For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s USDA Watch page and our Farm Issues page.

In my post on the House Republicans’ recent assault on progressive ag policy, I mentioned the move to shut down the USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative. The sponsor of the amendment that did the dirty deed is Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) — who, it turns out, represents my district in Congress. This is the sort of thing she gets up to when she’s not defending children from the scourge of gay marriage, or lashing out at undocumented workers (who, incidentally, form the backbone of our area’s Christmas tree and nursery industries).

As I mentioned in my previous post, Know Your Farmer is essentially a website. It gathers up and spotlights a hodgepodge of existing programs, funded by the 2008 Farm Bill, that direct modest amounts of money to rebuilding local and regional food systems and supporting new farmers.

That’s actually a significant service. The USDA’s own site is infamously unwieldy and impossible to navigate. Without Know Your Farmer, the few progressive federal ag programs we have — for example, ones that help make farmers markets accessible to low-income mothers, or help small farmers launch profitable food businesses — would likely wither on the vine.

But Know Your Farmer isn’t just a website. It’s also the USDA’s most high-profile acknowledgement since the post-war rise of industrial agriculture that alternative food systems exist, matter, and deserve support. For decades, the USDA’s approach to agriculture could be encapsulated in the famous mantra of Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower’s USDA chief: “Get big or get out.” That attitude still dominates our farm policy, but Know Your Farmer shows that a rogue faction now operates within the agency, one that acknowledges that the scaling up and corporate domination of U.S. agriculture hasn’t redounded to the public good.