Beauty, Wildlife, Water, and Real Good Food
Let’s agree on a few basic facts playing out across our landscape and in our kitchens. 1) Agribusiness is not growing food, it grows products – the corn for high fructose corn syrup, animal feed, ethanol. 2) Run off from the farm chemicals are poisoning our water and the practice of tilling and planting causes the run-off that’s growing the Dead Zone (now larger than the state of New Jersey). Let’s agree that huge animal farms (Contained Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs) are cruel, dangerous for the workers, and the leaky manure pools stink and corrupt our watersheds. OK.
BUT PLEASE DO NOT BLAME THE FARMERS!
No farmer I’ve met truly wants to farm with chemicals or grow one crop. But they, like so many Americans are stuck in the economics of industrial agriculture that has made it impossible for them to change practices without going under. They’ve been duped into investing in equipment, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Asking them to change is like asking them saying you should just tough it out for three years without any income. Here are the barriers to such change.
It takes three years for a farm to become certified organic – that’s the amount of time it takes for the soil to recover its microbial activity that will support the plants’s growth. Just as it’s often difficult for our systems to get off antibiotics, the land needs time to recover, and during that time the plants struggle. This means less production for the farmer and lost income. At this point the farmer cannot reap the additional price the organic label demands.
The farmer must pay for organic certification. He/she must pay to have the inspectors return every season and the farmer is required to keep meticulous records of his/her crops. This creates the traceability we cherish … and it’s expensive and burdensome. The cost is passed along to us, the shopper/eater.
We do not see the real price of chemically grown food at the cash register. People who complain about the price of organics are not factoring in what it is costing our state governments to clean up our water (with water treatment facilities), pay for the roads's wear and tear from trucking, etc. If what we pay in taxes to clean up after agribusiness, the sticker price of processed foods would be much higher.
Americans currently pay 8% in gross annual income for food; and 28% of gross annual income for health care. In France (and most Western countries) those numbers are reversed. We are paying huge health care costs because of lousy food. Consider that 2/3 of American children are destined to become Type II Diabetic before they hit 30 years old.
Commodity crop farmers who grow corn, soy, wheat, and cotton, receive guarantees or price supports for those crops. They also receive crop-loss insurance. So, if a crop fails because of the weather, they’ll be paid the market value of that lost crop. Vegetable farmers receive NO SUCH FEDERAL SUPPORT!
Farming is risky, hard, dirty work. Like so many other professions that have true social value, organic and farmers who use sustainable practices are paid very little for the food they produce.
There are a number of steps we can all take to help reverse the damage that’s being done to our land, water, and our health.
1) Grow food.
2) Shop at farmers markets and support local farmers (even during the winter we can continue to buy local meat, poultry, butter, eggs, honey, maple syrup, and storage crops such as root vegetables, etc…)
3) Get to know the policy issues at the city, county, state, and federal level. We need more people to ask our politicians questions about the Farm Bill (up for review again in 2018). Read Michael Pollan on this!
4) Get to know a farmer.
5) Cook together, laugh together, and talk about food and land use issues.
