Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Building a Jewishly Informed Farm Bill

Fair Food Network’s Oran Hesterman and Kate Fitzgerald co-hosted Hazon’s first Farm Bill webinar on July 20th. Twenty attendees from Florida to California watched an informative presentation about Farm Bill history, implementation and impact and participated in a question and answer session touching on issues from kashrut to conservation.

Fitzgerald first discussed the early years of Farm Policy, beginning with the establishment of an independent Department of Agriculture in 1862 and moving into the Depression era and its long-term effects. She then discussed the farm bill’s evolution and its 15 varied and complex titles (or sections), revealing what the bill does and does not cover. We learned that the bill contains billions of dollars in funds for agricultural subsidies and farm relief programs, hunger relief and emergency food aid, environmental conservation programs and many other government programs.

Hesterman then took the mic to highlight opportunities in 2012 for a fair and just approach to the food system, specifically related to local and regional food systems and healthy food access. He explained the idea of planting flexibility (with subsidies/insurance), introduced rural development grant and loan programs, shared ideas for better credit tools and highlighted the advantages of food hubs. A rise in demand for healthy food, he said, relates to both accessibility and price. He asserted that snap incentives, EBT in all farmers’ markets, and an expansion of farm to school programs would result in increased access and decreased price. Supply, he added, is tied to specialty crops and financing retail in underserved communities.

A lively question and answer session rounded out the talk: Hazon’s Becky O’Brien inquired about the U.S. and international food aid; AJWS’ Timi Gerson followed, asking Oran about international farm bill reform issues like food aid and biofuels. Another attendee requested information about a youth-appropriate educational curriculum. In response, a fellow participant encouraged the audience to take the Food Stamp Challenge, a program which she described as “a great tool for youth, families, communities, etc.”

The conversation shifted to the language and challenges surrounding kashrut and the guidelines for determining what is fit to eat. We discussed some of the many complex intersections between Jewish law and food justice and look forward to continuing this talk over the coming months (at our Food Conference) and years (with the Shmita Project).

In the webinar’s final minutes we touched on conservation programming and its need for support. Fitzgerald shared a potential policy improvement: include conservation requirements when farmers buy crop insurance. One CA participant informed the audience that the Hecksher Tzedek program accounts for conditions of labor and animal welfare — good to know!

After an educational hour together, we offered ways to stay in touch: consider joining Fair Food Network to help food assistance policy grow into nutrition, health, and economic development policy and take their Double Up Food Bucks program nationwide. Oran will also be one of many exceptional presenters at Hazon’s Annual Food Conference from Aug. 18-21 at UC Davis. We highly encourage you to immerse yourself in these four days of food, inspiration and innovation.

Liz Kohn, originally from Evergreen, Colorado, is a Masters in Social Work 2012 candidate at the University of Michigan and is Hazon’s Social Work Intern. Her professional and volunteer work and travels have deepened her desire to develop skills in meeting both individual needs and communal challenges related to accessibility and affordability of fresh, healthy food.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.