The Road Ahead: Food Security

Last month, I posted some of my thoughts about political challenges for the next decade.  I wrote about cynicism.  I'm continuing that line of thought today with some thoughts on food security.

When I was a high school debater (I can hear your scornful laughter; mock me if you must but debate made me smart), we all had a "food security" diasdvantage in our files.  Back then, the food security argument was pretty simple:  any political change (disarmament, revisions of the justice system, changes in US education policy....debate was sometimes an exercise in logic over common sense) would ultimately result in a break in a food chain, leading to massive hunger (or fear of hunger) and then political instability and then bad, bad, bad.

But the base argument was usually a simple claim: we don't have enough food.   Given the multiple African famines of the 1980s, this was a pretty easy claim to believe.  These days, food security discussions typically aren't about a lack of food.  The world largely has enough food.  But we frequently suffer from the inability to distrubute that food wisely.  The result is shortages and hunger.  That is a problem, and a significant one.  But I want to think about food security not in terms of the world's food supply line, but in terms of the long-term safety and sustainability of that supply. 

The industrial food system in the United States, one that developed in the latter half of the 20th century, does have the virtue of inexpensive abundance.  In the U.S., since the 1970s, our food costs have not kept pace with inflation and we spend less of our income on food than the rest of the developed world.  Costs are lower because of government subsidies to the food production industry, in the form of crop price supports.  So large food producers make most of their money from government subsidies, not profits from food consumers like you and me.  It's an inelegant and costly form of corporate welfare, keeping corporate profits stable and consumer prices relatively low.  And American consumers have grown used to that $1.99/pound chicken in every pot.  But at what cost?

The cost is substantial.  As seen in the  abundance of e-coli scares of the past 10 years, the industrial food supply has become less and less safe.  And it's not just a question of safety; there are also the problems of a production system that utilizes gallons and gallons of petroleum, pesticides, and antibiotics in order to secure cheap abundance.  A lot of the corn and soy grown in our nation goes straight into the food we eat.  Naturally ruminant cows are fed with corn that they can't easily digest and then require antibiotics to survive the effects.   Though high quality, safe, alternatives, in the form of home-grown or locally produced food are available, they are often more pricey than what we can toss in the cart at the local grocery store.  Because much of that food is grown without pesticides or from animals raised responsibly, there is more labor involved and that labor is costly.  Though many families would prefer food produced in a responsible fashion, they can't afford it, especially in a nation where mid-level family incomes  have not kept pace with inflation in the last ten years.

Thus the problems pile up.

This is a problem that didn't develop overnight and it won't go away without a plan.  In this case, I mean a plan that first informs us of the real cost of cheap food in the United States and then enables us to purchase and consume good food.

We must:

1.  Use government food subsidies at the consumer-level, to subsidize the food purchases of low and moderate income Americans instead of the profits of ADM, Tyson Foods, and Con-Agra. 

2.  Teach folks how to use good food.  Processed food is cheap and convenient.  Cooking good food can be convenient, but families need to know how to prepare it.   The rewards in terms of taste, quality, and health are self-evident.  But it will take time to change our mindset.

3.  At all levels, food producers need to be held accountable for their activities.  At the same time, we need to substantially increase our commitment to small-scale, sustainable agriculture.  How about subsidies for small-scale farmers who want to farm 40 acres without hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides?  As small-scale producer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm has noted, we'll also need safety standards appropriate to this model.  At minimum, we need to significantly increase the presence of federal inspectors in industrial food production facilities.

These changes would represent a significant start in changing our behavior and our mindset.  We would reap the rewards in terms of food quality and health.  The real question is whether or not we have the national will to make it happen.