(00:00:01) Now I'm going to try to talk about the subject hunger and the crisis in American agriculture the first kind of an overview or introduction since World War II there have been dramatic changes in the United States agricultural system. There's General agreement that what occurred during this period was the industrialization of agriculture. Large-scale Machinery was introduced in farms were Consolidated into larger farming units a process Stilwell in motion. (00:00:35) Crop (00:00:36) specialization both regionally and on individual Farms replaced Diversified systems of production and crop rotation in many instances chemical fertilizers and pesticides replace traditional means of maintaining soil fertility preventing soil loss and controlling pests. Food was increasingly transported over long distances (00:01:02) extensively (00:01:03) processed and marketed through large Supermarket chains. (00:01:08) And the US Food and agricultural system was deeply integrated into the international economy. There's also a general agreement that seems to me that these changes resulted in and were the consequence of increased corporate power and (00:01:23) control of the US and world food system. However, at that point is where agreement generally ends for there are widely differing perspectives on whether these changes have been beneficial or harmful. (00:01:42) By far the most dominant view in the United States can be capsulized in the (00:01:46) image of the United States as the world's Bread Basket. The (00:01:50) proponents of this view by and large argue that the benefits of us (00:01:54) agribusiness are (00:01:56) indisputable. They argue for example that the industrialization of Agriculture has resulted in the formation of economically viable Farm (00:02:06) units. While freeing inefficient workers to work in other sectors of the (00:02:12) economy. They argue that increased use of large-scale machinery and chemical fertilizers and pesticides (00:02:20) have greatly (00:02:20) increased yields making the US the productivity wonder of the (00:02:25) world. And they tell us that one farmer now feeds more than 56 people. They tell us that agribusiness provides Americans with cheap food and they tell us that agribusiness enables the United States to help feed the world. And they tell us that the efficiency of us agriculture enables us to export (00:02:47) billions of dollars of agricultural products, which (00:02:50) helps this country hold down the trade deficit and this year the United States will export practically 38 billion dollars worth of agricultural (00:03:00) products (00:03:01) proponents of the breadbasket image tell us that International Food trade which is based on the economic principle of comparative advantage ensures the optimal use of World Resources. Somehow this (00:03:14) system where countries like Brazil and others are encouraged to produce coffee Tea Cocoa fruits vegetables meat for export in exchange for products produced in the United States, but that system Well guarantee optimal use of the world's resources (00:03:31) and finally (00:03:32) some of the proponents of the breadbasket image would add that the u.s. Being the world's agricultural productivity wonder the world adds another weapon to the u.s. (00:03:41) Arsenal and I'm speaking of course of the food weapon the use of food as a vehicle for (00:03:48) power (00:03:50) now before trying to talk about that image and to talk about some of the crises in our agricultural system. I want to share with you some of my thoughts about (00:04:01) related values and (00:04:03) assumptions of many people who promote that bread basket image. The first some of these May border on simplifications, but in the interest of time the first is that bigger is (00:04:17) better and that bigger and agriculture is essentially more efficient. Second assumption is that critics of us agribusiness are either pessimistic or pessimist or the romanticists? These people would say that agar business and the changes that have taken place in US agriculture over the past 40 years were inevitable results of (00:04:42) progress and that they're highly desirable. (00:04:46) Third assumption would be the profitability is the driving force of the economy that whatever is a profitable so long as we have that as our (00:04:57) guide it will ensure the efficient use of resources over the short-term (00:05:03) and over the (00:05:04) long term. And finally, I think the shared value or Assumption of this group would be that the private ownership of land is an unrestricted right? It's an unrestricted rights. Now I'd like to move into talking about the alternative View. (00:05:25) In some ways it's hard to counter that bread basket image. United States is in fact increasing food exports dramatically food exports from the United States as late as 1969. We're 5.9 billion dollars, (00:05:42) 5.9 billion dollars and again In 1980 this year. They will be more than (00:05:47) 38 billion (00:05:48) dollars. South hard from volume of exports and dollar value of exports to refute the Bread Basket (00:05:58) image second problems in US agriculture at times sometimes appear that we have more of a problem of surplus production more than we do a problem of (00:06:09) shortages again from scratch your head and say how do we begin to confront the Bread Basket image in the face of that? And then third (00:06:21) for many Americans food is still reasonably abundant and affordable (00:06:26) for many Americans. (00:06:28) There's still something mystifying to many of us and to me who spent time in Ethiopia India about a (00:06:34) food supermarket in the United States (00:06:38) all that (00:06:39) food around (00:06:40) all that food around ins in (00:06:42) itself is a very powerful (00:06:45) part of the myth which binds us to that bread basket image. (00:06:51) In truth. It seems to me that the bread baskets is an image that is both real on one level and a mirage on another. I was trying to think of an image which would describe (00:07:03) this for me. And today as I was putting some thoughts down on paper. (00:07:07) I was thinking of looking at a house from a (00:07:10) distance that (00:07:11) apparently was very very solid and reasonably nicely painted and yet if you examine that house (00:07:19) at its foundation, you would find that it had been poorly built and week. (00:07:25) I thought again of an image of perhaps if I was standing on a hill looking at this house from far away. (00:07:32) What if I happen to see a tornado coming directly at that house with a bad Foundation? Seems to me that maybe that's a fairly accurate image (00:07:45) the house looks solid after all we are exporting. In fact this year 38 billion dollars worth of agricultural products. We cannot deny the reality of that. And yet at its (00:07:56) foundation the house will not stand in the face of the tornado which is coming because it does not have a solid foundation. Now before describing (00:08:09) some specific crisis points (00:08:12) and US Agriculture and the relation relation of those crisis points to hunger. (00:08:16) Let me say something about the values and assumptions of the growing list of critics. (00:08:23) Including myself people who are critical of the breadbasket of you again. Count me among (00:08:30) them. (00:08:32) First of all, it seems to me that we hold that bigger is not necessarily better. Bell bigger is generally more profitable (00:08:40) to corporations. (00:08:43) Bigger is also not necessarily more efficient. And that's true. Even in terms of a narrow definition of efficiency based on productivity alone. (00:08:53) The bigger is not necessarily more efficient. And that is certainly more true. (00:08:58) When we begin to factor in the social and environmental (00:09:01) costs related to bigness related to large-scale farming and Enterprises and corporations that increasingly dominate our food system. So that's one (00:09:14) Second is it most of us and most of the people who I meet who are critical of us agribusiness are neither pessimists nor are they romanticists? We are people buying large who are concerned about the health of individuals. We are concerned about the health of our rural and urban communities and we're concerned about the health of the soil itself. Which is very foundation for all life (00:09:41) on this planet. The (00:09:44) people I know or many of them who are critical of us (00:09:47) agribusiness are people who affirm values of sustainability (00:09:52) stewardship cultural (00:09:55) diversity and decentralization of decision-making power that it seems to me next makes us neither pessimistic nor romantic nor are we (00:10:05) romanticists (00:10:06) the third assumption (00:10:10) that I bring to this issue (00:10:12) is that profit is indeed the driving force of our economy. However, short-term maximization of profit often (00:10:20) conflicts with the long-term social environmental and economic needs (00:10:27) and in fact profitability oftentimes relates directly to power relationships. So we find a situation in which in u.s. Agriculture farmers do not have the power at this time to be profitable (00:10:42) and yet corporations have a tremendous amount of power and their profits are very high. So while Prophet may be the driving force of this economy, it depends upon the power relationships in the society that (00:10:56) determines who profits (00:10:58) and who loses And they'll have that short-term profitability does not necessarily guarantee the long-term social good. finally (00:11:09) some of us (00:11:09) believe seems to me that private (00:11:12) ownership sometimes (00:11:14) conflicts with the social good. And that perhaps land should be regarded as a public trust (00:11:23) perhaps land which is so precious (00:11:26) should be regarded as a public Trust. Now having said that I would say that minimally and this country. We (00:11:34) need an economic system that ensures (00:11:37) that a large segment of our population has access to land and increasingly that is not true (00:11:45) those of us who approach some of these (00:11:47) issues from a Biblical or faith perspective can draw Upon Our religious tradition in which we are told in Leviticus (00:11:55) that ultimately it is God who owns the (00:11:57) land and we are the land stewards. (00:12:02) Now, (00:12:03) let me move on to talk about the points of actual crisis. What are all the things that are happening which together seemed to me to be building up to a tornado that is going to shatter this apparently stable house well-built house, but which upon closer examination does not have a very good foundation. (00:12:25) What are the signs of the (00:12:26) times in terms of us (00:12:29) agriculture? (00:12:32) Perhaps the first sign (00:12:33) one notices in America is the decline in farm (00:12:37) numbers. (00:12:39) We have lost well more than half of our family farms in the past 35 years. 1952 we had more than five million Family Farms in this country. (00:12:50) We have just over two million (00:12:51) today. We continue to lose between 10,000 and (00:12:57) 20,000 Farmers per week (00:13:00) and despite rhetoric to the contrary these declines and farm numbers have either been planned or they have been seen as necessary signs of (00:13:10) progress. They have not been by and large lamented. (00:13:15) In 1945 the agriculture Department Chamber of Commerce did a study that indicated that small farms were quote unquote economic and social liabilities committee members included representatives from armor General Electric Pillsbury Carnation and Ralston Purina know farmers (00:13:37) in minor trivial objection, right? No (00:13:41) Farmers, they recommended that one half between one half and two-thirds of all Farms be eliminated, even though quote these Farms are definitely of the family type and apparently constitute a substantial portion of that (00:13:57) type, which is supposed to be the backbone of the nation and quote. (00:14:04) In 1962 a few years a few years (00:14:06) later another study entitled an (00:14:09) Adaptive program for (00:14:11) agriculture and interesting title adaptive program for agriculture (00:14:16) by the research and policy Committee of the committee for economic (00:14:19) development made similar recommendations. This time committee members included included again, no farmers and less while well, I suppose some of these people are quote unquote Farmers interestingly enough Ford Standard Oil of New Jersey HJ Heinz American Telephone & Telegraph American can North West Bank Corporation, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company General Motors Scott paper and IBM (00:14:51) and they indicated that the way to quote unquote attack the farm problem at the root was to reduce the farm labor force on the order of one third in a period of not more than five years. Get rid of 1/3 of our family farmers and not more than five (00:15:07) years was the recommendations of this government study again, which did not include farmers. (00:15:16) Today the trends are clear. US Department of Agriculture, estimates that by the year 2000 it'll take two million dollars for person simply to enter Farm (00:15:29) your mm. We'll take two million dollars simply to enter farming. (00:15:33) It also predicts the by the same year one percent of our (00:15:36) Farms will produce 50% of our farm (00:15:39) product (00:15:40) 1% of our Farms will produce 50% of our farm product while 50% of our Farms will produce one percent. An additional concern in terms of Trends (00:15:53) is the likelihood of a modern surf (00:15:55) system in the United States. (00:15:59) a recent article in pensions and Investments magazine describes the formation of the American Agricultural Investment (00:16:06) Company (00:16:08) Now this company which is started by former Executives of a large Chicago Bank plans and initial investment of 50 million dollars (00:16:17) in Pension funds into (00:16:20) Prime agricultural land in six regions of the United (00:16:23) States. Now Pension funds as many of you probably know are tax-exempt. So they will invest beginning. This is their initial investment fifty million dollars in primary cultural land (00:16:35) they plan on hiring Regional coordinators basically to buy this land and then sign up (00:16:41) Farmers to to farm the land (00:16:45) all decisions about what crops are produced will be made by Central headquarters (00:16:50) the profits from the farmer what the farmer gets out of this is 50 percent of the crop. (00:16:58) It's remarkable to me that in this country. We a lot of times criticized the Soviet agricultural system. And I think for many good reasons and yet it's precisely the system we are headed for (00:17:12) in this country in terms of land ownership and control this pensions and Investments magazine article is terrifying and if I well I will stop there. second sign of crisis (00:17:31) Farm indebtedness skyrocketing cost for land pesticides fertilizers seed credit along with relatively low farm (00:17:42) prices have led to very serious debt problems for many farmers as many of the farmers in this room can tell you (00:17:52) in 1977 Farm indebtedness topped 100 billion (00:17:56) dollars. Topped 100 billion (00:17:59) dollars this year Farm indebtedness is now approaching 180 billion dollars (00:18:06) 15 times the 1950 level and many farmers who I talked to talk about the Vicious Cycle that they are locked into the (00:18:16) Psyche on which they cannot make through (00:18:18) price enough money to stay on their land. So they attempt to make it in volume. There's an inherent need for them to begin to try to get (00:18:28) larger and larger and larger to try to make up through volume of (00:18:31) production, but they cannot make in (00:18:34) price. (00:18:36) It's a farm indebtedness is a sign of a severe crisis in US agriculture. (00:18:43) The third sign of (00:18:44) Christ's is rural unemployment and Rural decay. (00:18:50) Numerous Studies have been done that indicate that small farm communities have better Services more schools more churches and better community (00:18:59) life than their counterparts that are dominated by corporate agriculture or very large Farms. (00:19:06) One South Dakota study indicates that each time six family farmers are forced off the (00:19:11) land one small business closes down. We have witnessed in the United States over the past 35 years and in its accelerating the demise of rural communities and Rural Life and much of that can be traced to Economic Policy isn't in particular us agricultural policies. A (00:19:32) fourth sign of Christ's is urban (00:19:35) unemployment and sprawl. (00:19:38) We now have a situation in the United States where 75% of our people live on two percent of our land area (00:19:46) 75% of our people (00:19:49) live on two percent of our land area. (00:19:52) The question that wasn't asked why I was asked if you read these studies (00:19:56) that I quoted one of the things that you'll notice is that (00:19:59) the corporation's who did the studies about getting the farmers off the land where people that were interested in a cheap pool of Labor. They were by and large industrial corporations that wanted a cheap (00:20:10) pool of Labor and where that way Birds this could was in rural areas. (00:20:15) But one of the consequences that seems to me of USA or cultural policy over the past 35 and 40 years has been urban sprawl many for example minority farmers were (00:20:27) pushed off the land and into urban areas and one can make a very strong case. It seems to me (00:20:33) tracing the cultural and economic disruptions through US agricultural (00:20:37) policies all the way to the race riots in the 1960s the forced migration of people from the land into urban areas where our economy again because of the way it was structured was not able to productively employ them. And if we are concerned I live in New York City right now New York City is a nightmare and a lot of ways and one of the reasons it seems to me is we can trace that the migration from rural areas to that city has to do with agricultural policies (00:21:06) designed to remove people from the land and based again on that (00:21:09) assumption. That bigger is better. That small farms were social and economic liabilities. So I severely questioned the logic of displacing (00:21:19) more and more labor from rural areas (00:21:22) and sending them into high unemployment areas. I do so on economic and cultural and social grounds. The fifth sign of (00:21:31) Christ's is rising food (00:21:34) prices. Food prices have risen between 10 and 15 percent in the past two years and in many of the years throughout this (00:21:42) decade and they're expected to rise that amount again in 1981 (00:21:48) higher food prices can be traced to a couple of things. I'll just I'll mention a (00:21:53) couple could probably add some of your own (00:21:56) wine as a high food prices are traced to Soaring energy costs. We have built our entire economy in this country and in particular or including our agricultural economy around (00:22:08) artificially cheap energy researchers at rodale press now estimate that for every two dollars. (00:22:14) We spend to (00:22:16) grow food in the United States. We spend another dollar to transport it around the country for every to we spend to grow. We spend a dollar to transport it around and of course as Ken mentioned chemical fertilizers pesticides are all fossil fuel-based Commodities. And as those prices rise food prices will fall suit second factor in high food prices, which can also mentioned is Corporate (00:22:44) power. Additional Rises and food prices is not help the (00:22:49) farmer very much, but it's help corporations (00:22:52) researchers at the University of Wisconsin indicate that us consumers are overcharged ten billion dollars each year (00:22:59) due to Monopoly pricing practices of large corporations 10 billion dollars a year. So Rising food prices the final thing I'll say about that and I could go into more detail. It's it for millions of poor Americans in the society food is not (00:23:12) cheap when we talk about percentages of income that Americans spend on food. We are factoring in someone who has no income with the Rockefellers. By and large a significant portion of our people probably somewhere between (00:23:28) 25 and 33 percent can barely afford food in our society and that's going to get increasingly tense as we see programs like food stamps and other things cut this year if we're not careful. A six sign of Crisis and you can see my list is getting pretty long. A sick sign of Crisis is declining food (00:23:50) quality. While food prices rise the quality of our food is declining. Food which travels over long distances loses many nutrients in the process foods, which are highly processed have many nutrients processed out of them. And as our soil is depleted of its nutrients the fruits and vegetables that we eat may still look (00:24:13) nice, but they may be practically nutritionist. Sometime I want to just give a talk simply on the reasons that we have 15 mile-per-hour Tomatoes now 15 miles an hour Tomatoes or tomato. You can throw to the ground at 15 miles per hour and it doesn't dent. Now 15 mile-per-hour tomatoes are also not very nutritious as you might imagine. the couple of more comments about declining food quality that we are learning in this Society (00:24:49) more and more about the relationships between poor health (00:24:53) and poor nutritional quality. And I think many have many illnesses in the society can be traced to the declining quality of our food and then finally along these lines (00:25:05) many of the foods that we eat in this country today May Simply Be hazardous to our (00:25:10) health. And I'm thinking of in some instances the way meat is produced in this country. I know some farmers in Ohio who refuse to eat chicken anymore because they know how chickens are produced and they know that they're piled on top of one another and that they're Shot full of antibiotics over and over and over against because they need to try to fight the disease because they are stacked on one another so many of the foods that we in fact eat in this industrial Agricultural Society May in fact be harmful to our (00:25:43) health. (00:25:45) Well now we're going to get to a couple of the ones that I think are maybe the most severe signs of Christ's although the other ones. I don't mean to minimize it all (00:25:55) the seventh one I have on my list is the loss of (00:25:58) Farmland due to shifts to other development purposes. I was in Michigan recently. And they were dealing in a county in Michigan with the loss of Farmland, which was severe around the Ann Arbor, Michigan Detroit area. (00:26:15) And one of the people was ahead of the Farm (00:26:17) Bureau in this County was there (00:26:22) now. I don't (00:26:23) know if we have any Farm Bureau people here and if we do, I apologize because I have a certain image of Farm Bureau People based on some of my meetings with Farm Bureau people and it generally is not a very positive image now in the course of this (00:26:37) meeting. This Farm Bureau (00:26:39) person raised his hand and he said with a (00:26:43) great deal of pain. He said When I see what's happening to agricultural land in this County when I see it being cut up and paved over for (00:26:53) developers. He said I hate to say it. He said but he said I think it's a sign that the capitalist system simply is not working. The capitalist system is not working. (00:27:05) Okay. He said I think that this is a sign as I see this land being paved over for housing developments that the capitalist system is not working when I see what is happening to the land around me. (00:27:20) USDA tells us that we are now Paving over or taking out of agricultural production in the United States for square miles of prime agricultural land every day for square miles of prime agricultural land are shifted to other quote unquote development purposes. Like highway is an airports and shopping centers forever (00:27:42) lost to present and future generations (00:27:47) and they tell us that that Trend continues and that Trend alone for 20 years and it's not slowing (00:27:53) down at the United States were no longer be capable of exporting even announce food in 20 years time. and eight Factor Is soil erosion soil erosion we are the way we are (00:28:10) producing food in this country. It seems to me is undermining our capacity to produce it in the future now Escapade that we're losing four billion tons of topsoil off of our Farmland every year USDA tells us that it takes a hundred years to produce an inch of (00:28:27) topsoil a hundred years (00:28:30) for nature to make an inch of topsoil. We're losing four billion tons (00:28:34) that works out to about two tons or two bushels of (00:28:39) topsoil in this area, Iowa and Minnesota for every bushel of corn produced for every (00:28:44) bushel of corn produced were losing approximately two bushels of topsoil. (00:28:49) Now farmers in the room can probably tell you a lot of reasons for soil erosion for wind erosion water erosion, but it seems to me that a lot of it has to do with unhealthy soil (00:29:00) the chemical fertilizers and pesticides because not healthy soil make and if you read USDA documents to get the feeling that they no longer think the soil is an important resource for food production, all we have to do is to put the right amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on whatever land you have (00:29:17) and you can make things grow we've done it in a sense for 35 or 40 years, but I do not think that we can do it much longer. (00:29:28) A nice point is also key is the (00:29:30) destruction of Water Resources around this country. (00:29:34) And I keep telling people in some of you have heard it before of heard me speak that oil is not the most precious liquid in the world water is and (00:29:42) we're living on borrowed time in terms of how we're treating this nation's water supply (00:29:46) both due to industrial pollution and also do the runoff of chemical fertilizers and (00:29:50) pesticides (00:29:52) over the past 30 years. The use of chemical pesticides in the United States has increased 14 fold from 15 million pound fifty million pounds a year to 700 million pounds of pesticides used a year and incidentally over that same time period the lost to pests (00:30:13) Have actually increased rather than gotten less because pesticides not only Wipeout bad pests. They wipe out good piss. In Nebraska and in (00:30:28) parts of Minnesota now the runoff of chemical pesticides and fertilizers are contaminating underground water (00:30:34) supplies and children and Nebraska are being treated with nitrate poisoning (00:30:40) a study was recently done and I haven't seen it yet. I just heard a (00:30:42) little bit about that shows (00:30:44) the cancer rates among Farmers have something like six times higher than the national average and I suspect that that has to do (00:30:51) again with the massive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (00:30:56) a few other comments related to (00:30:58) water in (00:30:59) parts of Kansas and that part of the country but they are doing is they are mining the water. It's basically fossil water water that cannot be restored replenished and they're using Senate pivot irrigators to the point where (00:31:14) once a mine that water out of there. They'll leave that land a desert (00:31:18) in California through irrigation of land that probably should not be irrigated. They're going to leave much of the southern part of that state at salt desert. (00:31:26) Reminders to our children of inappropriate farming techniques and one final comment about water (00:31:35) perhaps what will challenge those of us who are interested in preserving agricultural land and water for food (00:31:41) production will be the energy development course of this country (00:31:46) coal gasification and oil from Shale our environmental nightmares. They will take tremendous amounts of land and water resources (00:31:54) that then will be unavailable for agricultural use and one estimate that I've seen recently says (00:31:59) if we build all the coal gasification and oil shale plants that are now projected it would take every drop of water now used in the United States times for just to provide the water (00:32:12) for those coal gasification and oil from Shale points. It's an environmental Nightmare and one which is being sold to us along with nuclear power as the way to energy Independence. a tenth sign of (00:32:29) Christ's Is food dependency in the United (00:32:32) States (00:32:34) within the United States we ourselves are vulnerable particularly on a regional basis in the part of the country where I now live the Northeast now Imports between 80 and 90% of its food. We have lost more than half of our agricultural base over the last 35 years and we're still told over and over and over again by people at USDA that we should continue to pave over our farmland and put shopping centers on it because it's more profitable to do so (00:33:02) for the next five years and when you ask them, what about the next 10 years or next 15 years, they don't even understand the question. (00:33:12) And as Ken said even States like (00:33:14) Minnesota are vulnerable (00:33:18) Regional vulnerability has to do with crop specialization as well as the erosion of the Agricultural (00:33:23) base. (00:33:25) Second Factor relating to our own food dependency as while. The United States is a large exporter of agricultural products for every dollar of food. This country exports. We import fifty cents worth of agricultural products (00:33:39) from outside the country. So we are not as large a net exporter is some of us might (00:33:44) think (00:33:46) and can gave the example that (00:33:48) approximately half to two-thirds of many of our fresh winter and spring vegetables come (00:33:53) from Mexico a country that obviously has malnutrition problems of its own (00:33:58) and in many areas of the country. For example, the Northeast local producers can't find markets for their products because Supermarket chains only contract with people who will supply them on a year-round basis (00:34:10) and those are buying and large people in California and Mexico