After historic floods, the safety net failed small farmers
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California's smallest farms - those cultivating less than 50 acres - comprise two-thirds of the state's farms. The backbone of rural communities, they play a vital role in the nation's food security and climate resilience: They hire and spend locally, bring competition to a market dominated by industrial-scale agriculture, and grow a greater diversity of crops than the biggest producers, which usually focus on a tiny range of products or a single commodity for fuel or processing. Research shows that small farms feature greater biodiversity and are more likely to use climate-resilient or regenerative practices. But the safety net that helps big operations through disasters - which are worsening with climate change - wasn't built to protect them.
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Nonprofits that support small farmers and federal officials who administer relief programs say that even tools designed for farmers like Narez often fail to help them. As a result, many small farms fail, launching a cascade of consequences: Farmers and their workers lose income, and sometimes housing; families are traumatized and suicide risk rises; land, stewardship and power are consolidated into fewer and larger hands.
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Today, nearly every acre of American commodity corn, wheat and soybeans is insured, making the program, by some measures, a success. But this cornerstone of disaster recovery was "not designed to help small farmers," Anne Schechinger, an agricultural economist at the Environmental Working Group, said. Few in California have it.
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Many call for crop insurance reforms that ease access to policies or shift subsidies from commodities to diversified food crops, thereby helping farmers with less capital and greater need. Schechinger cited a bill introduced in 2023 that would streamline whole farm revenue insurance, reducing the paperwork and changing the incentives for agents that sell it.
California FSA officials have recommended changes to the non-insurable crop insurance program. Xiong said that shortly after he was appointed, he wrote to national officials about trimming the requirements. But without legislative action, his hands are tied.
When it comes to improving credit programs, Brett Melone, who heads FarmLink's lending program, supports a bill introduced in 2023 that would ease access to USDA loans and make it easier for farmers to appeal denials - important steps, advocates say, for addressing historic discrimination. A rotating line of credit for farmers waiting for aid payments could fill an important gap, too, he said.
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