Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Rebuttal to The Omnivore's Delusion
Mom cut this out of the Minnesota Farm Guide and mailed it to me, so I subscribed to an RSS feed of another publication (The Land) that carries Guebert's column. He might be one of my earliest teachers of farm policy, as I grew up reading ag journalism. This is an outstanding response to the essay by Blake Hurst I commented on a while ago. He calls out the parts that were "simple, often one-sided statements," and he then crystallizes his own philosophy in one simple sentence: "Farmers farm to feed their families through the profit they (hope to) generate." His argument is that we don't "have to farm 'industrially' to feed the world." Read what the Minnesota Farm Guide printed under the headline, "Feed the world? C'mon, let's get real about it."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Omnivore's Delusion
I'm always one to read both sides and digest slowly. It seems there are not a lot of writers on "the other side" who defend industrial agriculture to the general audience. I am open to viewing our food systems as more complex than simplistic readings of Michael Pollan might imply: if we go towards "sustainable" production, people will starve or have less disposable income. If we don't we may irreparably damage the environment. Here is an excellent article to digest, "The Omnivore's Delusion."
Saturday, June 13, 2009
10 Questions about American Agriculture (Reflections on From the Farm to the Table, Ch. 8-9)
I read these chapters a while ago, but I was so challenged by them that I put off writing this reflection.
In a chapter titled, "They Say Eating Is a Moral Issue," Holthaus includes one final interview with a Minnesota farmer. Bill McMillin, a dairy farmer on hilly land that drains to the Mississippi, said "we're losing the soil" producing corn and beans. He said, "I mean, the government subsidizes exports [of corn and beans, exports that would not be profitable without the subsidies]. What is the sense in that? It's totally flawed. I don't know if Monsanto and Cargill and those people are writing the legislation [or] if they're so big that the legislators are afraid to do something that's going to hurt them" (115). In the next chapter, Holthaus analyzes the scope of changes that have allowed corporate agribusiness to flourish.
The ecosystem of American agriculture "includes its history, its environment, and its cultural and social context" (118). He says it is an ecosystem in crisis, that in the last fifty years, farmers have lost productivity, efficiency, access to markets, independence, and political influence (167). My goal is to look back over his arguments and list some thought-provoking questions.
Loss of Productivity and Loss of Efficiency
1. Which is more productive, the average 4-acre farm that nets $1,400 per acre in total output ("various grains, fruits, vegetables, and fodder, as well as animal products, including meat, cheese, and leather" produced in a land-intensive, labor-intensive way by a farmer who seeks to "conserve soil, prevent runoff, and follow good conservation practices" (127, 129)) or the average 6,000-acre farm that nets $12 per acre in corn or bean monoculture ("much of it subsidized by federal farm legislation" (129-130))? The annual incomes of such farms would be 4*1,400=5,600 and 6,000*12=72,000. 1,400>12, but 5,600<72,000.
2. What is more efficient, seeking long-run or short-run economic gain, conserving soil or not conserving soil, using no-till intercropping, rotations, fencerows and cover crops, or using fertilizer, GMO seed, pesticides, and more fuel?
Loss of Access to Markets and Loss of Independence
3. Are people aware that United States industrial agriculture would "collapse" without migrant labor, that it "is more dependent on migrant workers than it is on herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers" (137,140)?
4. How bad are the opportunities and the standard of living in "the poorest parts of Texas and Mexico" if migrant workers are willing to leave there for physically demanding jobs in Minnesota that pay minimum wage, in an industry with "the highest rates of job-related injury and trauma," and live in local company housing, while also contending with racism, language barriers, and cold winters (143, 138)?
5. Who benefits from the increase in contract farming, and is how should the acceptable degree of control exercised by contractors over individual growers be determined?
6. Who pays for research at our land-grant institutions and which values do they embrace? Would a slant towards organic farming practices be any more objective than a slant towards transnational corporations?
7. Should the U.S., like Europe, follow the precautionary principle, sacrificing sales and profits of corporations by banning GMO while the risks of GMO to human health remain unknown, unproven, and uncertain?
8. Would "another economic depression like that of the 1930s" create a larger welfare burden since people "no longer have access to land [and] have forgotten how to farm and garden" (162, 164)? Are non-farm incomes so much higher that this would not be a problem?
Loss of Political Power and Influence
9. Is the loss of small farms and political capital among small farmers the result of efforts by the non-governmental Committee on Economic Development (CED) to increase the labor force available to industries in town and create "an atmosphere relatively free of the political pressures from farmers experienced in the past," or are a broader range of forces and less malignant motives to blame (166)?
10. How much power do farmers, in contrast to corporate attorneys and lobbyists, have on USDA and EPA regulations, and do these regulations match legislative intent?
"...if members of Congress continue to say, 'We're all for the family farm, but it's the market, it's the inevitable result of equally inevitable globalization, it's the way things are,' while passing farm bills that penalize small farm diversity and conservation and protect affluent agribusiness, absentee landlords, and transnational industries, than their action is no different from stabbing America's small farms and small towns to death..." (169)
In a chapter titled, "They Say Eating Is a Moral Issue," Holthaus includes one final interview with a Minnesota farmer. Bill McMillin, a dairy farmer on hilly land that drains to the Mississippi, said "we're losing the soil" producing corn and beans. He said, "I mean, the government subsidizes exports [of corn and beans, exports that would not be profitable without the subsidies]. What is the sense in that? It's totally flawed. I don't know if Monsanto and Cargill and those people are writing the legislation [or] if they're so big that the legislators are afraid to do something that's going to hurt them" (115). In the next chapter, Holthaus analyzes the scope of changes that have allowed corporate agribusiness to flourish.
The ecosystem of American agriculture "includes its history, its environment, and its cultural and social context" (118). He says it is an ecosystem in crisis, that in the last fifty years, farmers have lost productivity, efficiency, access to markets, independence, and political influence (167). My goal is to look back over his arguments and list some thought-provoking questions.
Loss of Productivity and Loss of Efficiency
1. Which is more productive, the average 4-acre farm that nets $1,400 per acre in total output ("various grains, fruits, vegetables, and fodder, as well as animal products, including meat, cheese, and leather" produced in a land-intensive, labor-intensive way by a farmer who seeks to "conserve soil, prevent runoff, and follow good conservation practices" (127, 129)) or the average 6,000-acre farm that nets $12 per acre in corn or bean monoculture ("much of it subsidized by federal farm legislation" (129-130))? The annual incomes of such farms would be 4*1,400=5,600 and 6,000*12=72,000. 1,400>12, but 5,600<72,000.
2. What is more efficient, seeking long-run or short-run economic gain, conserving soil or not conserving soil, using no-till intercropping, rotations, fencerows and cover crops, or using fertilizer, GMO seed, pesticides, and more fuel?
Loss of Access to Markets and Loss of Independence
3. Are people aware that United States industrial agriculture would "collapse" without migrant labor, that it "is more dependent on migrant workers than it is on herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers" (137,140)?
4. How bad are the opportunities and the standard of living in "the poorest parts of Texas and Mexico" if migrant workers are willing to leave there for physically demanding jobs in Minnesota that pay minimum wage, in an industry with "the highest rates of job-related injury and trauma," and live in local company housing, while also contending with racism, language barriers, and cold winters (143, 138)?
5. Who benefits from the increase in contract farming, and is how should the acceptable degree of control exercised by contractors over individual growers be determined?
6. Who pays for research at our land-grant institutions and which values do they embrace? Would a slant towards organic farming practices be any more objective than a slant towards transnational corporations?
7. Should the U.S., like Europe, follow the precautionary principle, sacrificing sales and profits of corporations by banning GMO while the risks of GMO to human health remain unknown, unproven, and uncertain?
8. Would "another economic depression like that of the 1930s" create a larger welfare burden since people "no longer have access to land [and] have forgotten how to farm and garden" (162, 164)? Are non-farm incomes so much higher that this would not be a problem?
Loss of Political Power and Influence
9. Is the loss of small farms and political capital among small farmers the result of efforts by the non-governmental Committee on Economic Development (CED) to increase the labor force available to industries in town and create "an atmosphere relatively free of the political pressures from farmers experienced in the past," or are a broader range of forces and less malignant motives to blame (166)?
10. How much power do farmers, in contrast to corporate attorneys and lobbyists, have on USDA and EPA regulations, and do these regulations match legislative intent?
"...if members of Congress continue to say, 'We're all for the family farm, but it's the market, it's the inevitable result of equally inevitable globalization, it's the way things are,' while passing farm bills that penalize small farm diversity and conservation and protect affluent agribusiness, absentee landlords, and transnational industries, than their action is no different from stabbing America's small farms and small towns to death..." (169)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What farmers value (Reflections on From the Farm to the Table, Ch. 3-7)
These chapters are stories, stories that "are more personal, more focused around values than around public policy," quoted at length (40).
"When people left the farm in the past, they did it under severely, very, very hardship circumstances...I don't live that life of hardship. I did. But I made my choice..." said Ron Scherbring, who now raises dairy heifers (68-69).
"Extension preaches that you have to get bigger, so now, instead of five hundred farms, there are fifty, and we don't need the extension agents anymore," said Lonny Dietz, who farms marginal land with the goal of restoring its ecological health (79).
"If it all becomes corporate farming, they're going to make a profit. But if they can see they're losing money by all this erosion, it might be corrected," said Dennis Rabe, who raises hogs for Niman Ranch (89).
The interviews published here introduce seven farmers who value stewardship (of soil, and aquifers, and animals), and entrepreneurship (i.e., experimenting, finding what works for them). They enjoy farming. They "want to prove it can be done--that you can make a good living on a small farm" (61). They value a sense of history. They value community involvement: "they will go to their churches, and be a part of their schools," hang out in the town's only cafe, and talk to customers at the farmers' market and members of their small CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) (74). They attend Farm Security Administration meetings to hear about the new farm bill; they work with the Department of Natural Resources, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. They know about "the rest of the world" (38). They attend Bread for the World luncheons and travel to Nicaragua to teach rotational grazing. They read books such as Pioneers Forever, by Marvin Simon, and The New Agrarianism, by Eric Freyfogle. Their resources include university researchers and economists like John Ikerd and Dick Levins, and organizations such as the Southeast Minnesota Ag Alliance, the Sustainable Farming Association, the Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Land Stewardship Project, the American Farm Bureau, the National Farmers' Union, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Southeast Minnesota Food Network, and the Experiment in Rural Cooperation.
The interviewees Holthaus chose to include do not speak highly of Cargill, Monsanto, Conagra, and agribusiness in general. It comes down to a final question of values: money. These farmers do value profitability, efficiency, and productivity, just never to the exclusion of stewardship, and entrepreneurship, and history, and community.
"Is profit bad in agriculture? Is profit the only thing we should embrace in agriculture? Of course, you have both ends of the spectrum," said Scherbring (67).
"We have to make a living or we'll lose the place. But I don't make all my decisions on the basis of money. If I had to do that, I wouldn't farm," said Mike Rupprecht, a beef grower who also raises chickens (61).
"When one urban participant in an Experiment meeting in Lanesboro in 2002 suggested that farming was 'a way of life,' all the farmers nodded in accord, but their response was deeply qualified: 'Well, yes...but it sure is a business too.'" (66).
"Your question is, who is going to benefit the most from this farm program? The chemical and seed companies, and the person that buys the corn...And there's no way to educate the people fast enough to stop it," said Rabe (87).
In sum, these chapters give the perspective of the farmers who say, "I could probably make more money if I farmed in other ways, but I think this is the right way," and "We're interested in healthy soil, healthy animals, and healthy humans" (105).
"When people left the farm in the past, they did it under severely, very, very hardship circumstances...I don't live that life of hardship. I did. But I made my choice..." said Ron Scherbring, who now raises dairy heifers (68-69).
"Extension preaches that you have to get bigger, so now, instead of five hundred farms, there are fifty, and we don't need the extension agents anymore," said Lonny Dietz, who farms marginal land with the goal of restoring its ecological health (79).
"If it all becomes corporate farming, they're going to make a profit. But if they can see they're losing money by all this erosion, it might be corrected," said Dennis Rabe, who raises hogs for Niman Ranch (89).
The interviews published here introduce seven farmers who value stewardship (of soil, and aquifers, and animals), and entrepreneurship (i.e., experimenting, finding what works for them). They enjoy farming. They "want to prove it can be done--that you can make a good living on a small farm" (61). They value a sense of history. They value community involvement: "they will go to their churches, and be a part of their schools," hang out in the town's only cafe, and talk to customers at the farmers' market and members of their small CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) (74). They attend Farm Security Administration meetings to hear about the new farm bill; they work with the Department of Natural Resources, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. They know about "the rest of the world" (38). They attend Bread for the World luncheons and travel to Nicaragua to teach rotational grazing. They read books such as Pioneers Forever, by Marvin Simon, and The New Agrarianism, by Eric Freyfogle. Their resources include university researchers and economists like John Ikerd and Dick Levins, and organizations such as the Southeast Minnesota Ag Alliance, the Sustainable Farming Association, the Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Land Stewardship Project, the American Farm Bureau, the National Farmers' Union, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Southeast Minnesota Food Network, and the Experiment in Rural Cooperation.
The interviewees Holthaus chose to include do not speak highly of Cargill, Monsanto, Conagra, and agribusiness in general. It comes down to a final question of values: money. These farmers do value profitability, efficiency, and productivity, just never to the exclusion of stewardship, and entrepreneurship, and history, and community.
"Is profit bad in agriculture? Is profit the only thing we should embrace in agriculture? Of course, you have both ends of the spectrum," said Scherbring (67).
"We have to make a living or we'll lose the place. But I don't make all my decisions on the basis of money. If I had to do that, I wouldn't farm," said Mike Rupprecht, a beef grower who also raises chickens (61).
"When one urban participant in an Experiment meeting in Lanesboro in 2002 suggested that farming was 'a way of life,' all the farmers nodded in accord, but their response was deeply qualified: 'Well, yes...but it sure is a business too.'" (66).
"Your question is, who is going to benefit the most from this farm program? The chemical and seed companies, and the person that buys the corn...And there's no way to educate the people fast enough to stop it," said Rabe (87).
In sum, these chapters give the perspective of the farmers who say, "I could probably make more money if I farmed in other ways, but I think this is the right way," and "We're interested in healthy soil, healthy animals, and healthy humans" (105).
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
How agriculture works (Reflections on From the Farm to the Table, Intro-Ch. 2)
"Farmers who do not steward [lack the sense of the future] required to build a republican nation."--Steven Stoll, Larding the Lean Earth
From this opening quotation, Holthaus's From the Farm to the Table was filled with words that promise to ignite my agriculture policy passion: farmers, stewardship, republican nation. Land-grant institutions. County extension educators. Farmers' markets. Experiment in Rural Cooperation. Minnesota state legislature. History. Values. Politics. Ag economists. Hunger and food security. Sustainable community.
The "fundamentals" of agriculture are complex, interdependent, and spiritual. The first two chapters unfold farming from ancient cultures' "soil, air, sunlight, and water" myths to the twentieth century. The stories in the second chapter come from Goodhue County, where I spent my middle and high school years. They're the same old stories: biodiversity falls and productivity rises with technological advance. The quest for more, better, newer everything leads to big farms vulnerable to accusations of secular materialism. The same old stories.
Holthaus, Gary. From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know About Agriculture. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
From this opening quotation, Holthaus's From the Farm to the Table was filled with words that promise to ignite my agriculture policy passion: farmers, stewardship, republican nation. Land-grant institutions. County extension educators. Farmers' markets. Experiment in Rural Cooperation. Minnesota state legislature. History. Values. Politics. Ag economists. Hunger and food security. Sustainable community.
The "fundamentals" of agriculture are complex, interdependent, and spiritual. The first two chapters unfold farming from ancient cultures' "soil, air, sunlight, and water" myths to the twentieth century. The stories in the second chapter come from Goodhue County, where I spent my middle and high school years. They're the same old stories: biodiversity falls and productivity rises with technological advance. The quest for more, better, newer everything leads to big farms vulnerable to accusations of secular materialism. The same old stories.
Holthaus, Gary. From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know About Agriculture. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
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