CHAPTER 2: Agriculture
Why focus on agriculture?
The previous section listed many of the issues facing rural communities, and each of those issues deserve their own in depth look. However, while population decline, problems with health, education, infrastructure, poverty, lack of access for basic goods and services, and a decline in ecosystem health can all lead to an increase in overall rural decay, but they are indicators of rural decay not root causes.
There are many disagreements and many explanations for what the root causes are. One explanation is that rural decline has been brought about by a rise of individualism in our society, which causes people to become more closed off and decreases social capital especially in rural areas.{24} Another explanation stems from world systems theory, which says that the world is organized in ways that lead to good outcomes for some and bad outcomes for others. This means that in order for some areas to be wealthier they have to exploit poorer areas by paying low prices for their exported raw materials and then make them pay more for imported finished products.{25}. If looked at historically this theory does make a certain sort of sense. Cities have always contained the manufacturing plants because they have the man power to run them, while rural areas have produced the raw materials needed for production. However, these days the disparity between raw material and finished product pricing has become quite a bit larger, and the demand for finished products in rural areas has increased. Rural areas are becoming less self-reliant and more poverty stricken.
The issue I will be looking at is also one of the root causes to the downfall of many rural areas: current farming methods. In the past decade, the world has seen the rise of a new food system, industrial agriculture. This system allows for fewer farmers, bigger farms, greater production, manufacturing, distributing, and cheaper, widely available food for the consumer. This all sounds great, and most people think this is the best way to produce food, because it is believed to be more cost effective and productive.{26} However, there is a hidden side to this story that is finally making its way into the public arena. Many people are uncovering the concealed costs of this system, costs to the environment and society as a whole. While the detriments of this system are felt by everyone (whether people recognize it or not) the one place that gets the majority of the problems without many of the benefits, is rural areas.
I have chosen to focus on agriculture for this paper because unlike individualism, world systems theory and other things that have been pinpointed as root causes to rural decay, industrial agriculture is a tangible system that can be fully analyzed. Moreover, just as the issues within our agricultural set up can be seen, solutions to these problems are also available. While it is always good to look at problems from all angles and take into account all the variables, it is also sometimes best to locate an issue that can be dealt with, so that substantial changes can be made.
DECLINE IN POPULATION & ECONOMY:
Richard Manning says, “…the green revolution is the worst thing that has ever happened to the planet. For openers, it disrupted long-standing patterns of rural life worldwide, moving a lot of no-longer-needed people off the land and into the world’s most severe poverty.”{27} This may be an extreme position to take, for the green revolution also brought about a style of eating that for the majority of Americans is quite easy, fast and affordable. We now spend about 11 percent of our paychecks on food, which is quite low; most other countries spend at least 50 percent of their money on food.{28} Yet, the benefits of this system are not evenly distributed, and while the rest of the United States has seen major economic growth in the past decades, rural areas have either improved at much slower rates, not changed, or declined. As Wendell Berry states, “agricultural losses occur on the farm and in farming communities, whereas the great gains of agriculture all occur in cities, just as the profits from coal are realized mainly in cities far from where the coal is mined.”{29}
This could be attributed to the fact that farming is a lot more consolidated now than before. The motto for agriculture since the green revolution has been to “get big or get out.” According to the US Department of Agriculture the amount of land for farms that make less than $10,000 has decreased from 1999 to 2009, but has increased for farms making over $500,000; farms making over $500,000 now own about 64% of the total agricultural land.{30} According to Bill Mckibben, “since the end of WWII the U.S. has lost a farm about every half hour,” and farms would need about four times as much land to generate the same income that they did back then.{31} Lots of little diverse farms have been replaced by huge monoculture farms that depend on less local labor, and whose profits do not go into the local economy because they are owned by large agribusinesses that are based in far away cities.
Some people claim that this consolidation is good, that it frees up labor for other areas, and maybe it is true that some of these farmers are happier working other jobs. However, there are also a lot of happy farming families that are being forced to leave their communities because they can no longer afford to farm.{32} Additionally, when a farmer leaves a community it creates huge economic losses for that area, especially when big corporate farms that give very little back to the community replace them. According to one study when a farmer leaves a community, there is an economic loss in the neighborhood of $720,000.{33} As we saw from the previous section this has tangible results in rural areas where poverty levels are a lot higher than they are in all other parts of the U.S, even inner cities.{34} This consolidation and decrease in the remaining number of farms has also led to the aging of American farmers, where the majority of farmers are now over the age of 65.{35}
There are many reasons for this consolidation. One of the main ones is that current government subsidies favor larger farmers by basing their payments on output, rather than on style of farming or type of production.{36} While there have been some changes to this in the recent farm bill, with more money going towards smaller farms and organic production, the majority of the money is still going to large agribusiness producers. This is in part due to the incredible political power that these agribusinesses wield. However, it is also due to small farmers not having the capital or organization{37} required to push their agendas as much as bigger businesses.{38} This is also coupled with the fact that it is easier for retailers to deal with larger businesses that can supply most of their products rather than dealing with many different small farmers.{39} All of these political and structural issues bring about consolidation and specialization in farms.
Another reason for decline in number of farms and increase in farm sizes is due to technological changes. There is now a wide range of labor and time reducing inputs that can be used, such as tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified plants. These technologies allow for things to be done much faster, and it is certainly easier to spray your crops for bugs than to go through and remove them by hand or use other alternative techniques. Never mind that most of these inputs are owned by big businesses that will sell genetically modified seeds that are safe for a certain type of pesticide and then also sell the pesticide at an increased price thus making all the profits. This may account for the debt cycle that many farmers get into, where they have to keep purchasing the newest technologies to keep up with the demand and then sell their crops at an ever-reduced rate.{40}
This brings me to another reason for the decline and consolidation of farms namely faulty loans. Farmers take out large loans for equipment or to buy more land because the price of commodities is high, then they start producing more. Unsurprisingly, this increases the amount of commodities in the market, which lowers the price. This happened at a high rate in the 1970s and eventually led to the collapse of many small farms. The high amount of debt and low commodity price was coupled with a rising interest rate and caused many people to default on their loans, and freed up cheap land for both developers and agribusiness.{41}
OTHER SOCIETAL ISSUES:
Current farming methods, aside from decreasing farming populations and hurting local economies, have other costs to society. These costs include increases in diseases such as obesity and diabetes because food that is high in sugars and proteins has become cheaper and more readily available than produce.{42} There has also been an increase in food contamination due to the consolidation of packaging and processing plants that can allow for a lot more cross contamination and a larger number of items to become contaminated at one. Another monetary cost has been the increase in taxation that is put towards subsidizing industrial agriculture. There are also costs internationally since this system allows corporations to flood markets with cheap food, hurting small rural farmers who depend on sales for their livelihoods.{43} Yet one of the scariest issues is the general decrease in the transparency of our food system. {44} People do not know where their food comes from, if it has been genetically modified, exactly what ingredients are in it, and how much it has been processed.
Even though industrial agriculture has caused many societal issues as stated above, and a decrease in population and economies, it still does have beneficial sides. As we know, it gives us easy access to cheap and fast food, but even more than that it is a lot easier to do. Organic, polyculture methods require an incredible amount of time and manpower.{45} When I mentioned to my mom my feelings on industrial agriculture and how it seems to decrease farming in areas, she reminded me that a lot of people she know stopped farming because it just requires too much work. So, how do we justify going back to a style of farming that is much more labor intensive? If the above-mentioned reasons are not enough there is also a laundry list of environmental concerns that industrial agriculture raises. These will be discussed in this next section.
DECLINE IN ENVIRONMENT:
There are numerous effects that industrial agriculture has on the environment, and most of them are extremely harmful. Industrial production damages soil, overuses water, uses potentially dangerous chemicals through pesticide and herbicide application, lowers biodiversity through mono-cropping and the use of GMO technology, pollutes water tables and rivers through overuse and misuse of fertilizers, and also adds to global warming through the production and use of fertilizers. The manufacturing and distribution techniques of industrial agriculture are also very energy intensive, and the distance food travels is increased in this system, which also leads to an increased output of greenhouse gasses. The industrial system has also led to an increase in waste since manure from animals is no longer re-used and there is an increase in packaging. These problems are only a few of the environmental issues that are caused by industrial agriculture, but they are sufficient for understanding the extent of negative impacts the industrial agricultural system has on the environment. As stated earlier, these are all problems that Gardner is facing, but they also extend out to most rural areas. The next few paragraphs will explain in more detail about these effects on the environment.
Bill Mckibben in his book Deep Economy says, “…we are running out of the two basic ingredients that we need to grow crops on an industrial scale…oil and water…”{46} This is a frightening concept since agriculture has now become an activity that requires an incredible amount of these inputs. About 70 percent of the water we use in the United States now goes towards irrigating our crops.{47} This seems like an unnecessary amount of irrigation, especially considering the fact that there is technology available that could drastically lower this number, technology such as drip irrigation, which is much more efficient than older methods of flood irrigation or high output sprinklers.
Fossil fuel is another input that industrial agriculture uses a lot of. In fact the industrial agricultural system requires a lot of non-renewable resources for every stage of its production. Fertilizer is made in an energy intensive process that uses oil and natural gas, and oil powers the equipment needed to spray this fertilizer and pesticides, and to plant and harvest the crops. As stated earlier, oil is also needed to transport crops ever increasing distances to be processed, and this processing requires oil for packaging final products and for running equipment.{48} Then we get in our cars and drive miles to obtain it. All of this seems like an excessive amount of fossil fuel use, especially since it is a finite resource. According to Richard Manning in his article The Oil We Eat, current farming has “extended its boundaries across time, tapping fossil energy, stripping past assets.” Oil cannot last forever; it will run out just as most finite resources tend to do. So the question becomes do we start switching our practices over now and changing our technology so that it works with renewable resources, or do we wait till the last minute and try our luck then?
That question can be extended out to the aspect of climate change as well because dependence on fossil fuel does not just affect our food, but also our weather. Our current style of eating is one of the main contributors to our greenhouse gas emissions; one study even puts it at 37 percent.{49} While most experts differ in their opinions, we can be sure that climate change will have some sort of effect on how well our crops grow, or whether they grow at all. Some people even predict that climate may be a good thing for the United States since it will increase CO2 levels and temperatures thus creating more growing areas in the northern part of the U.S. However, the consensus is mostly that it will make wet areas wetter, and dry areas drier.{50} This is not a good thing for growing crops. Most plants like to have a median range of water meaning not too much or not too little. Also, plants have adapted to areas over many years, in some cases thousands of years, and will probably not survive any rapid changes of climate. So we are basically using up a finite supply of energy at an ever-increasing rate, taking away from our assets for the future, causing climate to change, and all this will have the effect of decreasing our food supply. Does this make any sense? Maybe for the corporations and big agri-businesses who are making money right now, but for future generations, for the long-term survival of our species, we are pretty much destroying the very thing that sustains us.
The heavy inputs needed for this agricultural system extend beyond just water and oil. They also include fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides. The heavy use of these inputs contributes to numerous environmental issues, as mentioned earlier. Excessive fertilizer run-off creates “dead zones” in bodies of water, or areas where there is not enough oxygen in the water to support normal life. It can also contaminate aquifers with extreme amounts of nitrogen and harmful pesticides, and through chemical reactions it can cause acid rain and then turn into nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas.{51} Heavy use of pesticides and herbicides also cause problems. They can lead to the creation of “super” pests and weeds, or pests and weeds that have built up immunity to pesticides and herbicides and can destroy large amounts of crops. There are also some health risks that are associated with certain types of these chemicals, such as DDT, which has been shown to increase risks of breast cancer.{52} While DDT has been mostly banned for use in agriculture, there are still many types of these chemicals in use that have not been studied sufficiently to discount any risks that may be associated with them.
While these are all important inputs that have a lot of environmental concerns associated with them, there is one more that is just as important if not more so, soil. Our current style of production requires use of an excessive amount of the soil fertility that has been built up over many hundreds or thousands of years. Agricultural methods that till the land and do not alternate crops (methods that are employed in industrial agriculture) erode soil at faster rates than other more sustainable methods, which allow for no till areas or use rotational cropping and animals to supplement the soil with more nutrients.{53} The soil is the base of any food product; it supplies the nutrients necessary for the plant to live, which means they are also necessary for us to live. By depleting the soil at a non-replenishable rate we are also depleting an asset that has taken lifetimes to build. Except that unlike fossil fuel, we have the capacity to make soil a renewable resource, which makes this a crime of stupidity if not willful ignorance.
Another industrial agricultural activity that has proven to be highly detrimental to the environment is Centralized Animal Feeding Lots (CAFOs). CAFOs remove animals from the land and place them in confined areas. Aside from the humane issues that these operations raise{54}, they cause a lot of environmental harm by creating a waste stream that is often times worse than most human ones, especially since there are no regulations requiring it to be treated.{55} What was once an asset to the farm (manure) now is a problem that leads to the pollution of water, land, and air.{56}
With all the above listed concerns for the environment, why do we still utilize this style of farming instead of switching to more sustainable techniques? One reason, which was stated earlier, is that there are an ever decreasing number of people in these rural areas, thus making sustainable agriculture more difficult because it requires heavier labor. As Michael Pollan states, “the number of farmers has fallen from half the American population to about 1 percent, and in essence those missing farmers have been replaced with oil.”{57} This is definitely true; if we were to do away with these techniques then we would need to increase the amount of labor available to farms.
So what does this all mean for small rural areas? The answer is simple: they are closer to the actual degradation and so they are the first to feel its effects. They will drink first the polluted water, feel the breast cancer, see the “super” pests wipe out their crops, and as we know from the first section they will not be in as good a position to respond to all these problems. They do not have the finances, education, or health facilities to “fix” things up.
However, that being said, the other reason that rural areas are tied into these environmental issues is because they do hold a lot of the solutions. Often times when you live in an area, and you want to pass it on to your children, you will better care for it. Although it is not always the case it has been shown that rural farmers have the potential to be the best stewards of the land. As the author Jules Pretty stated in his book, Landscapes Lost and Found:
When we feel that we have ownership in something, even if technically and legally we do not, or that our livelihood depends upon it, then we care. If we care, we watch, we appreciate, we are vigilant against threats. But when we know less, or have forgotten, then we do not care. Then it is easier for the powerful to appropriate these common goods and so destroy them in pursuit of their own economic gain.
It is no wonder then that industrial agriculture, which is often run by large agribusiness corporations that have no long term interest and connection with the land, cause more environmental harm.