,As printed in the Roanoke Times.
Roanoke, VA
Praising those who helped pass the farm bill
John Eckman, Roger Holnback and Jim Baird
Eckman is a member of the Valley Conservation Council. Holnback is a member of the Western Virginia Land Trust. Baird is the Mid-Atlantic States Director for the American Farmland Trust.
Last month, Congress enacted into law a new farm bill that will give a helping hand to our nation's hungry, stimulate rural development, help Virginia's producers withstand drought, and provide much-needed resources to foster local agriculture.
The farm bill also contains vital resources to steward our nation's land, clean our water and build wildlife habitat, with an unprecedented federal commitment to conservation. In the face of a presidential veto, leaders from this state stood up for the needs of Virginians and pushed politics aside. American Farmland Trust commends them for this leadership.
Although it's known as the farm bill, it should really be called the farm and food bill, because it meets both food production and consumption needs in our country. The bill provides more than $40 billion a year to help feed our fellow citizens who are hungry. It contains new support systems that will ensure our dairy farmers remain viable in a challenging market environment.
There is also assistance for fruit and vegetable production and marketing, enabling Americans from seniors to students greater access to healthy foods and supporting local farm markets. For these reasons alone, this legislation is vital to our region. Yet the bill does so much more.
The 2008 farm and food bill makes an unprecedented commitment to conservation. Significant new resources are provided to help working farms, improve our water quality and wildlife habitat, clean our air and to preserve our most precious natural resource -- our land. The Mid-Atlantic region's farmers will receive about $88 million more a year to clean up the waterways leading to the Chesapeake Bay.
Virginia will be better able to permanently protect working farmland with new funds and reduced bureaucracy in the Farmland Protection Program and the extension of federal tax deductions for conservation easements.
Our region has directly benefited from the leadership of Rep. Bob Goodlatte, ranking Republican member of the House Agriculture Committee, who helped craft this bill and marshal it to passage. Sens. John Warner and James Webb also worked hard for this bill along with Rep. Rick Boucher and other Virginia representatives from both parties.
Our nation will benefit immensely from this new federal farm bill. Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region in particular will see tremendous environmental, nutritional and production gains.
We should all applaud those of the commonwealth's federal leaders who helped to secure these important gains.
