Rural Coalition Launches New Farm Bill Web Center
The Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural has worked to secure equity in US Farm Policy throughout its entire 30 year existence, most recently in the 2008 Farm Bill Debate. The Farm and Food Policy Diversity Initiative (DI), formed in 2006 and coordinated by the Rural Coalition supported the efforts of its partners - each with many years of experience - to strengthen and diversify the content of the farm bill. The final Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 included many substantive proposals that the DI proposed to counteract lasting patterns of discrimination and spur new investments in this sector of producers.
But passing legislation is only the first step. With an over $1 billion resource at stake for the producers, farmworkers and communities we together service, we must now focus attention on assuring that USDA fully implements all the new policies.
The new Rural Coalition Farm Bill Web Center is designed to engage all socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and farmworkers in continued collaboration to assure that USDA agencies set in place changes that create new opportunities for American Indian, African-American, Latino, Asian-Pacific and other small farmers and that require USDA assure, track and document equitable access to all programs of the Department. The Web Center also provides tools and resources to assure the producers we together serve have the resources they need to secure access to these new programs.
