TOO MANY CORPORATE COW PIES ON THE INDUSTRIAL FARM

How Mega-Corporations Exploit the Profit Potential of Our Food System

In the last Eco-Logical, we got a mouthful of the chaff that industrial farming picture of barley in field has given us as it has produced its vast amounts of wheat, corn, and other "mono-crops." How did we go from lovable family farms to troublesome factory farms in half a century?

It turns out there was big money to be made in industrial farming—but the big bucks were mostly for corporations, not for farmers. In part 2 of our guest-article series by Pesticide Action Network North America, we explore the rise of our corporatized farming system. The articles have been excerpted, with permission, from PANNA's Global Pesticide Campaigner, volume 13, number 2.


Industrial Agriculture and Corporate Power, pt 2
by Skip Spitzer, Pesticide Action Network North America

A key aspect of the industrial food system is that it is an outgrowth of a long and on-going process of economic concentration that allows the biggest agribusinesses—companies that supply the chemicals, seeds, equipment and services that are critical to industrial farms—to by and large define and control the modern food system. Today in the US, only 8% of farms account for 72% of sales. Worldwide, the top ten seed firms now control 30% of the $24.4 billion seed market, and the top ten agrochemical corporations control 84% of the $30 billion agrochemical market.

Concentration in the "input sectors" exposes farmers to artificially high costs for seeds, chemicals and other farming products, while concentration in commodities markets artificially lowers prices paid to farmers for their crops. picture of industrial grain silo operation As a result, small farms are disappearing. In the US, for example there were 5.4 million farms in 1950, but just over two million in 1997. Four-fifths of US agricultural subsidies now go to the top 30% of farms. The family farm crisis is also destroying rural communities. As local economies deteriorate, so do peoples' lives.

In the Third World, agribusiness development and the opening of markets to large-scale, heavily subsidized foreign farm products is causing even more extensive displacement of small farmers.

The Next Big Phase in big agribusiness' quest for profits is to commercialize genetically engineered (GE) crops. The advent of GE crops has prompted new rounds of mergers and acquisitions of seed, agrochemical, and biotechnology companies. The top seven agricultural biotechnology companies are now also the top agrochemical corporations and rank among the top ten seed corporations.

Using new intellectual property rights, these companies are patenting "new forms of life" and licensing biotech seeds, rather than selling them. Licensing agreements typically outlaw the farmer's use and breeding of second-generation seeds and impose other requirements.

Thus, GE crops have deepened corporate control of food by accelerating economic concentration and by changing property rights around seeds. Meanwhile, instead of providing a promised "bullet train to the future," biotech seeds have at best provided mixed performance in terms of yield and pesticide use, while closing some export markets to US products, contaminating non-GE crops, creating uncertainties over liability, accelerating the emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds, and causing insect resistant to Bt bio-pesticides, which are essential tools for organic farmers.

picture of industrial grain silo operation While it's tempting to think that large, high-tech industrial farms would be the most efficient way to produce food, small farms are extremely productive when considering total output rather than how much of a single crop can be produced. For instance, one study found the value of crops coming off an average 27-acre farm to be 10 times that of farms in the 6,000- to 7,000-acre range. As the problems of industrial farming become clearer, farmers and researchers in many countries are building on the rich heritage of smaller traditional and indigenous farming systems and demonstrating the extraordinary potential of ecologically based agriculture.

But even so, today we are still seeing:

* a growth in the number and size of corporations that trade internationally or operate in more than one country,
* a rising commitment to liberal trade policies by national governments, and
* further development of global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The IMF and the World Bank broadly benefit corporations, principally by requiring recipient nations to reduce trade regulations and tariffs, reduce limits on foreign ownership and privatization, and promote export-led growth. The World Bank also provides transnational and large domestic corporations with lucrative contracts, investment loans and guarantees, access to resources, technical assistance, and advisory programs. World Bank projects in agriculture overwhelmingly foster the industrial model.

Even more far-reaching is the growing impact of trade and investment agreements, such as:

* the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
* Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation,
* the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and
* in particular, those of the WTO.

All of these trade arrangements are codifying new corporate rights. The WTO, for example, negotiates, interprets, and enforces global trade and investment agreements that raise commercial interests above governments' rights to set their own policies relating to trade, regulation, investment, purchasing, and other areas, regardless of social or environmental considerations. For example, the WTO Agreement on Agriculture removes barriers to agricultural markets, generally favoring industrial exporters (and their methods of production). Not surprisingly, huge, market-distorting agribusinesses themselves are not seen as barriers to free markets.

THROWING A MONKEY WRENCH INTO THE INDUSTRIAL FARM MACHINE

THROWING A MONKEY WRENCH INTO THE INDUSTRIAL FARM MACHINE
The Environmental Cost and Unsustainability of Industrial Agriculture

Most of us in the US live in The Land of Plenty, at least as far as food is concerned. There may be a few sugar addicts that would prefer to live in The Land of Good 'n' Plenty, but generally we like the fact that we have cheap, plentiful food.

We're sorry to have to report, however, that not all is well with the "industrial" food system that emerged in the 20th century. picture of industrial farm, amber waves of grain Because farming and food production are such important parts of our survival, and because farming plays a key role in many aspects of pollution, biodiversity, animal welfare, and human rights issues, we wanted to take a more in-depth look at the situation.

Today we begin a 4-part series of guest articles by Skip Spitzer of Pesticide Action Network North America that will discuss the downsides of industrial agriculture. The articles have been excerpted, with permission, from PANNA's Global Pesticide Campaigner, volume 13, number 2.

Industrial Agriculture and Corporate Power, pt 1
by Skip Spitzer, Pesticide Action Network North America


Within just the past 50 years, industrial agriculture has become the dominant model for producing food. Instead of small, family-oriented farms raising a variety of crops and animals, industrial agriculture is based on large-scale, machine- and chemical-intensive farms specializing in a single animal product or hybrid high-yield crop. Harvests have become commodities typically sold to specialized firms for storage, processing, distribution, manufacture and marketing, domestically and internationally.

Industrial farming fundamentally erodes the ecological basis of cultivation and creates crops that are especially vulnerable to weeds, insects and disease. picture of industrial farm crops in field Single-crop farming precludes beneficial crop interactions, abandons complimentary relationships between plant cultivation and animal husbandry (e.g., manure used for fertilization), limits fertility-enhancing crop rotations, provides uniform targets for pests, and undermines beneficial soil organisms, pollinators and natural pest predators.

Modern hybrid plant varieties deliberately emphasize economic traits (such as yield) over survivability traits (such as disease resistance). Thus, industrial crops tend to be vulnerable to pests and require synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, the overuse of which accelerates the development of pests' resistance to the pesticides, kills beneficial "predator" insects, and further erodes the natural fertility of the soil by killing beneficial soil organisms.

Additional soil problems associated with the industrial food system include nutrient depletion, hyper-salinity, bad pH, chemical and animal-waste contamination, and erosion. In the last 40 years nearly one third of the world's arable land has been lost.

Chemical inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) pollute the air and water; kill fish, birds, insects and other wildlife; and deplete the planet's protective ozone layer. Massive use of irrigation has depleted aquifers. Farm machinery, long-distance transport, and manufacture of farming chemicals consume vast amounts of fossil fuels. US agriculture uses ten fossil-fuel calories for each single food calorie produced.

The widespread adoption of a relatively few commercially successful crop varieties has led to the loss of an estimated 75% of the genetic diversity in agriculture in the past 100 years. Now genetically engineered crops pose unprecedented risks of irreversible genetic contamination.

ANNIE GET YOUR GENE GUN

Genetically Engineered Crops—The Scary Sequel to "The Green Revolution"

Warning! A genetically engineered Chia Pet has escaped from an experimental farm and was last seen rampaging through nearby houses, rummaging through piles of opened Christmas presents, trying to find his lost siblings Shrubby and Fern. Authorities recommend that you stay calm, keep the hedge shears handy, and check your taste in gifts.

Warning—a real one this time—genetically modified plants may be coming to a field near you. Should you worry about this any more than your parents or grandparents worried about the post-WWII rise of chemical pesticides and other problems associated with "The Green Revolution"? We think so.

In the last Eco-Logical, we talked about the Green Revolution—the farming system that gained favor after World War II and that has become "the norm" in most parts of the industrialized world—noting some of the problems it has caused, including:

* reduced soil fertility,
* air and water pollution from chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
* loss of beneficial pest predators, and
* the rise of large-scale mono-cropping operations at the expense of smaller farms.

In the end, the Green Revolution will prove about as sustainable as Prince and the Revolution.

From the perspective of large agro-chemical companies—which are now also biotechnology companies—the solution to the decline of the Green Revolution technologies (and company profits) lies in genetic engineering (GE) technologies. Using GE techniques, scientists will be able to manipulate plant genetics to allow the crops to overcome pests, diseases, poor soils, and unfavorable weather conditions. Or so they say.

If GE crops become even more widely adopted than they already are, we will add to the problems of the Green Revolution the following:

* Potential hidden allergy risks and other unforeseen adverse human reactions to GE foods.
* Increased genetic concentration of crop strains, thus reducing the disease and pest resistance offered by systems that employ many varieties.
* Further removal of the means of food production from the hands of farmers and citizens and into the hands of transnational corporations via legal prohibitions against saving seed for planting the next year.
* Incorporation of dangerous genetic technologies to prevent seeds from germinating the following planting year (so companies can make farmers re-purchase seed every year).
* Contamination of non-GE crops with genetic material from GE crops, thus potentially imparting troublesome GE traits into ALL crops.
* Loss of the use of Bt, an important natural pest control agent, as pests adapt to it via continual exposure through Bt corn, cotton, and potatoes (and other Bt-inclusive crops in the future).

It's too simplistic to say that all GM crops are definitely bad and that GE should be abandoned altogether. What is fair to say, though, is that the tests run so far on GM crops have been inadequate to demonstrate the long-term safety of the crops as food or as components of a stable global agricultural system. As the Green Revolution begins its decline, agricultural companies see GE crops as a vital new source of income. As the companies rush to introduce new GE products into production, those who are supposed to be regulating the process seem all too willing to defer to the judgment of the companies requesting approval. Safety is taking a back seat to profits.

Applying research and technology to farming is essential to ensuring adequate food supplies and robust global agricultural operations. What has happened, though, is that the vast majority of the research and technology pursued by corporations has been geared toward marketable products. If, since WWII, all of the resources that were spent on research into chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and GE crops had been spent instead on improving non-chemical, non-GE approaches, farming would look a lot different today, and it would produce as much or more food—but without the environmental and social damage that the Green Revolution and its technologies have caused and that GE technologies may cause in the future.

We like to think that our governments are keeping us safe from harm, properly regulating industries and potentially dangerous new technologies. But it's often not so. Despite the good intentions of federal regulations, the US EPA is largely unable to protect us from the disastrous products of the pesticide industry, and as GE crops are queued up for approval, we're seeing similarly lax stewardship on the part of EPA, USDA, and FDA.

Only if we make a stink about it—a stink like we've just eaten too much GE cabbage-and-garlic soufflé—will the regulators and their congressional overlords find the strength to ensure the job gets done properly.

MAJOR TOM TO CROP CONTROL, YOUR SOIL IS DEAD, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG.

The Green Revolution—A Major Burnout Case

We at Grinning Planet deny the report that the founder spends one day a month dressed in a Ziggy Stardust costume chasing Martian spiders around the house with a beaker full of rum-and-pineapple bug juice. He LIKES spiders and other natural predators, Martian or otherwise, even if the Green Revolution doesn't have much use for them.

The Green Revolution—which included the widespread introduction of hybrid plant varieties, chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and large, one-crop farms—is given credit for greatly increasing the amount of food that the world can grow within a given amount of land. While the claimed increase in productivity is based in fact, consider the following downsides to the revolution:

* The Green Revolution approach promotes mono-cropping—that is, growing a single crop year after year on the same piece of farmland. This eliminates crop rotation, an important natural approach to maintaining soil fertility and preventing pest problems.
* To make up for the loss of pest protection and soil fertility normally conferred by crop rotation, Green Revolution farmers must use large quantities of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, which kill beneficial pest predators right along with their intended victims, harm the fertility of the soil by killing beneficial soil organisms, and pollute the air and water as wind and rainwater runoff pick up the chemicals and carry them away. Much of the nation's groundwater and surface waters are contaminated by pesticides, nitrate, and phosphate.
* The Green Revolution approach leads to larger and larger farming operations, with fewer and fewer small farms surviving. Also significant is that agribusiness corporations are now major owners in farming operations.

So, overall, the Green Revolution HAS increased farm output, but the price has been high for the environment, for the long-term security of our agricultural land, and for small farmers and farming communities.

Mono-cropping, fertilizers, and pesticides are burning out our soils at the same time the chemicals are poisoning our air and waterways. Insects and diseases are becoming resistant to existing pesticides and they're adapting ever more quickly to new pesticides. In the end, we will find that the increased productivity associated with the Green Revolution will have been temporary. Like a person who starts getting hopped up on speed, our current farming system saw an initial period of increased output, but as the side effects of the chemicals take hold, the supporting systems are beginning to falter. After a while, the system is worse off than if the substances had never been used at all.

Given the long-term unsustainability of Green Revolution farming methods, it is a significant problem that we are continuing to lose our base of small farmers. They, not the large-scale farmers, are the ones who will ultimately be capable of utilizing the sustainable, smaller-scale farming methods that will prove unavoidably necessary in the future.

For the last 50 years, the large agro-chemical companies, aided by their misguided allies in government and by their corporate-funded research partners in universities, have widely promoted adoption of Green Revolution methods because of the profitability of farming supplies and services, large-scale-farming equipment, and commodities brokerage and shipping. They are smart businesses, and they are smart enough to see the writing on the wall for the Green Revolution technologies and products. They've been looking for The Next Big Thing. Enter genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Will GE crops save the world's agricultural systems, or will they add to the problems in the fields at the same time they're adding to the corporate bottom line? Will GE potato fields spawn thousands of freakish genetically engineered Mr. Potato Heads, banding together and marching on town to discover the fate of their friends Larry, Moe and Curly Fries? We'll stick a fork in all that in the next issue of Grinning Planet.

Sustainable Agriculture - Off-farm impacts

What if a farm is able to "produce perpetually", yet has negative effects on environmental quality elsewhere? Most people concerned with sustainability take a global view, so they try to avoid negative off-farm impacts. For example, over-application of synthetic fertilizer or animal manures can pollute nearby rivers and coastal waters.

On the other hand, if crop yields are too low, because of soil exhaustion of nutrients or reduced ability to retain water, farmers would need to access new lands for agriculture, leading to the decimation of the rainforest, draining wetlands, etc.

Organic Farming Beats No-Till?

Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than conventional no-till farming can, according to a long-term study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.

Researchers made this discovery during a nine-year study at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), Beltsville, Md. BARC is operated by ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

Plant physiologist John Teasdale, with the ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, was surprised to find that organic farming was a better soil builder than no-till. No-till has always been thought to be the best soil builder because it eliminates plowing and minimizes even light tillage to avoid damaging organic matter and exposing the soil to erosion.

Organic farming, despite its emphasis on building organic matter, was thought to actually endanger soil because it relies on tillage and cultivation—instead of herbicides—to kill weeds.

But Teasdale's study showed that organic farming's addition of organic matter in manure and cover crops more than offset losses from tillage.

From 1994 to 2002, Teasdale compared light-tillage organic corn, soybean and wheat with the same crops grown with no-till plus pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

In a follow-up three-year study, Teasdale grew corn with no-till practices on all plots to see which ones had the most-productive soils. He found that the organic plots had more carbon and nitrogen and yielded 18 percent more corn than the other plots did.

Arborsculpture - Introduction

Arborsculpture is a branch of arboriculture specifically involved with the shaping of tree trunks, branches and roots into structures with ornamental or functional utility. Basic techniques involve pruning, grafting and bending single or multiple trees into shapes that grow thicker and stronger as they add annual rings. The closest related practices are espalier and pleaching.

The term Arborsculpture was coined by Richard Reames in the 1990s to unify the field, but the practice can be dated back to 1905 when John Krubsack grew a chair in Wisconsin. The book "Arborsculpture - Solutions for a Small Planet" by Richard Reames is the most comprehensive title covering this esoteric practice.

Axel Erlandson Starting work in the late 1920s and continuing until about 1963, a year before his death. Most of his works are currently housed at Bonfante Gardens. Axel Erlandson is considered the most prolific and accomplished tree shaper to ever practice this art.