The USDA could spend more than $1 billion over five years to promote urban agriculture, farmers markets and regional food systems under legislation backed by a dozen House Democrats. Lead sponsor Marcy Kaptur filed the bill with an eye toward its inclusion in the 2018 farm bill, to be drafted soon.
“As Congress readies to debate the farm bill, I’ll fight for programs that bolster farmers, develop our urban centers and help create jobs,” said Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat. “Too many urban neighborhoods are in food deserts that lack stores where people can purchase fresh, healthy foods, so the federal government needs to step up and improve access to nutritious foods.”
The House bill, HR 3699, would put $100 million into research to improve the productivity and profitability of urban agriculture; $200 million into farmers markets and other direct-to-consumer sales, such as roadside stands, agri-tourism and community-supported agriculture; and $250 million into inclusion of low-income veterans into the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program. The bill also calls for $250 million in discretionary spending on grants to set up urban farms, educate the farmers and establish food hubs, and $250 million in discretionary money for the Senior Farmers Market program.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said urban agriculture is one of Stabenow’s top priorities heading into the farm bill. “We’re working on this and will have more updates this fall.” Stabenow sponsored an urban agriculture bill in 2016.
The Kaptur bill would devote a tiny part of farm bill funds to urban agriculture. The 2014 farm law costs around $90 billion a year.
There are few solid figures on the size of urban agriculture. In late 2016, Business Insider said, “Though the modern local agriculture movement sprouted up in the late ’90s, it has grown rapidly in cities in recent years. Today, urban farmers are not just growing a few tomatoes on rooftops, they’re moving toward commercial production.” The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future said last year that urban agriculture “is taking off and taking on new forms.” Community gardens are a common form of urban agriculture. Roof-top gardens, indoor farms, aquaponics facilities and technologically innovative formats “are still in the early stages of research and practice,” says the Johns Hopkins report.
Chuck Conner, a former deputy agriculture secretary, told Farm Progress that farm bills traditionally need the support of three groups to attain congressional passage: farm groups, conservationists and public-nutrition advocates. “None of the three has enough clout by themselves to get a bill through Congress. However, the three combined do have enough clout to make sure a bill will pass Congress,” he said. “When the debate is over and a bill passes, I expect we will have a farm bill for the next five years that looks a lot like the current farm bill.”
Congress often needs a year of work before a farm bill is produced, said Stephen Frerichs, head of an agricultural relations and consulting firm, in an essay published by Ag Professional. The leaders of the Senate and House Agriculture committees say they hope for speedy action, with floor debate possible this winter. “Factors outside of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees’ control — the budget and the 2018 midterm election — could complicate timely completion of the 2018 farm bill,” said Frerichs.
The National Agricultural Library’s homepage for urban agriculture is available here.
FERN also looked at the promise, and the problems, of urban agriculture in a 2015 article by Elizabeth Royte, “Urban Farming is Booming, But What Does it Really Yield?”