Disastrous consequences of cheap food

At Grist, Tom Philpott has a great overview of the myriad problems with the way America feeds itself. Yes, American food is relatively cheap, but there are many downsides to that cheapness, including widespread health problems (an epidemic of obesity, for starters) from eating "energy-dense" foods (e.g. Ding Dongs), and a ruinously extractive system that has dire consequences both for the environment and local economies.

Philpott examines the economics of the cheap-corn policy (in service to the global commodity system) that sucks local economies dry. He looks at southern Minnesota (where I'm from) and (quoting Ken Meter of the Minneapolis-based Crossroads Resource Center) find that:

... between 1997 and 2003, local farmers sold an annual average of $912 million into the global commodity market. But to do so, they spent a jaw-dropping average of $996 million each year -- meaning an average annual loss of $84 million. Meanwhile, area residents spent $500 million per year buying food from outside the region, and another $500 million purchasing farm fertilizer and other inputs produced outside the region. Combined, that makes an outflow of $1 billion -- or more than the area brings in by selling into the commodity market.

"Essentially, this economy is extractive," Meter says. "Our food system doesn't build wealth in our high-producing areas, it extracts wealth." Meter says the area's economy benefits not local farmers or consumers, but rather the large operations like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, which thrive on low prices for commodity inputs. The federal government picks up the tab for a failing economy; between 1997 and 2003, federal subsidies poured into southeastern Minnesota an average of $98 million per year.

This disastrous situation can be fixed, however, says Meter:

[I]f the region's consumers were to buy 15 percent of their food from local sources, it would generate as much income for the region as two-thirds of farm subsidies. [Meter] says the Southeast Minnesota Food Network, an organization formed in 2001 to refocus area farmers on producing for the local market and encourage consumers to buy local, has been using his data to recruit new members.

As the federal government dithers with its food pyramids and ruinous cheap-corn policy, low-income communities are organizing to gain control over the quality of their food supply. Meter's work in the Midwest and Herrera's in the Northeast represent the rumblings of a growing real-food underground -- an upsurge that challenges not just the hegemony of processed food, but also the social relations that allow it to thrive.

Read the whole article...