Taming the Agri-Beast

Humans need nourishment to survive, thus we build our lives around when the next meal will occur. Lets face it, there is nothing more satisfying than eating something truly delicious. But the majority of Americans rarely think beyond the calorie count of the foods they consume—and some don’t even care about that. We assume that when we buy food from the grocery store, it will sate our hunger, not make us sick, and above all taste good. Rarely do we question where it came from, or how it got to that supermarket, or what chemicals were used in its production. Ignorance is bliss, right? Maybe at one time it was, but in reality we stand at a crossroads both in terms of food policy and culture. Agribusiness is a somewhat quiet but mighty giant.  It collectively dominatse the legislature, which accordingly protects their interests, reworking a food policy (that is an outdated product of the Nixon Administration) to fit modern modes of production technology, however they purposely stay under the radar in order to keep the public in the dark about its production methods and powerful presence in our legislative bodies.  The result is a system that controls the food we eat from seed to supermarket, and creates a significant environmental impact in the process because of its dependence on fossil fuel. Furthermore, the health of the American people is failing due to repercussions of the Western diet, among them obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.  However, agribusiness can only be blamed for this to a certain extent. As a culture the way we consume food is socialized into us beginning during childhood, forming lifelong habits that are difficult to break. In order to address the problems to which the western diet has given rise, the government needs to take an active role in restructuring food policy so as to wane the industry from its dependence on oil, restore integrity to farming practices through polycultural farming, and set in motion the process of reforming the way America eats through the implementation of educational programs in primary schools, that we as a culture will have the responsibility of reinforcing in our own food choices.

Analysts predict that we will run out of oil in the lifetime of the Millennial Generation—a scary thought given our dependence automobiles. But, what many don’t know is that agriculture accounts for 19% of fossil fuel use, second only to those gas-guzzling autos.  Another environmental concern: the agriculture industry directly contributes to global warming. According to one study, as much as 37% of greenhouse gasses are released into the air are a result of Agribusiness—mostly in the form of methane gas thanks to the cows living on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. One third of our land base is devoted to corn, grown by massive corporate farms, though soy, rice, and wheat are also staple cash crops. This type of farming is called monoculture, and is both detrimental to the environment because it encourages soil nutrient depletion and soil erosion. Not to mention the pesticides used on these crops poison the soil and seep into the water table, contaminating water sources. Production methods combined with growing practices that prioritize the financial bottom line are virtually cooking up an environmental disaster.

Because agribusiness has its people looking out for its priorities in every branch of government, they pass laws that allow this type of production to not only continue but also flourish. Our government subsidizes the production of corn, soy, and wheat. Farmers are paid to overproduce these crops, so the food industry has found a way to engineer these staple crops into a multitude of products, including but not limited to cellulose, saccharin, xanthan gum, citric acid, margarine, vanilla extract, and baking powder. It gets better though; not only can you transform these crops into ingredients, you can feed it to food! Fish, cows, pigs and chickens raised in institutional farms all are force fed corn because its cheap and fattens everyone up quicker than a diet of grass, or whatever nature intended these animals to eat.. This explains why 90% of the foods found in supermarkets contain corn or soy.

Let us remember that when corn and soy and wheat are processed they do not gain any nutritional value. Because the vast majority the food made available to us is composed of the same three or four ingredients and therefore nutrient combinations, we reach a point where the healthfulness of the food we consume becomes questionable. This predicament is further exacerbated by the fact that our produce travels an average of 1,500 miles from farm to table. Tomatoes for example are picked when green, shipped cross-country, “ripened” by ethylene gas to a red color, shipped to the supermarket and finally bought by the consumer.  Fruit loses flavor with every passing hour, and a young version like that green tomato has next to no nutritional value. At the end of the little tomato’s journey, then, we have a tasteless, mealy, fake red, nutrition-less “fruit."

Though I personally would like to blame the food industry for every bad eating habit, fast food chain, and food recall—no scratch that they are responsible for the recalls—the sad truth remains: our cultural mentality that demands instant gratification has conditioned the way we eat.  Over the past fifty years, the pace of life in America has become increasingly speedy, fueling a “gimme now” attitude that has made take-out and fast food staples of our cultural landscape.  Sitting down for a family meal has become an almost obsolete tradition in some homes, what with the family structure in flux and over-scheduled children and working parents zipping off to their respective activities at all hours.  We learn our eating habits in the environment we grow up in and in the majority of cases they stick with us for the rest of our lives.

The typical western diet, consisting mainly of meat, processed food, and simple carbohydrates, has created a huge problem for America in the form of the obesity epidemic. Obesity is not just being morbidly overweight, usually the excess weight brings with it type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mobility restriction requiring in some cases hip and knee replacements.  Right now, America is spending $147 billion to treat obesity and $116 billion to treat diabetes, and furthermore estimations attribute “30% of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years... to the soaring rate of obesity”—nearly a tenth of all spending on healthcare.

Income level is the biggest predictor of obesity, because the agriculture industry has created artificially cheap calories devoid of any nutritional value, through the subsidies it has lobbied for and were made into law. For a low-income family seeking a hearty meal on a tight budget, the Dollar Menu is unfortunately the best option. The health problems habitual fast food consumption creates becomes yet another financial burden, especially with lack of health insurance, which in turn depletes a food budget further. It’s a vicious cycle.

To summarize, the food industry in conjunction with the western diet has created a bit of a crisis situation for the American people. With the rise of the food movement however, we have reached a crossroads.  As a nation we can either reform and revolutionize the way we produce and eat food, or we can continue in the same direction we have been since Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz told farmers to either “get big or get out.”

With as big as the Agriculture Industry has become, reform can seem like a nearly impossible task. Let us take a walk down the memory lane of our country’s history. There was a time when big business meant Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel, both of which were subdued through union organization, and the help of Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting policy. Back in the 1980s, the tobacco industry ruled the government and society in very much the same way that agribusiness does today.  Tobacco companies fought tooth and nail to keep the public in the dark about the dangers of smoking, and resisted government regulation. Thirty years later entire cities are issuing smoking bans, smoking is becoming less and less socially acceptable, the Surgeon General’s warning takes up one third of a box of cigarettes and children are educated about its dangers in primary school. The approach we take to tame the beast that is commercial agriculture can be modeled after the fight against tobacco companies.

As the authority figure all Americans are bound by law to obey, the government needs to make the initial move.  First, agricultural subsidies need to be repealed, and tax incentives put into place that reward farmers for growing polycultures, raising livestock on grass, and planting cover crops during the winter to avoid erosion and nourish the soil.  Also the government should offer incentives to encourage communities to plant a neighborhood or city garden. These types of gardens foster a sense of cohesiveness, allow fresh, seasonal produce to be distributed at a lower cost than in supermarkets, and offer an opportunity for education. When hybrid vehicles debuted on the eco-scene the government offered a tax break to drive a green car, so why not offer a tax break to farm in an ecologically sustainable way?

CAFOs need to be regulated as factories, forced to treat their waste, or better disbanded due to the risk they pose to the environment.  It takes around ten gallons of water to produce one pound of feedlot meat. It costs next to nothing to put a cow to pasture: grass needs sunlight and rain to grow, and the cow’s waste fertilizes the soil, which helps the grass regrow after its eaten—cost effective and low maintenance. It will be argued that moving animals back onto the feedlot will increase the price of meat—it will. But meat we eat is artificially cheap because it is raised on the feedlot and fed a diet of corn. I think we can collectively afford to sacrifice a few steak dinners.  I’m tempted to say that is not such a terrible consequence, considering that the average American eats 200 pounds of meat a year.

Once regulations are in place, the government needs to push for transparency in the new agriculture industry, and prioritize food safety over a financial bottom line.  Consumers should be able to know exactly what farm their pork tenderloin came from, even see what the pig itself looked like, and the slaughterhouse where he was butchered. All of this information could be encapsulated within an iPhone app that catalogs products and farms country-wide.

After all of the policy is in place, the government then needs to make itself an example. FDA and USDA need be cleansed of the ex-CEOs of big agricultural companies. The Surgeon General should handle all nutritional concerns, as health is a medical concern. Furthermore the government needs to make itself an example, and require governmental facilities such as military bases and prisons to source its food within a 100-mile radius.

Next order of business: banish the chicken patty from the public school lunchroom. And the Jell-O too while we’re at it. Not to sound trite, but children are the key to the success of food reform. We need to push beyond the food pyramid and foster a love of fresh, seasonal food from the outset of their education. How do we accomplish this? Teach them how to farm--albeit on a small scale--and cook. Plant a government mandated garden in each public primary school, and have the kids take turns tending to the crops during recess.  They gain a sense of unity, a common goal, learn responsibility, ecology, photosynthesis, and most importantly learn what a real homegrown tomato tastes like. To supplement the garden have a learning period where the lunch ladies (and men) teach the children how to prepare food in a healthful and delicious way. Furthermore, both primary and secondary schools need to be rid of vending machines stocked with empty calories. Filling vending machines with Corn Nuts and Cheetos undermines the curriculum's message. By refining their palates with the best nature has to offer, eliminating unhealthy snack options and giving them the tools to create their own delicious meal, we will create healthy eaters—it’s a revitalization of home economics for the twenty-first century. Just as we have physical education to encourage healthy exercising habits in primary school children, gardening and cooking will become a P.E. for their taste buds.

Within the same vein, the land-grant universities that pioneered the technology behind high fructose corn syrup need a curriculum reform featuring rotating crops, polyculture, and other sustainable farming methods.  To be blunt, polycultural farming is going to require a huge workforce, which is fantastic because it will create millions of jobs. However, that requires an attitudinal change. Since the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the city as Magic Kingdom, the job of farmer has been increasingly de-glamorized, to the point where country-western singers have become the only members of popular culture who can offer them praise. A stigma has developed in relation to farming as a profession—that it’s reserved for uneducated hicks and hoosiers (not the kind from Indiana). I would argue the contrary; there is honesty and integrity in making a living off the land that should be celebrated in society, not put down.

This list of suggestions merely scratches the surface of the potential for change. But the bottom line is that it is high time that the American people started holding the Agriculture industry accountable for the harm it is causing its consumers.  Actually, the food movement is enjoying a hot moment in popular culture.  It is difficult to go anywhere without seeing the words “organic, farm-to-table, sustainable, green, homemade or natural.” Just today I was at the airport and saw an HP ad that read “Changing the way you see farm-to-table,” and then I opened up my complementary airline magazine, and there was a whole article on farm-restaurants who specialize in organic, home-style cooking made with ingredients sourced from their own property. Michael Pollan is everywhere, from the New York Times to “The Daily Show.” Farmers markets are more popular than ever, and Whole Foods Market (WFM) is trading at sixty-three dollars a share (impressive for this stock market). Even the biggest retailer in the world has jumped on the food reform bandwagon: Wal-Mart plans to double the amount of local produce it sells by 2015 to 9%, and plans to create a “sustainability index” which will consider water, fertilizer and chemical use. On a smaller scale a small but growing number of companies are emerging that help producers build sustainable business models and "interface with the supply chain."

The food movement will continue to gain strength with or without government involvement, however its support is crucial in implementing policy that affects tangible, taste-able change.  Reforming agribusiness will take time and perseverance just as tobacco reform did. Every human deserves to eat better food than the products agribusiness churns out of their factory-farms. But it will only be possible if government sets the example by putting food policy into place that serves the American citizen over the interests of agribusiness.  That then needs to be followed by a societal return to the farming values that this country was founded upon—championing the rural farmer instead of poking fun—and then hold ourselves accountable for the food choices we make and how they affect ourselves as well as our children.  It is time we as a society loosened Agribussiness's vice-like grip on the production process and take back control over what we eat for dinner, and how it arrives on our plates.