Corporate-Driven US Agriculture

If there were any lingering doubt that US agricultural policy is ridiculous, expensive, and inimical to small farmers, an op-ed piece by a farmer, Jack Hedin, in the New York Times will dispel it ("My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables))March 1, 2008. The inequities of a corporate-driven agriculture policy are too well-known to rehearse here, and much of the ground on small farming, the maintenance of agricultural communities, and American values has been covered wonderfully by Wendell Berry.

Hedin's predicament serves as a reminder that corporate agriculture will attempt to co-opt and subvert the demand for locally grown produce from small producers and attempt to replace it with that grown on a large scale. The wheat, corn, soybean, rice, and cotton crops produced in the US already benefit on a vast scale from subsidies as well as the good offices of the US Department of Commerce which aggressively promotes US exports abroad, effectively becoming an arm of US corporate agricultural interests.

Any food lover should be filled with horror at the prospect of further damage done to decent food by corporate agriculture. Years ago a new apple appeared from New Zealand, the Granny Smith. Within a few short years the crop from NZ had been replaced with the US corporate agriculture version, which to this day remain horrible. The NZ crop has never been heard from again in the US. As a Californian by adoption, I learned of the pleasures of the fragile and locally-grown Meyer lemon. Now "Meyer" lemons are grown in Florida, with horrific results, The list could be multiplied endlessly.

Living in London, I am able to benefit, even in supermarket chains, from a country-wide effort to promote local producers of cheese, meats, game, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Admittedly, the UK is a member of the European Union, which conducts its own insane version of agricultural protectionism and subsidization, but somehow smaller growers and quality growers are able to flourish.

Decent, locally-grown food should not be the privilege of the affluent and the Bobo Class. As Alice Waters's "Garden in the City" program shows, even the young will respond to the pleasures of producing local crops and the attendant gustatory pleasures of consuming them.

There is a form of global governance among prosperous nations conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. It is ostensibly designed to protect nations from unfair competition. What the WTO in fact does is contribute to the institutionalization of insane and harmful agricultural policies, which favor highly productive nations like the US, France, Germany, and Canada, while undermining agriculture in emerging nations. It also privileges large producers over small ones and does little to promote small, sustainable farmers. Responses to this such as the Slow Food movement have made minor if important impact, but more must be done. Despite the WTO's current investigation of US subsidy policies, launched after the passage in late 2007 of an agricultural bill with the latest cornucopia of corporate hand-outs, little will change.

A consumer-oriented stance for sustainability must include the rejection of government support for corporate agricultural interests, a rejection of the policies formulated by rich nations and implemented through the WTO and similar organizations, and a demand for immediate changes in US agricultural policy. Politically this will be almost unimaginably difficult. Large-scale agriculture and industrial production methods are not wholly bad: while McDonald's might have driven potato farmers to the production of a single type of potato, in Russia the standardization of the supply chain has improved the lot of farmers and the quality of potatoes. Vacuum-seal technology means that even an airline and a chain hotel might be able to serve a decent meal. Starbucks works to promote local producers and to raise quality, and is able to recoup costs because the affluent will pay more.

There is no reason both approaches cannot co-exist. But as Hedin's article shows, the small producer is at a distinct disadvantage. Corporations willing to insist on a "level playing field" in international trade are not willing to promote this approach at home, which is a disgrace.