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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Closing the Farm to Plate Knowledge Gap
  • Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:34:21 -0600


Closing the Farm to Plate Knowledge Gap
http://civileats.com/2009/06/19/closing-the-farm-to-plate-knowledge-gap/
by Rob Smart
Published on Friday, June 19, 2009 by Civil Eats

In the battle for the hearts and minds (and pocket books) of everyday
Americans, the large corporate players in today's industrial food system
must be pleased.

Consumer advocates for sustainable, healthy food are fighting with farmers,
not because either picked a fight with the other, but because the knowledge
gap between them has grown so expansive that misunderstandings rule the
day. Credit the gap to industrial specialization and consumer marketing,
which I will return to in a moment. Often times, these misunderstandings
turn personal, further driving apart two groups that have much to gain by
working together.

How this benefits the industrial food players may not be obvious, but by
fighting amongst ourselves, we are paying less attention to the mechanized
system generating massive amounts of unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly
food and unprecedented concentrations of profits.

For the average consumer, and likely many farmers, the "black box" of
industrial food is a mystery. There is little to no transparency, except
through increasingly common investigative journalism and documentaries,
which industrialists and their associations quickly line up to discredit.
Keeping us in the dark allows industrial food processors and large food
retailers to paint an idyllic picture of grassy fields and red barns backed
annually by an estimated $33 billion1 spent on advertising to reinforce a
desired, yet highly inaccurate image of where our food comes from.

Unfortunately, they have most of us fooled, which is why it is critical
that we - consumers and farmers alike - find a shared set of priorities to
unite our voices in securing safe, healthy, tasty food for generations to
come. Let us abandon overused stereotypes and language that divides us, and
instead concentrate on educating consumers about where the food they eat
comes from, including industrial and "alternative" food systems.

Closing the farm-to-plate knowledge gap won't be easy. With the earliest
advances in agriculture resulting in food surpluses, people, no longer
physically needed on the farm, moved to urban centers to pursue
non-agricultural careers. As the years passed and the complexity of the
food system increased, people came to rely, exclusively in most cases
today, on food processors and retailers to provide for them. In effect, we
traded knowledge for convenient, cheap food.

On the surface, this seems like a great tradeoff, and for most of
agriculture's history it has been. Civilizations prospered. Farmers made a
decent living. Consumers readily found fresh produce, meats, and other
ingredients to prepare wholesome, nutritious, tasty meals. But things
started to change. Industrialization intensified. Corporate consolidation
accelerated. Seeds became intellectual property (protected by patents).
High-paid lobbyists proliferated. Politicians bowed. And, most important,
people stopped paying attention.

Take a snap shot of today's food system. Study the details. What you find
are a number of increasingly dramatic side effects that most people are not
aware of, most of which are getting worse.

* Today's average farmer makes about 55 percent less money for the food
they grow than they did 50 years ago. According to the USDA, farmers' share
of consumer food expenditures dropped from about $0.40 per dollar in 1950
to around $0.19 in 2006. The balance of consumer expenditures, termed the
Marketing Bill, goes to "value-add" (i.e., industrial food companies).
* While farmers' financial situations have deteriorated, food
manufacturers' fortunes have skyrocketed to the tune of $3.1 trillion in
revenues per year with above average profit margins. Judging by the fact
that the Top 50 Food Processors and Top 50 Supermarket & Grocery Chains all
have over $1.0 billion in annual sales, with Wal-Mart topping the list at
nearly $100 billion, increasing concentrations of power are clear.
* One billion people are obese, thanks in part to value-add convenience
foods (e.g., fast food, prepared meals, snacks, sodas), massive advertising
campaigns, and time-constrained lifestyles (e.g., two income households
with kids). This, while another one billion people go hungry, bypassed
because they are unable to provide profit margins required by industrial
food.
* According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, obesity (one of
the "western diseases" attributed to diet) accounted for $75 billion in
extra medical costs in 2003. The Journal of the American Medical
Association attributed some 112,000 premature deaths in 2000 to obesity.
These additional health care costs, half of which are paid for by
taxpayers, have all but erased the cost-of-living savings claimed by the
makers of cheap, convenient food. And it's going to get worse before it
gets better.
* Analysis by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization
reports that agriculture contributes 14% of human-released greenhouse gases
each year, through methane from livestock and rice paddies, nitrous oxide
from fertilizers, and fossil fuel use during production. In an era where
controlling carbon emissions is critical, the industrialized food system
must change or give up market share to environmentally friendly
alternatives.

We have turned our food over to a system that doesn't have our best
interests in mind, despite what billions of dollars of advertising tell us.
Power is concentrated, not by farms or consumers, but by multi-national
corporations. Increasing complexity rules the day, making it harder for
even those in industry to keep food safe. And the halls of Congress are
jammed with food system lobbyists fighting for more power, or, at a
minimum, maintaining the status quo.

It's up to us - farmers and consumers - to take back control of the food we
eat. At a minimum, we need to fight for the checks and balances needed to
ensure safe, affordable, and environmentally-friendly food for generations
to come. It won't be easy given the stacked deck industry is playing with.
But by thoughtfully considering each other's perspectives, while separating
ourselves from the complex, concentrated, industrial food system, we will
find the common ground necessary to drive the change we seek.
© 2009 Civil Eats
Rob Smart is a food entrepreneur focusing on regional food systems and
consumer retail experiences. He blogs on alternative food systems at Every
Kitchen Table and micro-blogs on Twitter as Jambutter.





  • [Livingontheland] Closing the Farm to Plate Knowledge Gap, Tradingpost, 06/20/2009

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