"There are no shortcuts in life"
I heard it at a friends house last year, as I sipped on some milk at his table.
My buddy's older brother said it; I remember it distinctly.
He was talking about studying for the SAT's , and yet now a year later, as I read about cows, corn, and nitrogen fertilizer I can't think of a better aphorism for something completely different- farming.
The way we produce industrial food is a shortcut, an artificial means, to make food cheap. But life, the sustainable cycle of symbiosis, doesn't have shortcuts.
These days it is easier than ever to produce mass amounts of food. One farmer can feed over 120 people, an absolute marvel of technological and agricultural achievement. It used to be every 1 in 4 people was a farmer. In the 1920's a farmer could brag about a 25 bushels per acre yield of corn; these days if you aren't pushing 170 bushels per acre you're loosing respect and possibly your farm.
Not only is the average American unencumbered from growing their own wheat, but they are also able to spend a meager 9% of their disposable income on food (as opposed to 25% in 1930). It's an incredible feat, which owes thanks to hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, super-sized tractors, and strategic government planning. But bigger isn't always better, and this tremendous growth has come at a price.
-How I understand it-
Information gathered from Omnivores Dilemma,
King Corn, The Future of Food, and Fast Food Nation
Lets concentrate on America's numero uno crop-- corn.
Iowa has some of the richest soil in the US, and yet it imports 80% of its food.
2.438 billion bushels of corn flow annually from the Kingdom of Corn, and almost none of it is edible, at least not right off the stalk.
No, this is industrial corn, destined for ascorbic acid, ethanol, plastics, and cows. You don't eat it silly.
America produces a hell of a lot of corn. It overflows grain elevators, it fills our cars, and it fills our stomachs till they overflow our T-shirts.
How come?
Most corn in the U.S is grown on 100+ acre farms in the Midwest, and requires at-least two things- pesticides and fertilizers.
In 1909 Fritz Haber discovered a most fantastic thing- how to fix nitrogen to hydrogen. Previously this process was under the exclusive responsibility of nitrogen fixing bacteria on leguminous plants. But hail the human, for now under intense heat and pressure hydrogen atoms from oil could be bonded to nitrogen atoms. A fundamental compound of life was no longer emitted at the discretion of the ever mundane and predictable soybean. But it wasn't until after WWII, when chemical factories began looking for new uses to their main ingredient in explosives, that chemical fertilizers really changed the game. The nitrogen that destroyed Germany is now the food of modern day hybrid corn. Before corn could only be grown on the same field twice every five years. Before crops needed to be rotated, so fields could be replenished by legumes and cow manure. Before we had less corn. Now we can satisfy corns unmatched thirst for nitrogen, adding 100+ pounds per acre. But not all of it ends up in the soil; excess nitrogen runs off and ends up in the gulf of Mexico (making huge algae booms which cause dead-zones where fish cannot live), it seeps into our water tables, and resides in our ever beloved acid rain.
Yet, corn can be planted year after year. But again this is an articial means to an end. It is unsustainable- farmers now put in 2 calories of energy into soil for every calorie reaped. The overfarming that led to the Dust bowl of the 1930s still exists. We are pushing the soil to its maximum output. But in doing so we are raping soil of its nutrients and eroding the topsoil. Iowa used to have 8 feet of topsoil and today it only has 4. An industrial farm no longer gets its energy from the sun, from cow manure, or from bacteria, it has found a faster alternative--fossil fuel based fertilizer. Soil is an organism of complexity we will never fully grasp. By reducing it to three main componets: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, supplied in fertilizer, we are oversimplifying its needs. Plants grow because they have the base compounds, but the soil in which they live is dead. And dead soil leads to vulnerable plants
Thus to keep these plants in unnaturally close proximity, keep them healthy, and to ward off pests, you need another chemical- a pesticide. One things leads to another.
Again it was WWII that caused the advent of chemical pesticides- nerve gas was modified to kill only bugs, at least that was the intention. Monocultures could be blanketed in pesticide so that having multiple crops, incase one failed, became obsolete. DDT became the symbol of 3 decades of triumphant pest control. What, it causes cancer? we never knew....
And as chemical companies soon became an essential of the American farm durring the dawn of the 1950s their influence spread. Chemical companies like Monsanto began buying up seed companies long ago. Just recently Monsanto purchased the largest vegetable seed company in the world. The seeds Monsanto produces are self terminating. The a most basic function of the agragrian system-- saving seeds for the next planting-- has been undermind. But it is fantastic for business; If you control the seeds and you controll the pesticides that safeguard the plants, you controll the prices and the food.
There were decades of denial that pesticides caused any harm. It wasn't untill recently that Monsanto admited the extremely toxic dioxin-- Agent Orange--spread over most of Vietnam in 1970, was actually harmful. DDT, a carginogen, was claimed entirely safe.
However now as pesticides continue to leave a bad taste in consumers mouths we are told not to worry, GMO foods are here to save the day. Now chemical companies control thousands of genes. it is estimated that Monsanto controls 90% of seed genes. Life can now be patented.
GMO foods are another issue in and of their selves, which I don't wish to get into.
However it must be clear that there is a sufficient lack of regulation. George Bush's administration made it so that GMO foods did not need to be regulated any differently than conventional produce. GMO food does not need to be labeled and problems with cross contamination has already emerged.
Promised increases in yield have been minimal at best, and the risks of tampering with millenniums of evolution and plant diversity are immense. What happens if a self-terminating seed cross pollinates? And why do we need more when we have a severe-problem of overproduction?
It is the paradox of industrial farming that 1st world countries over-eat while 3rd world countries starve. There is now more overweight than malnourished people in the world. Cheap corn from industrial countries outcompetes 3rd world farmers in places like Mexico where imported corn is 3 pesos cheaper per bushel. We have a food distribution problem, an inequality problem, not a technological problem. Subsistence farmers in third world countries are kicked off their land as bigger farms move in. Instead of being independent producers they become dependent consumers.
but enough with that
Now because your probably eshausted from staring at your computer screen. lets take 5 and comeback.
Soooo now you don't need cows, and you don't need a heterogeneous mixture of crops; you can plant one monotonous mile of corn upon mile of corn until your eyes turn golden yellow.
But why? Corn is an extremely compact form of energy.
But more importantly...
Previous policies, instituded durring the Great Depression, insured that farmers could earn a living, set a natural price for corn. If the market price of corn was to go below that price a farmer could take out a government loan, using his grain as collatoral, to store his crop. This encouraged farmers not to sell when prices were low and further weaken the market. When the prices went back up they could pay back the loan and sell the corn. These loans were relatively low risk for the government; if the price didn't rise the government would keep the corn, and the farmer kept the loan. The government then stored the corn in a national granary to be used in times of crop failure, providing food security, or sold when prices were high. Again, that was before. Beginning in the 50's such policies slowly dissolved. In the 1970's fear over high grain prices-- due to grain transactions with Russia--led to a complete overhaul of our agriculture policy. Lead by the Reagan administration, the push for maximum output began. As grain prices fell small farms were eaten up by large conglomerates .
From that point forth, growing large monocultures like corn relied on government subsidies.
Now,
half of an Iowa farmer's income comes from the government. And where does that money come from? The US taxpayers who spend $25 billion a year to support farmers! It costs a farmer around $3.20 to produce a bushel of corn, and they sell that corn at $2.20 a bushel. That is a net loss of a $1.00 per bushel. Now how in the world is that a viable business model.
Farmers sell at any price, further weakening the market, because they receive deficiency payments from the government that cover their losses. George Bush just a few years ago signed the largest corn subsidy bill of its time. Farmers are loosing money because of direct government policy.
It should be clear why we have fewer farmers than ever...
Once farmers dump their corn at the local granary, (most of which only take corn or soybeans), they no longer have a connection to it; it's simply one more drop in an ocean of 10 billion bushels.
But where does all this corn go and who benefits?
It goes to ethanol
it goes to sweeten everything
It goes anywhere
Most of it goes to feed cows, because it fattens them faster then grass. Unfortunately because they are ruminants it slowly kills them. Cheap corn is the reason you can have a burger for $1.08. It's also the reason ranching has become a relic of the past, and one feedlot can produce more waste than LA and Chicago combined
Eric Schlosser, in his book Fast Food Nation, described America's food system as an hourglass.
You have a lot of farmers on top (the number is decreasing, but there is still around a million, self proclaimed, farmers), a lot of consumers on the bottom, and a small funnel of companies processing the food between the two. It's why you can buy a 4 dollar box of corn pops with 2.4 cents worth of corn. It's why only 4% of the money you spend on a loaf of bread goes to the farmer who grew the wheat. It is the reason processed food is the cheapest food. Just two companies-- Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland-- purchase 1/3 of all corn.
{at this point I realize this could easily be a never ending post. I tried my best to say less. There is still too much to say. There are so many more problems, I could dwell on the process of producing beef for another 6 paragraphs. But here is the point to what I have said so far.}
We aren't producing our number one crop for food sakes we are producing it for capitalist sakes.
Cheap food is not cheap; the true price of a burger or any other processed food is externalized. The farmer pays the price, the immigrant worker who stands 8 hours a day in an ankle deep pool of blood shooting cows in the head with a stun gun pays the price, the soil pays the price, the US tax payer pays the price, our health pays the price. If we were to take into account that to grow a bushel of corn requires aprrox. 1/3 of a gallon of oil, if we take into account the water pollution from the overflowing pools of cow excrement, if we actually factor in both the implicit and explicit costs we see the price is skewed. And it was no accident, Corporations have lobbied hard to make that price. They've fought lawsuits, they've worked to break up unions, they've gone to Mexico to recruit cheap labour. They have overcome an inelastic demand (one person can only eat so much) and have meticulously manipulated the way we use a crop; processed food is all about satisfying the taste buds with as many empty calories as possible.
And so we have taken a cyclic system (the soil feeds the crop, the crop feeds the animals and the people, the animals feed the soil, the animals feed the people), and crafted it into a system of inputs and outputs. But nature doesn't work in a linear fashion. In my opinion it's a recipe for disaster.
As consumers it is our job to realize the implications of our purchases. We must realize that their aren't shortcuts in producing life. Distorting nature has consequences. Making that one hamburger has taken food scientists, antibiotics, and lots of energy. Producing cheap highly processed food has come at the expensive of everyone and everything but the processors and chemical companies. It is food void of nutritional value.
Realistically if we want real sustainable agriculture without waste, not the nominal enterprise that is industrial USDA certified organic, we need to support small-scale, seasonal, local agriculture.
and to do so we will need a lot more farmers...
It's a system of connectivity. We must not become disconnected from our food.
"Artificial manures lead inevitably to artificial nutriton, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally to artificial men and women"-
Sir Albert Howard
