our nation’s farm and food workers who face dangerous working conditions and exploitative practices. This includes supporting legislation and administrative action that protect workers from the impact of extreme heat (heat stress), deportation threats, and efforts to pre-empt states from strengthening protections regarding harmful pesticides.
- Hold bad actors accountable: Direct USDA and DoL to hold corporations accountable for labor violations, including child labor, require corporations and their associated contractors to publicly disclose labor and worker safety violations, and make bad actors ineligible for USDA contracts.
- Limit consolidation: Discourage further consolidation of our food system that squeezes out small, family farmers by supporting measures that limit corporate control and restrict commodity program payments to large agribusinesses and investors. Instead, support policies and programs that invest in local food economies including food procurement from local and underserved producers and distribution to food-insecure communities.
- Support climate and environmental justice: Defend climate-related funding and conservation programs that support producers in mitigating and building resilience to climate change including drought resilience, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and support the incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge in conservation standards. Ensure vulnerable communities impacted by environmental and climate-related disasters are supported with federal resources to rebuild and recover. Refuse to allow the expansion of support for CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) that pollute air, water, soil, and harm the health of neighboring rural communities.
- Support underserved farmers and communities: Defend federal set-asides and resources, both financial and educational, for beginning, underserved, and/BIPOC producers and workers so that they can access federal and community-led programs and projects, technical and translation services, as well as improve fair wages and access to nutrition programs. In addition, work with USDA to implement the recommendations of the USDA’s Equity Commission.
- Protect the CFPB and CFPB Rule 1071: Oppose efforts to weaken or dismantle the CFPB. Continue to uphold CFPB Rule 1071 to require demographic data collection for small business loans to increase transparency and accountability in private lending.
The HEAL Food Alliance and our members will continue to organize with working families, farmers, food and farm workers, and consumers, growing community-based leadership and campaigning for food and climate justice. We look forward to working with your office to protect and uphold policies and programs that strive to improve the equitability and resilience of our food and farm system.
Sincerely,
Nichelle Harriott
Policy Director, HEAL Food Alliance