The Environment, Economics and Social Justice of Farm Industry and Policy:
A Study of the Northfield Region
Emma Glidden-Lyon
Conservation Biology
Final Paper
May 30, 2007
Opening
Southern Minnesota is located right in the heart of traditional agricultural land that is called the breadbasket of America. However there is an ongoing crisis in small American farms that threatens the farm identity of many rural identities. The rise of agribusiness and monocropping production has lead to a decrease in the viability of small, locally based farms. Many communities are becoming aware of their precarious hold on their rural character. As the Twin Cities slowly expand outward, explicit action must be taken to protect any remaining small farms in the Northfield region. One of these approaches is sustainable development. In a speech to the Northfield Just Food Co-op, David Hougen-Eitzman has states that there are three components to sustainability: ecological or environmental sustainability, economical sustainability and social justice. For success in the future, Northfield must try to achieve all three. This will require a great deal of infrastructure change, but more importantly the mindset of the citizens of Northfield must change in regard to assumptions and values they have long held regarding farms, especially regarding the perceived necessities of farm subsidies. Minnesota as a whole must decide what they want the future of their land to be, either suburbs broken up by large, damaging monocrop farms or smaller communities with a connection to their land and their food.
Importance to Conservation Biology
The plight of smaller, diverse farms may appear to have a closer relationship with the study of political science or economics. However, the different methods of farming between a large, agribusiness farm and smaller, locally oriented farm can have direct impact on the biodiversity of certain regions. Larger farms tend to be intensive monoculture producers (in Minnesota this means corn, soybeans or livestock) while smaller farms focus on a diverse range of products. The focus on monoculture is due to the manner in which the global food network has developed. As the food network centralized, a few corporations could exert influence over most of the farms in America. The concern switched from what a community could supply and what a community needed, to what a corporation could market worldwide. This led to more intensive agriculture that allowed more control over crops by employing damaging pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers (Hendricks 2005). These harmful pollutants bioaccumulate through the food web and harm many more species, including humans. In his study of the Northfield food system, Jason Hendricks writes that, “Intensive agriculture is characterized as a high yielding large-scale system with a heavy reliance on fossil fuels, fertilizers, monocropping and environmental contamination” (Hendricks 2005). Soil erosion, chemically resistant pests, an inability to sequester carbon and contributions to global warming characterize these negative aspects (Hendricks 2005). Hendricks writes that intensive “agriculture systems have as much as double the impact on global warming that do alternative systems” and that “The seven-fold increase in nitrogen fertilizer and 3.5-fold increase in phosphorus use between 1960 and 1995 has resulted in an accumulation of agricultural inputs in the environment” (Hendricks 2005). These drastic results, affecting the biodiversity on a regional and global scale, have meant that the need for smaller, local food is augmented by a need for sustainably raised food. Attina Diffley who, with her husband, operates the oldest certified organic farm in Minnesota recently relayed her concern to Mr. Singer over the focus on solely local growers. She said, “I believe it should be local AND organic. Local is helpful for local economics but if it is chemical agriculture it becomes local pesticides—local cancer and local ground water pollution.”
Brief Profile of Farms in Minnesota and Northfield
In Rice County, in which Northfield in located, farming remains a staple of cultural life. According to Untied States Census data, there are 1,296 farms in Rice County with an average size of 192 acres; this includes wide range of types of farms (US Census). Without more detailed information it is hard to determine what exactly the make up of these farms are, but there are some important facts that can be gathered. Most importantly is that Rice County has a high amount of that land dedicated to soybeans and corn. 1,110 farms out of the 1,296 farms in Rice County grow some amount of those two harvests (with 158,843 acres in total), both of which are usually planted as a monoculture, decreasing the biodiversity of the area. Of course, these numbers have not been analyzed but even the initial glance shows that farming is integral to the community, but that it is being done in a way that runs counter to many of the current trends in sustainable development.
Of course, farmers do not make up the entire population of Rice County. As the Twin Cities expand, Northfield becomes more at threat to becoming a bedroom community. Studies have found that nationally the number of people commuting outside of their county has increased from 19 percent in 1970 to 27 percent in 2000, with similar increases in travel time (Tigges & Fuguitt 2003). While this is true in all area of American life, it appears to be especially prevalent in rural communities. Here the USDA found that “381 nonmetropolitan counties had at least 40 percent of workers commuting to jobs in other counties in 1990. Nearly all of these ‘commuting counties’ are in the South (65 percent) and Midwest (28 percent)” (Tigges & Fuguitt 2003). While these are national statistics, the trends can be extrapolated to the Northfield area. In addition, Al Singer (manager of the Dakota County Farmland and Natural Areas Protection Programs states that, “Many family members work off the farm for the majority of their income.” These twin areas of demographics—monoculture farms and commuting residents—combine to reduce the availability of land and economic opportunities for smaller farmers.
Agribusiness and the End of the Foodshed
Farming is very different in 2007 than it was in the 1940s. Before World War II, the technology was not yet available to ship food great distances. In addition, the global economy that evolved during and after the Cold War had not come about. Countries largely produced their own food, and food production was centered on where it was consumed. Now food exists within a global economy. In 2000, countries shipped $417 billion worth of food and agricultural goods; a threefold increase since 1961 (Halweil 2002). These shipments are not just in fresh produce or meats. Frozen food allowed foods to be shipped farther and stored longer, increasing their popularity with manufacturers and further alienating consumers from their food source. While previously poor communities may have had access to fresh foods now their only options are what is sold at the cheapest of supermarkets—usually unhealthy, frozen goods. Even in the new Farm Bill currently under consideration, children are only allocated $6 dollars a month for produce (Krummer 2007). For the Northfield community, the most obvious effects of agribusiness consolidation are the potential loss of farm infrastructure and lack of sources of local food. Scholars point out that “Farm supply dealers also need a ‘critical mass’ of farm operations to remain viable within an area” (Jackson-Smith 2003). As the economic incentive for diverse farming decreases due to the centralized control of a few giant businesses, farmers drop out decreasing the critical mass and speeding the destruction of the farming community. For small, local farms to succeed, that critical mass and the infrastructure it supports must be rebuilt. Much of this depends on the economic incentive. However, Mr. Singer says that “federal farm policy has traditionally favored larger operations (‘family’ and corporate) through their policies.”
Outdated Policies
Unfortunately, current United States farm policy continues to promote agribusiness while hurting smaller, sustainable farms everywhere on the globe. United States subsidies were created with the intention of protecting the small family farms that are a part of American cultural heritage. Farm subsidies were started during the Great Depression and were used to maintain the beleaguered farmers affected by the dust bowl. Although the specifics of United States policy have changed, the principles remain the same. Despite being nearly 90 years old, there have been few substantial reforms of U.S. policy or approaches to farms. As the agriculture industry changed and consolidated, the subsidies remained, largely because “Once farmers had their subsidies, they were viewed as entitlements and were hard to take away, even when the farm crisis was over” (Folsom 2006). The large agribusinesses moved in and took over the subsidies and goodwill that should be reserved for small family farms. The United States farm policy was created in a time of national environmental, economic and social disaster and had solutions that were specific for that time. To continue abiding by those solutions is outdated and does a disservice to the American public, the American small farmer and farmers everywhere.
The change in the structure of United States agriculture industry has meant that farm subsidies go to support giant corporations, rather than the family farms they were intended for. Today, a few companies that buy produce from smaller farms or have their own massive productions dominate the agriculture industry. For example, the situation of the potato farmers in Idaho is created not by the inherent difficulties of farming, but by the total control the buyers can exercise. Professor Paul Patterson “describes the current market for potatoes as an ‘oligopoly’—a market in which a small number of buyers exert power over a large number of sellers. . . . Out of every $1.50 spent on a large order of fries at a fast food restaurant, perhaps 2 cents goes to the farmer who grew the potatoes” Schlosser 2002). This is a problem no subsidy can fix; only structural change can make these farmers independent and successful. However, even for farmers not caught in this trap, subsidies still are not beneficial. This is due to the type of farms that receive most of these subsidies. Most of these are in the South and Midwest and are one-crop giants producing corn, cotton or soybeans (Lochhead 2002). Unfortunately, many of the farmers struggling to survive run small, traditional, family farms and are hurt by the large-scale farm competition and the changing dynamics of the rural community. This is the type of farm that should be helped and protected, but subsidies make no real difference in these situations.
Social Justice?
Ending or adapting farm subsidies would drastically alter the face of American farming, but fears of competition from cheaper foreign goods means that even small farmers who are not helped by the subsidizes continue to support them. The exportation of cheap subsidized goods produced by agribusinesses floods the world market and cuts out any advantage third world farmers might have in their own domestic markets. This flooding also comes in the form of foreign aid. When food is given as foreign aid it prevents any possibility of local farmers from building up a market for their own product. United States’ farm subsidies and other help is $49 billion and other nations have similar programs (Thurrow 2002). This is contrasted with the world wide total amount of $50 billion that is given in development aid (Thurrow 2002). Taxpayers pay for both the aid and the subsidies that undo any of the benefits from the aid. It is estimated that the total of farm subsidies and protection worldwide comes to $350 billion which is equal to the entire gross domestic product of sub-Saharan Africa and is still seven times greater than foreign aid (Lochhead 2002). In terms of the United States, “losses from cotton subsidies alone exceed the value of U.S. aid programs” (Tupy 2005). Economically, the taxpayer gains nothing from supporting both the farm subsidies and the foreign aid, because the farm subsidies completely negate any financial aid. Ending farm subsidies and promoting sustainable farms would require that existing institutions be either replaced or remolded so that environmental and social costs can be factored in (Batie 1989). However, without such changes small farms all over the world will continue to decrease and the communities that they support will be lost.
The Foodshed in Northfield and Minnesota
Despite these obvious drawbacks to large, monoculture farming, it continues to be an attractive prospect those trying to make a living farming. The high costs and unpredictable returns of farms mean that many farmers take second jobs to fully support themselves (Singer 2007). Again, the agribusiness model only adds to this economic crisis. A study done in Southeastern Minnesota found that “while farmers had sales of $866 million in farm products in 1997, they spent $947 million raising this food, primarily as payments for fertilizers, pesticide, and land made to distant suppliers, creditors, or absentee landowner” (Halweil 2002). The focus on control of crop production has meant that money must be invested in these harmful products. More money leaves the area because of the fact that “Residents of the region spent over $500 million buying food, almost exclusively from producers and companies based outside of the region. In total . . . the current structure ‘extract[s] about $800 million for the region’s economy each year’” (Halweil 2002). As corn prices increase, this trend is unlikely to reverse. While a switch to diverse, organic farming can seem prohibitive to many farmers, Ms. Diffley states that “established organic farm’s yields tend to be equal in an average year and better in drought and floods. Generally it doesn’t cost more to produce organically. The price is higher because of supply and demand and most organic farmers do no receive much subsidy support because their rotations are not commodity driven but based on soil and plant health.” Smaller, diverse farms would help both the environmental and economic situations of communities.