The author was the keynote speaker at the 1999 annual ecological farming conference in Monterey, CA. These papers are excellent primers on the challenges we face in agriculture.
"But we have to feed the world . . ."
--A North Dakota farmer
"Why are American farmers investing so heavily in
expanding ag export markets, when the richest, most
valuable market in the history of mankind---and the
market the rest of the world's farmers want access to
through upcoming free trade talks---is right here in
the US? Can both strategies be right? Simultaneously?--Alan Guebert
Summary
In this paper we provide an analysis of the role of agriculture
in the global
economy, using sustainability as the measure. We argue that as
a first
priority we should begin rethinking our food system in terms of
local, self-
reliant, value-added, value-retaining foodsheds, that supply a
region's food
needs, instead of relying totally on industrial production factories
designed
to supply raw materials to the global market, leaving local communities
to
import all of their food needs. International trade would be based
on surplus
production, not vital production, making local communities self-reliant,
and
therefore truly "free" to trade. Finally, we offer a
few strategies for
beginning the journey toward this new food system.
I. The Global Economy: Myths and Realities
Herman Daly, the well known former World Bank economist, is fond
of quoting
John Maynard Keynes (one of the founders of the World Bank) with
respect to
world trade:
I sympathize therefore, with those who would minimize, rather
than those who would maximize, economic entanglement
between nations. Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel---
these are the things which should of their nature be
international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and
conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national.
(Daly, 1996)
These words have taken on a special significance in our time.
In the current
climate of economic deregulation (sometimes called neo-liberalism)
the
prevalent notion among economists is that the evolution of a global
economy is
inevitable, necessary and highly preferable. But it is important
to remember
that not all economists share this judgment and that that judgment
is not
based on scientific certainty. Indeed, critics like David Kortan
argue that it
is based on "ideological extremism". (Mander and Goldsmith,
1996)
Economic neo-liberalism, which has crafted the intellectual justification
for
a global economy, is based on a belief system. It is a "story"
that describes
one way of organizing our economic lives. It is not the only story
available
to us, however. And, of course, it is not the only economic future
we can
choose.
Economic liberalism's story is similar in many respects to the
economic belief
system of Karl Marx. Marx also believed that it was economics
that determined
history. He believed that the economic system inherent in capitalism
would
inevitably cause capitalism's demise. Most economists today contend
that it
was a flawed belief.
Economic neo-liberalism's belief is similarly flawed. The problem
with
theories of economic inevitability (like those of Marx and neo-liberalism)
is
that they are based on assumptions that are hardly self-evident.
For example,
neo-liberalism's assumption that individuals always act in their
own rational
financial self-interest cannot be substantiated from human experience.
If
that assumption were true, no one would affiliate with a religious
organization that requires sacrifice. No one would have children.
There
would be few great works of art. And there would certainly be
even fewer
farmers.
The reason it is important to recognize these false assumptions
is that it is
only when we entertain the possibility that the current predominantly
held
views regarding the global economy are not inevitable, and that
economics is
not the only determining factor that shapes human society, that
we can begin
to think critically and creatively about the economic welfare
of our
communities and choose alternative futures.
It is also important to recognize that taking a stand against
the development
of a global economy does not necessarily mean that one is anti-trade
or
"protectionist", or that one has a callous disregard
for the world's hungry
and homeless.
International and inter-tribal trade is as old as human history.
In the last
half century archaeologists have found evidence of international
trade among
ancient societies that was much more extensive than historians
had previously
believed possible. For example, archaeologists in North Dakota
recently
discovered that a particular type of flint rock that lent itself
especially
well for making spear and arrow heads, can only be found in North
Dakota. Yet
spears and arrow heads made from this flint can be found all over
North and
South America. Indians living in what is now North Dakota traded
them. They
apparently also extensively traded food stuffs. But the interesting
thing
about the trade policies of these indigenous people is that they
insisted on
meeting the needs of the village first. Trade was based on surplus
production.
We contend that these ancient trade policies were wise. Accordingly,
while we
support international trade, we question whether our local economies
ought to
be made dependent on, or victims of, a global economy which seeks
to fit all
cultures and communities into a one-size-fits-all economic system.
We
question the wisdom of forcing all cultures and countries, each
of which have
emerged out of different histories and different economic situations,
into one
economic straight jacket.
Could it be, for example, that Russia, now suffering from one
of its most
severe depressions, needs a Roosevelt-styled 'new deal" economy,
instead of
the Herbert Hoover-style free market economy that the G-7 nations
are trying
to impose on it? The global community needs a diversity of economic
systems,
not a single homogenized one.
In particular, we question the wisdom of a homogenized economic
system where
food and agriculture are concerned. We believe that in the case
of food and
agriculture it is particularly important (as it was among ancient
societies
that practiced international trade) to "feed the village
first".
Feeding the village first is a concept which suggests that local
community
economies are healthiest when they are as self-reliant as possible,
especially
where food and agriculture are concerned. Self reliant communities
are
healthiest because they are free to pursue their own course, shaped
by
cultural norms which evolved in those communities to maintain
the local public
good. For this reason it is also important to maintain a diversity
of
cultures, as these ancient societies did. Each local culture must
be free to
evolve so that it can protect the unique ecology and public good
of each local
community.
The global economy, by contrast, makes local communities vulnerable
to the
economic health and well-being of distant communities and of "owners"
over
which they have little influence.
Herman Daly has reminded us that trade is only free when we are
free not to
trade. (Daly, 1996) What Daly recognizes is that when the economy
of a local
community or region is dependent on distant communities to supply
its needs
and buy its raw materials, then its own economy becomes extremely
vulnerable
to economic forces over which it has no control. The effect of
the collapse of
the Asian and Russian economies on Northern Plains farmers in
the United
States in recent months has clearly demonstrated that phenomenon.
We can, for example, see this principle at work as we watch the
agricultural
economy of North Dakota collapse. The globalization and industrialization
of
agriculture has reduced farmers in North Dakota to raw materials
suppliers of
a few specialized commodities---primarily wheat and beef cattle.
That means
that almost no local resources are devoted to producing locally
needed value
added products for local consumption. That, in turn, means that
we export all
of our cheap raw materials and import all of our needed, expensive
value-added
products. This drains both, the wealth of the region's income,
and the wealth
potential of the region's raw materials out of our local communities.
Such an
economy is reminiscent of colonial economies.
Of course the proponents of economic neo-liberalism will argue
that while all
this may be true, it is still to the overall economic advantage
of local
communities to be part of a global economy so we can avail ourselves
of the
benefits of "comparative advantage".
The theory of comparative advantage was first espoused by David
Ricardo, one
of the great classical economists. To put it simply, the theory
of
comparative advantage suggests that each country (or region) should
produce
what it can produce most efficiently and import those things that
others can
produce more efficiently. And no trade barriers should be erected
to
"protect" the less efficient local production systems.
This is the classical
argument advocated by free trade proponents.
But as Daly points out, Ricardo's theory was based on a very specific
set of
assumptions, including the expectation that capital would remain
"immobile
between nations." Daly argues that since capital is now no
longer rooted in
local communities, Ricardo, were he alive today, "would not
support a policy
of free trade." Given the fact that capital today is controlled
primarily by
transnational corporations (TNC's) who are not held accountable
to any local
community, we no longer accrue the benefits of comparative advantage
to the
communities in which we live. Most of the benefits accrue to shareholders
of
TNC's who generally live in distant communities.
Consequently, Daly suggests that we need to ascertain whether
or not trade is
really mutually beneficial before we engage in it. We should determine
whether or not "the gains from international trade and specialization
are not
canceled by the immediate disadvantages: higher transportation
costs,
increased dependence on distant supplies and markets, and a reduced
range of
choice of ways for citizens to make a living." We should
also determine
whether or not trade will cause a deterioration of natural eco-systems,
destroy local natural resources or reduce quality of life before
we trade.
But proponents of economic neo-liberalism will argue that even
if these
negative consequences occur, the globalization of agriculture
is still
necessary to feed an expanding human population. We have to feed
the world!
That assumption is based on at least three flawed propositions.
First is the
assumption that people are hungry because we are short of food---that
farmers
are unable to produce enough. That assertion is totally false
and repeatedly
proven to be so. (Kirschenmann, 1997, Lappe` and Collins, 1986)
Second is the assumption that we can solve the population explosion
problem
simply by intensifying food production, especially the production
of cereal
grains. But ecologists have raised disturbing questions about
that
proposition. They argue that such intensification itself creates
serious
obstacles to meeting those goals. The obstacles include:
*the destruction of the very genetic resources needed to develop
transgenic technologies;
*the degradation of the very ecosystem services needed to increase
production;
*the environmental and human health consequences of
intensive agricultural practices;
*the extreme climactic changes that accompany global
warming which will likely jeopardize food production capacity.
(Daily, et. al., 1998, Baskin, 1997)
Third, is the assumption that the only way to produce enough food
for future
human population growth is by intensifying our mass production
of a few
specialized commodities with new technologies. But we know from
several
thousand years of observation that small-scale, labor-intensive,
local food
production systems, wherein local people have access to production
resources,
are by far the most productive.
For example, under the ecological management of the Anasazi Indians,
a small
region near Dolores, Colorado in the desert Southwest, supported
a population
of over 100,000 citizens around 1,000 AD. That same region today
supports
less than 15,000. The Anasazi raised dryland corn that produced
an average 40
bushels per acre. Today with all the modern technologies at our
disposal,
farmers can only obtain 14 bushels per acre average dryland corn
production in
that same region. (Anazasi Museum, Dolores, Co)
Once and for all we should acknowledge that hunger is caused by
social
inequity and the lack of access to food producing resources, not
lack of
production. As E.F Schumacher pointed out so eloquently 25 years
ago, what we
need to keep the world fed is not mass production, but production
by the
masses. (Schumacher, 1973) What Schumacher understood all too
well, was the
fact that when small, local farmers are pushed off the land (as
Mexican
farmers will be en mass in the next decade, due largely to free
trade
policies (Brandon and Franklin, 1998) the land gets concentrated
in the hands
of large land owners, and then the land gets used to mass produce
commodities
for export, rather than feeding local populations. And that usually
creates
surpluses of raw materials which end up putting farmers all over
the world out
of business. That exacerbates, rather than solves the problem
of "feeding the
world".
II. Industrial Agriculture and Unsustainable trends.
The global food system is fed by an increasingly industrialized
agriculture
which cannot be sustained. Industrial agriculture is based on
three
principles: specialization, standardization and centralization.
These
principles grew out of the factory model of industrialization.
This factory
model has proven very efficient in the production of many manufactured
goods.
However, many business leaders are now questioning these principles
because
they largely fail to calculate the importance of the human factor
in
production. They also increasingly recognize that since these
principles tend
to externalize social and environmental costs, they put much of
society, and
sometimes even the industry at risk. When hamburger gets contaminated
with E
coli in a huge centralized beef packing plant, for example, the
losses and
liabilities connected with the recall of millions of pounds of
hamburger, as
well as the number of people at risk, is far greater than if a
similar
contamination were to occur in a locally owned, diversified butcher
shop.
More important for agriculture, however, is our failure to recognize
that
farms are not factories and that the effort to impose these three
principles
on farms has created an agriculture that is headed for collapse.
These
principles create huge monocultures that have numerous adverse
effects. They
make farmers vulnerable to the economic fortunes of a very narrow
band of
commodities. Farmers who have specialized in the production of
hogs or wheat,
for example, are currently being forced out of business due to
the record low
prices of those commodities. Farmers who have diversified farms,
on the other
hand, have also diversified their risks.
These industrial principles also impose a system of agronomic
practices that
dramatically increase costs and destroy the habitat of many species
that are
critical to efficient production. Our monocultures, for example
have largely
destroyed the habitat of indigenous pollinators, and have placed
imported
pollinators (like European honeybees) at great risk. The fact
that one out of
every three mouthfuls of food that we all eat is dependent on
pollinators
(Buchmann and Nabhan, 1996) requires us to ask what impact industrial
farming
practices actually have on our ability to keep the world fed.
The three principles of industrial agriculture are also largely
responsible
for farmers' increased production costs. A recent University of
Minnesota
Plant Diversity Task Force concluded that our vast monocrop systems
in the Red
River Valley have now revved up disease and pest cycles to such
an extent that
there is no way the research community can keep up with resistance
technologies to stay ahead of the curve---no matter how much money
we allocate
for research.
Given the ever increasing need for inputs to support this system
of
agriculture, ND Extension Service calculated that it now costs
North Dakota
farmers $117 an acre to produce wheat. Most county-wide average
wheat yields
in North Dakota run below 30 bushel an acre. That means farmers
need to
consistently get at least $4 per bushel just to break even on
their input
costs. But given global-wide surplus production in 1998 prices
hovered at
$2.50 per bushel. So farmers find it impossible to generate the
cash to repay
loans or purchase inputs for the next crop cycle.
Furthermore, standardization is based on the assumption that the
environment
is predictable and controllable. It assumes that one can take
an isolated
phenomenon (like corn borer pressure) and apply a standard therapy,
like an
insecticide or Bt seed corn. But every high school biology student
knows that
nature is complex and always evolving, and that therefore nature's
response to
applied technologies will vary from place to place and year to
year.
Accordingly, standardization is fundamentally contrary to nature's
functioning.
But perhaps the greatest fallacy of industrial agriculture is
the assumption
that one can abstract a few agronomic principles and then develop
standardized
farming techniques to be applied universally. From experiments
with hybrid
seeds, for example, we concluded that hybrid seeds were superior
in all places
under all circumstances. In point of fact hybrid seeds are only
superior
when soil, climate and synthetic inputs are optimized. As one
farmer put
it---"you buy expensive seed and fertilizer and if you don't
get rain, its
like throwing money into the wind."
Since farming is an activity that takes place in living, local
ecosystems, it
simply makes more sense to craft farming systems that continually
adapt to the
local ecologies in which the farm is located. Ironically such
adaptation
suggests principles that are diametrically opposed to the three
industrial
principles. Ecological farming requires that we employ the principles
of
diversity, variability and integration, rather than the principles
of
specialization, standardization and centralization.
If we managed our farms by these ecological principles they would
look very
different from the industrial farms that now dominate the landscape.
Instead
of huge wheat farms and cattle ranches in North Dakota, for example,
we would
have more moderate-sized diversified farms which grow five or
more crops and
have two or more animal species. The crop and livestock systems
would be fully
integrated. The waste from the cropping systems would be fed to
the livestock
and the wastes from the livestock would be used to fertilize the
crops. In
some locations crops and livestock would both be rotated through
the system.
In other locations, due to the ecology of the land, livestock
would be grazed
on native prairie and crops would be grown in the "niches"
of the prairie
landscape. In all cases the diversity would keep diseases in check
and
provide for natural habitat that would harbor the species that
help control
insect pests.
The central operating principle of such a system would be "to
manage nature so
that she doesn't have to be managed." (Eisenberg, 1998) In
other words a farm
would be a production system in which nature's own ecosystem services
would
provide the majority of the fertility and pest and disease control
that
optimizes production.
A few USDA scientists are now actively promoting this kind of
alternative
agriculture. They argue that the "therapeutic" interventionist
strategies of
industrial agriculture, wherein the prevailing pest control strategy
has been
to kill pest organisms with toxic chemicals, has created a classic
treadmill.
The solution becomes the problem. That treadmill has actually
increased crop
losses due to pests. On a world basis crop losses due to insects,
weeds and
disease were 34.9% in 1965 and rose to 42.1% in 1988-1990.
These same USDA scientists argue that the more recent substitution
of new
classes of chemicals and the technologies of molecular biology
has not changed
the problem since these new technologies still conform to the
same paradigm.
(Lewis, et. al. 1997)
III. Strategies for Developing Sustainable Local Communities.
In his thoughtful book Earth Community, Earth Ethics,
Larry Rasmussen suggests
that we should stop talking about sustainable development and
start thinking
about sustainable communities. The global economy will not help
us here.
Building sustainable communities, as Rasmussen argues, requires
an ethic.
(Rasmussen, 1996)
What kind of production ethic do we need to develop sustainable
communities?
Rasmussen points out that "the scientific discovery of the
twentieth century"
is the fact that the earth is a community. As Thomas Berry put
it, the earth
is a "community of subjects", not "a collection
of objects". (Berry and
Swimme, 1992) And the earth community is not a single, homogenized
global
ecosystem, but a complex array of many diverse, interconnected
local
ecosystems. (Eldridge, 1995)
This scientific discovery suggests that if we want to live on
the earth in a
sustainable way we have to begin to understand the "place"
of the earth
community in which we live, and learn how to interact with that
place to
preserve it as a healthy local community. And that place includes
all the
species with which we co-evolved. It follows that if we want food
and farming
systems that sustain local communities we really do have to "consult
the
genius of the place" as Alexander Pope advised us some years
ago.
Accordingly, local community life shaped by a culture that is
rooted in the
wisdom inherent in each local ecology, is the core requirement
of
sustainability. Living and farming in accordance with those principles
must
be the cornerstone of our new production ethic. Developing such
an ecological
consciousness as the proper context for farming, is the new challenge
facing
agriculture.
This new ecological consciousness is beginning to penetrate the
fields of
medicine, nutrition, forestry, and fishing, as people in all walks
of life are
recognizing that the human species is not insulated from the rest
of earth
community. It is that new consciousness that will shape the ecological
farming
revolution.
What are some of the strategies we need to implement to effect
the transition
from an industrial/global to an ecological/local food and farming
system?
First, it means recognizing that changing from a global economy
to sustainable
communities, will require that we rethink the whole food and farming
system.
Simply getting farmers to rethink their farming systems, or to
"go organic",
won't work.
Today's farms are part and parcel of the global, industrialized
economic
system. The global market only demands a very narrow band of commodities.
Just fifteen plant species are used to produce 90% of the calories
consumed on
this planet. (Soule, et.al., 1990) In the grain sector the market
is largely
limited to corn, wheat soybeans and rice. 80% of the 220 million
acres
planted to annual crops in the US are devoted to corn, soybeans
and wheat.
Consequently there are no markets for the diversified crops that
must be grown
on ecologically managed farms. That, in turn, insures that without
changing
the entire food system the market will continue to force farmers
into
monoculture production, producing cheap raw materials for the
global economy.
So we need alternative marketing systems as well as alternative
farming
systems. As a first priority we need to begin rethinking our food
system in
terms of local, self-sufficient, value-added and value-retained
foodsheds that
supply all of a region's food needs. Most food processing and
packing
operations must be locally owned, retaining the value that is
added by such
processing in local communities.
This would be a clear alternative to the industrial production
factories
designed to supply cheap raw materials to the global market, which
forces
producing communities to import all of their local food needs,
and to export
the value of their locally produced raw materials. International
trade would
be based on surplus production. In other words, it would be a
marketing system
that feeds the village first and truly makes local communities
"free" to
trade.
Admittedly, changing our whole food system will be a mammoth undertaking
and
we will not accomplish it in the next few months. But the new
system is, in
fact, already being developed so we also don't have to start from
scratch.
Direct marketing schemes and locally owned value-added processing
enterprises
of various kinds are already in place and many of them are very
successful.
(Welsh, 1997)
But to expand these ventures, many of them small and largely isolated,
into a
comprehensive food system alternative, will require a systems
dynamic approach
that begins to systematize this sustainable alternative to the
industrial food
system. We will need to inaugurate new initiatives in education,
public
policy and market reform.
Following is a beginning list of things we can do:
Education
1. Initiate dialogs throughout farm communities that help farmers
to
understand that recurring farm crises are not due to low prices,
unfair trade
practices, timid export promotion, deficient safety nets, insufficient
research or inadequate technologies. Economic farm crises are,
in fact,
inherent in the global economic system which operates on the principles
of
cheap labor, cheap raw materials, and externalized risk. So as
long as
farmers are suppliers of raw materials of a few specialized commodities,
requiring intensive inputs that put farmers on treadmills, and
force them to
absorb most of the risk involved in producing those commodities,
they will
never be economically empowered. That is the first lesson every
farmer has to
learn.
2. Land Grant University systems need to begin helping farmers
to understand
the ecological neighborhoods in which they farm, and then provide
assistance
in developing natural systems farming technologies that mirror
those
ecologies. In the Northern Plains that means learning to understand
the
complexity of prairie ecologies, breeding seeds that produce food
plants which
thrive in such ecologies, and creating habitats that produce symbiotic
relationships between native species and farming systems.
3. Develop media exposure that helps international communities
to recognize
that "feeding the world" is not a solution to the chronic
problems of hunger
and homelessness. We must create media scenarios that show practical
alternatives to ADM's "supermarket to the world". Those
scenarios would
represent individuals and governments working together to eliminate
hunger by
promoting local cultural norms that bring human populations in
line with
other earth species in each ecological neighborhood. (Norberg-Hodge,
1991)
Those efforts would include the education of women in every community.
Those scenarios must include practical strategies for making adequate
nutrients available to all people. Those strategies would include,
but not be
limited to,
*more efficient animal agriculture, cutting grain-based diets for ruminants
at least in half, thereby making more nutrients available for humans;
*restoration and preservation of seafood ecologies. (While cereal production
accounts for 50% of the energy intake of the world's poor, 60% of the world's
population depends on seafood for 40% of its protein)
* international debt restructuring that would allow developing nations to use
local production resources to feed local populations, and
*restoration of soil quality throughout the world to preserve and increase
the yield potential of appropriate new technologies. It is now generally
agreed that the reason crop yields have leveled off or declined despite new
technologies is that declining soil quality prevents the yield potential of
such technologies from being realized. (National Research Council, 1993)
4. Reconnect eaters with the ecological cycles of food production.
No one
should be considered properly educated without having first hand
knowledge of
where food comes from and how to produce and prepare it. Such
knowledge
should be considered as "basic" as reading, writing
and math. Everyone should
grow at least some of what they eat, regardless of where they
live.
Public Policy
1. Gradually reduce the public subsidies that support industrial
agriculture
and shift part of those subsidies to programs that would help
farmers
transition to ecologically sound farming systems. In 1997 the
Dutch Institute
for Research on Public Expenditure prepared a report for the Rio+5
Forum which
revealed that "subsidies from the public purse" in just
four sectors (water,
energy, road transportation and agriculture) amounted to $700
billion
annually, more than the entire international expenditure for arms.
They noted,
further, that of the $335 billion in annual agricultural transfers,
only 20%
actually ended up as "additional farm income" (Renske
van Staveren, INTERNET:
rvanstaveren@iatp.org).
It is precisely the subsidies in these four areas that enable
industrial
agriculture to survive and largely contribute to the unlevel playing
field on
which local ecological farming systems must compete. If a small
portion of
these subsidies were redirected toward research to develop natural
systems
pest management, nutrient cycling systems, the reintegration of
crop/livestock
systems, and the development of locally-owned food processing
enterprises and
direct marketing, it could dramatically expand sound, locally
based ecological
farming systems that would benefit farmers, local communities
and the
environment.
2. Encourage state and local governments to establish tax policies
which
require that a percentage of local food needs purchased with public
money be
purchased from local farmers. If local governments required that
25% of the
food purchased for prisons, state universities, county and state
hospitals,
and school lunch programs (all purchased with public funds) must
be purchased
from local farmers, it would create a substantial market for locally
produced
foods. Such local purchases would create an infrastructure for
local
production that the private sector could build on to create substantial
markets for locally produced food.
3. International policies should be established through the United
Nations
that would focus on empowering the masses to produce their own
food, rather
than relying on trans-national corporations to mass produce a
few commodities
to feed the world. The TNC strategy jeopardizes food security,
pushes small,
local farmers off the land, and appropriates food producing resources
for
profit- making, and for debt reduction in developing countries.
As Martin
Kimani, a leading agriculturist from Kenya puts it, it leads farmers
to
"producing food they didn't eat, and eating food they didn't
produce."
(INTERNET:avkrebs@earthlink.net)
Simultaneously it overproduces the few commodities for which there
are
markets, forcing independent farmers all over the world out of
business. This
process concentrates food production resources in the hands of
a very few
people, jeopardizing global food security.
4. Firmly enforce anti-trust laws and enact appropriate economic
and social
regulations (Castle, 1998) in the food and agriculture arena to
insure free
and open markets for farmers. The unprecedented mergers and buyouts
in the
food and agriculture industry are not designed to insure greater
efficiency
and lower costs for consumers. They are designed to concentrate
economic
power which will ultimately harm the interests of both producers
and
consumers, and surely will not feed the world.
5. Begin a comprehensive review of international energy policies
and develop
plans for an energy efficient food system in the post-petroleum
era. Some oil
industry analysts now predict that the world has about one decade
of cheap oil
left. (Campbell and Laherre`re, 1998) By the year 2010 we will
begin to see
oil prices rise dramatically. We need to establish policies now,
that will
prepare for that future to insure a continued supply of affordable
food to all
people on the planet. And that means food and farming systems
that are much
less petroleum dependent than the industrial farming systems of
today.
Market Reforms
1. Encourage public/private partnerships to develop direct marketing
systems,
local entrepreneurship, and locally owned, value-added, value-retained
food
processing operations. North Dakota's public/private partnership
arrangement,
which has developed numerous locally owned value-added processing
cooperatives
and companies, could be expanded and used as a model for other
regions. The
North Dakota experience demonstrates that such partnerships don't
necessarily
require public subsidies since the increased tax revenues from
such newly
created locally owned enterprises often return the public's investment
with
interest.
2. Study the evolution of Farmers Markets, CSA's and other direct
marketing
institutions, and use them as models to explore additional direct
marketing
opportunities. There are numerous opportunities to develop direct
marketing
arrangements in various components of the farming sector. Mobile
meat
processing units, for example, could dramatically increase the
direct sale of
locally produced meat products.
3. Explore the possibility of establishing commodity "pools"
(or other
collective bargaining strategies) to give farmers additional bargaining
power
in negotiating fair prices of the raw materials they continue
to produce.
Such collective bargaining strategies would serve to help keep
farmers on the
farm while we transition to a local, community agriculture future.
4. Exploit the weaknesses of large firms as a means of insuring
the
sustainability of smaller, locally owned enterprises. Large industrialized
operations do not possess the flexibility to adapt rapidly to
changing market
demands or the diversity to meet the quality requirements of market
niches.
Such weaknesses create market opportunities that smaller, innovative,
local
farmers and food processing enterprises can exploit. (Castle,
1998)
These strategies are not simply schemes to "save the family
farm" or to
"preserve our agrarian lifestyle" or to provide "safe,
wholesome food" to
well-to-do middle class Americans, important as those goals may
be. The
question which this transition from a global to a local food system
seeks to
address is one that was eloquently raised by Harold Breimyer and
Wallace Barr.
The question facing us all is
. . whether some version of a dispersed farm
production and marketing organization is to prevail
or whether the control of U.S [and world] farm
production and marketing will be concentrated in a
relatively small number of large firms.
(Breimyer and Barr, 1972)
The answer to that question has grave implications for every citizen
of the
planet.
Clearly the suggestions proposed in this position paper are a
very meager
beginning to getting us on the path to a transition from a global
food system
to one that feeds the village first. And it invites a dialog on
these
important issues among everyone invested in international food
systems
designed to keep the human species fed, while enhancing the ecological
neighborhood that we share with the rest of earth's species.
As we engage in that process it might be well to be guided by
some over-
arching principles. We think that the late Stanley James Hallett,
minister
and renowned national community organizer gave us three principles
that might
serve us well on our journey. Hallett suggested that when it comes
to human
systems that are suppose to serve people
The other bit of wisdom that we might put into our saddle bags
as we go down
this path of reorganizing our food system comes to us from Rick
Welsh, policy
analyst with the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture.
We
must understand, he writes,
that the structure of agriculture in this or any other country is not an
evolutional or inevitable process, but a socially constructed arrangement of
institutions, rules and relationships. The organization of agriculture today
has resulted solely from decisions made by people, and can be altered and
reorganized if enough people wish to alter or reorganize it. (Welsh, 1997)
We believe enough people do!
Frederick Kirschenmann
The prospect of a very rapidly expanding human population is now
regularly
being used as a justification for intensifying industrial agriculture.
Symptomatic of this propaganda are the Archer Daniels Midland
(ADM)
advertisements on National Public Radio and Television. ADM, we
are reminded
ad nauseam, is the "supermarket to the world".
That "supermarket", we are told, is working hard to
dramatically increase
yields and turn farmers' grain commodities into many value added
products to
feed a world of expanding human population. At the same time,
the ads claim,
the "supermarket" is saving wildlife and wilderness.
In one particularly
hyperbolic sequence David Brinkley explains how ADM is making
all this happen
while the video presents us with fields of the "supermarket's"
abundant
harvests contrasted with the meager yields of water buffalo agriculture,
burning rain forests and marginal lands. The message is clear.
Anything but
intensive, industrial agriculture would consign millions to starvation
and
make it necessary to plow up our remaining wilderness and rain
forests to grow
food.
Biotechnology companies have been particularly aggressive in using
this
food/land scare to justify their introduction of genetically engineered
technologies into the environment. The agriculture they are developing,
they
maintain, is the only way to "feed the world" and simultaneously
save the
environment. In a 1996 statement, for example, representatives
of Ceregen,
the agricultural biotechnology unit of Monsanto, made the rationale
explicit.
By the middle of the 21st century, the world's population will
have doubled. How can the earth and its already strained
resources sustain these additional billions without going
ecologically bankrupt? Ceregen's answer: smarter, genetically
engineered crops---crops that require less pesticide, use less
water, yield more bushels per acre and pack more nutrition.
(quoted in Lappe' and Britt, 1998)
Some private foundations have also gotten on this bandwagon. Gordon
Conway,
president of the Rockefeller Foundation, in a new book, The Doubly
Green
Revolution, proposes a three-pronged approach for feeding the
world: (a)
genetic engineering of new crops to improve resistance to pests
and tolerance
to drought, salinity and poor soils, (b) better farm management
techniques as
alternatives to pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and (c)
reliance on
special knowledge of farmers who are the innovators and experimenters.
Conway seems to be oblivious to the fact that the "special
knowledge of
farmers" in developing countries is largely at odds with
the high tech world
of genetic engineering. Martin Kimani, one of Kenya's leading
agriculturists
observes that genetic engineering "would undermine tried
and tested methods
currently used by small-scale farmers in countries like Kenya."
Kimani argues
that genetic technologies will produce many of the same results
for third
world farmers that Green Revolution technologies caused. He points
out that
farmers gained little from the Green Revolution technology and
sacrificed
their "household-level food production". (INTERNET:avkrebs@earthlink.net).
What Kimani understands is that there is a direct link between
a healthy
biodiversity and a productive agriculture, and that both green
revolution and
gene revolution technologies dramatically erode the biodiversity
of local
ecosystems. Lori Ann Thrupp points out that industrial agriculture
has
destroyed the biodiversity of agroecosystems at all levels; genetic
resources,
livestock, insects, habitats and soil organisms. As she points
out, this
destroys the local knowledge about diversity and farming. (Thrupp,
1997)
Furthermore, the genetic uniformity fostered by transgenic crops
threatens the
diverse seed stock which is the foundation of the resilient food
systems
developed by those farmers.
Additionally, since high tech companies seem determined to introduce
the
"terminator technology" which will sterilize second
generation seeds, it puts
this technology even more squarely in conflict with the "innovation
and
experimentation" of the world's farmers. Preserving the genetic
diversity of
food crops through saving and exchanging seeds has been the fund
from which
resilient productivity has been developed by innovative farmers.
Conway also seems to ignore the fact that genetically engineering
crops for
tolerance to drought, salinity and poor soils, will distract attention
from
the need to alter the farming systems that caused those conditions.
Such
therapeutic interventions, as opposed to whole systems changes,
would likely
put farmers on yet another treadmill, since it only deals with
the symptoms
and not the cause.
Nevertheless, the "feed the world" rhetoric is having
an enormous impact on
our food and agriculture system. It has put farmers in the industrial
world
on a treadmill, constantly purchasing new technologies to increase
the yields
of a few commodities destined for the global market. The increased
yields
produce surpluses that reduce prices, forcing farmers to increase
their size
and reach for another round of technologies to compensate for
the lost income
of low prices. Meanwhile, farmers in both developed and developing
countries
are forced off the land, leading to farming systems that increasingly
produce
a few commodities for export, rather than diverse food products
that feed
local populations. Consequently, hunger goes unabated throughout
the world
despite surplus production, leading to the now familiar cliche`
"want in the
midst of abundance".
That paradox leads to some fundamental questions. How much of
the
food/population scare is true? Is the analysis correct? If surplus
production
is not keeping the world fed today, how will further intensification
of the
same system feed the world tomorrow? And, more importantly, is
high tech, more
intensive, industrial agriculture the answer to keeping the world
fed? Let's
separate fact from fiction.
It is true that the world's human population has been doubling
at a
dramatically increasing rate. The most recent doubling of the
world human
population took just 36 years (1960-1996). Prior to that it took
60 years
(1900-1960) and prior to that it took 200 years (1700-1900). Using
that trend
it would appear that Monsanto's projections might even be conservative.
But
trends are always deceptive. Trends assume that everything that
drives the
trend will stay the same. That is rarely the case. And with regard
to human
population growth it is clearly not the case.
In this context it is important to remember that the history of
evolution
suggests that when any population of species expands to a point
where it is
out of balance with the rest of the species with which it evolved,
it is
likely to "crash". While it is not obvious that the
human species will
succumb to a similar evolutionary fate, it is also not obvious
that it is
exempt. In fact given our therapeutic approach to health care
(intervening
with technologies when we get ill, rather than attending to systems
improvements that make us more resilient and keep us healthy)
we are ripe for
such a crash. The development of antibiotic resistant microbes
at the same
time that our immune systems have become compromised, might be
a major factor
in the evolution of such a crash.
These observations from nature's functioning suggest that the
food/population
issue is part and parcel of a much more complex equation. Accordingly
keeping
the world fed is an objective that is inseparable from a balanced
population
of all species in an ecosystem. A healthy, diverse ecosystem,
in turn, is
inseparable from a diverse set of healthy habitats that enable
a diverse group
of interrelated species to thrive. And, it is precisely that healthy,
thriving, interrelated biological life which produces the ecosystem
services
that are the foundation of any productive agriculture.
Secondly, the most recent trends indicate a slowing of human population
growth, particularly in some parts of the world. Given the more
recent
trends, the United Nation's projections indicate that the human
population
will reach 7.1 billion by the year 2030, up only 1.2 billion in
the next 30
years---far from another doubling.
Even more important, however, is the fact that the problem of
a dramatically
expanding human population cannot be neatly reduced to a problem
of increasing
production. Even if we could produce enough food to feed a human
population
that continues to double every 30 years by inventing new technologies,
we
would rapidly create an environment that would ecologically and
socially self
destruct.
In fact ecologists are pointing out that our unrestrained intensified
farming
systems are already causing eco-system damage that is undermining
our
productive capacity. Soil degradation, ground water depletion,
and the
impairment of other ecosystem services have already created "obstacles"
to
increasing food production through new technologies. For example,
attempting
to increase production through transgenic crops will be limited
by the reduced
biodiversity from which that technology develops its "improved"
cultivars. And
genetic engineering, by design, reduces biodiversity.
Dramatic increases in crop yields are also dependent on ideal
weather
conditions. But many intensive farming practices contribute to
global
climate changes that cause fluctuations in weather patterns, increasing
storms, thereby increasing crop losses. (Daily, et. al., 1998)
We have learned from the green Revolution, that technological
interventions
never produce single results. Introducing a technology into an
ecosystem with
which it did not evolve always brings with it unintended effects.
Accordingly
we are always in danger of destroying the very ecosystem services
on which
food production depends. Green Revolution technologies produced
precisely
such effects in India and elsewhere. (Shiva, 1991)
Furthermore, even if we could reduce the food/population problem
to one of
increasing yields with new technologies, increasing the yields
of corn,
soybeans, wheat and rice (which most of the feed-the-world rhetoric
presumes)
is hardly the way to increase protein availability for humans.
Our greatest
protein gains for humans can be achieved by redirecting what we
already
produce, not by inventing technologies to produce more.
Additional protein gains from the introduction of new technologies
have been
very disappointing in recent years. This is probably due to the
fact that
degradation of soil quality has seriously jeopardized the yield
potential of
new technologies. (National Research Council, 1993) On the other
hand we
could achieve major increases in protein availability for human
consumption by
restructuring our productive capacity.
In our modern food system much of our capacity to feed the world
is wasted by
feeding protein to animals that is consumable by humans. While
it is true
that 50% of the energy intake that feeds the world's poor comes
from cereals
(mostly rice), 80 to 90% of the corn and soybeans produced in
the United
States is fed to animals. By some estimates only 2% of all crop
production in
the state of Nebraska is destined for human food.
The conversion of plant food to animal protein results in a loss
of up to 8.5
pounds of plant protein for every pound of animal protein. (Lappe
and Britt,
1998) So we could dramatically increase protein availability for
humans by
feeding livestock forages, crop residues, and grain unfit for
human
consumption, and grazing them on lands not suitable for crop production.
Such
a feeding program would allow ruminant animals to convert protein
into food
for humans that would otherwise be unavailable. We could best
achieve these
objectives by reintegrating crop and livestock systems. The reintegration
of
crops and livestock would make it possible to add value to crop
wastes by
feeding them to livestock while making more efficient use of livestock
waste
to improve soil organic matter which would further increase yield
potential.
In assessing the food/population issue we must also consider the
fact that our
intensive land based agriculture has been a major player in the
deterioration
of seafood ecologies. 60% of the world's population depends on
seafood for
40% of their annual protein consumption. (Hewitt and Smith, 1995)
If we
degrade this important food source in order to increase corn and
soybean
yields by a few bushel an acre (especially when 90% of these crops
are fed to
livestock, not humans) are we really helping to feed the world?
Furthermore, the biotech companies who promise us that they will
increase food
supplies with genetic engineering have no track record for doing
so. To date,
none of the applications of genetic engineering have increased
either yields
or nutritional value. Some studies, in fact, actually indicate
yield losses.
But in our effort to separate fact from fiction, perhaps the most
important
fact of all is that food shortages are not due to lack of production.
Today
over 800 million people on this planet suffer from malnutrition
and given
global crop surpluses one can hardly argue that this is due to
a lack of
production. The problem of food shortages is one of social inequity,
economic
disempowerment and unfairness, not lack of production. Simply
producing more
corn and soybeans won't change that.
So if we are serious about keeping the world fed then it is critical
that we
expand our understanding of the cause of hunger and how to alleviate
it
Accordingly, the cause of global hunger would be well served if
we stopped
talking about feeding the world, and started doing something about
the complex
set of issues that would enable every citizen of planet earth
to feed
themselves. Here are some of the things we could do.
1. Take steps to restructure or write off third world debt so
that local land
resources in developing countries can be used to feed local populations,
rather than producing exotic foods and grains for export. Currently
developing nations are forced to use most of their land resources
to generate
cash to pay foreign debt, instead of making it available to feed
local
populations.
2. Phase out public subsidies for energy, water, road transportation
and
industrial agriculture. Globally, such subsidies cost the public
700 billion
dollars annually, and it is precisely these subsidies that make
it difficult
for locally owned, ecologically sound farming systems (which could
feed local
populations around the world) to compete with intensive, industrial
agriculture. As these subsidies are phased out, a portion of them
could be
used to research the development of infrastructures for local
food markets,
locally-owned food processing plants, nutrient cycling systems
and natural
pest management systems, all of which would sustain long-term
food security.
3. Create market infrastructures that enhance local food security
rather than
the global trade of a few agri-business commodities.
4. Develop public programs that encourage farmers to produce clean
water,
clean air, improved biodiversity and healthy soil, in addition
to nutritious
food for local communities. Such programs would enhance the ecosystem
services
that could increase the yield potential of appropriate new technologies.
5. Develop global food storage systems that would insure adequate
food
supplies in all parts of the world during periods of weather related
disasters.
6. Initiate international land reforms and food production policies
that
enable local farmers in all nations to gain access to agricultural
lands for
local food production, and that encourage young entrepreneurs
to enter farming
careers.
7. Initiate food and agriculture policies that recreate local
infrastructures
(locally owned packing sheds, processing plants, butcheries, etc)
that create
markets for locally produced food.
8. Diversify the food system to create demand for a greater diversity
of crops
and livestock. A more diverse food system would increase biodiversity,
reinforce food security and reduce farmers' risks.
9. Restructure the food system to reduce food waste. A recent
USDA study
estimated that at least twenty five percent of the food produced
in the United
states goes to waste between production and end use. While "gleaning"
programs
and other food charities may be useful to "stopgap"
hunger, they do not help
to eliminate hunger. International food giveaways often put farmers
in
resource poor countries out of business, further threatening local
food
security. And charitable "feed the hungry" programs
often prevent meaningful
structural changes that could empower people to feed themselves.
10. Create tax incentives and other public and market changes
to reintegrate
crop and animal agriculture. Monocropping and animal concentration
were
created in part through tax policies that favored such development.
We now
need public policies that reverse that trend, encourage nutrient
cycling, make
more efficient use of crop proteins, and improve conservation.
Shifting the
food and agriculture system in this direction would create economic
efficiencies, solve environmental problems, and make production
systems more
resilient, less dependent on inputs, and more risk averse.
11. Develop local, community ethical and cultural norms that reduce
conspicuous consumption in developed countries and create an international
ecological consciousness. Ultimately the food security of the
human species
is dependent on the health of local ecosystems. An ethic that
reduces the
impact of extravagant consumption on local ecosystems is crucial
to the long-
term nourishment of the human species.
These are a few of the real obstacles to keeping the world fed.
Anyone that
is not seriously addressing these issues would do us all a favor
if they
stopped talking about "feeding the world"!