Chuck Schumer represents more farmers than Baucus or Crapo

[Recursion]

Bob Casey represents more than both of them put together.

As we lurch towards another farm bill, this is worth considering. We often talk about the outsized power the South has in Congress, but on agriculture I think the real over-representation is for the Plains. Big sky country has 10 of the 21 seats on the Senate ag committee. The ag-heavy South only has 2 (both Republicans, though I will grudgingly admit I like Thad Cochrane). New England only has 1. Texas and California, the biggest ag states in the country, are not represented at all.

This is important because the Plains states have a model of agriculture that is increasingly not what the nation needs or can sustain: large industrial monoculture farms with a heavy petro footprint in fertilizer and an even heavier petro footprint in transporting their food to urban centers. On the coasts, we're seeing an explosion of the direct-to-consumer farm model, but these farms are completely not represented.

Now, I do see the issue: Schumer represents more farmers than Baucus, but the vast majority of Baucus's constituents are farmers. So obviously ag is going to be important to Baucus. But on our side, we need more people from the coasts and New England weighing in on this. And on the Republican side they probably should have a voice from Texas (which is a model closer to California's -- labor-intensive but not transportation-intensive).

I really fear the upcoming farm bill is going to be a monstrosity that would make Jamie Whitten blush. And I think a large part of that is because the people who will be writing it represent a shrinking fraction of the actual farms in the country, using a business model that is growing in its irrelevance and completely unsustainable.

[bluestateguy]

1. Big subsidies going to redneck farmers in the red states who no doubt rail about Obama's "socialism"

And that's the very reason why I am not really a supporter of subsidies anymore.