An annual march for farmworkers' rights is being held Sunday in northwest Washington.
This year, marchers are focusing on the conditions for local tulip and daffodil workers.
Alfredo Juarez, organizer for the farmworkers rights organization Community to Community Development, said tulip and daffodil harvesters are raising concerns about pay, pesticide use near where they are working and the need for clean restrooms. He noted the march coincides with the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.
"During the tourist season when you show up here, you see all the beautiful flowers and different colors, design," Juarez acknowledged. "But the work that goes into making all that happen is done by the workers and that's people that you don't really see. You just see the flowers."
The farmworkers' march, known as La Marcha Campesina, starts at 10 a.m. Sunday in Mount Vernon. The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is the largest tulip festival in the country and draws a million visitors annually.
Juarez emphasized the workers want to see better conditions in the fields.
"We really like doing the job," Juarez pointed out. "It just gets very tough and it's hard for us sometimes when we do so much. So, everybody else enjoys it, but for us when we're doing the work, it's tough."
The march will follow a 7.5-mile loop. Juarez added the march typically takes place in May, but the date was changed this year to coincide with the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.
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By Seth Millstein for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in the last election, and their victories will have major ramifications for the future of climate and agriculture policy in the United States. It's too soon to say with certainty what exactly these ramifications will be, but we can nevertheless make some educated guesses about what to expect from the new Congress on agriculture and climate.
There's no doubt that Republican lawmakers will seek to scale down, roll back or repeal certain climate and agriculture-related policies that the Biden administration implemented, such as the Inflation Reduction Act's support for climate-smart agricultural programs.
But this doesn't mean everything will be on the chopping block, says Laurie Beyranevand, Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
"There's been a lot of money that got pumped into ag research under the Biden administration, and I think generally, Republicans are really supportive of that," Beyranevand tells Sentient. "The Trump administration is definitely going to want to try to figure out which of those things farmers in the ag community are supportive of, and I don't think, wholesale, they're unsupportive of what Biden was trying to accomplish."
It's also important to note that, while Republicans do have majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, their House majority is very small: just five seats. This means that any piece of legislation can't afford to lose more than five Republican votes if Democrats remain unified, and this is a wrinkle that could potentially have significant consequences on agriculture policy.
Nevertheless, let's take a look at what sorts of policies the new Republican Congress might pursue in the upcoming session.
Immigration, Tariffs and Crop Subsidies Colliding
Opposition to immigration is President-elect Trump's flagship political issue - he's pledged to carry out "mass deportations" of immigrants in his second term - and Congressional Republicans are already pursuing legislation that would help implement this agenda.
But as Beyranevand notes, America's farming sector is highly dependent on immigrants, documented and undocumented alike, for its labor force. Deporting these folks, or sharply reducing the amount of immigrants in the country through other means, would create a shortage of agricultural workers, thus driving up the price of agricultural goods and reducing America's production capacity.
Normally, this would result in Americans purchasing more imported agricultural goods. But Trump has also pledged to enact tariffs on agricultural imports, and as we saw during Trump's first term, tariffs also cause prices to increase.
"If we have an ag labor shortage, and we're not able to produce as much domestically, then we're going to rely on imports, necessarily," Beyranevand says. "But Trump has also said that he wants to increase tariffs and reduce imports."
During Trump's first term, he sharply increased crop subsidies to farmers in order to stem the economic damage caused by his tariffs on agriculture, and he may well do the same during his second term if the GOP's anti-immigration policies end up hurting American agricultural producers.
Passing a New Farm Bill
The first order of business for the 119th Congress - and the likely vehicle through which Congress will pass new food and agriculture-related policies - will be the new Farm Bill. At least, it should be the first order of business, as Congress has failed repeatedly over the last two years to authorize a full Farm Bill, and has had to pass two short-term extensions of the last Farm Bill as a result.
The Farm Bill is an enormous legislative package containing a plethora of food and agriculture-related policies. It's an incredibly important piece of legislation, as America's farming sector is more or less reliant on it to function, and Congress must pass an updated version of it every five years or so.
The last five-year Farm Bill was passed in 2018, and Congress has been unable to agree on a new version ever since. Instead, lawmakers have passed extensions of the 2018 bill, the most recent of which expires in September. However, Republicans now control both chambers of Congress and the White House, which will make it easier to pass a new five-year bill, and barring something extraordinary, that's what lawmakers will do in 2025.
It's far too soon to say with certainty what will and won't be in the next Farm Bill. However, we can glean some things from the Farm Bill proposal House Republicans released in May, as well the Farm Bill "framework" Senate Republicans released a month later.
Removing the 'Guardrails' on Climate-Smart Policies
In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which allocated $19.5 billion to USDA conservation programs that benefit the environment. The law says that a conservation program must "directly improve soil carbon, reduce nitrogen losses, or reduce, capture, avoid, or sequester carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide emissions, associated with agricultural production" in order to be eligible for the funds.
That's the idea, anyway; in truth, it's not clear that all of these "climate-friendly" programs are actually benefiting the environment. There are a number of reasons for this, including lack of transparency and questionable methodology on the part of the USDA, but at least in theory, this money is legally required to go to programs that benefit the environment.
Republicans want to remove this requirement, which is sometimes referred to as the "guardrails" for climate-smart policies. If this were to happen, the USDA would be free to spend what's left of this money - around $13 billion, as of May - on any of its many conservation programs, not only those with a demonstrated benefit to the climate.
Cutting SNAP Funding
In addition to containing many farm- and agriculture-related policies, the Farm Bill is also how the government funds SNAP, the federal food stamps program.
SNAP funding once enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington, but the GOP changed their tune on food stamps after Barack Obama took office: Despite expanding the program twice during George W. Bush's presidency, Congressional Republicans voted to cut food stamp funding in 2013, then again in 2018, and are now doing so once more in the most recent Farm Bill.
The amount of money food stamp recipients receive is determined by something called the Thrifty Food Plan. This is a diet plan, created by the USDA, that's meant to provide maximum nutrition for a family of four on a frugal budget.
The House GOP's Farm Bill proposal would limit the USDA's authority to adjust the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan over time, which would effectively cut SNAP benefits by $30 billion over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Congressional Democrats oppose these cuts.
Repealing Proposition 12 - Or Not?
In 2018, California voters passed Proposition 12, which banned the production and sale of eggs, pork and veal produced using "extreme confinement" - that is, the severely cramped living spaces that are par for the course in factory farms. Various elements of the meat industry sued to block the law, but the Supreme Court upheld it in 2023, and it's now in effect.
Because Proposition 12 forbids the in-state sale of these foods even if they were produced in other states, it's had a ripple effect on the entire sector, as California is a major market for eggs, pork and veal. This has made it target number one for the meat industry - even though many individual farmers actually like Proposition 12.
House Republicans' Farm Bill proposal would both repeal Proposition 12 and forbid any other states from enacting similar legislation. Senate Republicans' Farm Bill framework suggests, without explicitly stating, that it would do the same.
But repealing Proposition 12 has proven to be surprisingly controversial among Republicans. A coalition of 16 House Republicans signed a letter urging their leadership not to repeal Proposition 12, as they feel that doing so would be a violation of states' rights. Months later, eight more Republicans came out against repealing the law, on the grounds that doing so would make America less competitive with Chinese meat producers.
The fight over Proposition 12 has aroused very strong feelings on both sides of the debate, and it will no doubt be one of the gnarliest Farm Bill-related disputes.
The Bottom Line
It's worth keeping in mind that many policies regarding food, agriculture and the climate are outside of Congress's hands. Trump has pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, scrap a proposed rule aimed at increasing electric vehicle usage and roll back environmental regulations - and these are all things that he can do without Congressional approval.
But Congress, and the Republicans who control it, will still play an enormous role in shaping America's climate and food policies over the next two years. Only time will tell exactly what those policies look like.
Seth Millstein wrote this article for Sentient.
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Some West Virginia lawmakers want to remove consumer sales taxes on the processing of beef, pork and lamb at slaughterhouses.
House Bill 2146 would reduce the cost for individuals who want to have their livestock processed by a professional slaughterhouse.
Dwayne O'Dell, director of government affairs for the West Virginia Farm Bureau, said the change could save Mountain State farmers thousands of dollars a year.
"Annually about 20,000 head of livestock grown in West Virginia are harvested at these facilities," O'Dell pointed out. "Typically, the tax on that is dependent upon what the animal weighs, $30 to $60 per head."
Processing meat locally remains a challenge for many farmers. According to the nonprofit group FoodPrint, many small farmers say they have trouble finding a local processor or have to travel long distances.
Since the pandemic, farm income has dropped and producers have been further squeezed by fertilizer costs. O'Dell added potential tariffs under the new administration could also affect farmers, noting somewhere between 15% and 25% of meat and poultry is exported.
"Cost of production has been high, labor costs are high," O'Dell observed. "This would be an effort to try to offset some of that and allow some extra money to be kept at the farm level."
A tax exemption could also give up-and-coming farmers a helping hand, he noted.
"We also anticipate it would be beneficial to young farmers who are trying to get started," O'Dell explained. "To be able to supplement them somewhat and give them some additional income."
Commercial red meat production in West Virginia last year totaled more than 1 million pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The processing of livestock, including cattle, sheep and pigs, is regulated by the government under the Federal Meat Inspection Act. Currently, more than two dozen states also have their own meat inspection programs.
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A Utah legislator has introduced a bill to increase transparency for consumers in the Beehive State when purchasing cultivated meat products.
Cultivated meats are genuine animal meat, but are produced by cultivating animal cells in a controlled environment.
But since the beginning of the year, two U.S. states have proposed cultivated meat bans as policymakers have expressed concerns about the impacts cultivated meat could have on livestock producers.
For state Representative Neil Walter - R-St. George - HB 138 is all about ensuring Utahns are aware and have a choice.
His bill would enact a state provision that requires cultivated meat products to be labeled as such.
"This bill, by requiring meat to be labeled if it is cultivated, plant-, or insect-based meat substitutes, just makes sure consumers have a choice," said Walter. "It doesn't restrict manufacturers and it doesn't restrict the market."
Walter said the potential state provision would be complementary to regulations imposed by the United States Department of Agriculture.
In 2019 the department created a formal agreement to help ensure foods containing cultured animal cells entering the market were both safe and properly labeled.
The agency has remained open to labeling considerations. HB 138 is heading to the state Senate with bipartisan support from the House.
Walter called his bill straightforward. He added that within a consumer protection and disclosure context, one of the legal definitions that needed to be updated in the state was surrounding cultivated meat.
"We needed to be specific about what that was, and so this bill allowed for that definition," said Walter. "This isn't a complicated bill - it is pretty straightforward. It defines meat substitutes and it just says if you're selling a meat substitute, you can't tell the public it is something different than what it is."
And while some meat producers are concerned about the impact cultured meats could have on conventional meat and seafood industries, moving forward alternative forms of proteins could help mitigate things like deforestation, habitat loss, antibiotic resistance, as well as zoonotic diseases.
Walter said the bill would make sure the state is ready for developments down the line.
"This isn't anything new. It's something that in a lot of contexts we've been doing for a long time. We just have some alternatives that are different than maybe the alternatives we've had in the past. "
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