As many of you already know, the Farm Bill, which is reauthorized every five years, is among the most important pieces of legislation Congress will take up this year. It fundamentally impacts not only agriculture and nutrition, but also the environment, energy, trade and healthcare policy.

The 2002 Farm Bill offers an unbalanced approach that leaves most working the land in America behind. In fact, 60 percent of American farmers and ranchers get no payments whatsoever while 70 percent of federal dollars go to the top 10 percent of recipients. What’s more, 50 percent of USDA subsidies go to just eight states and about a quarter of these subsidies are concentrated in just seven of the 435 congressional districts around the country.

That’s why your action and your attention are so important on this issue. For those who want to learn more about this fight, this coming Thursday Congressman Ron Kind and I will host a special program through Blog Talk Radio to talk about an important reform bill both of us strongly support: FARM 21. (For a quick rundown of the aspects of this legislation read this recent blog post I put up on MyDD and elsewhere.)

We invite you to listen in to the program as it is streamed live across the internet at 2:30 PM Eastern/11:30 AM Pacific on Thursday, July 12. If you’d like us to discuss your question “on-air”, leave it in the comments section below or send an email to BlumenauerOnAir@mail.house.gov.

We are getting down to crunch time in the effort to reform federal food and farm policy. So the time is now to get involved to make sure that your voices are heard.