Feeding at the public trough

This is Ken Midkiff – supporting family farmers, opposing corporate agribusiness. I call this piece: Feeding at the public trough.

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It seems that some folks just don’t get it.

It is NOT necessary to confine chickens, hogs or cows by the thousands or millions in order to provide milk, meat, and eggs to meet the current demand.

Yet there are those, apparently believing the falsehoods told by hack and lackeys and lobbyists and market gurus for the large corporations and their supporters, who proclaim that without Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) we’d all go hungry.

This is patent nonsense.

Hogs are a case in point. The per capita consumption of the “other white meat” has dwindled considerably. Even though our population has gone up dramatically, the domestic demand for pork has remained constant – about 80 million hogs per year. We’re eating less pork, but there are more of us.

Presently, however, the US produces about 120 million hogs per year.

Where does the excess go? To Southeast Asia.

Who helped it go there? Our elected and appointed leaders, including State Secretaries of Agriculture.

It seems that the US House and Senate, the USDA, the Secretary of Agriculture and the major corporations engaged in the production of pork are busily convincing the consumers in the burgeoning populations of China, Japan, Malaysia and other Pacific Rim countries to add a bit of meat to their diet.

While the aforesaid lobbyists maintain that CAFOs are the “future of agriculture” the fact remains that traditional farmers were and are capable of meeting all domestic demands for milk, meat and eggs. No need to turn over vital domestic products to agribusinesses. No need to let Conti-Group, Smithfield, Tyson, Fosters or Seaboard dictate what their growers should do. No need to let those same corporations wallow in profits.

That’s what this is all about. Profits. The bottom line. Dividends to shareholders.

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In 1975, in my state of Missouri, over 7 million hogs were produced by over 6000 farmers. In 2006, over 30 years later, this state produced about 2.5 million hogs, but with only three large agribusinesses responsible for that production. That situation holds true for the entire United States.

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Broilers, eggs and milk fall in the same category. It is difficult – maybe impossible – to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken or Church’s and eat an “8 Piece Box” of locally-produced chicken parts. Or just try getting a carton of locally-produced milk.

Nope. It is much easier for the buyers – procurers they’re called – for these corporations to make one phone call to Tyson and ask that 80 bazillion pounds of chicken meat be delivered to a centralized distribution warehouse than for that same buyer to make hundreds of phone calls to local farmers and ask for a few hundred pounds from each.

This was explained to me a few years ago by executives of McDonald’s, which had at that time recently acquired Chipotles. Chipotles advertises, and proclaims in its outlets, that its pork products come from Niman Ranch producers. Niman Ranch farmers don’t utilize confinement facilities – their hogs are raised outside in hoop houses - “free-range” conditions. I inquired of the executives why this same philosophy wasn’t adopted by all McDonald’s outlets. The answer was that they have a centralized buying system which serves over 35000 Mickey D’s operations – and Chipotles has only 300 or so outlets. What works well for Chipotles wouldn’t work at all for McDonald’s operations due to the system that had been established.

(To give due credit, McDonald’s, Hardees, and other franchises have now adopted some “humane treatment” standards for any entity providing meats and animal products to their centralized systems).

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The point is that the American farmer need not be run off the land by major corporations, but should instead band together and stand up against intrusive agribusinesses. That this has occurred to some degree is demonstrated by the proliferation of local “farmers’ markets”.

Face the facts: Corporations with headquarters in Bentonville, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York’s Wall Street don’t give a whit about local farmers, stinking up the air, polluting the water, or ruining the rural economy. They do care about making a buck.

However, as long as consumers keep believing the hype of corporate lobbyists and keep buying the products produced by agribusinesses, real farmers don’t stand much of a chance in the global market. Elected officials and their appointed lackeys seem to be more interested in promoting agribusinesses than those fellows in overalls. To document that, just follow the government’s money – see who gets the farm subsidies. Large agribusinesses are the true welfare queens, not some poor lady in the Bronx. Corporations get millions, that lady in New York gets a few measly bucks.

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Wendell Berry said, “Eating is an agricultural act.” The Executive Director of the National Catholic Rural Life Center took this one step further and said: “Eating is a moral act”.

We need to begin eating morally, and begin electing politicians who don’t respond to the largess of agribusiness corporations. Mostly, though, we need to stop believing the hype spewed out by corporate lobbyists and marketers.This is Ken Midkiff signing off.