Sen. Hillary Clinton (Dem.)
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Sen. Barack Obama (Dem.)
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New! Talking farm and food politics with Barack Obama -
Q & A with Chef Ari LeVaux

Green Party USA
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Ralph Nader (Independent)
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Creating Opportunity for Rural America

Plan to Support Rural Communities

(GP USA has not nominated a presidential candidate as of yet but 4 candidates are competing for the party's nomination. See below)
From the GP USA 2004 Platform:

(No specific policy statement at this time)

“We are at that critical and urgent moment. If Washington continues policies that work against America's family farmers, our rural communities will fall further behind — and so will America. But if we reject the politics that has shut ordinary folks out, we can create a new story for rural America… The dreams of rural Americans are familiar to all Americans — to make a good living, to raise a healthy and secure family, and to leave our children a future of opportunity. It's time for real leadership for rural America to extend that American dream. That's the dream of opportunity that I've spent my life fighting for. And that's what our rural agenda will do.”

— Sen. Barack Obama, Speech in Fairfax, IA, October 16, 2007

The Problem

Family farmers are being squeezed: Farm consolidation has made it harder for mid-size family farmers to get fair prices for their products and compete on the open market.

CAFOs pollute the environment: Between 1992 and 2004, there were more than 450 manure spills from CAFOs in Iowa, killing millions of fish and jeopardizing public health.

Rural communities are often left behind: Rural communities often struggle to attract capital because of lack of infrastructure and remote distances. There is less access to quality doctors, and schools have trouble recruiting teachers.

Sen. Barack Obama's Plan

Ensure Economic Opportunity For Family Farmers

• Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Sen. Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Sen. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers — not large corporate agribusiness. Sen. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.
• Prevent Anticompetitive Behavior Against Family Farms: Sen. Obama is a strong supporter of a packer ban. When meatpackers own livestock they can manipulate prices and discriminate against independent farmers. Sen. Obama will strengthen anti-monopoly laws and strengthen producer protections to ensure independent farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.
• Regulate CAFOs: Sen. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency will strictly regulate pollution from large CAFOs, with fines for those that violate tough standards. Sen. Obama also supports meaningful local control.
• Establish Country of Origin Labeling: Sen. Obama supports immediate implementation of the Country of Origin Labeling law so that American producers can distinguish their products from imported ones.
• Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture: Sen. Obama will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and reform crop insurance to not penalize organic farmers. He also will promote regional food systems.
• Encourage Young People to Become Farmers: Sen. Obama will establish a new program to identify and train the next generation of farmers. He will also provide tax incentives to make it easier for new farmers to afford their first farm.
• Partner with Landowners to Conserve Private Lands: Sen. Obama will increase incentives for farmers and private landowners to conduct sustainable agriculture and protect wetlands, grasslands, and forests.

Support Rural Economic Development

• Support Small Business Development: Sen. Obama will provide capital for famers to create value-added enterprises, like cooperative marketing initiatives and farmer-owned processing plants. He also will establish a small business and micro-enterprise initiative for rural America.
• Connect Rural America: Sen. Barack Obama will ensure that rural Americans have access to a modern communications infrastructure. He will modernize an FCC program that supports rural phone service so that it promotes affordable broadband coverage across rural America as well.
• Promote Leadership in Renewable Energy: Sen. Obama will ensure that our rural areas continue their leadership in the renewable fuels movement. This will transform the economy, especially in rural America, which is poised to produce and refine more American biofuels and provide more wind power than ever before, and create millions of new jobs across the country.

Improve Rural Quality Of Life

• Combat Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine use has increased 156 percent nationwide since 1996. Sen. Obama has a long record of fighting the meth epidemic. As President, he will continue the fight to rid our communities of meth and offer support to help addicts heal.
• Improve Health Care: Rural health care providers often get less money from Medicare and Medicaid for the very same procedure performed in urban areas. Sen. Obama will work to ensure a more equitable Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement structure. He will attract providers to rural America by creating a loan forgiveness program for doctors and nurses who work in underserved rural areas. He supports increasing rural access to care by promoting health information technologies like telemedicine.
• Improve Rural Education: Sen. Obama will provide incentives for talented individuals to enter the teaching profession, including increased pay for teachers who work in rural areas. Sen. Obama will create a Rural Revitalization Program to attract and retain young people to rural America. Sen. Obama will increase research and educational funding for Land Grant colleges.
• Upgrade Rural Infrastructure: Sen. Obama will invest in the core infrastructure, roads, bridges, locks, dams, water systems and essential air service that rural communities need.

Sen. Barack Obama's Record

A Record on Rural Issues: In 2006, Sen. Obama supported legislation that would have reversed $2 billion in cuts for U.S. Department of Agriculture programs including conservation, rural development, nutrition, and forestry programs that are vitally important to our rural communities. In addition, he supported legislation providing full funding for agricultural programs that were authorized by Congress in the 2002 Farm Bill. Sen. Obama has supported funding for Illinois communities through the Rural Community Empowerment Program, which includes the establishment of rural Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities, as well as other federal programs that maintain and build upon the assets of rural communities. Sen. Obama has worked on numerous efforts in the U.S. Senate to increase access to and use of renewable fuels, including corn-based and cellulosic ethanol. He cosponsored legislation to investigate the root causes of health disparities including for rural areas and to start addressing them. He cosponsored the Emergency Farm Relief Act of 2006 to make grants to state agriculture departments for direct economic loss payments to eligible small businesses. He cosponsored legislation that became law to combat the scourge of methamphetamines. Sen. Obama also introduced legislation to remedy years of discrimination against black farmers by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Our current food system is dominated by centralized agribusiness and unsustainable practices that threaten our food security, degrade the environment, destroy communities, and squeeze out family farmers. Our so-called cheap food comes at the expense of the exploitation of our farmers along with the oppression of third world peoples, inhumane treatment of animals, pollution of air and water, and degradation of our land.

The agricultural system for the 21st Century must provide a high quality of life for farmers, nutritious and safe food for consumers, and reward farming methods that enhance the quality of water, soil, and air, and the beauty of the landscape.

1. We encourage legislation that assists new farmers and ranchers, that promotes widespread ownership to small and medium-sized farms and ranches, and that revitalizes and repopulates rural communities and promotes sustainable development and stewardship.

 

2. We support new farming and growing opportunities and urge the inclusion of non-traditional crops and foods in farm programs.

 

3. We advocate regionalizing our food system and decentralizing agriculture lands, production, and distribution. We encourage public support for producer and consumer cooperatives, community kitchens, Community Supported Agriculture, urban agriculture, and community farms and gardens.

 

4. We advocate the creation of a Food Policy Council composed of farmers, including small farmers and consumers, to oversee the USDA and all food policies at the local, state, and national level. This council should adjudicate conflicts of interest that arise when industries police themselves.

 

5. We support the highest organic standards (California Organic Certification Standards, for example). We advocate shifting price supports and government subsidies to organic food products so that they will be competitive with chemically-produced food. We believe that everyone, not just the wealthy, must be able to afford safe and healthy food.

 

6. We urge the banning of sewage sludge or hazardous wastes as fertilizer, and of irradiation and the use of genetic engineering in all food production.`

 

7. We would phase-out man-made pesticides and artificial fertilizers. We support Integrated Pest Management techniques as an alternative to chemical-based agriculture.

 

8. Food prices ought to reflect the true cost of food, including the health effects of eating processed foods, antibiotic resistance, pesticide effects on growers and consumers, soil erosion, water pollution, pesticide drift, and air pollution. Indirect costs (loss of rural communities, a heavily subsidized transportation system, cost of the military necessary to defend cheap oil, and reduced security), though more difficult to calculate, should be factored into the cost of our highly centralized food system.

 

9. World hunger can best be addressed by food security - being self-sufficient for basic needs. Overpopulation is largely a consequence - not simply a cause - of poverty and environmental destruction, and all remedial actions must address living standards and food security through sustainable production.

 

10. Because of the tremendous amount of energy used in agriculture, we support farm subsidies to encourage the transition from dirty fuels to clean renewable energy as one of the most effective ways to move our country to a sustainable future.

 

11. We support legislation that provides energy and fuel conservation through rotational grazing, cover-crop rotations, nitrogen-fixing systems, and fuel-free, clean renewable energy development on the farm.

 

12. We encourage states to promote net-metering to make decentralized energy production economically viable.

 

13. Animal farming must be practiced in ethically and environmentally sustainable ways. Rapidly phase out the use of confined animal feeding operations and factory farms.

 

14. Applying the Precautionary Principle to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we support a moratorium until safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate funded), long-term tests for food safety, genetic drift, resistance, soil health, effects on non-target organisms, and cumulative interactions.

 

Most importantly, we support the growing international demand to eliminate patent rights for genetic material, lifeforms, gene-splicing techniques, and biochemicals derived from them. This position is defined by the Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons, which is available through the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (www.iatp.org). The implications of corporate takeover and the resulting monopolization of genetic intellectual property by the bioengineering industry are immense.

 

15. We support mandatory, full-disclosure food and fiber labeling. A consumer has the right to know the contents in their food and fiber, how they were produced, and where they come from. Labels should address the presence of GMOs, use of irradiation, pesticide application (in production, transport, storage, and retail), and the country of origin.

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GP USA Candidate Jesse Johnson
http://www.jesse08.org/
(No specific policy statement at this time)

GP USA Candidate Cynthia McKinney
http://www.runcynthiarun.org/
(No specific policy statement at this time)

GP USA Candidate Kent Mesplay
http://www.mesplay.org/

I would re-work our farm policy to allow small-scale processing on small farms, to improve the economic viability of farmers (especially organic ones). I question our national addiction to subsidize crops that are harmful in comparison to the alternatives. For example, it makes no sense to generate ethanol from corn. Also, rather than so much use of corn for animal feed it is good to support "grass farming" in which soil health is improved by coordinating grazing with the life-cycle of grass. Also, over-all yields are higher in comparison with corn farming in that on a per-year basis the land can produce more, with fewer imports, less subsidy and healthier ground. I gave up eating beef in 1982. As long as people eat beef, we may as well develop healthier farming habits. I support organic farming, especially small-scale in contrast with industrial farming. It is especially important to purchase local produce. Most items on our plates come from over 1,500 miles away, which becomes an issue of energy waste. (I recently devoured An Omnivore's Dilemma.) So many of our issues are inter-related. There is no quick fix or sound-bite to cover it all...

I run to improve our political system, to help define, popularize and support the Green Party, to be an advocate for changes to our culture that will help us survive adversity and to improve our basic physical security, especially in terms of the basic categories of water, food and energy. I am optimistic that we can reform government and that we will begin building our communities with a sense of long-range planning as though we-the-people intend to be around for a long time to come. I value decentralization, diversity and sustainability, not as catch-phrases but as a good way of life. I believe that international commerce should be cognizant of the importance of people being able to meet their own basic needs of water and food, rather than the current method of seeking to exploit "developing" nations at their most basic level...

GP USA Candidate Kat Swift
http://www.voteswift.org/
(No specific policy statement at this time)

California Green Party Platform Position on GMOs in Agriculture

At its most recent General Assembly meeting in Berkeley, California on April 5th and 6th, 2008, the California Green Party approved the following platform position on GMOs in agriculture.

Agricultural Products of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Cloned Animals

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are seeds, plants, rootstocks, animals, or microorganisms created by inserting foreign genes to impart a desired trait. Clones are the mature organisms created by replicating abiotically most or all of the DNA of the organisms. Transgenic research is aimed at optimizing a desired trait, and cloning can complement this by allowing the favored genetically modified organism (GMO) to be multiplied.

GMOs: While cross-breeding and grafting different strains of the same type of organism have been done for millennia, genetic engineering involving the insertion of foreign genes is a much more radical step, fraught with unpredictable consequences. The use of bacteria and viruses to overcome an organism's natural resistance to foreign genes, of resistant marker genes to determine if the gene insertion took hold, and of promoter genes to ensure the inserted gene expresses the desired trait, all bring inherent risks.

The first GMO plant, the Flavr savr tomato, was commercially available briefly in 1994. Most of the currently used genetically modified (GM) crops have been altered by inserting genes from soil bacteria so that the GM crops resist glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide and/or secrete Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin.

The major four GM crops in the United States are soybean, corn, cotton, and canola, and about 75% of processed foods contain at least one of these ingredients or a derivative. GM microorganisms have been used to produce such food products as cheese and wine. Therefore, all U.S. consumers have already been exposed to GM food products, and are eating GM foods without being aware of it. This is a consumer rights issue, and currently 94% of the U.S. public believe GM foods should be labeled as such.

The European Union, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand among others label GM foods unlike the U.S. Because GM foods are not labeled, U.S. consumers cannot avoid them, and health problems cannot be linked to GM foods. The European Union allows only Monsanto's MON810 insect-resistant maize to be grown, about 2% of the maize crop, though this is under review since France banned it in 2007.

Some criticisms on the unregulated entry of GMOs into the environment and food supply include environmental, health, and economic risks. Some environmental risks include: non-target organism effects like killing beneficial insects and soil biota, and the development of insect and weed resistance, necessitating more powerful pesticides. The health risks include: introduction of new allergens, toxins, antibiotic resistance, nutritional and reproductive problems, and cancer. The economic risks include: market loss to farmers; lower prices; lower crop yields; crop failure; contamination of the gene pool of existing crop plants; and corporate monopolization over the food supply through GMO patent protection.

The federal regulation of GMOs in the U.S. is through the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA regulates crops and microorganisms engineered to produce potentially harmful EPA-registered pesticides, for example, Bt crops; the USDA regulates the field testing and approval of all other GM crops, microorganisms, and animals; and the FDA regulates food safety. The FDA does not require the safety testing and labeling of GM foods since it concluded in 1992, over the objections of its own scientists, that GMOs would be regulated the same as organisms developed through traditional breeding. Under that policy, if a developer determines that a GM food is "substantially equivalent" to its natural counterpart, no safety test is required, although the FDA has never clearly defined what "substantially equivalent" means. The USDA since 1997 has required only notification (with no environmental assessment) to conduct field trials on most GM crops rather than a permit application. A 2005 Report of the Inspector General criticized USDA for lax oversight over GM field-testing.

The California Department of Health Services, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and local city/town/county health departments are concerned with food safety in California but have not issued any GMO or GMO product guidelines. Mendocino, Marin, Trinity, and Santa Cruz counties and the cities of Arcata and Point Arena have banned GMOs.

Cloning: In 2006, the FDA gave preliminary approval to the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals despite knowing that animal clones often have genetic abnormalities, and that 65% of Americans are not comfortable with animal cloning. The FDA again used its "substantially equivalent" dogma to bypass safety testing and labeling. Since Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, was born in 1996, cloning of pigs and cattle has occurred in U.S. research from 1998. On January 15 2008, the FDA declared meat and milk safe to eat from cloned animals and their offspring, and that labeling the food from the offspring of a cloned animal was unnecessary, the change to be effective immediately. FDA requested producers to voluntarily keep cloned cattle, pigs and goats out of the food supply indefinitely. Cloned animals already have a tracking system but their offspring do not and will not.

PROPOSAL:
GPCA supports policies that ban agricultural Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), cloned animals and their offspring, and their products. To the extent that these products find their way to consumers, the responsible corporations must be held responsible for adverse effects.

The Green Party of California supports the following demands to:
1. Ban the open-air planting and release, raising, and commercialization of agricultural GMOs, of cloned animals and their offspring, and of their products in California. Genetic engineering research should be confined to controlled environments like laboratories, greenhouses, and biodomes.

2. Mandate labeling of all GM foods and foods from cloned animals and their offspring for products that are on the market or come on the market, thus allowing consumers to avoid them. This will also allow any future adverse effects to be traced, the food recalled, and the population who consumed the food treated appropriately. Labeling will also facilitate epidemiology studies on the long-term safety of cloned food products.

3. Support entities that currently label GM foods voluntarily or have policies against using GM ingredients in their products or brands. Support should also be provided for entities that will similarly not sell food products from cloned animals and their offspring.

4. Require that USDA notify the Agriculture Commissioner of the county location of any intended trials or plantings of GMOs even for research purposes, outline the steps being taken to prevent contamination, distribute an environmental impact analysis and statement that also takes into account natural disasters, distribute a human health impact statement, and offer a public comment period before any tests or plantings can be permitted.

5. Inform neighboring farmers that GMO crops are being planted even for research purposes.

6. Ban the development and planting of GMO plant varieties used for foods that are tolerant of increased levels of applied herbicides or produce their own pesticides.

7. Ban the development and planting of food crops engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals.

8. Hold the source biotechnology corporation accountable for any genetic pollution of conventional and organic farms, and natural areas, and for the costs of testing, any cleanup, and any market loss.

9. Make the patenting of GMOs illegal, and allow farmers to save and reuse seed from year to year. Similarly, the patenting of cloned animals and their offspring should not be allowed.

10. Ban the use of "Terminator Technology" to create sterile seeds, plants, and animals (with and without backbones).

11. Oppose any legislation that would prevent local governments from regulating GMOs and cloned animals and their offspring at the local level as a matter of grassroots democracy.

12. Require the FDA to define scientifically what "substantially equivalent" means by techniques such as genetic sequencing, DNA and RNA base sequencing, RNA characterization, proteomics, lipomics, saccharomics, and metabolomics.

Socialist Party USA
Main Site
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Socialist Workers' Party (United States)
Main Site
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Communist Party USA
Main Site
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2008-2009 Platform: Agriculture

Candidate Róger Calero
Candidate Site
(No specific policy statement at this time)

CP USA is fielding no candidate for the 2008 Presidential election.

Farmers and the Rural Population
(from the Program of the Communist Party USA: "The Road to Socialism USA: Unity for Peace, Democracy, Jobs and Equality"

SP USA Presidential Candidate Brian Moore
Candidate Site
Wikipedia

Initiate a guaranteed income for all American families, working or not, at a level of $35,000 per year per adult (2008 Cost of Living levels)

Establish Public ownership and democratic control of all natural resources to preserve wilderness areas and restore environmental quality.

Conduct Massive Rebuilding of United States infrastructure of bridges, railroad lines, major highways and subway systems and rural communities.

Stop America's participation in NAFTA, CAFTA, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION, WORLD BANK, IMF, etc.