Your Money Or Your Life

Agribusiness Hinders Small Farms and Local Farming

Author Jocelyn Engman is a chemist who lives on a small SE Iowa farm, where she & husband Tim practice local farming and market gardening with Pickle Creek Herbal and Choice Earth CSA.

"For the relief of the suffering ... our economy proposes, not health, but vast 'cures' that further centralize power and increase profit . . . and these of course are followed by more regulating laws and agencies to see that our health is protected, our freedom preserved, and our money well spent." Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America

Your Money Or Your Life

I met Wendell Berry in the spring of 2007, when he participated on a panel discussion hosted by the Leopold Center in Ames, Iowa. Wendell Berry wrote 'The Unsettling of America', a powerful book about culture and agriculture in America that is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.

One of the questions for the Leopold panel: "How do we help young farmers get into sustainable agriculture these days? How do young farmers make a living from farming without going the conventional route?"

Answer: "Tell The Government To Get Out of The Way."

Amen! When I investigate potential value-added agriculture ventures, it seems that everywhere I turn, I run into government regulations that will cost much time, effort, and money. My husband and I have experienced regulations first hand when making herb-infused oils for our herb company, Pickle Creek Herbal.

In order to produce our oils, we have to rent a commercial kitchen and apply for an annual permit (which comes with annual fees and an annual inspection). People have been making these oils for centuries without problems, and in fact the basil oils that we infuse into our culinary products have natural antimicrobial properties. But in this century, and this country, our herb-infused oils are considered 'potentially hazardous.'

Now, regulations are hitting even closer to home. The FDA is looking into regulating alternative medicine, including all vitamins, herbs, supplements, and other natural substances used as health promoters. I do not want to be classified as a drug dealer for growing thyme in my backyard! I also don't want to see alternative medicine struggle or lose momentum under the heavy money, time, and energy drain of complying with the FDA. Alternative medicine is both a vital supplement and a vital substitute for allopathic medicine, and we need it to stay in good health!

Are food and farm regulations really keeping the consumer safe? Are they really about consumer safety at all? As a consumer, I think that consumer safety is a good idea. But, what's interesting is that even while the FDA wants to regulate alternative medicine, it also wants to allow irradiated food to be sold without being labeled as such. It wants to do this even though irradiation is banned in much of the world and is prohibited in organic production.

And then there are GMOs: Why is it illegal to label products as GMO free? I ask this not only as a consumer but also as a chemist who has studied the biochemical reactions within the human body. We're messing with genetic material, the most powerful memory machine on earth, the source of life itself. In a world that cries for regulations to keep our consumer safe, why aren't we just a little more cautious when it comes to GMOs?

Unfortunately, many small, local farmers have been put out of business in the name of consumer safety. More often than not, the government is standing in the way of small, local producers. Meanwhile, big corporations (the ones with influence in Washington) are the last to be touched. Aaspartame, pesticides, confined animal feeding operations - these are health hazards that we apparently can live with.

In fact, sometimes gargantuan agricultural corporations can influence lawmaking to specifically put niche producers out of business. For example, Monsanto is currently lobbying the FDA and Federal Trade Commission, claiming that consumers are being duped into believing that milk from rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) cows is somehow inferior, and so it should become illegal for smaller producers to label their milk as 'rBGH-free.'

Will it soon be illegal to label milk as rBGH-free? And if it does become illegal, who will benefit most from its being so?

Mad Cow Disease:

Even if you're a vegetarian and mad cow disease is the last thing on your mind, continue reading to find out your government's true position on American health.

Mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle. BSE is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. Once a prion is transmitted, it invades the brain and spreads exponentially, usually causing death within a few months. BSE has gained attention because in Britain more than 150 people have died of a disease with similar neurological symptoms: variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). Since many of the vCJD patients had consumed tainted beef, BSE is assumed to be the mechanism by which all affected individuals contracted vCJD.

Mad cow disease incidence also appears to correlate with slaughtering practices that mixed nervous system tissue with hamburger and other beef. Just in case you were wondering, three cases of mad cow disease have been found in the United States: one in 2003, one in 2005, and one in 2006.

If BSE can lead to death in humans, it makes sense for us to keep it out of our food system. And we have the power to do this. There is a test for mad cow disease that can be performed when the cow is slaughtered and thus can prevent contaminated meat from ever reaching the market. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef of Kansas wanted to test all of their cows for BSE.

Unfortunately, according to the May 29, 2007, article from The Associated Press, 'U.S. Government Fights to Keep Meatpackers From Testing All Slaughtered Cattle for Mad Cow,' the Bush administration has said it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals. Larger meat companies fear that if we allow smaller producers to start testing meat, they, too, might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds. In addition, they worry that widespread testing could lead to a false positive (not to mention a true positive) that would harm the meat industry. Thus, this simple test that can protect human life is being fought in the name of economics.

The story gets even better (worse, actually). The USDA says that we do need to do something to protect American consumers from animal diseases. Its solution is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Under this system, which is currently voluntary but is scheduled to become mandatory in 2008, every single livestock animal in the United States will be identified, tagged, tracked, logged, and reported to the government.

Everyone, from factory farms to small farms that sell direct to local consumers to homesteaders who raise their own meat, will have to register their property as farm premises and obtain a Premise ID, tag all their animals, and submit all the paperwork and fees.

Who's behind NAIS? It's not small farmers. NAIS will result in many small farms going out of business. That's exactly what happened with the animal identification system in Denmark. NAIS is geared to favor big-time livestock producers over small-time producers. Big factory farms manage mass group of animals that are of the same age and gene stock. Under NAIS, these factory farms will be able to use a single ID to cover thousands of animals.

Small, traditional-style farmers, who have genetically diverse animals of different ages on their farms, will be required to have an ID for each and every animal. The result is that the cost of farming will greatly increase for small farmers. NAIS is economically skewed to help big corporate farms (by opening up the export markets to them) at the detriment of small family farms.

This system might be livable if it really did protect consumers by cutting down on animal disease, but notice that NAIS does nothing to stop disease or contamination from entering the food supply. The goal of NAIS is to provide 48-hour trace back to the farm of origin in the case of problems. That's 48 hours after the problem is detected.

The USDA is championing a system that would allow contaminated BSE beef to circulate in the food system and infect unwitting consumers, even though there's a simple test that could stop BSE meat from ever passing through the slaughterhouse door. And the USDA is championing yet another system that will make business survival difficult for small, nonconventional farmers.

The Farm Bill: Does my government care about me, or does it just care about my money?

The Farm Bill affects everyone, meat eater or vegetarian. Because of our government's policies, the cheapest food on the grocery store shelf is the food with the lowest nutritional value. In helping commodity farmers, the current farm bill creates cheap sugar by subsidizing corn and cheap fat by subsidizing soybeans. Thus, by making the poorest food the cheapest food, the farm bill promotes the consumption of food that is high in calories, sugar, and bad fats and low in everything of nutritional value.

Meanwhile, the farm bill does almost nothing for farmers growing fresh produce. As a result, the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent, while the real price of soft drinks (sweetened by high fructose corn syrup) declined by 23 percent.

Who benefits from the farm bill? Not the consumer. Not the poor. Not the small farmer or perhaps even the midsized farmer. Big Agribusiness preserves its system of agriculture while the rest of us experience the joys of declining health, degenerative disease, and factory farming. As Wendell Berry put it, "The people will eat what the corporations decide for them to eat."

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Support Your Local Farmer

As a small farmer and a friend of many other small farmers, I'd love to see the government stop hindering small, local farming ventures. Because we eat what the farmers produce, we need the government to get out of the way of small farmers.

• Let's even the agricultural playing field and truly protect the consumer.
• Let's stand up against NAIS and demand that labeling for BSE testing of slaughtered meat be declared legal instead.
• Let's demand that labeling such as 'GMO free' or 'rBGH free' be protected as a natural right of both producer and consumer.
• Let's keep the FDA out of complementary and alternative medicine.
• Let's ask the USDA to play fair: If we must subsidize farming, let's do it in a way that builds rather than destroys consumer health. Surely we can afford to re-allocate some of the money spent to subsidize conventional grains, the cheapest, poorest food on the planet, to something a little healthier, such as fresh produce.
• Better yet, let's not subsidize corporate farming at all: Let's get rid of the farm bill.

Let's also stop relying on a government that appears to have little motivation to protect consumer health. As long as a government entity has the power to regulate, there will be a corporate entity with the money and the power to influence that government entity. Perhaps it's time for us to move beyond consumer safety and into consumer responsibility.

Beyond raising your voice against our current food and farming regulations, there's an easier way for you to have your say about the issues surrounding our current food system: Buy Local. When you buy direct from farmers, you know exactly who you're supporting. You know what kind of farming practices you're supporting, and you know that you're buying from a person who cares more about the quality than the quantity of her produce. In short, you know that you're buying from a person who cares as much about your health as he cares about your money.

As a small farmer, my goal is to produce the absolute best tasting, most nutritious food that I can produce - to nourish my soil so that I can nourish the lives of my customers. Many of my local farmer friends have the same goals. If you care about the quality of your food and health, these are the people you should buy from.

Every time that you buy from your small, local producer, you're making it a little easier for smaller, family farms to survive. Given the amount of human effort that goes into producing high-quality produce, we're all getting a phenomenal deal at our local farmer’s market.

A CSA farmer friend of mine once joked that if you add up all the time that goes into organic gardening, she makes $3.50 an hour. She's probably closer to the truth than any of us realizes. Sometimes I pay the farmer's market vendors a little more than what they're asking, just because I know the only thing standing between them and quitting is a love for what they do — and how long will that love last as regulations and other economic roadblocks continue to close down on them?

Small, family farming is the last place where I want to see economics win over the essential task of caring for land and community. Wendell Berry argued that our culture has already lost so much with the decline of the small, family farm. Let's not lose any more small farmers.

Ultimately it is us and our decisions that must regulate our food system through the free market. In my mind there's only one way to be safe about food: either produce it or know who does. To truly know that our food is safe, we need to support instead of strangle our local producers. Let’s get out of their way!

More information on NAIS More information on the FDA in complementary and alternative medicine Read the full U.S. farm bill Link here to do something about the current farm bill

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