Book Review

In Part 2 of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: The Impact of Globalization we are told that: “Across the world, family farmers who till their soil are being challenged by corporate agribusiness, in its – to date successful – efforts to remove culture from agriculture, approaching its ultimate goals, namely the total globalised industrialization of our food supply.” “Not only in the United States, but also in Western Europe, Russia and right here in India, as evidenced by the actions of hundreds of thousands of farmers against Cargill Corporation, the world’s largest grain trader, we see increasing numbers of angry, frustrated farmers seriously questioning worldwide economic systems that are denying them fair prices for what they produce.” “As Susan George reminds us in her book Feeding the Few, ‘Transnational corporations are not there to feed people, they are not there to provide jobs, they are there to make a profit. Period! That’s all! So one should not expect them to be feeding people who cannot pay.’” “Today, our family-farm system of agriculture stands on the threshold of eradication. We see an increasing number of farm and rural business bankruptcies, foreclosures and forced evictions, together reaping a grim harvest of suicides, alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, family violence, personal stress and loss of community even as the very economic and social fabric of rural America is being ripped asunder.” “Currently, we have a situation in the world where a combination of poor harvests and changes in American and European farm policies have depleted food reserves. Globally available supplies of corn, wheat and other grains have fallen from 77 days of consumption in food to an estimated 48 days, the lowest in at least 35 years.” “As Patricia L. Allen and Carolyn E. Sachs point out, any system built upon a foundation of structural inequities is ultimately unsustainable in the sense that it will result in increasing conflict and struggle along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity. Corporate agribusiness has become just such a system.” “In environmental terms, agribusiness-driven, chemical-intensive agriculture has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. Current trends are not only unsustainable but suicidal.” “Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. 89 countries are economically worse off than they were 10 years ago, 21% of the people in developing countries are below the poverty line and 37% suffer from ‘capability’ poverty.” “358 billionaires now have wealth equivalent to the combined assets of 45% of the world’s population.” “As populist historian Norman Pollack stresses, ‘Citizens must now, as they did in the 19^th century Populist movement, challenge the strident materialism of our day and work to achieve a democratized industrial system of humane working conditions and protection of human needs.’”

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY:

THE IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION

EDITED BY VANDANA SHIVA & GITANJALI BEDI

SAGE PUBLICATIONS 2002

PART II

PART III: CORPORATISATION OF AGRICULTURE

Chapter 8: The Corporate Reapers: Towards Total Globalisation of Our Food Supply by A. V. Krebs

We are witnessing today the gradual dismembering of the historical means by which people produce food for themselves and their communities.
Across the world, family farmers who till their soil are being challenged by corporate agribusiness, in its – to date successful – efforts to remove culture from agriculture, approaching its ultimate goals, namely the total globalised industrialization of our food supply.
Not only in the United States, but also in Western Europe, Russia and right here in India, as evidenced by the actions of hundreds of thousands of farmers against Cargill Corporation, the world’s largest grain trader, we see increasing numbers of angry, frustrated farmers seriously questioning worldwide economic systems that are denying them fair prices for what they produce.
One such farmer is Victor Davis Hanson, a former raisin-grape grower from California whose recent book is an honest look at agriculture by a man who wants to save farming as a way of life. He writes:

The final verdict on the future of the American farm lies no longer with the farmer, much less with the abstract thinker or even the politician, but rather with the American people themselves – and they have now passed judgment. They no longer care whether or how they get their food, as long as it is firm, fresh and cheap. They have no interest in preventing the urbanization of their farmland as long as parks, Little League fields and an occasional bike lane are left amid the concrete, stucco and asphalt.

They have no need of someone who they are not, who reminds them of their past and not their future. Their romanticism for the farmer is just that, an artificial and quite transient appreciation of his rough-cut visage against the horizon, the stuff of a wine commercial, cigarette ad or impromptu rock concert. Instinctively, most farmers know this. It’s the real reason they are mad.

As the world witnesses more and more, the consequences of corporatising agriculture, we in the US, where the term ‘agribusiness’ was first coined, find ourselves in the advanced stage of seeing its immediate effects.

Rural America being ripped apart

Today, our family-farm system of agriculture stands on the threshold of eradication. We see an increasing number of farm and rural business bankruptcies, foreclosures and forced evictions, together reaping a grim harvest of suicides, alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, family violence, personal stress and loss of community even as the very economic and social fabric of rural America is being ripped asunder.
Mark Ritchie, the President of the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, describes the period 1987 to 1992 when there was a net loss of 32,000 farms a year:

Rather than putting the bin-busting harvests of the mid-1980s into emergency food stocks (isolated from the market as is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) the US Government spent billions on export subsidies, driving down prices and draining the reserves.

The resulting artificially low prices have had huge impacts both in the US and abroad. They fueled increased demand for industrial corn products for cattle, dairy, hog and poultry factories, which have driven out many smaller family farmers and ranchers.

Low prices also were used to ‘hook’ other countries on buying cheap, subsidized US food, rather than growing their own. The combined impact of low prices, upward spiraling demand and reduced production through farmer attrition has skewed our food system.

Currently, we have a situation in the world where a combination of poor harvests and changes in American and European farm policies have depleted food reserves. Globally available supplies of corn, wheat and other grains have fallen from 77 days of consumption in food to an estimated 48 days, the lowest in at least 35 years.
World prices have soared and the low-income, food-deficit, developing countries will have to pay out $3 billion for their food imports. 800 million people in the developing world suffer from chronic malnutrition, including 200 million children under age of five who are affected by severe or chronic protein deficiency.

The city at the center of the land crisis

Today, in industrialized agriculture, we are seeing more and more forward contracting, prices generally below the cost of production for raw materials, and inaccessible markets, all combining to force family farmers off their land and into our already overcrowded cities.

Profitability, thy name is food

Consumers have fewer and fewer options when it comes to buying food products, in tune with the farmer’s declining ability to sell what they produce in an ‘open’ market which purports to be based on supply and demand.
Four major US cereal manufacturers Kelloggs 36%; General Mills 29%; Philip Morris 12%, and Quaker Oats 7% control 84% of the US ready-to-eat cereal market and 71.7% of the world’s ready-to-eat cereal market.
Their average annual yearly return on investment during 1991-1995 ranged from 64.7% to 36.2% while the farmer realized an average return on investment of 1.98% for this period.

‘Take it or leave it’

Kelloggs, the world’s largest producer, now produces cereal in conjunction with ConAgra Corporation. What can the suppliers of raw material look forward to in their dealings with ConAgra?
Recently, ConAgra abruptly cancelled their poultry producing contracts with over 250 independent contract growers in southern USA, offering an adhesion or ‘take it or leave it contract.
Frequently, a farmer who has borrowed one-third to half a million dollars in order to secure a business contract with a processor like ConAgra, has no option other than to sign, even if it means giving up his or her constitutional rights to access their state and federal courts should anything go amiss in terms of fraud or dispute.
ConAgra’s cancellation of contracts, many believe, came in retaliation to an earlier court suit brought on behalf of 300 poultry growers where a federal court awarded the producers some $17 million after they presented evidence of being cheated by ConAgra on the weight of their birds.

Protecting the corporate environment

Following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in 1991 the Exxon Corporation made a secret deal with seven Alaska seafood processors. One of the seafood processors was Trident Seafood Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of ConAgra Corp.
Presiding Federal Court Judge H. Russel Holland described the arrangement in a 13 June 1996 decision, as an ‘astonishing ruse,’ saying Exxon had deliberately deceived the jury and acted as ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ by ‘behaving laudably in public and deplorably in private.’
Should we be surprised by such corporate behaviour? No. As Susan George reminds us in her book Feeding the Few, ‘Transnational corporations are not there to feed people, they are not there to provide jobs, they are there to make a profit. Period! That’s all! So one should not expect them to be feeding people who cannot pay.’

Crushing the aristocracy of our monied corporations

The threat that corporate agribusiness poses in corrupting and destroying agriculture is not a new one.
Thomas Jefferson, the man who drafted the US Declaration of Independence, remarked in 1816: ‘I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.’
Not only has the ‘aristocracy of our monied corporations’ survived birth, but it has now grown to a stage where it stands ready to dominate nearly every aspect of our existence.
In almost all phases of our economic, political, social, recreational and cultural lives, we are becoming beholden to the corporate culture. No one aspect of our lives better illustrates the corporate culture’s powerful influence on individual human beings on a daily basis, than our eating and drinking habits.

Food – humankind’s great common denominator

Food, next to life itself, is our greatest common denominator. Its availability, quality, price, its reflection of the culture it feeds and its moral and religious significance make it quite literally the ‘staff of life.’
In today’s corporatist culture, food is no longer viewed solely as a sustainer of life. Rather, to those who seek to control its supply, food has simply become a major source of corporate cash flow, economic leverage, a form of currency, a tool of international politics, and instrument of power, in short, a weapon!
As Patricia L. Allen and Carolyn E. Sachs point out, any system built upon a foundation of structural inequities is ultimately unsustainable in the sense that it will result in increasing conflict and struggle along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity. Corporate agribusiness has become just such a system.
In environmental terms, agribusiness-driven, chemical-intensive agriculture has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. Current trends are not only unsustainable but suicidal.
Corporate agribusiness can be brought under economic and political control only by creating a ‘movement culture’, somewhat like the agrarian populist movement that emerged in America in the late 19^th century.
The rest of this article discusses the significance of the agrarian populist movement in bring about greater accountability in agribusiness.

A populist born and bred in agrarian revolt

It was the increasing concentration of capital in the late 19^th century that gave rise to the agrarian populist movement in the United Sates.
Agrarian populism believed that as the American democratic promise was being destroyed, any possibility of individual respect and mass aspiration was also being killed.
It clearly recognized the dangers of corporate culture and believed that it was imperative to bring the corporate state under democratic control.
Agrarian populism is discussed here because it can serve not only as a worldwide model to bring greater accountability to corporate agribusiness and restore a large measure of control to the actual producers of our food, but as a genuine means whereby we can bring about true democracy.
One noteworthy principle emerged out of the ‘agrarian revolt’ of the late 1800s which has particular relevance to our times.
William Lamb, the leader of the Alliance radicals and perhaps populism’s most articulate theoretician, articulated that principle in a historic open letter to the Rural Citizen in 1886.
Lamb saw the society of his day being dominated by the manufacturing class. The traditional image of the farmer as the ‘hardy yeoman’ of the Jefferson era was already out of place in the growing corporate state at the turn of the century.
He believed that the farmer of the new industrial age was a ‘worker’, that the ‘labour question’ was the central issue and that the organized farmers of the Alliance should join with the organised workers of the ‘Knights of Labour.’

Agriculture: Part of the solution or part of the problem?

At the Science Academies Summit on Uncommon Opportunities for a Food Secure World held recently in Madras, Ms. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, noted correctly,

Soil degradation and shortage of water, fueled by increasing population pressures have created an estimated 15 million environmental refugees the world over, holding out a caution that these uprooted people will soon be augmented as a result of the rapidly increasing population growth, topsoil erosion, biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, parched aquifers and toxic contamination.

In a letter to John Lay in 1809, Thomas Jefferson emphasized that ‘an equilibrium of agriculture, manufactures and commerce is certainly essential’ to a nation’s independence.
It is that equilibrium which today’s family farmers are seeking to establish through fair market pricing for what they produce, while they work to provide the nation and the world a safe, affordable and accessible food supply.

The growing gap between the rich and the poor

Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. 89 countries are economically worse off than they were 10 years ago, 21% of the people in developing countries are below the poverty line and 37% suffer from ‘capability’ poverty.
358 billionaires now have wealth equivalent to the combined assets of 45% of the world’s population.
Meanwhile, corporations that continually show record profits, while downsizing their workforce and monopolizing increasingly larger shares of the market place, seldom find themselves at the receiving end of this wrath.
Instead of xenophobic, racist scapegoating and sidestepping economic facts, these angry, often middle-class, people must recognize that it is big, impersonal corporations and their minions who have taken over control of our institutions, our public lands, our media, our political processes and our government.
As populist historian Norman Pollack stresses, ‘Citizens must now, as they did in the 19^th century Populist movement, challenge the strident materialism of our day and work to achieve a democratized industrial system of humane working conditions and protection of human needs.’
The 19^th century populist sought to build a society, where individuals fulfill themselves ‘not at the expense of others but as social beings, and in so doing attain a higher form of individuality.’
The society we should be striving for in the 21^st century is one to be judged not by its apex, but by its base; the quality of life of the masses should be the index by which we measure social improvement.
Like our agrarian populist predecessors, 21^st century populism must undertake to remain a radical social force within political systems which seek to exclude the expression of radicalism.
The 21^st century populist critique must go beyond economic conditions to embrace the individual’s plight. They must address the dehumanization and loss of autonomy in a society that rapidly reduces the individual to being dependent on someone else’s decisions, laws, machinery and land.
Integral to this 21^st century approach is the conviction that individuals can consciously make their future.
There is nothing inevitable about misery or squalor, or the concentration of wealth, or the legitimacy of corporate power; nothing is sacred about the status quo, or about the institutions which safeguard that status quo.
The 19^th century populist movement’s recognition of the plight of family farmers and labour, and the efforts made on their behalf, were premised on the idea that unless society was attuned to their needs it ceased to be democratic. Unless all people are free no one is free.

Creating a ‘movement culture’

If populists in alliance are to replace today’s corporate culture, they must adopt an ideological framework built on aggressive advocacy and create a movement culture.
We can learn valuable lessons from the 19^th century populists. We must develop horizontal communication between various groups of people and individuals within our own communities and nations and then begin to build an international populism.
We can teach each other what each of us learns and knows, and what mistakes we make.
We can create a forum and environment whereby we can continue to attract the masses – movement recruiting.
Keeping in mind a commitment to creative non-violence and the democratic process, and remembering that populism seeks to replace corporate power with democratic power, people can begin a culturally sanctioned level of social analysis or movement education.
Finally, 21^st century populists, in alliance, will create an institutional means, not necessarily a political party, whereby the new ideas shared by the rank and file of the political, social and cultural movement, can be expressed in an autonomous political way – the movement politicized.
In the US, many people are coming together under the aegis of what is being called The Alliance, is an effort to develop an inclusive 21^st populist movement to confront the unbridled power of global corporations and to subordinate them to democratic control, values and forms.
All who subscribe to these worthy goals are invited to join the Alliance http:/www.igc.apc.org/alliance

Conclusion: Eating has become a political act

Last year in its newsletter, the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives in Tokyo, Japan stressed the need for maintaining family farms throughout the world:

Family farms have been the mainstay of sustainable food production in all the countries of the world, and will continue to play a vital role in the 21^st century. Family farms actively contribute to food security, as well as to the preservation of land and the environment, cultural traditions, and beautiful scenery. Any agricultural or food security policy must be based on the continuation of this vitally important institution.

Production cannot be quickly increased or decreased to meet changes in supply and demand. Once farmers leave the land and productive capacity is eliminated, it is very difficult to rebuild. Agriculture is as much a tradition of production in each region of a country as it is a vocation. While technical knowledge can be gained from institutes and universities, it can only supplement the expertise passed on from parents to their children, but never supplant it.

PART IV: GLOBALISATION OF FOOD INSECURITY

Chapter 11: Food Security: Does it Conflict With Globalisation

Sustainable Agriculture Part 2