A Healthy Nation Needs Healthy Farms

The overwhelming passion and energy in this country surrounding issues of public health reached the national stage in December with the enactment of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act. The updated child nutrition bill not only increased the number of free school lunches available, but it also introduced measures to improve the nutritional quality of what is being served in those lunches.

With this intensifying national focus on food, the time is ripe to direct our energies to the policies and programs that impact our nation’s farms and the farmers who are growing our food.

For the past several months, we’ve reached out to the public health community in preparation for the debate surrounding the 2012 Farm Bill. At first glance, engaging public health interests for agricultural objectives may sound like an unusual partnership—yet a collaborative effort between the agriculture and health communities can provide mutual benefits.

It’s clear that meeting our nation’s public health and nutrition objectives is dependent on an adequate supply of fresh, healthy food. With the recent release of new dietary guidelines, the USDA has called for Americans to include more fruits and vegetables in their diets—a goal that can be achieved by working with farmers and ranchers in the United States to supply the increasing demand for healthy food. Seems simple enough.

However, our nation is losing the farmland that is needed to grow this healthy food at an alarming rate. As recent data from the National Resources Inventory reveals, two of the three states losing the most agricultural land—Florida and California—currently account for 47 percent of the nation’s vegetables and 71 percent of our fruit production. These trends underscore the crucial need for policy goals that protect and conserve our farmland so we can address fundamental public health challenges.

As the public health community seeks to make the farm bill options healthier, the agricultural community can be tapped to provide the supply of products needed. And these connections are already happening. Thanks to guidance from the USDA’s SNAP at Farmers Markets: A How-To Handbook, farmers markets throughout the country are increasingly accepting SNAP benefits, affording wider access to fresh, healthy food while also supporting local farms and farmers.

In Baltimore, a project directed by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health has targeted food stores in urban food deserts, where public health programs such as SNAP are highly used, to incorporate healthier options. This access to healthier food once again relies on its production by our nation’s farmers. But adding healthier food to a store’s shelves will also provide better food options for all consumers.

The increased demand for fresh, healthy food signals an opportunity for the agriculture community to partner with the public health community in unprecedented ways. As we witnessed during the 2008 Farm Bill process, bringing new players and new partnerships into the mix can shift the debate, resulting in better programs and an increased focus on supporting the needs of farmers and consumers. That in turn will bring healthier outcomes. And healthier outcomes benefit everyone.

About the author: Dennis Nuxoll is Managing Director, Federal Policy for American Farmland Trust