Iowa's Legislative Hope for Local Food
by Paul Deaton
Senate File 441 is an act providing for a local food and farm program initiative that also makes appropriations to fund a local food and farm program council. A coordinator would be hired and a council established to advise the program.
The council would include appointees from the Iowa Farm Bureau, the Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Iowa Farmers Union, the Iowa Food Policy Council, the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, the Iowa Meat Processors Association, the Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Iowa Farmers' Market Association, the Iowa Bankers Association, and a slate of gubernatorial appointees from many state agencies.
The measure passed the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously and was referred to the Appropriations Committee. It seems unlikely this bill is going anywhere in this session's divided government. Too, such a conglomeration of committee members seems unlikely to advance the cause of local foods and sustainable agriculture. There are too many points of disagreement between the organizations contemplated for the council. Combine that with the political nature of gubernatorial appointees and it is a recipe to waste time, money and energy, something proponents of local foods do not have in abundance.It is important for people who support local foods initiatives to remain engaged in what the legislature is doing. Other interested parties are much better capitalized in their advocacy efforts, and tend to influence legislation that affects all farmers. While the Iowa Farm Bureau works with organic growers, they also have a bias towards supporting industrial farmers, which comprise a majority of their members. By having Farm Bureau at the table, it seems likely that the interests of small scale growers will get pushed out of the discussion if they conflict with those of industrial agriculture.
If the government were to accomplish something to advance the interests of local foods, many would welcome it. This bill does not appear to be able to do that in its current form.
~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend editor of Blog for Iowa. E-mail Paul Deaton
Blog For Iowa 
I'd be interested in hearing what a useful, workable bill might look like. Linda Yanney, Iowa City
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That is a great thing to ask, and this summer I will ask folks who are dealing with all of the issues of local, organic food marketing.
I am not so sure there is an umbrella approach that could be addressed through legislation. As I said in my post, not sure the council proposed would play nice together or accomplish anything.
What may be a better role for the legislature is to take care of obstacles as the percolate up from the local foods movement. Things like the raw milk bill.
The most significant problem most local food growers I know have is scalability. They have a small cadre of customers and their business depends upon them. Too, farming is usually predicated on cheap labor, and it is a substantial accomplishment to farm a few acres. Not sure government can help with any of this.
Part of this is answering the question what do we want our future food security to look like? It is very complicated, and it is easy to say that we seek local food, but have you looked at the price of some local commodities?
This should be grist for the Blog for Iowa mill for a while. You should write an article. I know I plan to write more about it.
Regards, Paul Deaton
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