Sally Jo Sorensen is a writer, researcher and educator who lives in rural Minnesota.  She blogs as Ollie Ox at A Bluestem Prairie. This is part of Farm Bill blogging.

Since its founding in 1985, the League of Rural Voters has worked with rural Americans to create change.  One part of the League's mission is to challenge candidates to "take clear positions on farm and rural policy issues" and "to allow rural voters to support and elect representatives committed to increased investments in rural education, health care and sustainable economic development."

The LRV and other progressive rural advocacy groups have much at stake in the 2007 Farm Bill now being marked up in the House Agriculture Committee, with the Senate version to be considered late in the summer.

Executive Director Niel Ritchie took some time to talk about what a progressive Farm Bill might look like.  "A progressive Farm Bill would reallocate the budget to more appropriately reflect the needs of rural communities and America as a whole," said Ritchie.

Unfortunately,"there's a finite amount of money," Ritchie observed, noting the House's adoption of paygo rules. "But that shouldn't stop Congress from moving in the right direction," he added, citing  the recent addition of the Conservation Security Program (CSP) to federal farm programs.  A project created by the 2002 Farm Bill, CSP had proven to be dramatically effective though it was limited in scope.

According to Ritchie, changes in the 2007 Farm Bill should serve three criteria: they should improve the economic lot of small and medium size farmers; offer consumers healthful food, and conserve soil and water.  "The goal should be to champion natural systems of production over the industrial model of agriculture," he said.

Sally Jo Sorensen is a writer and researcher who lives in rural Minnesota. She blogs as Ollie Ox at Bluestem Prairie.

On May 23, the Detroit Lakes Journal Online  published "Minnesota's wild rice now has protection," a guest column by White Earth Land Recovery Project founding director and Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) activist Winona LaDuke.

LaDuke's column explained the complicated political process through which Anishinaabe people had worked to protect wild rice from genetic modification. They had met with some success:

On May 8, 2007, Governor Pawlenty approved the Omnibus Environment and Natural Finance Bill (H 2410/S 2096): Included in this bill was protection for wild rice. Andrea Hanks, the Wild Rice Campaign coordinator for the White Earth Land Recovery Project expressed great relief that the bill had passed, thanking all of those who supported it, "Protection for Wild Rice has been a long time coming for Anishinaabeg communities, many people on all levels contributed to moving this legislation, the tribes of Minnesota, tribal leaders, allied organizations, citizens and legislators, I'm thankful for the help and support that was given."

Spurred initially by the work at the University of Minnesota to map the DNA sequence of wild rice, the Anishinaabeg became concerned about possible genetic modification of wild rice in 2002. Anishinaabeg concerns were heightened when scientists revealed that ancient varieties of corn, deep in Mexico, had been contaminated by genetically engineered seed varieties hundreds of miles away.

The possibility to expand on that success may be threatened by language in the new Farm Bill, and this language could spell trouble for Minnesota Democrats in 2008. Minnesota is home to Ag chair Collin Peterson, whose district includes White Earth.

Sally Jo Sorensen is a writer and researcher who lives in rural Minnesota. She blogs as Ollie Ox at Bluestem Prairie.

Although the National Farmers Union and a coalition of 63 nationwide groups had asked Ag Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry chair Leonard Boswell to add language from the Competitive and Fair Agricultural Markets Act of 2007 (H.R. 2135) to the mark-up of the livestock title of the 2007 Farm Bill, their hopes were dashed Thursday.

Boswell submitted, then withdrew, the amendment.

Boswell's subcommittee's mark-up echoed a meeting earlier in the week by the Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research. Groups hoping that an amendment restoring funding for the Conservation Security Program to the conservation title were disappointed. With Thursday's markup, progressive and grassroot efforts for meaningful reform of the Farm Bill remain stalled.

Much of the initial disappointment on Tuesday can be laid at the feet of House Ag chair Collin Peterson, who had announced on Monday--one day before the conservation subcommittee markup hearing--that he had allocated all available reserves and that any amendments made within the subcommittees would have to be budget neutral.

By Thursday, the Minnesota Blue Dog Democrat changed his mind.

Sally Jo Sorensen is a writer and researcher who lives in rural Minnesota.

Freshman Congressman Tim Walz greets shoppers at the St. Peter Food Co-op on a gorgeous Saturday morning in the idyllic college town on the Minnesota River. It's another Saturday Store Stop: Walz routinely visits grocery stores across his sprawling rural district on weekends. His presence at a food co-op Saturday reflects the changing dynamic of food politics in America. Even in small towns in the heart of the Midwest's Corn Belt, consumers are seeking out more healthful, environmentally friendly, locally grown food. Now over 25 years old, the co-op is the established face of a movement.

The tensions in creating farm policy are also writ large in Washington D.C. this coming week for the upstart Walz, who took the district in a surprise victory last fall against six-term incumbent Gil Gutknecht. Walz sits on the House Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research, which will mark-up the draft of the conservation section of the Farm Bill on Tuesday.  As Kerry Trueman notes below in an action alert, the section slated for Tuesday's markup session has opened a new front in ag and environmental circles.  Minnesota's First Congressional District may be ground zero in the battle.

In a district that borders Tom Harkin's Iowa on the south, and Rep. Collin Peterson's MN-07 in the northwest, Walz has quite literally been placed in the middle of a food fight between the Senate and House ag committee chairs. The House Farm Bill proposal effectively guts Senate Ag Committee Chair Tom Harkin's signature farm conservation legislation, the Conservation Security Program, by shifting most of its funding to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program.

Which way will Walz sway?