Welcome to the Kansas reflectors Podcast. I'm Tim carpenter. And I'm dutifully reporting that Congress once again did what it does so well, it kicked another can down the road. Congress couldn't work out a deal on a new farm bill, the legislation guiding farm and food programs in the United States, the House and Senate with Joe Biden's blessing did approve a one year extension to the National Farm Bill, which normally runs five years, but will need to endure for a six. I'm joined by organic market gardener Paul Johnson, who is a policy analyst with the Kansas rural center and farmer Nick Levandowski, Executive Director of the Kansas Farmers Union. They're going to help us better grasp nuances of the Farm Bill, and how the legislation might be modified to serve broader agricultural interests in the Sunflower State. Welcome to you both.
Thank you.
Great being here.
I have Paul, thanks for Paul's joining us in our office in Topeka. And Nick, appreciate you calling in from Belleville. I think anybody driving down Interstate through Kansas would come away convinced that this is a big farm state Kansas is in the top 10 and sales of livestock and crops. We're big exporters of wheat, soybeans, corn, sorghum, key crops sponsored by the Farm Bill. And like I said, you know, we're a huge producer of beef. Paul Johnson, let's start with a 30,000 foot primer on the Farm Bill, what is this thing?
Well, farm bill really drives cropping patterns in the state of Kansas. So it's passed every five to like you said seven years. 2018 was the last one, we'll probably get one and 2024. When you look at Farm Bill 80% of the Farm Bill, our food programs, and primarily the what was known as food stamps, the now is a SNAP program. And then 20% of the of the Farm Bill is farm programs. And for Kansas, it's incredibly important. I mean, those farm programs annually come in at one till $1.2 billion for farmers, whereas food stamps or stamp will vary from 400 to 500 million in a given year. And so And as Tim said somewhat, our farm bill basically drives growing, the crop insurance, the commodity payment portions for crops in our state, wheat, sorghum, corn and soybeans. And that's where the vast amount of the subsidies go for. And the vast amount of those subsidies go to only 20% of the farmers which leads to consolidation and, and other problems we have with farming community. But and we need a robust debate in this state. We need the Kansas legislature doesn't seem to take notice. And we need to build it into the congressional campaigns and really talk about kind of future farming in Kansas.
All right, Nick, if you could piggyback on that a little bit. When I think about the farm bill, there are the food programs that help people that need nourishment. But there are impacts in terms of the policy elements of the farm bill that that impact land use crop patterns, soil water. And as Paul said, the consolidation of agriculture, so can you just speak to how it influences the industrial agriculture the United States? Certainly,
Tim and I think it's important for folks to understand that the farm bill is comprised of 12 different titles. You know, we've got the commodity title, we've got conservation, trade, nutrition, credit, rural development, research, forestry, energy, horticulture, crop insurance, and then the all encompassing miscellaneous title. So it really is pretty much everything under the sun when you think about what, what all it entails. And it does drive. As Paul mentioned, you know, it determines what is grown. Certainly the market, the the Ag market itself determines what's grown and raised in Kansas and across the country, but the farm bill itself does as well. And so the makeup of the Ag committees can drive that when we look at the House Ag Committee, and we see where folks are from across the country. And we look at the Senate Ag Committee, you know, tends to be a lot of representation from the upper Midwest and through the Great Plains. Not a lot of representation from the west when it comes to the Senate Ag Committee. But those those different titles that I mentioned, really do drive the policy as well. So when we talk about conservation, we talk about, you know, being good stewards of the land and those programs that conserve the the water that conserve the land. You know, we're talking about building terraces, we're talking about moving to no till, or minimum tillage practices, we're talking about soil health and cover crops, and all of those kinds of things. But then we also get into things like crop insurance. And and I know we'll dig into that a little more, but it truly does drive where this farm bill goes, and And while everyone would like to think that this will be a revolutionary farm bill, it is not going to be and it was never going. It was never intended to be revolutionary. But it is certainly evolutionary. The Farm Bill has evolved immensely since the very first farm bill was introduced 90 years ago, and 1933. And we've only had 18 of them. In that 90 year period. As as Paul mentioned, it's, you know, usually every four to six years, sometimes it's a little less, sometimes it's a little more, but they have certainly evolved in that 90 year period.
So I presume y'all would think that the reason Food and Farm programs are blended together in one bill is to draw votes from the rural and urban members of Congress. Absolutely
true. Absolutely.
And that was I'm sorry, go ahead. Finish your thought, Nick. Okay.
That was absolutely the reason back in the 1970s, when former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas and former Senator McGovern of was South Dakota. Yeah. Georgia Governor Lee, that was, yeah, they sat down together, you know, one being a Republican from Kansas, the other being a Democrat from South Dakota, both farm state senators and said, look, we've got this glut of product on the on the market right now farm products, and we've got a lot of hungry people. And they realized that it was time to tie the two together. So we can give them the thanks for that. And but the reality is, out of 435 congressional districts in this country, only about 30 to 35 are considered rural. And that voice gets smaller and smaller, that rural voice gets smaller and smaller. Every time we do reapportionment, which is of course, every 10 years after a census. So the rural voice is getting smaller and smaller, the urban voice is getting larger and larger. But the reality is there are just as many rural people utilizing these these snap programs and these food and nutrition programs, as there are urban and COVID really exposed that. We saw a lot of food insecurity all across this country. And a lot of those places were rural. So you know, we we utilize those programs in these rural areas just as much as the urban folks do. Oh,
you got another thought?
Well, I was gonna echo what it was Bob build it really any. He did it to keep our urban legislators more, you know, in tune to a debate on agriculture, because they all saw the trends, you know, fewer fewer farmers in his country. And so it was a political balancing act. And there's been efforts over the last, you know, at times by certain conservatives and forces to try and separate it out now and pull up food stamp, SNAP program, food programs out of the Farm Bill. But I don't think I don't see that happening in certainly not in the near future.
This can be either one of you. I'm kind of curious if if the one year delay in writing another farm bill has serious implications, you know, the previous one was written five years ago, but we've had a big run up on inflation and so forth, that it's affecting agriculture industries, is are there any issues with that?
Well, part of it is that we're, we're moving further away from the commodity portions of the Farm Bill and kind of base pricing. And we're building more and more of the coverage for farmers or protection or weather shielding through crop insurance. And so that balance is changing somewhat. But go ahead, Nick.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think one of the big things, especially what we've noticed in the last year or so, when it comes to crop insurance, especially, is we see these extreme weather events that are happening and whether you want to believe that climate change or not, really doesn't matter what what's happening across the country is significant. Again, when it comes to crop production, a year ago, here in Republic County were unsetting, we had some of the best crops that we've ever raised. And it was because we got rains just when we needed them. Now, this year, this last growing season was one of the worst that we've seen since about the 1950s. The last time we had a significant drought here in this part of the country, and in this part of the state. So crop insurance is going to get exercise significantly in my area, and many other areas across the state of Kansas. But also in areas where we've seen significant flooding. And we're seeing insurance companies pulling out of areas that are being affected by climate change, we're seeing insurance companies pull their coverage in parts of Florida and in parts of California, I would imagine that after the fire in Hawaii, there's going to be significant discussions about that. So so that will in turn, drive crop insurance policy on the federal level with farm bill as well, because people are not going to have access to the crop insurance that they need. Plus, if we get into this discussion about whole farm revenue protection, which is for that's crop insurance, for folks who grow, you know, food, like what Paul grows, you know, food that people eat, then that's another topic of discussion that gets kind of hairy, because there, the whole farm Revenue Protection Program is not always that accessible. And it's not always that affordable, especially when you're growing a great variety of crops in comparison to you know, normal commodity crops like corn, wheat, soybeans, sorghum, those kinds of things. So it's it's definitely an issue that we're paying very close attention to. And, of course, farmers union has insurance. We offer crop insurance to the folks out there. But I'll tell you it, it took a pretty big hit this year. And and it looks like it's going that way down the road.
Well, Nick raised crop insurance, let's take a step back. And could you take a crack at just explaining what crop insurance is what the philosophy there is like? How does it work
for just talk to a city slicker? Well, Nick, might be a lot closer to some of these technical details than this organic Spark, broadly, just expanding market gardener, but and it's it is narrowly focused in crop insurance like it is with this commodity payments to, you know, just a handful of crops in this country. And this, I mean, basically, it's a certain monetary protection, that you're paying for a certain amount of return per acre on, you know, given crop. And, you know, it backs up those instances where droughts or floods or other examples come into play. So, but it's like Nick said, it needs to work much better for a broader more specialty crop growers for the kind of food that we should be eating in this country. And, and it's run out of the FSA office in Manhattan crop insurance. And they struggle with getting enough basic farm data expenses, et cetera, et cetera, to to understand how best to write crop insurance for grapes or for you know, cucumbers or for other opportunities. I know Nick could help spell out a few more details here. Before
we do that, Nick, I went to a forum with US Representative jakela Turner. And he was asking farmers farm group people what they wanted for their next farm bill. And at the top of the list was crop insurance. Can you tell us why that's so important?
Yeah, it's very important because that is truly the only safety net that farmers have when it comes to, you know, crop production. And when you're faced with these disasters, whether it's drought, or whether it's flood, or you name it, these are the things that help to keep a farmer in business, so to speak. And yes, it is subsidized by the federal government. And the reality is that it does not make the farmer whole I mean, they're not going to get you know exactly what they would have got out of their their crop yield, you know, if it if it would have been a decent crop, they're only going to get probably what might cover their inputs, meaning their seed and their fertilizer costs, and that, but those costs have gone through the roof, just like everything and as you mentioned, you know, inflation has effect cost of everything. And that includes fertilizer that includes seed and chemicals, and all that that goes into production agriculture. But it truly is the only safety net that farmers have. And, you know, if you are going to participate in any of the farm programs that the federal government has, you have to have crop insurance. And as Paul mentioned, it's it's run through the Farm Service Agency, which is based in Manhattan, and then there are county offices all across the state. But that's just that's how it is you have to have that crop insurance in order to participate in those programs.
Let's talk about commodity payments, which he mentioned, you got to have insurance to participate in the commodity programs. Is that right? Because if you're saying that
well, yeah, I mean, it's, you've got to protect that crop. Okay. And in order to do that, that means you've got to have crop insurance. And if you're going to participate in any, in any government programs, such as well say, for instance, any conservation programs, you've got to
go ahead, Bob. Well, I
was gonna say that's, that's probably the biggest battle that that a lot of environmentalists and people are looking at is it's not mandatory, that there is a conservation angle with crop insurance. And that's what you know, the major commodity groups and the Farm Bureau, etc, are fighting to, you know, try and improve farming practices, you know, should be integral to crop insurance.
There's people that that would believe that if you're going to involve the government in these kinds of programs, then you should, why not layer in some environmental protections in there as well? Yes. Paul, let's just shift gears a bit to the commodity payments. Are those payments in Kansas evenly divided? You know, let's just look at the number of farms and what what portion is received by them?
Well, from there, there's the USDA has an Ag Census, that's every five years, and the last one was in 2017. And there's one that's been done for 2022. That will come out early next year. And so from the 2017 numbers, there were 50, just under 59,000 farms in the state of Kansas. And when you look at the that billion dollars a year and farm payments, that come to Kansas over the last 20 years 88% of those farm payments, went to only 20% of the farms. So it's basically, you know, about 10,000 Farms, took you know, the best, virtually all of it, you know, and so only 12% This farm payments were leftover for the remaining meaning, you know,
80% of the farms. So we're talking, what we're looking at there are there are big farms out there that are growing wheat, sorghum, coin beans, and they're taking the vast bulk of of the commodity payments, there's a bigger answer.
They are the big producers. And if you take another step at this and looking at that 2017 Ag Census numbers out of those 59,000 Farms, just about 5% of them just out of 2900 Farms accounted for 75% of all farm sales in the state of Kansas in 2017. Yeah,
that makes the family farm I grew up on Missouri looks silly. There's another element of this and part of it is the food programs part of it is the environment and and the USDA recommends we eat a lot of fruits and vegetables then we have whole grain and you gotta get your dairy. But these farm program subsidies are quite different. Right. Paul, do you want to touch on that? So they're USDA is telling us we should be eat well, but what USDA funds in terms of subsidies in their programs, it kind of goes in a different direction. Oh,
it goes an absolutely different direction and as the health implications and obesity etc etc. I mean, as you said with the USDA food plate many people are familiar with them and half of the servings should be you know, fruits and vegetables. And then 25% should be our grains and preferably whole grains although we turn most of our wheat and Kansas into have white flour but But what actually is funded by the farm bill is that two thirds of the subsidies go essentially for feed grains for meat and dairy. And then you have 20%, that that's grains and then about 15% of the starch and soybean is sugar and some other things. And for fruits and vegetables, it's less than 1%. of the federal farm bill, subsidies that go for a primary sources of healthier food. Nick,
from the perspective of the Kansas Farmers Union, is there any problem with that distinction?
Oh, certainly. I mean, we truly need to call this what it is, it is the Food and Farm Bill. But it is primarily because 80% of it is the food nutrition programs. But we need to do a better job of making that known in the public, we need to educate folks. And we also need to do a better job of making sure that the foods that we eat are also made more affordable, and more accessible. And in a lot of places, not just in urban areas, not just in rural areas, but across the country. Because as I said earlier, you know, the COVID exposed a lot of discrepancies, I guess you could say within the system, you know, issues that we have all across the food systems, but especially when it comes to food insecurity. And, and we can't just rely on local convenience stores or, you know, your, your, your dollar stores than that we need we need real true grocery stores and communities that have the food that that people need for nutrition that is available to them, or at least we need to have programs in place systems in place that addresses that need, if you're not able to build in that infrastructure such as a grocery store.
Maybe some of those grocery stores could have some tomatoes, and then grapes and apples grown regionally. Nice.
Exactly. And you know, Kansas was once one of those states that we grew a lot of produce, you know, I'm reminded of the drought, the Kansas painting that's at the State Historical Society, museum. And it shows, you know, Kansas, especially eastern Kansas was, you know, not just the breadbasket, but we were growing grapes, and we were growing potatoes, and we were growing watermelon and, and all of these wonderful crops. There was lots and lots of diversity at one time. Hector pica is, you know, Native American for a good place to grow potatoes. So you know, it's, it's not all that far back in our history, and we could still be doing this, it's just that we choose not to, and because the system allows for the production of these other crops instead, because they've got those those programs that benefit them. So we can go back to this and it's gonna take some time, and it's gonna take some education and relearning things. But there's a lot of good things that are happening across the state of Kansas, people that are doing wonderful things and high tunnels, and all of that, and greenhouses. But it's got to be done with the mindset that, you know, we've got to be able to get it to where it's needed. And, and that is a struggle, the logistics of getting food where it's needed can be one of the biggest hurdles. Now, with COVID. One of the great things that came out of COVID Was that farmers to the families food boxes, and you know, they, we have members that connected people, especially in the Wichita area with that food. And it would be nice to see programs like that continued, unfortunately, that that funding went away. But that's one way to help tackle this problem is to build back those programs and make definite improvements to them. But I think it helped to address a lot of the food insecurity issues, especially in some of the urban areas, Nick and Paul, I
think what we going to do here is we're going to call it the 2024 Farmville. Let's hopefully get it done next year. Let's just talk about some of the proposed fundamental changes that people have passed around. In regards to this important legislation. It's been suggested that maybe the federal government should engage in a phase out of specific crop subsidies. What do we think about that, Paul?
I think it's high overdue. I mean, I think in terms of, you know, better nutritional and angle to, you know, better medical outcomes. I mean, the federal government's shouldn't be picking, you know, everybody talks about they shouldn't be picking winners and losers on the business side. And I think it's a real question of why they're picking winners and losers, via, you know, four or five crops nationwide in the Farm Bill. And the most important resource that our country has, and Kansas particularly is the quality of our soil and how its treated and and, and improving it, you know, passing on to the next generation. And I mean, is, you know, my thought is that 2024 farm bill should be a five year phase out of specific commodity and crop Darryl crop insurance that goes only for those four crops, and that farmers start to get a larger portion, you know, base portion of their income from their treatment of the soil with conservation plans through NRCS and FSA, and then it would allow them the diversity and the opportunity to farm to the market. And
connected on that conservation issue has been suggested that the federal government, the Farm Bill, should fully fund these conservation programs better support farmers who want to improve the soil health while they're growing food, and so forth. And maybe that would help with better diversity in terms of cropping choices, you think that would be beneficial?
I think that is one way to address that problem. You know, the inflation Reduction Act actually included a significant amount of money toward conservation programs that otherwise would have normally been dealt with in the Farm Bill. So and I think that's, that's certainly good. I'm glad that they recognize that. But I don't know what effect that's actually going to have on the farm bill conservation programs in general, if that means those dollars are going to get shifted elsewhere. And, and if that's the case, you know, well, we want to know where they're going and what their purpose is, but, but Paul's right, I mean, those programs are are in place, so that we have that land to pass on to the next generation, it's an investment. And when you when you take care of that investment, then you have something that's actually worth something to pass on to the next generation or, or whatever it is you choose to do with it. So preserving that land, preserving the water, and the soil is key to all of this.
If you look at the Kansas farm situation, overall, I'm and only 7% of existing Kansas farmers are under the age of 35, at this point, and the average age of Kansas farmers, though, 58, you know, closing in on 16. And so we're gonna see incredible generational changes of who farms land in Kansas in the next 20 to 40 years. And right now, half of our farm land is owner farmed owner operated and about half of our farmland is, is tenant base rental. And so, you know, to look at five or 10 year plans of how you treat the soil and the improvements you make to it and soil cover cropping and various, you know, choices of how you improve that soil. You know, we need to get that into the hands of a broader number of farmers. And we need a whole new generation of beginning farmers to to emerge for a better in a more wholesome food system in Kansas. And we need a Kansas food plan farm plan from the Department of Commerce and Department of Agriculture in our state to really talk through this than that. If people want to grow, you know, lentils or they want to grow millet, or they want to grow, you know, winter squash or whatever, then we've got to start putting, As Nick said, the mechanisms in place to be able to move and market that food as easily as we do corn and soybeans, wheat.
I think there's a lot more we could talk about in terms of farm bill, but I think we're gonna have to leave it there. I want to thank our guests today on our podcast, Paul Johnson, policy analyst with the Kansas rural center. And Nick Levandowski, Executive Director of the Kansas Farmers Union. Thank you so much for your help with trying to help us all learn a little bit more about the Farm Bill. Appreciate it.
