Conflicting Demands

Food in the United States is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that Americans use less of their disposable income on food than people in any other developed country (from Steve Kay, publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly). As a whole, we are so accustomed to our inexpensive, reliable, and safe food supply that we take it for granted. Slight increases in price create shockwaves throughout the public and ignite a firestorm of criticisms aimed at producers; a single pathogen found in a shipment of beef results in immediate blame placed on large producers, major recalls of the product, and wailing complaints about how awful our food supply is (despite the fact that more people die from pet attacks each year than food borne illnesses). Among all the commotion, the question/statement "Why do farmers place us at risk by raising food in such a terrible way? We need to get back to a more natural food source." always seems to find its way to the surface.

As one of my favorite professors at Penn State would regularly force us to do, lets think about this.

Selling food at the lowest prices in the World places an enormous stress on growers and processors in this country. As I hope we remember from 10th grade economics, operating any business on razor thin margins demands absolute efficiency, something many manufacturers, retailers, and our food growers have adapted to meet. In other words, the result of the public demanding inexpensive food is the concentration of both vegetable and meat production onto very large farms in order to cut the production costs.

When you hear someone getting bent out of shape about the big bad corporate farms and their modern growing techniques (genetically modified crops, animal feedlots, hormone implants, etc.), think what it would be like without them. Hundreds of thousands of acres would be brought back into crop production thanks to significantly reduced yields (imagine tearing down new suburban developments to create ideal farmland...there is an interesting thought), and hundreds of thousands more to be used for livestock grazing. Pollution would immediately rise to unimaginable levels due to renewed use of a wide variety of highly toxic weed control chemicals on crops (modern genetically modified crops are designed to basically take care of themselves - very little spray is used on a field today compared to just twenty years ago). Much of the production would be pushed outside of our borders (to fill the gap created by reduced yields and efficiency) where food production standards and controls are very minimal or completely non-existent...think of human waste fertilizing those vegetables in your salad, and beef being processed in a non-sterile facility...tasty. There are too many other negative consequences to list, but here is a final big one: the major spike in production costs would drive the price of food to life-altering levels - I don't think anyone wants to spend 50 - 75% of their yearly income just to keep the fridge full.

We owe our prosperous way of life in the United States to those in the food production industry. Many of us have never come close to starving to death, few feel genuinely unsafe about biting into something from the grocery store, we don't have to empty the bank account each day to feed our families, and we don't have to worry if there will be enough food for tomorrow. Because of this, we are able to direct our focus towards the advancements that make this such a great country to live in. So, support the little farmers in your community, get excited about an all-organic meal, shop in places you know where the food comes from, and make an effort to understand farming, but do not ever forget that none of it would exist without large farms supporting the backbone of America.