Corporate Agribusiness Is Behind Our Deadly Food Supply

[one...two...tree 2,762]

In the United States today, 80 percent of beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of pre-cut salad mixes are processed by two companies and 30 percent of milk is processed by just one company. Most of our fresh produce comes from the same region of California where the contaminated spinach and now green onions were grown. During off seasons, up to 70 percent of the produce sold in the United States comes from other countries.

.......

Gone are the days of family farms, which would produce sustainable, healthy food that also fed the local economy. Today, a staggering 330 farmers abandon farming each week. In the 1930s, there were over seven million family farms in our country. Today, roughly two million remain.

In their place, large, corporate-run farms have driven down the price of food, thanks largely to massive subsidies from the federal government but also "economies of scale." Yet we cutting costs comes at a price. When you buy an apple at your local farmer's market from a farmer's in your region, there's no packaging involved and the only energy the farmer spent to get you that apple was a few miles worth of gas.

When you buy an apple grown all the way across the country -- or on the other side of the globe -- that apple is wrapped in paper and cardboard and shipped over boats and planes and then trucks to your store, a considerably greater cost to the environment.

The money you spend on the apple, after the grocery store takes its cut, goes into the mega-profits of some distant agribusiness, a considerable cost to your local economy.

But also, aggregating farming means aggregating risk. In the case of the E. coli contaminated spinach outbreak this past September, the spinach was grown at massive, industrial farms in southern California and shipped around the United States.

The E. coli came from an industrial cattle ranch nearby. Tightly packed cows were over fed with unhealthy grain and produced E. coli in their feces. The contaminated feces washed downstream into the water supply, infecting the spinach fields.

There is much talk right now about "energy independence" -- the idea that the United States should rely on sustainable, renewable energy sources rather military conflict and political instability in the pursuit of oil. Food must be no different. Given the recent E. coli scares, we can no longer ignore the warning signs. Long-distance food of corporate agribusiness threatens our environment, our economy and our health. If we're feeling insecure, it's no wonder. We are what we eat.

There's a movement afoot to restore the health and safety of our food supply and support the livelihood and culture of small, family farmers. "The Meatrix", an incredibly clever animated spoof that exposes the dangers of factory farming, was viewed online by over 4.2 million people in the first three months it was released.

And just this past October, hundreds of thousands of people from over 150 continents convened in Turin, Italy, at a gathering for the international Slow Food organization, which calls for food that is good, clean and fair.

On it's website, the organization Local Harvest lists almost 10,000 farmers' markets, cooperative grocery stores, restaurants and more that provide locally-grown, organic produce to consumers. From Pulaski, Tennessee, to Moline, Illinois, there are already opportunities in big cities and small towns across the entire country to buy safe and nutritious food right from our own backyards. As demand for local produce grows, these markets will grow too.

Those of us who can afford to buy local, organic food grown sustainably by family farmers should do so. From jams and breads to apples and nuts, if we lead with our taste buds and our wallets we will over time help bring down the cost of locally grown food by eliminating the unfair competition of subsidized, artificially cheap agribusiness.

We will also solve the food crisis worldwide, where U.S. agribusiness has similarly trampled family farms and local food production from Mexico to India. Our reward will be a better world -- and food on our table that is nutritious, delicious and safe to eat.

Sally Kohn is the director of the Movement Vision Project of the Center for Community Change, which is interviewing hundreds of activists across the country to determine the progressive vision for the future of the United States.

[peejay 327]

All this has been made possible by cheap plentiful oil. Without it our lives would be immensely more local in nature and far less national or global.

When I was a kid we used to buy fresh fruit and veggies grown from local truck farms near our house. Now those farms are covered by tacky shopping malls and McMansions.

The price of progress if you can call it that.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

All this has been made possible by cheap plentiful oil. Without it our lives would be immensely more local in nature and far less national or global.

When I was a kid we used to buy fresh fruit and veggies grown from local truck farms near our house. Now those farms are covered by tacky shopping malls and McMansions.

The price of progress if you can call it that.

We sure have a peculiar idea about freedom and independence. We've traded in our farm plows for credit cards.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

This is one of the biggest differences I noticed when I moved to the States from Canada. Wherever I lived in Canada I was able to visit a local farmer's market that set up several times a week selling local fresh in-season produce. When I lived in the Niagara Peninsula and South-western Ontario, in fact, I was able to drive down many roads and buy fresh produce at stands set up along the road at the driveways of different farms. It was wonderful! Here, I have found one farm stand where the seller sells store purchased as well as local farm produce. I make sure I stop there and buy whatever is in season - it tastes great and it supports local agriculture. In the stores produce is often pre-packaged and overpriced. Often, when you look at where it originates, it is from thousands of miles away. In fact, I have found tomatoes that were grown where I used to live in Ontario for sale here in Georgia! We grow some of our own vegetables and put them up to use year around, but oh, how I miss going to the farmers' markets!

Edited December 19, 2006 by Kathryn41

[one...two...tree 2,762]

This is one of the biggest differences I noticed when I moved to the States from Canada. Wherever I lived in Canada I was able to visit a local farmer's market that set up several times a week selling local fresh in-season produce. When I lived in the Niagara Peninsula and South-western Ontario, in fact, I was able to drive down many roads and buy fresh produce at stands set up along the road at the driveways of different farms. It was wonderful! Here, I have found one farm stand where the seller sells store purchased as well as local farm produce. I make sure I stop there and buy whatever is in season - it tastes great and it supports local agriculture. In the stores produce is often pre-packaged and overpriced. Often, when you look at where it originates, it is from thousands of miles away. In fact, I have found tomatoes that were grown where I used to live in Ontario for sale here in Georgia! We grow some of our own vegetables and put them up to use year around, but oh, how I miss going to the farmers' markets!

They've made a bit of come back here in California, but all in all, corporate farms have all but eliminated the family farms. The corporate mindset is ruining this country and America needs to wake up. This 'bigger is better' notion is such a fallacy. It doesn't take a lot of research to see who has benefitted from the corporate takeover of this country...certainly not the average American.