(article, James Berry)
As the 2012 Farm Bill makes its slow way through Congress, food reporters have been picking certain sections to tackle. The nonprofit Food & Water Watch released a report documenting just how much lobbying money was spent on the last Farm Bill, back in 2007: "More than 1,000 companies, trade associations and other groups spent an estimated $173.5 million." Meanwhile, the Nation published an article titled '"Whose challenging that organization's claim to represent small-scale farmers. The anti-GMO crowd is skeptical about the so-called '"Monsanto a segment of the proposed Farm Bill that "would allow biotech crops to be planted even if courts rule they were approved illegally." And the blog Food Safety News has tips for improving the federal food-stamp program (one of the many programs funded by the Farm Bill), including cutting out the banks that currently make millions in their role as middlemen for the SNAP program.