Drawing attention, one post at a time
In a world where urban residents and, for the most part, active consumers are usually three generations removed from farming, is there a future for agriculture in North America?
This is a major question as subsidies, trade actions, failed globalization agreements, and increasingly resultant bi-lateral actions are enacted to level the “playing field”. Ask the average consumer one question: “Where does your food come from?” and the response is inevitably, “the grocery store”. Hundreds of millions of North Americans go about their daily business, eating three square meals in most cases, without realizing that food comes from farmers - and no longer domestically either.
Globalization has led to dramatic changes within the agricultural sector and is threatening the livelihood and economics for generations to come. North American living standards, economic practices, and a growing environmental movement devoid of “real” agricultural experience is creating a dynamic within the industry that is, at best, suspect for consumers.
How, for example, does one compete with labor costs in a number of “free” trading partners who pay workers $1 or $2 a day? Peru, now a major importer into the North American market for items such as asparagus, has forced the continent’s market into chaos because the product is derived from labor intensive efforts. There, workers are paid an average of $5 per day, for nine to 10 hours worth of work, and they must supply their own meals and cutting tools. And, without any food safety infrastructures to assure the general public of what may or may not be taking place, where are the efforts being made so that a potential contamination has not occurred? The answer, it doesn’t exist.
Most North American consumers demand quality, nutrition, and safety from the food they eat. Yet, there is a growing body of evidence that food growing and harvesting practices abroad are not subject to the same regulatory conditions that farmers within North America’s boundaries are expected to follow and comply under. The recent outbreaks in California aside, there are many other examples of food safety issues that are not brought forward through the mainstream media. Even the words surrounding the California outbreak focused upon the crop produced and not the way it was grown - organically versus conventionally or whether there were best management practices followed. Despite assurances that such incidents are rare, they are not - even in a North American society that prides itself on reliability to access of information.
Yes, and most would agree, farmers are producers of the safest food ever conceived of throughout a millennia of human existence, but there are still concerns about the production of food – as it relates through the mainstream media.
Why? This is the crux of the question and fuels arguments. The answer is simple – increasingly demanding consumers have an expectation of perfection. No longer will the words, “leave the spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees” echo in song. Instead, consumers have demanded – without recognition of the efforts made in the farming community – that their food be, without fail, blemish free, spotless, perfect, and affordable. And that bottom-line mentality is driving North America farmers out of business in both Canada and the United States.
Unrealistic expectations have also confounded retailers – unsure, anymore of the direction that consumers are heading. That confusion is causing retailers to buy at the cheapest value possible – think of it as the “Wal-Martization” of the industry. Your grocery store food products, coming from sources unknown, with questionable growing methods, questionable production, and questionable handling, is being made available to you because it is the cheapest price going. Kind of like the tendering process for NASA – rockets, space shuttles, and space stations being constructed by the lowest priced vendor.
You get what you pay for – and our food and the lack of any food or agricultural policy to guide it – is now coming from the cheapest sources possible so that the retail giants are able to improve upon their bottom-line at the expense of farmers throughout the world who are exploited by middlemen garnering huge profits while spreading peanuts around to the actual producer.
The answer lies in the newly elected bodies in the United States and with the minority situation that exists at the federal level for Canada. A food and agriculture policy, based upon domestic food security must be enacted – but one that looks at the establishment of a new thought: viewing North America as a food-supplying region rather than a splintered regionalization between states and provinces. If, on this premise, food was grown, produced, and supplied throughout North America, with market availability for all – which is possible when viewed continent-wide, then it is possible for the residents of both countries, with their stringent regulatory systems, to have full, safe access to the same variety of choices that they have come to expect and accept without detriment to the agricultural economy.
Consumers must begin to understand that food is not a cheap, reliable source but rather, an integral part of day-to-day society. With both countries spending approximately 10 per cent of their disposable income on food – a figure dwarfed by countries through the world – consumers have little expectation or fear that their food will not be provided. This is a fool’s paradise – and when an unexpected catastrophic climatic or politically driven event takes place, they may, in the next decade or so, wonder where all of the farmers went.
Truth be known, they sold out to developers and moved to the city because the values and economics placed upon them right now figured into business decisions on the farm that wouldn’t have happened a decade or two ago, and certainly not 50 years past. A nation is defined not just by its actions but its ability to sustain its own population through the advantageous use of its natural resources. Farmers are the rightful stewards of the land and take pride in their efforts but for too long, those efforts have gone unrecognized and unrewarded. Timing, those in the know say, is everything. There is a two-year window of opportunity for a new Congress and House and a weakened federal structure in Canada to undertake dramatic changes that will see farmers and the agricultural industry return to a new dynamic where food security – not just food safety – is paramount for growth, development, and maintaining of an industry that ranks second in economic sustainability in either nation.
Or in our tomorrow’s to come, that $4 apple may actually look like a bonus as food becomes a pleasant afterthought and our continent’s issues with obesity and other food-related diseases is quickly turned around to where malnutrition and starvation replace them as our future’s problems.
This is a major question as subsidies, trade actions, failed globalization agreements, and increasingly resultant bi-lateral actions are enacted to level the “playing field”. Ask the average consumer one question: “Where does your food come from?” and the response is inevitably, “the grocery store”. Hundreds of millions of North Americans go about their daily business, eating three square meals in most cases, without realizing that food comes from farmers - and no longer domestically either.
Globalization has led to dramatic changes within the agricultural sector and is threatening the livelihood and economics for generations to come. North American living standards, economic practices, and a growing environmental movement devoid of “real” agricultural experience is creating a dynamic within the industry that is, at best, suspect for consumers.
How, for example, does one compete with labor costs in a number of “free” trading partners who pay workers $1 or $2 a day? Peru, now a major importer into the North American market for items such as asparagus, has forced the continent’s market into chaos because the product is derived from labor intensive efforts. There, workers are paid an average of $5 per day, for nine to 10 hours worth of work, and they must supply their own meals and cutting tools. And, without any food safety infrastructures to assure the general public of what may or may not be taking place, where are the efforts being made so that a potential contamination has not occurred? The answer, it doesn’t exist.
Most North American consumers demand quality, nutrition, and safety from the food they eat. Yet, there is a growing body of evidence that food growing and harvesting practices abroad are not subject to the same regulatory conditions that farmers within North America’s boundaries are expected to follow and comply under. The recent outbreaks in California aside, there are many other examples of food safety issues that are not brought forward through the mainstream media. Even the words surrounding the California outbreak focused upon the crop produced and not the way it was grown - organically versus conventionally or whether there were best management practices followed. Despite assurances that such incidents are rare, they are not - even in a North American society that prides itself on reliability to access of information.
Yes, and most would agree, farmers are producers of the safest food ever conceived of throughout a millennia of human existence, but there are still concerns about the production of food – as it relates through the mainstream media.
Why? This is the crux of the question and fuels arguments. The answer is simple – increasingly demanding consumers have an expectation of perfection. No longer will the words, “leave the spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees” echo in song. Instead, consumers have demanded – without recognition of the efforts made in the farming community – that their food be, without fail, blemish free, spotless, perfect, and affordable. And that bottom-line mentality is driving North America farmers out of business in both Canada and the United States.
Unrealistic expectations have also confounded retailers – unsure, anymore of the direction that consumers are heading. That confusion is causing retailers to buy at the cheapest value possible – think of it as the “Wal-Martization” of the industry. Your grocery store food products, coming from sources unknown, with questionable growing methods, questionable production, and questionable handling, is being made available to you because it is the cheapest price going. Kind of like the tendering process for NASA – rockets, space shuttles, and space stations being constructed by the lowest priced vendor.
You get what you pay for – and our food and the lack of any food or agricultural policy to guide it – is now coming from the cheapest sources possible so that the retail giants are able to improve upon their bottom-line at the expense of farmers throughout the world who are exploited by middlemen garnering huge profits while spreading peanuts around to the actual producer.
The answer lies in the newly elected bodies in the United States and with the minority situation that exists at the federal level for Canada. A food and agriculture policy, based upon domestic food security must be enacted – but one that looks at the establishment of a new thought: viewing North America as a food-supplying region rather than a splintered regionalization between states and provinces. If, on this premise, food was grown, produced, and supplied throughout North America, with market availability for all – which is possible when viewed continent-wide, then it is possible for the residents of both countries, with their stringent regulatory systems, to have full, safe access to the same variety of choices that they have come to expect and accept without detriment to the agricultural economy.
Consumers must begin to understand that food is not a cheap, reliable source but rather, an integral part of day-to-day society. With both countries spending approximately 10 per cent of their disposable income on food – a figure dwarfed by countries through the world – consumers have little expectation or fear that their food will not be provided. This is a fool’s paradise – and when an unexpected catastrophic climatic or politically driven event takes place, they may, in the next decade or so, wonder where all of the farmers went.
Truth be known, they sold out to developers and moved to the city because the values and economics placed upon them right now figured into business decisions on the farm that wouldn’t have happened a decade or two ago, and certainly not 50 years past. A nation is defined not just by its actions but its ability to sustain its own population through the advantageous use of its natural resources. Farmers are the rightful stewards of the land and take pride in their efforts but for too long, those efforts have gone unrecognized and unrewarded. Timing, those in the know say, is everything. There is a two-year window of opportunity for a new Congress and House and a weakened federal structure in Canada to undertake dramatic changes that will see farmers and the agricultural industry return to a new dynamic where food security – not just food safety – is paramount for growth, development, and maintaining of an industry that ranks second in economic sustainability in either nation.
Or in our tomorrow’s to come, that $4 apple may actually look like a bonus as food becomes a pleasant afterthought and our continent’s issues with obesity and other food-related diseases is quickly turned around to where malnutrition and starvation replace them as our future’s problems.
posted by Jamie Reaume at
10:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home