----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Jones <jones118 at lineone.net> To: Lbo-Talk at Lists. Panix. Com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 12:07 PM Subject: Industrial agriculture
Comments after sections
> >>Industrial agriculture uses larger farms and fewer farmers. In 1959, the
> United States had almost six million farms averaging 300 acres apiece. In
> 1992, there were two million farms averaging 500 acres. In 1996, fewer
than
> two percent of Americans still live on farms, and the number is more like
> one percent, if small, part-time farm operations are left out. This is no
> accident. One hundred and fifty years of US policy on the structure of
> agriculture can be summed up in the admonition to farmers made famous by
> former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, "Get big or get out." <<
COMMENT: Population has been increasing as well from 1959 to 1992 so that the labor of fewer people produces even more food on the same land base. As noted in the next paragraph industrial agriculture has led food production to outstrip population growth, not an insignificant benefit. In fact this is a problem under capitalism since commodity prices drop. The starving have no effective demand without cash. Hence farmers are paid to take land out of production while people starve. The problem is not industrial production but capitalist industrial production that makes consumption dependent upon cash rather than need.
What is the relative ratio of conveniences etc. that the remaining
farmers have compared to their counterparts in 1959.. Air conditioned cabs
with finger tip controls, computers to keep track of accounts and to learn
prices etc. get information, modern houses with all the conveniences of any
city dweller. If the remaining two percent had some control over their
inputs and the price of their final product they would be better off than
most in the city, certainly than most workers.
>
> WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE?
>
> > The benefits of this industrial approach are well known: Food production
> has increased fast enough to far outstrip population growth. In addition,
> the United States has benefited commercially from its exports abroad. But
> the social and environmental costs of this approach are considerable. And
> it is not the only method of agriculture. A sustainable approach, based on
> understanding agriculture as an ecosystem, promises sufficient produce
> without sacrificing the environment, the farmer, or the rural communities
> that support small and medium-sized farms. For sustainable agriculture to
> thrive, the policies that foster industrial agriculture will need to be
> refocused to foster the transition.
COMMENT: It would be interesting to have statistics on part-time and hobby
farms. I do not quite understand why sustainable agriculture depends upon
size. Why is there a compelling reason that larger farms should be
unsustainable. It seems to be the concern to maximise return per acre
without concern for negative externalities that is the problem. No doubt
many small commercial market gardens are run on the same principles and are
just as damaging to the environment over the long run. Again the problem is
agriculture organised on capitalist principles.
>
> FEATURES OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
>
> MONOCULTURE
>
> Monoculture is the cultivation of one crop at a time in a field. The
United
> States grows all of its major commodity crops -- corn, wheat, soybeans,
and
> cotton -- in monoculture. Sometimes crops in monoculture are rotated: corn
> often alternates with soybeans in a two-year rotation. Much corn, however,
> is grown in continuous cultivation -- year after year in the same field.
>
> > RELIANCE ON CHEMICAL AND OTHER "INPUTS"
>
> Industrial agriculture relies heavily on pesticides: primarily herbicides,
> of which atrazine and metolachlor are the most widely used, but also
> insecticides and fungicides. According to the Environmental Protection
> Agency, the total US pesticide usage in 1992 (excluding wood preservatives
> and disinfectants) was 1.1 billion pounds of active ingredients. This
> impressive figure does not taken into account the so-called inert
> ingredients in pesticide formulations, which can be higher in
concentration
> and more toxic than the active ingredients. And it does not include
> pesticides used outside agriculture in 69 million households, a not
> inconsiderable usage amounting to a third of the quantity used in
> agriculture.
>
> US agriculture also consumes enormous amounts of fertilizer. Total
> consumption of nitrogen, phosphate, and potash increased dramatically
> between 1960 and 1980, reaching a high of 23.7 million nutrient tons in
> 1981. Fertilizer use has fallen somewhat since then, amounting to 20.7
> million tons in 1992.
>
> LARGE FARMS
>
> Industrial agriculture uses larger farms and fewer farmers. In 1959, the
> United States had almost six million farms averaging 300 acres apiece. In
> 1992, there were two million farms averaging 500 acres. In 1996, fewer
than
> two percent of Americans still live on farms, and the number is more like
> one percent, if small, part-time farm operations are left out. This is no
> accident. One hundred and fifty years of US policy on the structure of
> agriculture can be summed up in the admonition to farmers made famous by
> former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, "Get big or get out."
>
> The decline in the number of farms does not necessarily represent a
decline
> in the economic importance of agriculture. According the US Department of
> Agriculture's Economic Research Service, modern agricultural activities,
> including food and fiber processing, marketing, and retailing, account for
> 18 percent of US jobs.
>
> SEPARATION OF ANIMAL AND PLANT AGRICULTURE
>
> At one time, farmers raised crops and livestock on the same farm, an
> approach that provided a diversity of agricultural products and byproducts
> that could be recycled on the farm, reducing off-farm purchases. For
> example, manure could be used as fertilizer, crops and crop byproducts
> could be fed to animals. Animal operations also provided financial
security
> against the ups and downs of the more volatile crop markets.
>
> Now animals -- cows, chicken, and pigs -- are increasingly grown in
> concentrated livestock operations. These generate mountains of
> water-polluting manure that has become a dangerous waste product rather
> than a valuable input. Meanwhile, many midsize farmers have abandoned
> animals and now grow only one or two crops. This trend is largely
> attributable to the pursuit of the economies of scale inherent in mass
> producing similar products.
>
> THE COSTS OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
>
> Although the production gains attributed to industrial agriculture are
> impressive, they have not come without costs to the environment, the
> economy and our social fabric.
>
> ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
>
> Agriculture impacts the environment in many ways. It uses huge amounts of
> water, energy, and chemicals, often with little regard to long-term
adverse
> effects. But the environmental costs of agriculture are mounting.
> Irrigation systems are pumping water from reservoirs faster than they are
> being recharged. Herbicides and insecticides are accumulating in ground
and
> surface waters. Chemical fertilizers are running off the fields into water
> systems where they encourage damaging blooms of microorganisms. Mountains
> of waste and noxious odor are the hallmarks of poultry and livestock
> operations.
>
> Many of the negative effects of industrial agriculture are remote from
> fields and farms. Nitrogen compounds from the Midwest, for example, travel
> down the Mississippi to degrade coastal fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.
> But other adverse effects are showing up within agricultural production
> systems -- for example, the rapidly developing resistance among pests is
> rendering our arsenal of herbicides and insecticides increasingly
> ineffective.
>
> ECONOMIC COSTS
>
> Estimating the economic costs of industrial agriculture is an immense and
> difficult task. A full accounting would include not only the benefits of
> relatively cheap prices consumers pay for food, the dividends paid to the
> share holders of fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers, and the dollars
> earned by exporting American goods abroad, but also the offsetting costs
of
> environmental pollution and degradation.
>
> Such costs are difficult to assess for a number of reasons. In some
> instances, such as water pollution and global warming, agriculture is only
> one of several contributors. Another difficulty is our rudimentary
> understanding of potential harms. A good example is the potential for
> endocrine disruption that many pesticides appear to have. Endocrine
> disrupters are molecules that appear able to mimic the actions of human
and
> animal hormones and disturb important hormone-dependent activities like
> reproduction. More research is needed to determine the extent of the
health
> and environmental damage done by such compounds and the relative
> contribution of agriculture and other sectors and activities.
>
> Among the many environmental costs that need to be considered in a full
> cost accounting of industrial agriculture are
>
> --the damage to fisheries from oxygen-depleting microorganisms fed by
> fertilizer runoff
> --the cleanup of surface and groundwater polluted with animal waste
> --the increased health risks borne by agricultural workers and farmers
> exposed to pesticides
>
> In addition there are enormous indirect costs implicit in the high energy
> requirements of modern agriculture. Agriculture requires energy at many
> points: fuel to run huge combines and harvesters, energy to produce and
> transport pesticides and fertilizers, and fuel to refrigerate and
transport
> perishable produce cross country and around the world. The use of fossil
> fuels contributes to ozone pollution and global warming, which could exact
> a high price through increased violent weather events and rising oceans.
>
> The full costs of industrial agriculture call into question the notion of
> cheap food.
>
> SOCIAL COSTS
>
> Industrial agriculture also has complex social ramifications in terms of
> where and how people live. One effect of decreasing the number of farmers
> is to deprive rural America of its population and base of economic
> activity. As farmers leave the farm, rural towns and cities lose ancillary
> services like cafes, equipment manufacturers, gasoline stations and car
> dealerships. Currently, the Great Plains states are facing rapidly
> declining populations as a result of changes in agriculture.
>
> Another effect of industrial agriculture has been to create a new class of
> farmers highly dependent on large corporations. One of the best examples
is
> poultry farming. No longer are most chickens grown by independent farmers
> who choose which kinds of chickens to grow and sell them wherever they
can.
> Now chicken farmers contract with corporations who supply the eggs and
> specify the conditions under which they are grown. As corporations grow in
> size and market power, individual farmers are in ever weaker positions
when
> it comes time to negotiate the price to be paid for growing chickens or to
> decide who will bear the cost of disposing of the mountains of chicken
> waste.
>
> Overall, the share of the food profits going to farmers rather than to the
> agricultural input and food-processing and marketing sectors has been
> steadily declining. For many farmers with small and medium-sized farms it
> means that they will be unable to stay in business if they only produce
> food. To participate in the more profitable part of the food system, many
> farmers are expanding into processing and retailing food, either singly or
> in cooperatives.
>
> The fact that food processors and fertilizer and pesticide suppliers are
> increasing their share of food profits, of course, has an economic upside
> for those who hold shares or jobs in chemical or retailing companies. But
> the loss of farmers means more than simply shifting jobs to other sectors.
> Farming has in the past been representative of the American ethos. Farmers
> and their families were seen as testaments to the virtues of independence,
> hard work, and community that Americans have considered vital to civic
> democracy. In addition, farmers have been the basis of rural economy and
> communities. Finally, millions of independent farmers meant a
decentralized
> food supply beyond the control of narrow interests. The social and
economic
> ramifications of the drastic decline in farm populations is just beginning
> to be felt.
>
> Perhaps the reduction of the number of farmers has gone too far. There
> seems little advantage in further reductions. The goals of the last
century
> have been met. It might be time to set a reverse course and adopt policies
> that would stabilize the farming population at 1 or 2 percent of the total
> population.
>
> SOURCES
>
> Economic Research Service, Pesticide and Fertilizer Use and Trends in US
> Agriculture. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural
Economic
> Report No. 717 (1995).
>
> Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1992
> and 1993 Market Estimates, 2, 1994.
>
> P. Raeburn, The Last Harvest, Simon and Schuster, 1995.
>
> (FROM UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS WEB PAGE)
>
> *****************
>
> KARL MARX:
>
> "Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centres, and
> causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one
> hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other
> hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil,
i.e.,
> prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the
form
> of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to
> lasting fertility of the soil. By this action it destroys at the same time
> the health of the town labourer and the intellectual life of the rural
> labourer. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the
> maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its
> restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and
> under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. In
> agriculture as in manufacture, the transformation of production under the
> sway of capital, means, at the same time, the martyrdom of the producer;
> the instrument of labour becomes the means of enslaving, exploiting, and
> impoverishing the labourer; the social combination and organisation of
> labour-processes is turned into an organised mode of crushing out the
> workman's individual vitality, freedom, and independence. The dispersion
of
> the rural labourers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance
> while concentration increases that of the town operatives. In modern
> agriculture, as in the urban industries, the increased productiveness and
> quantity of the labour set in motion are bought at the cost of laying
waste
> and consuming by disease labour-power itself. Moreover, all progress in
> capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the
> labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the
fertility
> of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting
> sources of that fertility. The more a country starts its development on
the
> foundation of modern industry, like the United States, for example, the
> more rapid is this process of destruction. Capitalist production,
> therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various
> processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all
> wealth-the soil and the labourer."
>
>