By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Twenty-five years after its first concert to raise money for and awareness of America’s small farmers, Farm Aid is still prodding at the federal government to invest more in moderately-sized family farms to stimulate the country’s overall economy.

The organization’s latest efforts include a 20-page report released last week – Rebuilding America’s Economy with Family Farm-Centered Food Systems – authored by staffers Alicia Harvie, program manager, and Hilde Steffey, program director. They are Farm Aid’s principal researcher/writer and issues analyst, respectively.

Farm Aid was also scheduled to join other organizations yesterday in Washington, D.C., to speak before the Senate Ag Committee about business models designed to help keep mid-sized family farmers and ranchers on their land.

Right on the heels of the banking and stock market crash of September 2008, singer Willie Nelson – arguably the most famous face of Farm Aid as well as its board president – and fellow entertainers and board members John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Dave Matthews sent members of Congress a letter. They asserted that for about 1/10 of 1 percent of taxpayers’ $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, legislators could invest in family farms to help rebuild the nation’s economy from a local scale.

“Supporting diverse decentralized family farming will do far more for the stability and vitality of our country than a handful of global agribusiness corporations could ever do,” their letter reads. “The return on investment in the family farm includes thriving local economies, nutritious food for better health, a safer and more secure food supply, a cleaner environment and more renewable energy.”

“Investing in family farmers is sound development policy for this country,” Harvie added.

In Rebuilding America’s Economy, Harvie and Steffey have compiled stories from various co-ops and other agriculture aggregates, illustrating their role in stimulating local economies. Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer and distinguished fellow with The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University – who helped with the report – said the word “aggregate” is used because co-ops are not the only business model for farmers to market their goods.

“These are the small businesses the government should be showcasing and supporting,” Harvie said.

The report asserts mid-sized family farms are better for the economy, environment and human health than large industrial farms. Harvie described the latter as a “drain on health and wealth” from local economies and said unlike with smaller family-owned operations, most of the money involved is not spent with local merchants.

Despite the USDA’s finding in 2008 that only 19 cents of every consumer’s food dollar goes to farmers, she said it is encouraging to see activity giving them a higher percentage is expanding, in the form of co-ops, farmers’ markets, CSAs and direct-market goods. She cited a “clear and growing consumer demand” for local, fresh food.

Congress, Harvie explained, could extend these benefits to more Americans by investing in those farmers willing to participate in such aggregates. It would also feed local “economic engines.” One aggregate that could serve as a model for other regions is Shepherd’s Grain of Washington state.

Shepherd’s markets flour milled from the wheat of 33 farmers in a co-op, whose farms collectively take up 4,000-5,000 acres; farmers who use environmentally friendly methods such as crop rotation and direct-seed tillage. Its goods are sold through local and regional distributors. Karl Kuper, farmer and co-founder, said Shepherd’s will realize $5 million in wholesale sales this year and market 20 million pounds of flour.

“This is really decommodifying a wheat product,” he said, adding Shepherd’s sells its goods partly through showcasing the stories of the farmers and growing methods behind the flour. “We do, fortunately, produce a good quality product, as well.”

Within its existing producer base, there is room to possibly triple Shepherd’s sales, Kuper said. If ever Shepherd’s wanted to expand its reach outward geographically, he explained, it would do so by establishing a separate business setup in that area – not by widening Shepherd’s radius itself.

“We believe in moving the system, rather than the product,” Kuper said, referring to the desire to keep food transportation to a minimum.

Kirschenmann said family farms earning up to $500,000 per year have the most potential to grow and organize locally to stimulate the overall economy in their cities and counties – they have the size to increase production somewhat, but are small enough to keep food local and fresh for consumers.

But, the Farm Aid report points out, many could use guidance and financial capital to get started.

As for criticizing industrial, specialized farming, Kirschenmann acknowledged there will be some resentment for doing so. Farmers have been told for so long by food buyers and distributors that they need to each focus on producing one or two items in quantity, he said, that they can’t be blamed if they resist the report’s directives to size down and diversify.

“We should appreciate that they’re going to be a little defensive now,” he said.

The taxpayers and Congress are helping already, said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. He cited initiatives built into the 2008 farm bill to help mid-sized farms, such as the Value Added Producer Grant, a guaranteed loan program and the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program.

To read the report, “stories from the field” and find a compilation of links to programs designed to aid moderately sized family farms, point your browser to www.farmaid.org/es