Way back when, I started farming so I could have food that I wanted to eat. Clean, healthy, nutritious food that I new the source and had control of from start to finish. Now, I find the way I farm and how I market my food is also becoming an act of social justice.
    Urban sprawl, eroding infrastructure and industrial food systems have for many decades made it almost impossible to find much less encourage local food production. The food industry has become a modern mechanized global behemoth like any other modern business with the attitude that as long as it is cheap enough, the consumer doesn't care where it comes from or how it is made.
    Growing food for ones community has been the hallmark and survival of human civilization. Now, we are faced with little choice and no knowledge or information about where our food comes from. The government continually drags its feet on implementing the COOL (country of origin labeling) labeling law even though any other industry must label the origin of their products. The main reason I suspect is because they are afraid of scaring the consumer.
     One third of our beef can come from other countries and the feed for that cattle can be sourced from anywhere. After all, grain is a world wide commodity.
    We no longer can claim that "we feed the world". Instead, the world is now feeding us. We finally reached the point where we import more food then we export. That chicken you purchased in the store may have come to you at the expense of the rain forest. That's right. Brazil has been cutting down the rain forest at an alarming rate and planting soy bean fields in its place. So much so, that Brazil is now the worlds largest exporter of soy beans.
    You may ask "What is the alternative? People need to eat don't they?" True, that would be a valid argument if Brazil was feeding it self, but they aren't. There is still a large starving peasant  population. It is about corporate rule and money. Heck, in this country we still have farmers growing wheat and then buying bread with food stamps.
    It would seem that farmers and consumers have little choice. The same company that farmers buy their seed from will also purchase their harvest. Farmers have been told to "get big or get out" for about 50 years now and the result is a modern day serfdom. Pig and poultry farms have become a model of anti trust. The company supplies the livestock and the feed and the farmer is a kind of employee (or serf) with no benefits and all the risk. The farmer takes a mortgage to build the confinement building and in return usually receives a one year contract in which the company can cancel at any time for any reason. As the environmental regulations continue to get tougher on these kinds of farms, I predict that these large confinement operations will eventually be driven overseas to "more friendly" developing countries with more "friendly" regulations. Lets face it. Modern agriculture was the last to enter the industrial age and it will be the last to leave. Food has been reduced to the same kind of industrial manufacturing which has left this country in search of cheep labor. So, in the future we can all enjoy chicken made in China, that was fed Brazilian rain forest soy beans and shipped thousands of miles and sold at an affordable price that Americans have come expect. Yum!
    I am so glad this is happening. Every time corporations act in some Orwelian manor, my business increases and more farms like mine spring up. The food industry seems to take the attitude that consumers should just shut up and believe them when they say this food is good for you. It would seem that agri business has never herd the saying "the customer is always right" because the customers are changing their minds. Customers are starting ask question. Good, important questions like "how do you raise your animals? What are they fed? Are they outside on grass?" These questions (and I am asked these questions all the time) demonstrate an ever increasing knowledge about our nations food supply. These questions show me, the farmer, that someone is doing a little homework and have a concern about the food they eat. The demographic of those new customers I see are mostly young families with children under 5 years of age. I am very encouraged by this. Not only will we see healthier children but future adults who will know what real food tastes like and, hopefully, will bring THEIR children to this farm.
    This is why small farms like mine can and will survive. I have customers now and in the future who demand a better, healthier food system and more sustainable communities. So I would like thank Cargil, Tyson, ADM, all the big boys, I can now proudly add to my product description that "my chickens don't eat the rain forest".

 

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