Food, Knowedge and Power

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Tuesday February 06, 2007 19:32 by jim travers jimtravers at eircom dot net

In order to survive we must eat, when there is a plentiful supply of food we live in the knowledge that since variety is the spice of life and food is in abundance, there is nothing to think about and less to worry about. Despite our preferences towards organically grown produce, modern 21st Century life styles dictate that the foods we eat must be readily available, possibly precooked and ready for consumption at the click of a switch.

In order to survive we must eat, when there is a plentiful supply of food we live in the knowledge that since variety is the spice of life and food is in abundance, there is nothing to think about and less to worry about. It is only when our food supply is threatened or restricted in availability; thereby increasing the demand for the limited but vital food resource, do we place increased financial value on a resource that may only be available to those who can afford to purchase it. In becoming accustomed to the wide variety of foods available in our local supermarkets, we increasingly demand new products, packaged in fancy wrappings that look astatically pleasing to the modern 21st Century on the go, quick food consumer but too often is void of any nutritional value.
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The mass production and processing of food and the methods by which intensive farming directly contributes to environmental damage, has brought increasing public attention to these processes and a demand for alternative food systems so long as they do not disruption or inconvenience the purchasing power of the consumer. In the United States, two percent of farms grow fifty percent of agricultural produce while ninety-five percent of American food is corporate produce.This in itself demonstrates the dominance and power of the corporate sector in the production and processing of our food from farm to table. It also demonstrates the potential power and ability of the corporate sector to impede the development of alternative food systems, if those systems promote and encourage a greater bond between the farmer, his land and the consumer as a direct benifiactor of a natural environmentally friendly alternative food source.

Meeting the challenges for an alternative food system

When Henry Ford invented the mass production motor assembly line, he set in motion a production system that would be replicated in every aspect of global manufacturing and processing , completely changing the ways in which we grow food for an ever increasing human population.An alternative food system such as organic food production, relies on government intervention to promote and financially support a natural method of food production that meets the consumers need for alternative, fresh and chemical free fruit and vegetables, but falls short in the ability to meet the increasing demand for quantity over a natural food quality, in order to satisfy the requirements of a production system that reaches out to the masses in the global consumer market. In the UK, household food requires over six times its own land surface to provide food for its people.Sustainable food has three main elements; environmental, social and economic, each playing a vital role in the way we manage our food production from the land to the table.

It is evidently clearly that the power and control of multinational corporations in holding society to a food ransom, is the key to unlocking the potential for an alternative food system. ‘Suffice to say that the dominant food and agricultural system in which we all live, work and eat produces the bulk of our food and fibre in an incredible manner by at least one criterion of efficiency. It is highly energy and capital-intensive, globally integrated, and increasingly economically consolidated. Unfortunately, it has also resulted in environmental degradation and economic disaster for scores of small family farmers, community processors, and other local businesses tied to food and fibre production, and community residents who do not have access to an adequate healthful food supply’.1

Organic food systems tend to be orientated towards a system of local community consumption with great emphasis being placed on farmer, consumer contact and interactions through localised networks that bring together diverse groups of people for the purpose of making their food system more sustainable.
Organically produced foods can also indirectly contribute to environmental pollution, based on the percentage of food miles necessary for consumers to secure the produce or a demand by consumers in other communities for the availability of organically grown food produce in local supermarkets, outdoor markets and local grocer shops. As demand for produce grows, so does the need to transport the produce to an increasingly expanding market.
‘Despite these projects, a very small percentage of growers or consumers are interested in marketing or buying or growing local or organic produce.The sales volumes at farmers markets is a tiny fraction of food sales through huge retail chains like Safeways, Albertson’s or WalMart’.2
Building a stronger and sustainable food economy
If we want to build an alternative sustainable food system we need to start by rebuilding our local food economy. Rebuilding local food economies mean, shortening the distance food travels from the farm to table. It also means that locally grow, fresh and available food produce will market itself on the basis of its health and nutritional values once it is competitive with other food produce on the supermarket shelves. It is at this point where the demand on any alternative food system will be judged on the systems ability to satisfy a growing consumer need for an alternative food produce, supplied in greater and greater quantities, while at the same time maintaining the same environmental standards that swayed consumer opinion towards the alternative food. Corporate food production does not worry about environmental organic values when it comes to the mass production and supply of food.
‘Within that food system, farming is merely an industry, and food just another commodity. A misplaced emphasis on ‘efficiency’ leads crops to be grown on huge farms specializing in one crop, while animals are raised by the millions in closely confined conditions on factory farms’.3
In order for any alternative food system to compete within a local, national or global market place, we need to look at other systems that have proven themselves viable, financed and promoted by increased government intervention, thereby giving the system every reasonable opportunity in securing a dominant hold within the market place. We need to examine a system where the state plays a crucial role in counteracting the power of multinational interests in order for an alternative system to gain a foothold in the market.
The Cuban Experiment
Cuba’s agriculture has changed from a system based on techniques associated with the “green revolution” to an agro-ecological system affecting food security in the island’s cities. Cuban agricultural policy has transformed and promoted a greater emphasis on organic agriculture, recycling and the creation of markets for local produce.
Background to change
When the cold war ended, Cuba’s trade agreements with the Soviet Bloc collapsed and the United States tightened its grip on the Communist state with an economic blockade, barring food and medical supplies from overseas subsidiaries of US companies.Because trade between Cuba and the Soviet Unions was so entwined; change would have to be swift and would effect small businesses, household and industry throughout the length and breath of Cuba. Cuba was in crisis as the supply of oil from the Soviet Union dwindled and food imports from many countries within the Soviet Bloc, dried to a trickle. The authorities in Cuba needed to act quickly in addressing the problems that impeded the production of food on a scale unknown since the Cuba’s revolution. Rural-urban migration needed to be tackled while the diversification of agro-ecosystems was a key strategy that needed to be pursued.
‘The challenge is to discover the most efficient crop, tree, and animal combinations that match the environmental potential of each area. This process is dependent on the application of agro-ecological concepts and principles including: the optimization of local resources and promotion of within-farm synergisms through plant-animal combinations; reliance on the ecological services of biodiversity in order to minimize the use of external inputs, whether organic or conventional; matching cropping systems with existing soil and climatic potential; conservation and use of crop and non-crop biodiversity within and around farms to maximize utilization of biological and genetic resources; reliance on the knowledge and wisdom of local farmers as a key input; and promotion of participatory methods in research and in the extension and implementation process’.4
Urban residents were encourage to grow their own crops, become part of local co-operatives, shared urban farm worker partnerships and the use of the barter system in order to trade their produce for produce grown by others. Despite efforts in promoting diversification and the cultivation of crops for self-consumption these strategies were not sufficient enough to guarantee an adequate food supply for urban residents.
‘Consequently, in 1994, the government allowed the implementation of radical measures by revolutionary standards, re-introducing private farmers’ markets that would enable producers to sell their goods at whatever price the market would bear. By early 1995, a wide variety of high quality food products began to circulate on the private market as producers responded to the stimulus’.5
The introduction of the private sector in Cuba’s agricultural food production system signalled the beginning of a public-private partnership initative, although frowned upon in many communist states, stimulated economic growth within Cuba’s agricultural revolution.
In a report entitled “Urban-Rural Migration and the Stablisation of Cuban Agriculture” for Global Exchange/Food First, Lisa Reynolds Wolfe, Ph.D. said;
“The report presents five findings, concluding that urban and rural farmers outside of Cuba would be wise to consider Cuban agricultural policy regarding the following: the promotion of organic agricultural and forestry use of vacant municipal, state, and private lands; recycling of all “green waste” material into compost; and the creation of a variety of markets for local produce”. 6

The findings were as folow's ;
1. Cuba’s countryside has been stabilized – despite insufficient rainfall and recurring
drought in eastern areas through the introduction of agroecological techniques.
2. Because of the introduction of urban agriculture nationwide, urban residents no
longer are forced to rely primarily on rural areas for fresh produce.
3. Small farmers working on privately owned farms and in cooperatives have made
major contributions to the successful implementation of agroecology in the
countryside.
4. The introduction of a diversified market-based system for food distribution has
spurred increased productivity among agricultural workers.
5. While agroecological techniques may hold great promise for rural areas outside of
Cuba, their successful implementation in other locales is not assured.

Constructing an alternative food systems in Ireland

The stimuli that prompted change for an alternative food system in Cuba was the country’s loss of a closed and once thought guaranteed, trade of goods and services within communist bloc countries. Cuba finally resorted to embracing the idea of partial privatisation (Capitalism) in order to provide an incentive for producers to partake in the system of production. In the open free trade market where competition and corporate interests dominate the market place, any alternative food system in Ireland will be subjected to the greater interests of corporate control that places profit over all other considerations. An alternative food system cannot operate with any significance if its basic operating and production costs are overshadowed by a process of mass production that promotes, encourages and drives base prices down to a point where the organic produce is only viable when sold into a particular niche of the market. ‘Just 380 farms now supply 70% of Irish consumer purchases of vegetables, with the multiple retailers controlling three-quarters of all vegetable purchases. Now the majority of growers produce no more than three different kind of vegetables, such is the requirement of specialisation’.7
The Cuban agricultural food production revolution partially worked because it was structured within a closed communist system of state control and manipulation.

Major supermarket chains require a uninterrupted supply of produce on their shelves so that customers can have an all year round choice of fresh always in season fruit, vegetables or meat produce. Organic producers in Ireland, once part of the mass production supply chain, become part of the global multinational competitive market of price undercutting and inter-producer competition. Irish producers cannot supply in significant quantities a level of produce that is needed on a continuous basis in order to meet the requirements of supermarket chains. Organic farmers spend less of their working time on the farm compared to their counterparts, which demonstrates the problems associated with consumer supply on demand. Just over a fifth of farmers obtained between 75 and 100 percent of their household income from the farm, indicating that this was not the main source of income for the majority.8

Another problem with the future development of the industry is that the majority of organic farmers in the Republic of Ireland are male between the age of forty-one and fifty years of age, further indicating that younger or more well established farmers are either diversifying into other aspects of farming or selling their lands for industrial or residential development other than organic farming. There is also a considerable problem with worker de-skilling on farms where mechanisation or the attraction of the technology industries in offering employment to young people wishing to find an easier and more modern lifestyle. The Celtic Tiger’s reliance on multinational technology industries has decimated rural areas of its young population or has urbanised rural areas thereby altering the landscape of rural Ireland.
Consumer de-skilling is a bigger problem which directly affects the growth and development of organic production as consumers increasingly opt for pre-prepared and packaged foods, ready for consumption once heated in a microwave oven. Young people are loosing the skills in the selection of good foods, combined with the knowledge of good food preparation that encourages and promotes healthy living. Despite our new found knowledge and rejection in the McDonaldisation of our food, people increasing change one form of McDonaldisation for another as time shadows our minds and the younger generation interprets the world and its environment totally oblivious to the warnings from the past. Most parents see McDonald’s food as not being a healthy option, but cannot resist the urge to indulge their children in the idea of an occasional threat every now and again. McDonaldisation is everywhere, its part of our modern lifestyle and an integral part of western society. “Food processors are delighted to see a growth in the number of homes in which people have never really cooked, with the result that children’s role models don’t teach their children to cook”.9
.It is because of these modern day trends that irrespective of the warnings about our lifestyles and the foods we eat, consumers reluctantly resort to the quick, clean and already prepared foods that allow them to cut time from the little time they have to spare
Nobody wants to wash vegetables or accept out of season potatoes anymore, just because they happen to be an Irish produce. People want their groceries neatly packaged for transportation home, where they can prepare a meal with the least possible inconvenience and cost. The availability or demand for organic produce is similar to a community demanding the provision of a local bus service in their area, only to find the vast majority of people then use .their cars, as the bus potters around the local areas with one or two people using the service, as the service provider questions the economic sanity in the provision of a service for the few people who use it. Cost and the quantitive availability of produce all year round is a barrier that currently inhibit the widespread promotion and use of organic produce within the mass consumer market by supermarkets and convenient store outlets.

Despite all our beliefs in the quality and advantages of an alternative organic system, we must bow to the realities in life that people must be fed on mass, with a continuous uninterrupted supply of food that utilises science and the technologies that enables food to be supplied with the least possible inconvenience. Ireland has changed from an agricultural based economy to a technology based economy where the competitive importation of our food produce for processing or consumption is governed by the cheap availability of that produce from other markets outside the state.

An organic system of production will remain viable for a niche market of people who for whatever reasons guarantee themselves the abundant availability of the produce so long as that niche market either stays the same or progresses at a very slow rate.
Farmers may wish to provide organically produced produce, but farmers must look to the realities of life and ask themselves; are they and the next generation of farmers prepared to go back to the times of a twenty-hour working day with all the hardship it brought them, just for the sake of providing the rest of the human race with a healthier diet in order for them to live more fruitful and prolonged lives?

References
1. Feenstra Gail, (2002) ‘Creating space for sustainable food systems: lessons
from the field’ Agriculture and Human Values 19 (2): 99-106.
http://moodle.nuim.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=14767
Referenced: 18-11-2006
2. Feenstra Gail (2002) ‘Creating space for sustainable food systems: lessons
from the field’ Agriculture and Human Values 19 (2): 99-106.
http://moodle.nuim.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=14767
Referenced: 18-11-2006
3. Hodge-Norberg, Helena, Director ISEC: “The Case for Local Food”
http://moodle.nuim.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=14768
Referenced: 19-11-2006
4. Wolfe, Reynolds, Lisa. Ph.D. “Rural-Urban Migration and the Stabilization of Cuban
Agriculture”. Consultant’s Report for Global Exchange/Food First
December 17, 2004.
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1123
Referenced: 20-11-2006

5. Wolfe, Reynolds, Lisa. Ph.D. “Rural-Urban Migration and the Stabilization of Cuban
Agriculture”.Consultant’s Report for Global Exchange/Food First
December 17, 2004.
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1123
Referenced: 20-11-2006

6. Wolfe, Reynolds, Lisa. Ph.D. “Rural-Urban Migration and the Stabilization of Cuban
Agriculture”. Consultant’s Report for Global Exchange/Food First
December 17, 2004.
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1123
Referenced: 21-11-2006

7. Journal of Rural Studies, ‘Social embeddedness and relations of regard:
alternative ‘good food’ networks in south-west Ireland’.P55
http://moodle.nuim.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=15238
Referenced: 22-11-2006
8. Teagasc, “Assessment of Marketing for Conversion Grade Products” Ireland.
http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/organics/Complete_Final_M...t.pdf
Referenced: 24-11-2006
9. Jaffe, JoAnn, Michael Gertler ‘Consumer deskilling and the (gendered) transformation
of food systems’, Department of Sociology andSocial Studies,University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. P.147,
http://moodle.nuim.ie/mod/resource/view.php?id=16051
Referenced: 25-11-2006