For Amber Waves of Grain

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Subsidies also have opponents overseas. Organizations such as Oxfam International have spent money to get out the message that U.S. farm subsidies depress prices for farmers in the developing world, leading to poverty and famine. Countries hit hardest have taken their complaints to the World Trade Organization, where U.S. and European farm subsidies have become the source of conflict; at last December's WTO talks in Hong Kong, farmers rioted outside the conference to protest subsidies.

With issues like these in play, you might think that the forces opposing big agriculture would stand united in their lobbying, especially when they're dealing with an antienvironmental Congress. In the past, though, such groups have found themselves at odds.

In 2002, for example, environmentalists wanted to offer a program to factory meat farms that provided grants for dealing with animal waste. Family-farming advocates insisted the move would reward the worst polluters. In the end, some environmentalists teamed up with industry lobbyists to push through their agenda.

Environmental and sustainable-farming groups hope things will be different this time. For starters, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has put up $4.5 million to bring them together to work on conservation issues and rural development. "This is a coalition that runs from conservation to hunger, the spectrum of the Farm Bill," says Andy Fisher, executive director of the Community Food Security Coalition. "If we hold the line together, maybe we won't get picked apart by Congress."

The Kellogg grant is not comprehensive, however. The foundation, established on the riches of the cereal giant, requested that some of the most important aspects of farm policy, such as restructuring farm subsidy programs and fighting corporate control in agriculture, should be left out of the grant-supported talks. Organizations like the Land Stewardship Project and the Western Organization of Resource Councils plan to take up those issues separately.

Another point in favor of small-scale, decentralized farming is the current fixation on homeland security. Under consolidated industrial agriculture, one microbe can wipe out an entire meat production facility; one strain of wheat rust can take out acres of genetically identical grain.

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