Myths and Dangers

1. Myths and Dangers A Look at the Messages and Realities of a Food System based on Industrial Agriculture Natalie Halbach Emerson National Hunger Fellow Jess Miller Community Farm Alliance Fellow Community Farm Alliance Community Farm Alliance

2. The following PowerPoint was presented at the seventh annual Healthy Food, Local Farms Conference on October 1st, 2005, in Louisville, KY. The presentation was the first half of a two-part workshop that examined the realities of a food system based on industrial agriculture and CFA’s vision for an alternative Local Independent Food Economy (L.I.F.E.). The Community Farm Alliance and the Sierra Club co-sponsored the conference.

3. What are the Myths? Let’s look at what the media tell us.

4. Food is Cheap

5. We have abundant choice.

6. Convenience is Good

7. The US Feeds the World

8. Undernourished Population (2000 - 2002) Hunger is not a U.S. Problem

9. Our Food is Safe

10. Industrial Agriculture is Sustainable

11. Bigger is Better

12. Questioning the myths ? ? ? ? ?

13. Myth : Food is cheap Sure it’s cheap, I can order a meal off the dollar menu!!

14. So who pays the hidden costs?WE DO: in taxes Through the Supplier Credit Guarantee Program, the USDA guarantees 65% of loan payments due to large U.S. commodity traders. Since the 1980s, this indirect subsidy has cost tax payers nearly $4 billion.

15. Who pays the hidden costs? FARMERS The average Kentucky farm income is $12,000/ year The poverty line is $19,350 for a family of four.

17. Who pays the hidden costs? WE DO: Land degradation Heavy machinery & livestock grazing compact soil, killing beneficial soil organisms and stripping vegetation that holds topsoil in place Topsoil is being depleted faster than it can regenerate

18. Who pays the hidden costs? WE DO: Water Usage/ exploitation The Ogallala Aquifer is a critical resource for agriculture in the Midwest. Its water table is dropping as much as 1 m/year

19. Who pays the hidden costs? The U.S. EPA blames current farm practices for 70% of the pollution in the nation’s rivers and streams WE DO: Pollution Only 1/3 of nitrogen applied to plants is absorbed. Nitrogen run off creates “dead zones” in bodies of water by depleting oxygen needed for plant and animal life. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is the size of New Jersey.

20. Who pays the hidden costs? WE DO: Fossil Fuel Dependency • Food travels an average of 1,300 • miles from farm to dinner plate. In 1992, the food production system accounted for 17% of all fossil fuel use in the United States.

21. Myth : Food is safe Well it tastes alright!

22. Where is the danger? PESTICIDES In the late 1990s, USDA data showed that nearly 3/4 of conventionally grown crop samples contained pesticide residue. Industrial agriculture necessitates heavy pesticide use because monocropping (planting only one plant in a field) makes fields more vulnerable to pests than those planted with several crops. Half of the herbicides used in the U.S. in 1991 were applied to corn, soybeans, or cotton.

23. Where is the danger? The UN has estimated that 2 million poisonings and 10,000 deaths occur worldwide each year from pesticides. Preliminary studies link pesticides to elevated risk of cancer and disruption of the body’s reproductive, immune and nervous systems.

24. Where is the danger? IRRADIATION, ANTIBIOTICS Irradiation the typical dose for irradiated meat is 15 million times the energy involved in a single chest x-ray, and 150 times the dose capable of killing an adult. Antibiotics 40% of the antibiotics used each year in the United States are for animals

25. Where is the danger? ANTIBIOTICS Heavy use of antibiotics in factory farming of animals has caused bacteria to develop antibiotic resistant strains. Campylobacter bacteria – the most common cause of food-borne illness in the US – increased its drug resistance from 0% in 1991 to 20% in 1999.

26. Where is the danger? WASTE • A University of Iowa study found that people living near large-scale hog facilities reported elevated incidence of • headaches • respiratory problems • eye irritation • nausea • weakness • chest tightness Fumes and manure runoff from factory farming operations can endanger human health

27. Where is the danger? OBESITY • 64.5% of American adults are either overweight or obese. 2/3 30% of all corn grown in the U.S. is turned into corn sweetener, the key ingredient in ¾ of all processed foods. The rise in obesity correlates with the rise in the use of corn sweeteners since the 1970s.

28. Myth : BIGGER IS BETTER

29. It’s Definitely Bigger Today, just 2% of farms produce 50% of all U.S. agricultural products. 4 firms handle more than 80% of all beef slaughter. 20 years ago, the concentration was less than 40%. Even “organic” doesn’t guarantee local, small scale, or less-processed. Horizon commands 70% of the U.S. market for organic milk which they ultra-pasteurize to ship long distances, depleting the nutrient quality.

30. But is it Really Better? A 2 lb bag of breakfast cereal burns ½ gallon of gasoline in its making. The food processing industry in the United States uses 10 calories of fossil fuel energy for every calorie of food it produces.

31. Is it really better? “We have found depressed median family incomes, high levels of poverty, low education levels, social and economic inequality between ethnic groups, etc., ... associated with land and capital concentration in agriculture” (10). University of California anthropologist Dean MacCannell Between 1987 and 1992, America lost on average 32,000 farms each year, 80% of them family-run.

32. Is it really better? Between 2003 and 2004, Kentucky lost 2,000 farms - from 87,000 to 85,000.

33. Myth : We Have Abundant Choice “But the grocery store has food for aisles and aisles!!”

34. The Illusion of Choice General Foods Int., Gevalia, Maxim, Maxwell House, Sanka, Seattle’s Best, Starbucks, Tazo, Torrefazione Italia, Yuban, Kool-Aid, Country Time, Crystal Light, Tang, Fruit2O, Veryfine, Oscar Mayer, Taco Bell, California Pizza Kitchen, DiGiorno, Jack’s, Tombstone, Back to Nature, Kraft (and all its versions of Delux, Easy Mac, etc) Boca, Woody’s, Breakstone’s, Knudsen, Light N’ Lively, Philadelphia, Temp-tee, Athenos, Churney, Cracker Barrel, Handi Snacks, Harvest Moon, Hoffman’s, Plly-O, Kraft Delux, Old English, Cheez Whiz, Easy Cheese, Baker’s, Bull’s Eye, Carbwell, Postum, Post CarbWell, Post Honey Bunches of Oats, Shake ‘n Bake, Oven Fry, Grey Poupon, Sauceworks, Cream of Wheat, Milk Bone, Dream Whip, D-Zerta, Jell-O, Knox Gelatin, Minute, Balance, Ever Fresh, Cool whip, Certo, Sure-Jell, Claussen, Honey Maid, Nilla, Oreo, all of Post cereals, Good Seasons, Seven Seas, A1, Stove Top, Barnum’s Animals, Biscos, Café Crème, Cameo, Chips Ahoy, Dad’s, Famous Chocolate Wafers, Family Favorites, Old Fashioned, Ginger Snaps, Lorna Doone, Mallomars, Marshmallow Twirls, National Arrowroot, Newtons, Nutter Butter, Pecan Passion, Pecanz, Pinwheels, Snackwell’s, Social Tea, Stella D’oro, Teddy Grahams, Wild Thornberry’s, Air Crisps, Better Cheddars, Cheese Nips, Crown Pilot, Doo Dad, Flavor Crisps, Harvest Crisps, Nabisco Grahams, Nabs, Premium, Ritz, Royal Lunch, Stoned Wheat Thins, Triscuit, Uneeda, Wheatsworth, Zwieback, Cornet Cups, Corn Nuts, PB Crisps, Jet-Puffed, Terry’s, Toblerone. Brand names of Kraft Foods

35. We have abundant choice? Foreign owned companies controlled 15% of U.S. grocery store sales in 1998 • In 2000, the top four grocery retail firms held 72% of the market share in 100 cities. In 2001, Wal-Mart operated 888 stores in the U.S. and 832 outlets in 10 foreign countries

36. Myth : Convenience is good. “But I’m so busy and I have so many places to go and people to see!”

37. The cost of convenience Monocultures are easier to harvest, process and package. But come at the cost of our heritage and biodiversity.

38. Marketing Bill breakdown (next slide) Convenience Costs! This bill shows the breakdown of each dollar spent on food. The farm value is the amount that farmers receive BEFORE they pay labor and production costs. Source: ERS-USDA. 2002. “food marketing and price spreads: USDA marketing bill.” briefing room (web-source), http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodPriceSpreads/bill/

39. The Marketing Bill shows the breakdown of the food dollar that goes to marketing costs. The labor portion does not include farm labor.

40. Only a small share of the cost of convenience foods goes to the farmer

41. Myth : We Need US Food to Feed the World “Fine. Maybe we don’t eat the cheapest food on the planet or grow it efficiently…we need it to feed all those poor countries, right?”

42. Food for the World? Do we feed the world? International Society for Ecology and Culture. “Local Food, Globally.” Slide Presentation.

43. Food for the world? Between 1994 and 2004, US imports of fruits and vegetables more than doubled (to $12.7million). We now import more fruits and vegetables than we export.

44. Food for the World? • Current global food production is enough to provide every human with 3,500 calories daily… • yet 800 million people • worldwide • are still hungry. “People will only cease to be poor when they control the means of providing and/or producing food for themselves.”

45. Food for the World? The hungry produce their own food when they have access to fertile land. However, the best land is often enclosed for large-scale production of export crops like coffee, cotton or cocoa. Also, subsidies allow U.S. commodity producers to sell products on the world market at a lower price than they produce them. This “dumping” pushes down prices so low that poor farmers struggle to buy food for their families. Dumping cost West African farmers $300 million in lost potential income in 1991.

46. A Hungry Nation 38 million Americans are food insecure. That is 9 times the population of Kentucky

47. Impacts: Kentucky • Farm numbers declining • High rates of obesity, cancer, heart disease and diabetes • Unequal access to healthy foods • Strains on our natural resources So what are we going to do about it?

48. Money is power, but not the only or the best kind of power

49. The Community Farm Alliance is a statewide grass-roots organization that organizes people to work for change around issues of concern to family-scale farmers.

50. Sources Cited Bread for the World Institute. Strengthening Rural Communities: Hunger Report 2005. Washington, D.C. 2005. Center for Disease Control. “Kentucky: Obesity by Body Mass Index.” Nov. 5, 2003. http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/Trends/trendchart.asp?qkey=10010&state=KY Consumer Reports. “The Truth About Irradiated Meat.” Online article, August 2003. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/food/irradiated-meat-803/overview.htm Economic Research Service, USDA. “Food Marketing and Price Spreads: USDA Marketing Bill.” Updated June 21, 2002. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodPriceSpreads/bill/ “Farm Labor: Employment Characteristics of Hired Farm Workers.” Updated November 13, 2003. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Farmlabor/Employment/#earnings Horrigan, Leo. MHS, Robert S. Lawrence, MD, Polly Walker, MD, MPH “How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture.” Environmental Health Perspectives. Volume 110, Number 5, 2002. http://www.jhsph.edu/Environment/CLF_Press/CLF_publications/WhitePaper.html