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<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face=Tahoma size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">FARM
BILL:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Guest
Column: On the Farm Bill; Farm subsidies help few, harm many;
</SPAN></FONT></B><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Effects
felt here and in Africa<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">San
Francisco Chronicle – 11/8/07<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">By
</SPAN></FONT></B><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Janet
McKinley, of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on">San
Francisco</st1:City>, is the chair of Oxfam <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s board
of directors</SPAN></FONT></B><B><FONT face=Tahoma color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Californians
have a lot at stake in the Farm Bill that is on the U.S. Senate floor this week,
and not just because farming is a vibrant part of our economy and
culture.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Take
water, for example. It's been a dry year here and the Legislature is considering
issuing billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonds to build dams for water
storage. But there are many other, more fiscally conservative water supply
alternatives than dams. We can start by taking a closer look at the federal Farm
Bill.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">More than
2 million acre-feet of water - that's 2 million football fields covered in one
foot of water - are used each year to cultivate cotton in our state, with
farmers paying far less than the water's actual cost and a fraction of its true
value. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Increasingly,
cotton is being treated by commercial farmers in our state as a "marginal" crop,
grown when there's sufficient water to harvest the benefit of a subsidy check
from the government. Growing cotton in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:State></st1:place> consumes enough water to meet the
needs of more than 10 million residents.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Perversely,
because federal farm policy ensures that farmers get subsidies for each bale of
cotton that they produce, cheap <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place> cotton exports glut the market
and depress world prices, triggering tens of millions of dollars in subsidy
checks to wealthy growers. So every year, 12,000 mostly large-scale cotton
producers representing less than 1 percent of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s farms,
get up to $3 billion in government handouts. A quarter of cotton subsidies go to
the top 1 percent of recipient farmers, reaching upward of $500,000 per
farm.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">While that
policy may have made sense during the Great Depression, it makes no sense today.
As taxpayers, we're set up to pay more and more. As Californians, we're set up
to export an acre-foot of water that we could have used otherwise here in
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State></st1:place>
with every bale of cotton dumped onto the world market.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Sadly,
cotton subsidies would not change under the Farm Bill that is on the Senate
floor this week. It would continue farm policy that encourages cotton farmers to
produce more cotton with the guarantee of a taxpayer subsidy for every bale of
cotton they produce and every acre foot of water they use to produce
it.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Cotton
subsidies also have severe ramifications for international trade, global poverty
and national security. Cotton subsidies threaten negotiations on international
trade and risk retaliation from our trade allies that could affect a number of
sectors of our economy.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Recently,
I traveled to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Mali</st1:country-region> in
<st1:place w:st="on">West Africa</st1:place> to meet with small-scale cotton
farmers. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Mali</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s farmers, many of whom live on
a dollar a day, are largely dependent on cotton to support their families. The
poverty was jarring. Many of these farmers are illiterate, but they are well
aware of the huge subsidies our government pays cotton growers at a time when
their government recently removed agricultural price-supports in the lead- up to
privatization of the Malian cotton industry in 2008, as prescribed by the World
Bank. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">A recent
study by Dan Sumner at UC Davis found that reforming cotton subsidies would
increase world cotton prices, resulting in enough income for poor West African
cotton-growing households to feed an additional million children a year. The
price-deflating effects of our cotton subsidies now substantially offset the
benefits of direct <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> aid sent to West African
countries. So instead of promoting sustainable economies, current policies
foster dependence on foreign aid, increased economic instability and resentment
of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United
States</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">Faced with
the opportunity for change this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives failed
to muster the political will to reform the Farm Bill's cotton program. The
Senate has its turn this week, but it's unclear whether Sens. Dianne Feinstein
and Barbara Boxer of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:State></st1:place> will support reform or yield to the
lobbying power of corporate farm interests.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" color=black size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">In
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region
w:st="on">Mali</st1:country-region></st1:place>, a village chief told me that
his family has been growing cotton for generations and the situation has never
been so dire. He knows that many of the challenges he faces are just the way of
things, but he can't understand why a country as prosperous as the
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United
States</st1:place></st1:country-region> would harm small, hardworking farmers
around the world. He asked me to send this message to our Congress. It's time
for all of us to send this message, for so many reasons.
#<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><A
href="">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/08/ED18T84PO.DTL</A><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>