As Eileen mentioned, this week we wanted to
focus more on rural farming. We have talked a lot about problems and solutions
related to urban food systems, however as I was talking with my mom the other
week I was reminded how different food access and farming is in the
countryside. Eileen focused more on how current farm subsidies affect farmers,
so now I want to take a look at how/if they affect consumers.
First let’s take a look at some of the
different perspectives on how government subsidization of certain crops over
others is linked to our diets.
This article discusses how what the
government subsidizes is directly responsible for the unhealthy diet of
Americans: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/03/the-9-foods-the-us-government-is-paying-you-to-eat.aspx.
This NPR story however, does not find the
link between subsidization of corn and soy, over say cabbage and carrots, to
really effect what Americans choose to eat. It instead concludes that food
processing companies’ desire to heighten profits is primarily at fault: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/10/139390696/is-u-s-farm-policy-feeding-the-obesity-epidemic.
After hearing/reading these different perspectives,
do you think government subsidization of food and the American diet are significantly
linked? If so, in what ways? And how substantially? Or, are other culprits more
responsible for creating an unhealthy US diet. Are you more inclined to agree
with Bush’s Health and Human Service Secretary who said in the video in the
prior article: “there’s no link between agriculture subsidies and health”?
Personally, after reading these stories, I
am still more inclined to think that government policy really does affect the American
diet, especially in a society where costs and efficiency are such high factors
in decision making. So the question then
is how do we make better food policy?
This Washington Post article echoes some of
the previously mentioned concerns around what we subsidize, and how it affects
the American diet: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/farm-bill-why-dont-taxpayers-subsidize-the-foods-that-are-better-for-us/2014/02/14/d7642a3c-9434-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
. My initial response when first learning of farm subsidies was that we should
instead subsidize healthier foods, however this article addresses how that may
or may not be the best solution. How do you think would lowering the financial
risks (through subsidization) of fruits and vegetables would affect the rates
at which farmers produce them?
The main question being, is there a better
system for increasing fruit and vegetable quality and accessibility than crop
insurance/subsidies, while also making sure farmers are paid well for their
crops?
In class we will brainstorm what alternative
government policies could be? Was the “get big or get out” transition to large
scale farms a mistake? Should we support smaller farms, or not? Why and how?
So many questions and potential solutions
are already flying around in my mind. Can’t wait to hear (read) your thoughts
and chat with you on Thursday!
This is a really valuable issue for our class to address in regards to farming. I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert at economics, but clearly farms do have to run as a business to some capacity and that can be very troublesome, especially since a farmer's product comes with such a high variable.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say who's really responsible for the pitfalls of the American diet. Having watched the documentary "Fed Up", which addresses child obesity in the states, I'm leaning more towards those in charge of food processing as having a bigger part. But honestly, both sides come into play, and I don't think neither is completely guilty or innocent. Because so many Americans eat a ton of processed, sugary foods, the government benefits from the high cost of surgeries and treatments people have to pay for to get "healthy" again. Although it seems to me it would be better for everybody if we all just invested in whole, sustainable food, didn't have to fund weight loss programs and treatments, and used that money elsewhere. But, not that we are where we are, it's definitely a challenge to see how we can make our way towards that goal. Tangled webs everywhere.
Sorry if this is confusing and I'm talking in circles, but hopefully I'll have a better sense of how to speak to these issues once we're all in the room together. I do think Karen's solution is one really cool idea to give farmers more financial stability, but as we saw at the event last night, not all other farmers are convinced that's the way to go. Looking forward to what everybody's ideas are!
I am really glad that we will be talking about this and shifting to a discussion on rural farming this week, Beth. Thank you for bringing this up. In the comment I left on Eileen’s blog post I was definitely leaning more toward taking farm subsidies out all together, but now after reading all of the articles that you have posted and seeing multiple sides, I am more confused that ever. I really am very eager to discuss this further in class.
ReplyDeleteThe NPR article really stood out to me because it highlighted on things that I already knew to be true, but put them in a new light. The quote near the beginning really struck me. “I’m very concerned about how hard it is to eat well in America today. Our food environment has evolved in a way that it’s almost perfectly engineered to promote or cause obesity.” So, in general, this seems to be the problem.
I believe that the “get big or get out” transition to large scale farms was a mistake. In my opinion, people should support smaller farms. This would help people to make better choices in terms of the foods that they are consuming, as well as building a sense of community that has been lost in the last few decades.
The Washington Post article was the most informative to me. I especially liked the straightforwardness (that is for sure a word) of the evidence given. This quote really helped me to understand what is at play here: “Taxpayers heavily subsidize corn and soy, two crops that facilitate the meat and processed food we’re supposed to eat less of, and do almost nothing for the fruits and vegetables we’re supposed to eat more of. If there’s any obligation to spend the public’s money in a way that’s consistent with that same public’s health, shouldn’t it be the other way around?” This is something that I really hope we are able to discuss further and question in class on Thursday. While I don’t have specific answers to any of the questions you posed, I do feel like I have a better understanding of what’s going on here and an ability to question this system through the lens that you have modeled.
Yeah, that "Post" article is great--very helpful in understanding the changes (and lack thereof) in subsidies in the new Farm Bill. Thanks for linking to it.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to respond to the question of scale & efficiency. First, I want to share something that Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute (http://www.landinstitute.org/) said in an interview with HobbyFarms.com (http://www.hobbyfarms.com/farm-marketing-and-management/10-minutes-with-wes-jackson.aspx):
"My loyalty is toward small scale. I start with acknowledging the reality that the planet is really an ecological mosaic. There's no 2 square feet on the planet that are the same. If we are to attend to the kind of detail that's necessary to save the soil resource, I think it's going to need a high eyes-to-acres ratio. That means the small farmer and lots of them watching the land.
What is a "small farmer”? That depends on where you are. If you are in Kansas, the small farmer is dealing with hundreds or thousands of acres. If you're in New England, it can be 1 to 10. This has to do with rainfall, soil quality; it has to do with so many factors across the ecological mosaic. The small farmer is the best hope to counter the industrial mind, which tends to look for the big solutions. The industrial mind has shown itself to be destructive of soil quality as well as community. To me, it's pretty serious when we put chemicals out there that our tissues have no evolutionary experience with. What we've done with the industrial mind is depend on a sufficiency of capital rather than a sufficiency of people."
I'm back to thinking about the Peruvian potato farmers vs the McDonald's potato farmer. I hear elected and appointed government workers celebrate our agricultural system as "best in the world" because fewer farmers can produce more calories per acre with the use of (expensive! "sufficiency of capital") technology and machinery. But why is this so great? The inputs and machines required for this "efficiency" are detrimental to the health of ecosystems and also to human health. Why is it great that we need fewer farmers? Why do we celebrate the fact that farmers have been driven out of business and have been forced to sell their land and have had to find jobs working for other people rather than having the satisfaction of working for themselves?
With more "eyes to the acre" ("sufficiency of people") we have more caretakers of our natural resources. With more human bodies doing labor caring for the land, we need less fossil fuels, less mass-produced and soil-damaging equipment, and fewer bank loans with which to buy that equipment! With more people caring more intensely for our farms, we can produce more diverse crops of higher quality.
The Peruvian system may not seem efficient by our standards, but I think there are elements that are far superior to ours. The community involvement and shared responsibility for the land and the labor of caring for the land, their focus on long-term sustainability and self-reliance . . . what would it take for our cultural values to shift enough that we would support these elements in our agricultural system, through economic policy or personal choices?
It is very interesting to consider how subsidies have impacted the American food system. I think that the impacts subsidies have on which foods are cheaper and more incorporated into common foods can be linked to the diet of many Americans. For example, corn syrup has become a very common ingredient in foods and this does have detrimental health effects. I would be interested to learn more about how subsidies are connected to the shift from small family farms to large-scale agriculture. Do large farms benefit more from federal subsidies than small farms? I think that conversation is connected with the idea of diversification and how subsidies have promoted the enlargement of monocultures. In my opinion, it is very important to support small farms, but that is not being done currently. Not only do small farms tend to take better care of their land, but they also tend to be more invested in a community. Perhaps thinking about supporting small farms as community development projects would be a way to frame the conversation to the federal government?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great resources! I particularly enjoyed the NPR story because it provided a new perspective on some things I had previously believed to be true. Still, I do think government subsidization is linked to the American diet. There are many other factors at play, but we can’t discount the effect of subsidization on what is planted and therefore what is eaten most.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the “Post” article brought up the point that some “specialty crop” farmers may like having flexibility and independence, even if it means not having subsidies. This was interesting, as I’d always held the idea that all farmers want subsidies no matter what. Furthermore, it’s difficult to generalize and make regulations with the variety of crops that these farmers are planting. I also appreciated the end of the article where the author recommended that we proceed with caution. Although in Eileen’s post we saw that New Zealand did eliminate farm subsidies successfully, we need to consider the farmers that are already in this system and their livelihoods. We must also consider the supply of foods like grain that are currently feeding the developing world. All of these articles bring up important ideas, and I’m looking forward to discussing them in class!
I think that the differing in opinions of these pieces shows truly how all-encompassing the farm bill really is. If you pull on just one corner of it, all these other pieces move. The implications of changing one thing can't truly be understood because of all the indirect effects it may have on something else.
ReplyDeleteThe subsidizing of something such as corn has in the long run made it so more research has gone into developing this large starch and turning it into something completely different and unrecognizable from its former self. Because we have subsidized corn for so long, we have come up with so many creative ways to change it's shape and calorie content. In this way, I do hold the government somewhat responsible for influencing diets of Americans.
I wrote about this a bit on Eileen's post, but I keep thinking about how Dwight mentioned at the dinner that these sort of subsidies would not work for him and the scale of his farm- which is due mostly to economies of scale. In terms of subsidizing a healthier diet or a more diverse diet, it then seems to me that there would need to be a greater change than just choosing which foods are supported by the government. I think that the double up food bucks program is an aspect of the farm bill which can allow for this change to begin to occur, but there needs to be more of a root change, not just a shift in subsidies.
I think that the motivation for subsidizing certain crops to increase profit as and the link between subsidization and the American diet is more of a both and reasoning rather than an either or. Subsidizing large-scale crops such as corn and soy results in large profit increases and also contributes significantly to the health obstacles that we are facing in the United States. I apologize for my brief comments and I am looking forward to talking more in class tomorrow about some of the ways we could move our food system away from subsidies that make the big guys bigger while simultaneously smashing down the little guys.
ReplyDeleteI definitely buy in to the idea that the subsidies affect the mainstream american diet. A great example is McDonalds - the most accessible (and most "american") food and also the worst for your health. McDonalds beef is certainly fed by subsidized crops. If fruits and veggies are the most healthy foods, and also the least subsidized, how is there not a link between the american diet and agriculture subsidies?
ReplyDeleteIs a better system possible? Of course. I've mentioned this in a previous comment weeks ago, but I'll say it again: a fraction of our military budget could make a massive improvement in our food climate. Our priorities need a major shift.
I do think that the get big or get out transition was a mistake in terms of the goodness of our food. Growing a large field of gmo corn or soy beans isn't making the world a better place. And if gmo's really can "feed the world," why are so many people starving? We absolutely should support smaller farms. Eliminating the subsidies the big farms receive would probably help small farmers out in and of itself. Or give the subsidies to small farmers. It doesn't have to be like this.
I also agree that subsidies impact our health and this is largely because subsidies go to the large companies that have influence within our government. It is profitable to make unhealthy food, so those foods are the ones that the big companies make and the big companies and their profits impact our governments policies. This is a cyclical issue and it is difficult to imagine an effective solution that would allow small scale farmers the independence that the article talked about while still giving them the financial security that they deserve. For me this really goes back to the need for a trust-based system of community supported agriculture where ideally the farmer is given the autonomy as well as the support to use their knowledge and experience to grow healthy and diverse foods for their communities. It would be awesome if the government would subsidize small-scale farmers in a way that would enhance these communities and systems rather than replace or exploit them.
ReplyDeleteReally excited to discuss this tomorrow. While I haven’t thought a lot about the economic side of subsidies, I have definitely thought a lot about how it shapes our diets and the nutritional guidelines put out by the government. I am really glad that you shared the Mercola article, Beth. I’ve read it before and think it’s a really accurate summary of the issue.
ReplyDeleteI think the Standard American Diet is fueled by a number of things, so I do think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that farm subsidies are the sole cause of our poor diets (though it’s certainly a major contributing factor by making processed food cheaper). First, the culture we have surrounding processed foods. Secondly, the addiction factor of sugar and many other food additives. And thirdly, food access (though we could argue that this is in some ways tied to subsidies).
Obviously I think these issues require some change at the policy level, but I think the biggest way to combat this as a consumer is to buy local and sustainably raised meats and vegetables, and avoid processed foods. Know exactly who you are supporting with every purchase you make.
Thanks Beth – really interesting articles that present such different perspectives on the issue.
ReplyDeleteI don’t see how anyone can deny the government subsidies’ impact on our food culture in this country. I was especially fascinated in the idea of vegetable & fruit production as ‘specialty crop farming.’ What a funny way to think about growing basic food… but in the system we’ve devolved there’s more money to be made in processing commodities, so those commodities are abundant and normalized as the basis of our food, but the real basic whole foods that won’t end up being processed are seen as specialty.
The idea of insurance in farming is so much about paying to avoid risk. Because there are so many uncontrollable variables in farming, compared with other business operations, there’s such an opportunity to capitalize on eliminating risk. But growing a variety of crops means that blanket insurance policies don’t apply as easily.
“He explains that specialty crop farming, because of its variety, doesn’t lend itself to the same kind of regulation. And he says many farmers prefer the flexibility that comes with independence to the conformity required by regulation, even if the regulation comes with cash.”
If we think about our experience on Amy’s farm, we can see some of the risks inherent in growing vegetables organically. It doesn’t seem like the answer to this lies in insurance incentives for these small farmers either…
While I agree that subsidies may not be directly responsible for obesity in the United States, politicians are subsidizing efficiency. They want to get the most ‘bang for their buck’ so it makes sense from an economic standpoint that they would subsidize wheat and corn industry that they know is in demand and will make a profit. Additionally, as the NPR article addressed, subsidies are going towards increasing productivity through technological advancement. It makes sense that in our profit driven system one would want to promote receiving the fastest and cheapest output from an agricultural system in order to feed our large population. I think in this way the subsidies are endorsing an industry that promotes unhealthy eating.
ReplyDeleteI do not know if I agree with Alston from the NPR article who says that the subsidies actually work against obesity by driving up prices of food. This perspective is a bit troubling to me because there are many issues with access to healthy food so if they prices of the food being subsidized are being increased than what food can people with lower incomes afford? Supporting smaller farms may be a solution to this, but it is hard to create a model in which everyone is fairly compensated.
These articles were very engaging, and definitely have me trying to think more critically about subsidies. I am interested to hear everyone’s perspectives tomorrow.