Big Ag’s blowback against all foods local, regional, and organic is getting stronger and louder. Now, instead of simply targeting mere figureheads like Michael Pollan or Michelle Obama, they’re targeting the USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program, and enlisting allies in Congress to join the food fight. From KC Star‘s website:
Three Republican senators – including Pat Roberts of Kansas – have complained that a USDA effort to educate the public about where food comes from slights “conventional farmers who produce the vast majority of our nation’s food supply.”
Roberts and colleagues John McCain of Arizona and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia complained to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that his agency spent $65 million last year on a program aimed at “small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets.”
In so many words, take your arugula and shove it.
Listening to McCain whine about affluent food patrons in the defense of Big Ag is a little hard to stomach — he of the multiple mansions and the plan to dramatically reduce farm subsidies — let alone listening to kvetching about wasting $65 million from anyone in Congress.
Please. Congress doesn’t even bother taking $65 million out of its pants pockets when it does laundry.
Meanwhile, over at Delta Farm Press, which offers “Agribusiness-Related Resources,” editorial staffer Elton Robinson stamps his foot and complains that, on the USDA Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food website, “there’s no invitation to know the cotton producer down the road.”
Yes, I, too, want to know the farmer who puts cotton on my kids’ dinner plates.
Obviously, Robinson and those Big Ag senators are simply bloviating for their audiences and funders, by cashing in on one of ag’s hottest commodities these days — worry. Pollan and the First Lady aren’t big enough villains to worry about, of course, so with the next Farm Bill on deck, it’s apparently time to crank up the worry machine and create a new bad guy. And you’re it, Mr. Vilsack.
But scoring easy points off a growth sector like organics and local foods doesn’t seem the smartest move, either for senators or for ag writers, not when U.S. farm production is so heavily concentrated, trucking lines (and food miles) are stretching absurdly, and fewer and fewer farms are producing our food. Today, about 5 percent of America’s farms produces 75% of our food, according to the last agricultural census, and a country that concentrates ag like this is going to create and eat more processed, shelf-stable food out of sheer necessity. That means more unpronounceable preservatives, less cooking, and more diet related health issues.
Plus, it means hiding farmer-identities behind long food-chains and loads of packaging. Know your who?
It also doesn’t seem smart to tee off on small, local, sustainable farmers when international consensus is forming that biotechnology cannot feed the world. The U.N., World Bank, UNESCO, the World Health Organization, and other international groups petitioned a study called Agriculture at a Crossroads (hat tip to Amy Boland for reminding me of this one), which determined that small scale farming, a focus on local economic power, and adaptable agro-ecological methods are the best way forward.
You can try to blow back all you want, Big Ag. But you can’t blow against the wind forever. (It’s not sustainable.)
Big bad ag aside, I have some sympathy for that cotton (or corn, or soy, or wheat) farmer down the road. Whether she’s trying to be a good steward of her land or not, she faces media and non-profit mischaracterization already. Now she’s got the USDA itself saying how small farmers are so much more important and worthy of praise and attention. Is she not struggling with many of the same issues that small farmers face? Sure, switching from packaged food to fresh would be better for a million reasons, but even if everyone filled their plate with veggies, we’d still need pasta, bread, tofu, cornbread, and tee shirts. How about we have a program that shows some love to that cotton farmer down the road as well as the CSA farmer? Call me crazy, but if sus aggies are truly interested in convincing that cotton farmer to try more sustainable farming methods, we’d be better off making friends than emphasizing differences. -Anastasia @geneticmaize
Gosh, yes, I know what you mean. It’s too bad that a couple marketing boards haven’t been funded by the USDA for the past 44 years, like a Cotton Board or Cotton Inc, that could have been promoting cotton farmers with payouts from massive taxpayer subsidies! I mean compared to the USDA’s awesome and brilliant “Know Your Farmer” website, a 20 year old “Fabric of Our Lives” campaign featuring a generation of celebrities from James Carville to Evander Holyfield to Aaron Neville is meaningless for cotton farmers.
Ribbing aside, Anastasia, I sincerely think you, Elton Robinson, Tom Vilsack, and I basically agree — we can and should promote local and national farm programs (and are). It’s John McCain et al who are going for their guns at talk of subsidizing regional food systems.
I agree in part and believe that Barth @fairfoodfight is of the same mind. I work every day to offer a carrot vs. a stick, recognizing that food & by extension all ag is oversimplified, that there are genuine differences in flavor, texture, quality, use, etc. depending on the farm, breed/variety, growing region, etc. Let’s support those who provide transparency into their protocols and those of finishing operations, too. If the retailers won’t offer this transparency let us buyers/consumers find ways to bypass the retailers to support best practices.
Thank you, Carrie. yes, I think transparency is enormously important. From marketing to food safety, transparency is a value that should be encouraged in U.S. ag, not squashed.
I don’t fully understand the way this commenting system works, lol. The last comment was from me, Carrie Oliver @carrieoliver.
The commenting system stinks. Sorry.
First of all, the suggestion that a piddly little program that allocates less than 1% of what so-called “conventional” farmers (like that cotton farmer) get in subsidies every single year is somehow the USDA’s way of saying “how small farmers are so much more important and worthy of praise and attention” is so flippin’ absurd that I am literally crying from laughter. Seriously, if you want a program that “shows some love” to the cotton farmer down the street IT ALREADY EXISTS. If you want a *better* program for that farmer, overhaul the Farm Bill. But for fucks sake, complaining about a tiny bit money finally going to small, regional produce growers while corn, soy, cotton and other commodity farmers are stuffing their pockets with my tax dollars while I trudge along under my own capital without any help is simply outrageous. Outrageous!
Crying over what amounts to chump change in the USDA budget simply because it’s going to what McCain & his buddies refer to as “hobby farmers” like myself is just fucking stupid. It’s Théâtre de l’Absurde, it’s panem et circenses, it’s a fucking ploy to divide and conquer in the name of Big Food, Big Ag and Big Money. If the industro-political machine can foment enough outrage in their constituencies, maybe the ag community won’t notice the continuing, escalating monopolization and consolidation in the ag sector. Farmers will be so busy foaming at the mouth over threats from the Humane Society (oh no! they want us to put chickens in cages big enough for them to turn around in! they must be trying to end all animal ag!!! gasp!!!!!), Michael Pollan (oh no! he wants people to eat food! he must be trying to end agriculture!!! gasp!!!!), Consumer Reports (oh no! they… um, okay. I really don’t get the outrage over this one), and every single Johns Hopkins, Berkley, Princeton, Harvard or other university sponsored study that doesn’t fall perfectly in line with the “industrial model agriculture is all sunshine and rainbows” line, that they won’t notice that they’re getting picked off one by one, replaced with more concentrated CAFOs, more consolidated, larger farms. They won’t notice that their choices as to how they farm, what they grow and how they grow it keep getting narrower and narrower.
So yeah… fuck off, John McCain. Your false outrage at a make-believe injustice is a non-starter. It’s jumping the shark in a big, big way. And all you “conventional” farmers getting your panties in a twist, I sure as hell hope you’re not going to be cashing your subsidy checks this year.
“They won’t notice that their choices as to how they farm, what they grow and how they grow it keep getting narrower and narrower.”
I think that’s exactly it, QC. At a time when ag should be pulling out the stops to expand and invite, it just seems to be crouching and defending. And I honestly don’t understand why. Over a $5,000 website that promotes farmers? Three percent market share at best? I do understand being impressed by 20% growth in organics before the recession, but why not throw your arms around the red-hot sector and call it ag? Why the exclusion?
When will ag begin referring to all sectors of agriculture inclusively as “ag?” Wil it ever?
(That could easily be aimed at sustainable ag, as Anastasia pointed out: When will sust ag start referring to itself as “ag” wihtout the sust? Chicken, meet egg. Egg, chicken. Chicken, egg…)
While I agree that the USDA should not “favor” one methed of agriculture over another, I think the McCain, et al letter to the USDA was a little over the top. Wanting to spend tax payers’ money to investigate if conventional farmers are getting enough of the USDA grants pie? Come on. What conventional farmer doesn’t think they have a fair shot at grants and programs (ie CRP, EQUIP, MILC, etc)? We have never had a problem (We were 100% conventional 2 years ago). It seems that the USDA is sometimes giving away money because no one applies.
How about a simple solution: Change a few paragraphs on the home page to talk about all farmers, add a few conventional farmers to the Food Team and say a couple lines that all farmers are local to someone. Should only take the USDA webmaster about 20 minutes and save a few thousand dollars of our hard earned tax money.
Also, final thought. Who says that conventional farmers are not local?And why do conventional farmers often times feel they are not. We have a split operation (organic and conventional). Everything we sell locally is conventional and everything we sell organically is “Big Bad Ag” We sell our milk to the largest organic farmer owned coop in the nation. How is that for ironic.
Just my thoughts- Emily @ezweber
I love your simple, straightforward, and cheap solution to the problem.
- Anastasia @geneticmaize
That’s not ironic. That’s organic.
Because of their “organic audit trail,” Big Bad Organic Valley can track milk from its shoppers back to your milk pool, and, by date and batch numbers, get pretty close to tracking that milk back to your farm (Organic Valley can track organic soy milk back to your soy farmer). Most Big Organic companies could allow their shoppers to “know their farmers,” if they cared to sink the money into a cool interactive as OV did.
The vast majority of Big Bad Conventional Food Companies cannot track like that at all — if they could, we’d learn which “local” chickens are being shipped to China to be processed and shipped back to the US for retail sale. It would be a cynical bastardization of the local movement to imply that all farmers are producing local food to someone.
Maybe I’m totally naive but I don’t think big cotton (In the cotton boarod or the fabric of our lives, etc) speaks for the farmer down the road any more than Horizon speaks for every organic dairy farmer. Does that ad campaign actually make anyone think of farmers? No, it makes you think of the cotton industry as a whole. Big ag does not = farmers. Any farmers, big or small.. I still say better communication among farmers is way more valuable than this false big v small distinction. @geneticmaize
Big ag is propped up by big farms and small farms alike through check-offs, or, in the case of cotton, the bale-tax — $2.50 per bale, I think? (It’s taxation without representation, but that’s another argument.) That staggering amount of money goes to create the various commodity boards that push that industry, lobby senators like Chambliss and McCain, and press for subsidies and greater access to foreign markets.
So if individual cotton farmers aren’t getting their bale tax’s worth from Cotton Inc’s “Fabric of Their Lives,” turning to the USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign and saying, “Why don’t you talk about cotton farmers? That’s so unfair,” makes absolutely no sense. On multiple levels.
I can get on board with your “false distinction,” Anastasia, though I think it’s a matter of semantics. It’s probably more accurate for me to talk about Indie Ag versus Big Ag, than big v. small (but I don’t know if anyone would really know what I was talking about). Independent, direct market farmers don’t have a USDA-run board or receive publicly-funded subsidies. There is no check-off for product grown by a farmers marketeer, and Farm Bureaus tend to be biased toward the Big Ag farmer and against the Indie Farmer. Indie farmers have no power compared to even a small Big Ag farmer.
“When will sust ag start referring to itself as “ag” wihtout the sust?”
A fair question. Maybe when trying to farm sustainably doesn’t involve a constant struggle to protect your farm from so-called “conventional” pesticides, CAFO runoff & pollution and GMO contamination?
I really don’t know when or why the divide first began, but I know there is an “us vs. them” feeling among many small, organic producers. In most ways a poultry CAFO violates the ethical foundation of my farming philosophy, so inclusiveness under the “ag” umbrella becomes problematic. For me, at least– I can’t speak for others, obviously.
As for the “conventional” ag sector, there seems to be a willingness to include sustainable farms… but only if they know their place. In the “conventional” (I hate that terminology, BTW) world, small, organic, sustainable farms are “niche” and “hobby farmers” and cute, but they won’t “feed the world.” So as long as a sustainable farmer wants to occupy that space & not challenge the Big Ag status quo, they’re accepted in the larger ag community.
However, most sustainable farmers I know aren’t content with being pushed aside as some unimportant novelty circus act sent by the ag powers-that-be to perform their little act in front of affluent farmers market patrons. Most sustainable farmers I know are ready for their shot at feeding the freaking world and take offense at every farm press journalist who writes that “organic is a nice niche market for the wealthy, but it won’t feed the world.”
So, I guess what it boils down to is this: I am not personally content to be pushed aside as a fringe hobbyist. I am working toward a future where small and medium sized local farms feed the communities that make up the world. When the larger ag community can accept that and start treating the sustainable ag community as an equal, we will have come to a point where everyone can be referred to as “ag.” Period.
Very well said. I so appreciate talking to smart farmers like you, QC.
I think it’s safe to say that much of the Us vs. Them attitude began with organics and sustainable farmers. The very definition of these styles of farming are a critique on production-based, “conventional” farming, after all, and many organic groups, in particular, made it part of their marketing in the 80′s and early nineties.
But I know for a fact that many conventional farmers share sustianable farming’s disdain for certain widespread, damaging, industrial-level ag practices — practices that get whispered about, subtly tweeted, or mentioned in status updates, but always with deference to the company and a sad shake of the head.
But, as I’ve said to farmers on #agchat (a moderated Twitter conversation conducted Tuesday nights by and for conventional farmers), until farmers start calling out the polluters and inhumane livestock keepers in their own industry, rather than crouching and defending them, ag is going to reinforce its rep among consumers as uncaring and/or oblivious. Critiques by Food Inc will stick and stick hard for years. And I don’t think such a critique can or will come from Farm Bureau or commodity boards. Calling out bad actors has to come from individual farmers and private farm groups (like agchat) who are respected within the field, who care about the future of agriculture, and who might be in a position to muster ag’s powerful peer pressure to better soil, land, and livestock practices in agriculture at large.
Do you think that would open the possibility to bridging the divide, QC? To me, that’s when sustainable ag folks might be more willing to lay off fiery critiques of production-heavy farming (a critique that defines sustainable ag), and it might be when both sides start thinking of each other as equals.
Do you think that would open the possibility to bridging the divide, QC?
Well, tonight’s Agchat performance probably answers that question, dontcha think?
Until the industry can take some poking of its sacred cows, I don’t think it’s possible for me, personally, to cross that bridge. It’s not in my (contrary) nature. I know that there are many who would say that we all need to work together, find mutually agreeable solutions, blah blah blah. I don’t think those solutions exist. Or rather, they won’t as long as multi-billion dollar corporations are pulling the industry strings. Gah! How frustrating! There are many farmers I know, personally and on Twitter, who I think I could reach some real understanding with, but it all falls apart as soon as any criticism of Perdue, Monsanto or DuPont comes up. It’s either drink the BigAg Kool Aid or accept that there can be no common ground.
So, I will leave the bridge-building to the born diplomats and try not to make their job too difficult.
Well, tonight’s Agchat performance probably answers that question, dontcha think?
No, you’re right. I hear you, I do. Last night made me feel we’re far further away from bridging gaps in agriculture than I hoped.
And I know I play a part in creating divides between ag and sustainable ag. I have my agenda, and it bends toward the small, indie farmer who produces food with as low an impact as possible. For me, that agenda comes from working grocery for so long, marketing, reading, learning, trying to explain what’s going on in modern agriculture for customers who had questions and doubts. I know how murky these ag issues are to shoppers, even the shoppers who try and understand how their food comes to be. And those are the people who get it! Most urban folks have no idea that there are farms with hundreds of thousands of livestock, or what a manure lagoon is, or that U.S. chickens get shipped to China to be chopped and processed before coming back here. Hard stuff to believe or even understand, and it’s just not easy to make it easy.
Plop on top of that the desire to “Tell Ag’s Story” — rather than confront the demonstraby real problems — and you have a formula for more confusion, less questing to make a better food system.
I honestly think there are forces within modern ag that could break toward common ground they exist, but we’e not there. Making those forces active, kinetic, rests with ag’s desire to connect with shoppers — I think conventional ag folks are understandably jealous of the emotional connection that direct market and organic farmers have made with consumers — and since the market is shifting toward “sustainability” (humane animal treatment, the desire for clean food grown without pesticides, the desire to have meat that doesn’t pollute the water and countryside), the forces that ride that shift will win the day.
Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
Know your farmer.
Know your farmer’s enemies.
…are still my enemies.
Ok, I have to through in my 2 cents worth of knowldge here. I do wish I had my notebook with me though from my last visit with USDA officials, so pleas eforgive me if I do not have names to give. I asked an undersecretary in the USDA on the meaning and intention of “sustainability” and the fact that the organic community has thrown it’s arms around that term and pretty much claimed it as it’s own. Her response was that “sustainable farming” was not, I repeat, was not in any way to distiguish one method of production over another. For example, you can be either an organic or a traditional farmer and still be sustainable. I have yet to see anywhere in USDA poblications or from any USDA official say the sustainable is organic production.
As far as check off boards and representation, any producer who produces and contributes to a national commodity check-off has the ability to 1) vote on the continuation of the check-off periodically as the time limit expires on each check-off. Soybean check-off just went through that the last yr and ahalf ago. Very few of the producers actually voted. 2) The check-off boards are made up of farmer producers. Any producer growing a check-off crop can request to be considered for a seat on the board. The dollars raised by national check-off can not be used for political purposes, such as supporting a candidate, lobbying, or even trying to influence the level of subsidies within the farm bill.
It is sad to see so much pitting of one farming practice against another. No one practice is completely right and in the same case wrong either. It will take a group effort to produce a quality product to put on all of our tables. Some will chose to purchase their food produced in a particulary practice and that is where the free market will work. Organic farmers have enjoyed a very good market due to demand. As demand rises, the amount of organically produced food will increase. Farmers will produce what the consumer wants, as long as the farmer can survive.
It is funny how as farms grow in size, it seems that there is tons of negative media on farms getting bigger, and some quite passionate media. Yet, take a step back and look at the big picture here. What industry is not marching towards size and scale? The number of auto makers is what? How about banks? or utility companies?
Guess what I am saying, it will take ALL aspects of ag, and that ag is more of an independent industry than most all other industries in theis country.
Kevin H
I like that, Kevin. I think it takes all aspects of agriculture, too.
But I don’t think U.S. ag is very independent, generally speaking. Poultry and dairy farmers are totally under the heel of ag companies who call the shots on everything from price to practices, once those farmers are under license. Hence the Department of Justice’s and USDA’s antitrust workshops touring the country right now. Then there are checkoffs. Big farms with greater output have proportionally greater influence in the checkoff system. There may be representation, as you described, but it isn’t fair representation. And it isn’t a choice. Hardly an independent industy.
And I’ve seen the Beef Council push that “no lobbying” rule to the breaking point.
As for sustainability, what you heard about the term is certainly true, and I basically agree with that. Sustainability isn’t a practice that’s covered in the National Organic Plan, and it’s not protected/owned by the feds the way “organic” is.
But it’s not a word that any farmers should throw around lightly, since sustainability holds understood, holistic principles that go beyond the current USDA organic definition — permaculture, good wages and labor practices, extensive soil building techniques, reduced fossil fuel consumption, reduced farm inputs of all types, etc. Because sustainability is far more conceptual — I’ve only heard true “sustainable” farmers say that they are working toward sustainability, not exemplifying it — it’s not a term that should be used in grocery stores, labeling, or marketing. It’s best used by farmers and ag anthusiasts to describe a sprawling set of methods and not an end-product. I’d actually hate to see that happen.
I hope I don’t sound snarky or combative, here. I really appreciate you coming and talking with me, even if we disagree. I think ag discussions get a little more personal and heated because it’s all about the food we eat. Not everyone drives a car, but every single human eats, every parent makes a choice about what to feed their kids. So the automotive industry will never elicit the passionate arguments we all seem to have when talking ag.
I’m grateful for that passion, myself.
Met with journalists in DC last week. They said consumers care about three things: food availability, food safety and cost. Agriculture in their eyes is the plane that lands – not much of a story. There’s room and need for all types of farmers – organic and conventional.
I guess I look at the independence of farming at a little different aspect. You are correct in the fact that farming is dependent on what the price makers allow farmers to make off their product, but a farmer can take control of his/her own situation. No one, or a few companies dictate what practices I may employ on my farm. I good producer does not lock himself into a situation where he is a price taker. I look years ahead and plan my production and what is produced to meet the market demands. If i happen to sign a cointract to grow a specific crop to a marketer, or as some would call “big ag”, it was because it afforded me a better income opportunity than any other market did. May farmers do contract their services and facilities out to large corporations becuase it afforded them something that they could not achieve before. That does not mean that they are under the heel of ag companies No one tells me or any other farmer where they must sell their product, other than the consumer. So I am saying, I am independent in the sense that I choose to grow what I want and market to who I want.
Everybody has their own opinion of check-offs, but the check-offs that I am familiar with were set up to benefit the specific commodity the check-off is collected on. I fail to see where larger farmers have greater opportunity to influence the check-off system. Without check-offs, many market oportunities would never have happened. Much of the dollars collected via check-offs fund public research within the specicic comodity. Those are farmer dollars, not govt or private industry dollars. Many new discoveries are from check-off dollars, which then become part of the public domain and not limited to just one company controlling the dicovery. Check-off dollars are also instrumental in education and market access. Without that, many foreign markets would not be accessable to US farmers. Without check-off dollars, much of the research done would be performed by the private companies, which many do not trust.
I happen to be close to a check-off board and know for a fact that the farmer leaders (volunteers) on that board represent all sizes of farmers. They are first off elected on their state level by their peers then their names are submitted to the USDA secretary for approval. The USDA requires more than one from each state represented to choose from. The USDA has final approval of who sits on the check-off board. Once the individual has been selected by the USDA, they then take an oath of office and are then considered (lack of another term) employees of the USDA. They do not receive any wages, but their travelling exspences are covered. That board is not allowed to lobby, but there is a membership organization (members pay voluntary dues to belong to the organization) that is set up as a policy organization to help improve the marketing and use of that commodity. They can lobby and push for specific legislation on the state and national levels.
I hope this helps
Kevin H @kjh786