Land: They Aren't Making More Of It

I watched this short documentary today and found it fascinating and troubling. It deals with the problem of farmland and the aging ranks of American farmers.

This looming problem should concern all of us, even those who think "home cooked meals" means preheating the over. The precarious nature of our food supply is all around us. Just look at the shefl clearing near riots at Wal-Mart stores in Louisiana thanks to the EBT card glitch that allowed food stamp recipients to spend without limit. As another webpage noted most stores have only three days worth of merchandise and when it is out it is out. Meanwhile our farmland, one of our most precious and unique resources (more valuable really than all of the oil in the Middle East), is held by s smaller number of ever larger farming businesses and a lot of the owners are getting pretty old.

Food is such a basic necessity but we take it for granted and give little thought to how that unimaginable cornucopia of calories is so readily available to the American consumer, quantities and varieties so vast and so cheap that we pay a premium to make consumption as convenient and fast as possible (a necessity driven by two wage earner families that don't have time to prepare meals, a tragic irony as we work more to pay for things we wouldn't need if both spouses didn't work outside of the home).

I hope we as a people start to think about this and stop the incentives which run small farmers out of business and reward massive ag enterprises. Having a thriving agricultural community in America is good for our nation in so many ways and having empty towns dotting the Midwest while our food is more and more homogenized and concentrated is bad for our nation in just as many ways.

Control the food, control the people

The older I get, the less crazy some conspiracy theories sound to me...

You can live without cars or cell phones or cable TV. In fact a lot of what people think are necessities are little more than luxuries and a many of them are actually harmful. But food? You simply cannot live for very long without food. Food, water and shelter are the essentials of life but with each passing year all three become less free and more controlled by the government.

Our food system is completely and almost inextricably linked to our government control. For the vast majority of Americans, even families that raise some of their own food like we do, it is virtually impossible to feed your family without eating food that has been regulated, controlled and subsidized by the Federal government. Walk through a supermarket with me and I bet that you would be hard pressed to find a single food item that didn't get handled, subsidized or regulated by the government. Now that may not seem like a big deal, after all don't we all want "safe food"? Sure but at what cost? I am not talking about the price sticker on a bag of Doritos, I am talking about the real costs of food that you don't see at the checkout line but that we all pay.

Thanks to onerous and usually unnecessary regulations that make smaller scale (and more local) operations economically nonviable, more and more of our food is produced hundreds or thousands of
miles away. Have you ever stopped to wonder how it is that you can buy virtually any food you want, regardless of where you live and what season it is? We used to live in one of the northernmost towns in North America, a place where the growing season is very short and winter is very long, but I could still buy "fresh" fruits and vegetables year round even though the nearest place that could raise strawberries in February was over 1000 miles away. I wasn't buying produce that was "produced" locally, I was buying food that had been trucked from all over the country (and outside of the country) to provide me with whatever food I desired, whenever I desired it (and at a low price of course). Gone is any sense of the seasonality of food, something that makes sense when you realize that the harvesting that happens in fall now is mostly field corn and soybeans that are completely inedible for humans. The crops that are harvested in the fall will be shipped off to a food processing plant or a feedlot somewhere far away or stored until the prices hit the right level.

Of course to move that food efficiently requires a key ingredient, namely cheap fuel. If we paid $7 or $9 per gallon for diesel fuel you can be sure that it would be far more expensive to buy food from far away processors and you wouldn't be able to obtain produce in the winter, or at least not at such a low price. One of the most insane features of our modern food system is that it is built not so much on sun and soil as it is on petroleum, petroleum that we on the one hand refuse to extract from our own domestic sources but on the other hand are perfectly willing (and often eager) to sacrifice countless lives and limbs of our young people and innocent by-standers overseas to keep the river of cheap oil flowing. If we ever suffer a real petroleum crisis you can be sure that a food crisis will follow right behind. Our food system is dependent more on oil than on crop yields or biotechnology or the good old American farmer. Without oil, cheap and plentiful, we could not continue to feed ourselves as we are used to doing. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It also shows what a farce the idea of cheap food really is. Between crop subsidies, disaster insurance, trade deals, military interventions around the world, etc. we pay an enormous cost for our food supply but the difference is that it is an indirect cost, something lost in the morass of the income tax system.

Another way that Uncle Sam controls food is simply having the government become the provider of food for many Americans, more now than at any time in history which is a symptom of the bitter irony of the "War on poverty" that has made poverty generational and more common rather than reducing it in any meaningful way. There are over 23,000,000 American households receiving food assistance via the SNAP (Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program) program administered by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Broken out by actual people and we see that over 47,000,000 people or 15% of the population is enrolled in the SNAP program with some states like Mississippi and the District of Columbia having over 20% of their population enrolled in the "food stamp" program. The modern day United States Department of Agriculture is mostly involved in regulations and in supplementing tens of millions of Americans food purchasing budgets rather than anything having to do with actual agricultural practices, having long ago abdicated the development of agricultural practices to international food and agriculture companies like Monsanto, Tyson and Conagra as well as land grant universities funded in large part by those same companies. This isn't a knock on people who legitimately are in a position to need food assistance but it is an accusatory finger pointed right at the same organization that on the one hand provides "free" food for some while perpetuating an economic system that leaves so many people in need in the first place, namely the United States government. Not only can you not really buy much food that isn't controlled by the government, many families simply cannot afford to feed themselves at all without that assistance.

So what is my point other than conspiracy ranting? Not much other than pointing out that the majority of Americans and the citizens of other industrialized nations are more or less completely dependent on the government for feeding themselves to the point of being completely incapable of procuring even the most basic food needs without the assistance and permission of their government. It is easy to assume that the government will always be there but given the troubling instability of European nations and the incredible debt level of our own government that permanence is no longer a given. The seemingly steady and secure food system we enjoy is actually on pretty shaky ground and any disruption could have serious, potentially catastrophic consequences.

Each little step toward food independence, no matter how small, is important. Whether you have a small square foot container garden or a few backyard chickens or you raise most of your own food yourself you take a small step of peaceful, lawful rebellion against those who would enslave us by controlling our food supply. Cheap food is anything but inexpensive and a people cannot be free when they are not able to even feed themselves without a by your leave from the government.

Your tax dollars at work

Thank goodness for the FDA, sending a squad of agents to protect the American people from raw milk. Whew that was a close one! Good thing we don't have more serious issues like a porous southern border to worry about so we can focus on farmers selling milk that is...well just plain milk.

What is the real issue here, food safety or control?



There is nothing I like more than a snarky, self-important popinjay who thinks that "public servant" means that the public is his servant.

(HT: Paula Runyan)

Book Review: Deeply Rooted

I finished Lisa Hamilton’s Deeply Rooted last night. It was a thought-provoking work. Ms. Hamilton singled out three unconventional farmers, farmers who bucked the trend of constantly increasing the size of their operation and spent quite a bit of time watching what they do and more importantly finding out why they do what they do. All three buck conventional wisdom and while they might not make as much money as the huge commercial farms they still retain their connection to the land and their community, something Ms. Hamilton argues and I largely agree has taken place in most of the agribusiness world.

I think Ms. Hamilton does a great job painting the picture of each of these farms for the reader. Her vivid imagery is sometimes raw but life on a farm is not all setting suns and green pastures. Life on a farm is dirty sometimes, sometimes ugly and unpleasant. When you eschew the methods of modern agribusiness, it can make life even harder. In a country where meat and milk come from the grocery store in sanitary foam packages and plastic jugs, Deeply Rooted is a welcome reminder of just how much has changed in the world of food.

The three farmers she selected are kind of characters, each with a pretty interesting personality. I am sure that is intentional, after all the book needs to be readable as well as educational. I don’t think these three are typical of non-confirming farms but they do provide a great insight into the mindset of people who were raised to be farmers and ranchers but decided against getting on the economy of scale treadmill. It is one thing to woodenly detail the operations of a farm, which is only mildly interesting. Getting into the minds of these farmers is where the really interesting stuff happens.

It is indisputable that the agricultural world has changed dramatically over the last century and the pace of change shows no sign of letting up. Ms. Hamilton does a very good job of telling us about the downside of this revolution, farmers becoming producers, people disconnected from the land and from where their food comes from. On the other hand, feeding your family has become, at least for the majority of people in Western nations, something of an afterthought. I can get up from my computer and get to four grocery stores in less than ten minutes, each one chock full staple foods, dairy products and fruits and vegetables. The food is consistent, predictable and cheap. How healthy it is, well that is a different story but the market delivers what people demand. I am confident in saying that short of a major crisis, we are never going back to a world of gardens and small farms, of local produce. Perhaps Deeply Rooted will serve as an encouragement to others, as it has been for me, to think more about food and the choices we make. Food, water and shelter are the essentials of life and we really only pay attention to one of those. As bad as the mortgage crisis was, a food or water crisis is infinitely worse. Deeply Rooted is, pun intended, food for thought.

Farming in Detroit?

I think this is a great idea. It is the dream of John Hantz, a wildly successful entrepreneur who actually still lives in Detroit and thinks farming could be the future of Detroit. Instead of block after block of dilapidated, abandoned houses there would be farms.

Yes, a farm. A large-scale, for-profit agricultural enterprise, wholly contained within the city limits of Detroit. Hantz thinks farming could do his city a lot of good: restore big chunks of tax-delinquent, resource-draining urban blight to pastoral productivity; provide decent jobs with benefits; supply local markets and restaurants with fresh produce; attract tourists from all over the world; and -- most important of all -- stimulate development around the edges as the local land market tilts from stultifying abundance to something more like scarcity and investors move in. Hantz is willing to commit $30 million to the project. He'll start with a pilot program this spring involving up to 50 acres on Detroit's east side. "Out of the gates," he says, "it'll be the largest urban farm in the world."

Honestly, what else are we going to do with Detroit? Manufacturing is never coming back. The infrastructure is shaky. The jobs have all moved and so have many of the people. There aren't corporations lined up looking to move to Detroit. At the rate of deterioration, Detroit will be a ghost town in a decade, a town that no one will want to be in. It may already be that way for all practical purposes. The scale of Detroit is enormous, far bigger than many other large cities in terms of land area:

But still there's the problem of what to do with the city's enormous amount of abandoned land, conservatively estimated at 40 square miles in a sprawling metropolis whose 139-square-mile footprint is easily bigger than San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan combined. If you let it revert to nature, you abandon all hope of productive use. If you turn it over to parks and recreation, you add costs to an overburdened city government that can't afford to teach its children, police its streets, or maintain the infrastructure it already has.

40 square miles of abandoned land. Think about that. Something is going to thrive there. It can either be drugs and violence and despair or it can be farms. We are pretty intrigued by this idea. Small scale agriculture in a place where we could also minister as a family. I can think of several friends who might be willing to join in something like this. Live in the community, raise food, proclaim Christ. What a great ministry opportunity and mission field right here in Michigan! It is one thing to drive in from the suburbs and minister to people but it is quite another to live in the mission field itself.

The number one impediment might be the entrenched interests in Detroit, those who are more interested in political power than helping people. People like this guy quoted in the article:

"I'm concerned about the corporate takeover of the urban agriculture movement in Detroit," says Malik Yakini, a charter school principal and founder of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which operates D-Town Farm on Detroit's west side. "At this point the key players with him seem to be all white men in a city that's at least 82% black."

Mr. Yakini, look around you at this city dying day by day with no hope and no end in sight. So instead of getting past race and focusing on solving the problem, let's reject what could be a great idea with actual capital to back it up and business leaders with a plan because it isn't a racially diverse enough group? Those are the exact sort of attitudes that have led Detroit and Michigan in general to the brink of ruin.

The once great cities of the industrial Midwest are a problem that America cannot ignore. The government has tried throwing money at the problem and it just gets worse. It is high time to let those who have the money because they have been successful get a shot at revitalizing Detroit and Cleveland and Akron. It is not like the situation in Detroit can get much worse.

Who is going to feed us?

I read something interesting in the Wall Street Journal. It was an interview with Stephen Green, the Chairman of HSBC, one of the biggest financial services companies in the world (emphasis added). One paragraph really caught my eye…

"The fundamental aspect of globalization is urbanization, which is spreading everywhere. There isn't a single country in the world that isn't getting more and more urbanized, even the ones that are already quite urbanized, like this one and America," he says. "Last year was the year when we crossed the point where more than half the world's population is in big cities. By 2050 it will be 80% of people who live in cities."

When I read that, I asked the question (as did my wife when I shared her): who is going to feed all these people living in the city? There is nothing more fundamental than food and water. Who cares how your 401(k) is doing when you can’t feed your family?

There is a rapidly widening chasm in America between small, niche or “boutique” specialty farms and enormous corporate megafarms. The “family farm” is going the way of the horse and buggy. It is becoming harder and harder to make it as a traditional family farm. Margins are too thin, prices are too volatile, credit is too hard to come by, farm ground is too expensive and passing farms on from one generation to the next is becoming tax prohibitive. It is impossible for a young couple to start farming a traditional grain and livestock operation full-time. A self-sustaining farm of several hundred acres is going to cost millions just by itself and that doesn’t even count the hundreds of thousands of dollars in machinery and equipment. So smaller farms disappear as the older generation dies and the younger generation moves to the city and jobs in the service industry. Meanwhile the big farms get bigger. A farm with 25,000 dairy cows can operate on thinner margins than one with 75.

America, especially in the Midwest, is an interconnected spiderweb of railroad tracks, grain elevators and shipping terminals, all designed to facilitate moving vast amounts of grain and livestock from millions of small family farms to large processors. As family farms die out, that chain will wither and die. Instead of thousands upon thousands of medium sized family farms, we will have a shrinking number of corporate farms. The food supply chain is getting narrower and narrower and that means that it is more susceptible to some sort of disaster. Farmer Hayseed going bankrupt is one thing. The neighbors will buy his land and his equipment and keep farming. One of these enormous corporate farms goes under and it could have a serious impact on the food supply.

Forget the stock market or the automotive sector. The greatest threat to our economy and long-term economic future is the loss of our agricultural system. Other countries can build cars and computers but no one else can match America’s ability to produce food. Our greatest national resource and our area of greatest competitive advantage is being squandered. Will anyone notice before it is too late?

The economics of corn

Is there anything more midwestern than a cornfield? It is just a part of the landscape for those of us who grew up in places like Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska. We knew the seasons as the snow melted off the bare fields, the tractors started plowing and planting, corn started sprouting, grew tall, turned brown, got harvested and it all started over again. Cornfields are what people from the coastal cities fly over when going to a different coast.


Everyone complains about gas prices, but most people haven't a clue as to what is causing this or what the ramifications are. That is not intended to be self-congratulatory because I have taken a couple of courses in Econonomics at college, but rather just a fact that most people have had little exposure to economics and spend little time really thinking about how everything works together. Most people view each economic event in a vacuum. Gas prices are just arbitrarily changed. Milk prices inexplicably go up. Things just happen and aren't related to one another. That is simply not the case. Our economy and the world economy in general is tightly interwoven.

Ethanol versus oil production

There is a growing problem in America that gets little notice. Corn production is expected to be down from 13.1 billion bushels in 2007 to 12.1 billion bushels in 2008, and of that crop 4 billion bushels will be used for ethanol. As corn prices rise and as more and more corn is used for ethanol, it makes feed for cattle, chickens and hogs more expensive. It makes milk more expensive. It drives up the prices of other crops which in turn drives up the cost of rice and flour and other staple foods. Yet our agricultural and energy policies bear little resemblance to reality.

We have spent tons of money getting farmers to not plant crops, and meanwhile urban sprawl has been eating up farmland. We find ourselves late to the game, trying to replace oil with ethanol when oil prices are spiking instead of developing this technology when prices were still low. Fear mongers on the radical environmental fringe have convinced us to fear nuclear power, which could provide all the electricity we need with virtually no greenhouse gas emissions and yet those same radicals carp constantly about not signing the Kyoto Accord. We could cut back on all of those coal fired electrical plants but it isn't an overnight process and we have lost decades where instead of building and improving nuclear plants, we are shutting them down at huge expense and belching pollution into the air from coal plants. The same mentality is true of our agriculture policy, made in the halls of monstrous office buildings in D.C. by people who probably have never driven a tractor or seen livestock outside of a county fair or petting zoo.

Agriculture should be our second greatest strategic asset after our military forces, given our climate and vast areas of arable land. Food should be to us what oil is to the middle east. But we have squandered that advantage and are importing grains from other nations when we could easily grow our own. Is it any wonder with policies like this that our food prices and gas prices are spiking?

Gas prices are what motorists see because they pay attention to the gas prices and the news makes a big deal out of it, but what is missed are the more subtle price increases in food and staple goods as it becomes more expensive to move freight by train, truck and plane. Just this week, Fed Ex lowered profit expectations again because of increased costs. This filters down as it becomes more and more expensive to do business and profits shrink, jobs are lost. It is all interconnected. I fear that we are not seeing the worst of the economic slowdown, but rather are just beginning.

Agriculture is the backbone of our economy. Taiwan and Sri Lanka can make computer chips. Japan and Mexico can make cars. Europe can...well, most of the workers in Europe are unemployed so they don't make anything. Saudi Arabia and Qatar can drill oil. But no one else can feed the world as efficiently as we can. That we have forgotten that is a national tragedy and a strategic error. It is high time we start to figure out how to maximize our food production capabilities before our food supply becomes hostage to foreign powers the same way that our energy supply has become, before Hugo Chavez uses food against us the way that thugs in the Middle East do. The American farmer has for decades fed the world and that must continue if we are to avoid becoming a Third World economy.