In reaction to President Bush's veto of the Farm Bill today, Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, made the following statement:
"President Bush's veto of the Farm Bill today should get Congress started on a better bill for America's farmers, taxpayers and trade interests. Unfortunately, we know that Congress passed on every single opportunity to make necessary reforms and shift funds from wasteful agricultural subsidies for large scale farms to food aid to meet the needs of the poor.
?Although important gains have been made in nutrition and equity programs, the Farm Bill continues billions of dollars in subsidies to large industrial sized farms, doing little for family farms and rural America, while hurting poor farmers abroad.
?Oxfam calls on all members of Congress to sustain the administration's veto and improve the farm bill by cutting payments to rich farmers, reforming trade distorting subsidies, doing away with the inefficiencies of the food aid programs and retaining gains made on the nutrition and equity fronts. Even in this eleventh hour, it is not too late for Congress to deliver the Farm Bill that America?and indeed the world?deserves."