> I was not aware that the infrastructure bill favors regenerative Ag.
It's pretty vague, to be honest; but from what I've gathered many of its proponents are using it as a phase-in from the core of the New Green Deal, and is essentially a massive works project.
As a former farmer (Biodynamic) myself and a person that did Supply Chain I think that critical infrastructure doesn't just apply to the roads upon which freight travels on, also having a horrible factory farmed centralized food system is what created shortages during COVID and were revealed for all to see. There is no denying it that this model cannot function with just the slight amount of variance, 3PL continued to work and even improved during COVID in some industries, but none of that mattered in the end.
This incidentally led to crop losses due to a lack of labour, and many unnecessary deaths of workers like at meat packing plants had a shocking enough effect that made CSA memberships (shares in the Farm that grant you boxes of vegetables) the more viable option and revealed something that I knew from experience in the aforementioned industries (also culinary): the less food travels, the more savings can be passed on to the consumer, but also the higher a premium it has to it's targeted demographic.
The reason I highlight this is because critical infrastructure, as in the stuff that is of national security, after COVID has to include manufacturing of things like PPE and medical equipment as well as farming in a far more distributed manner--ventilators were just one of the examples of how far the US had fallen.
And the truth is the Department of Ag already has a lot of sound programs to help young, first time farmers: but a concerted effort to incentivize them with low to no interest loans for farming equipment and livestock for 10+ years would be a boon for so many wanting to get into farming and revitalize so many disenfranchised communities that were displaced in the 80s when mega pharmacorps forced their way that led to this big Ag system.
Simply removing a lot of subsidies to corn, soy farmers and using that to float the low interest loans would pay for itself in added revenue, moreover many farmers markets are now obligated to accept things like WIC and foodstamp programs to be accepted so we can readily pivot a low income community's diet in a decade, as seen in Detroit.
I'd include water/desalination as well, but to be honest I'm not sure that will be explored this go around, but may at a later time.