Hello, this is Farm Bill Girl, who's account seems to be banned (a Monsanto conspiracy?) so using George Naylor's account. George Naylor is the past president of the National Family Farm Coalition and an Iowa corn farmer featured in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. He would post, but he's kinda busy planting right now...
Bloggers and even the mainstream media (See Nightline's terrific report) have done a great job in pinpointing the Smithfield factory hog farm and the public health dangers of industrial animal production in Mexico as a prime suspect in the swine flu epidemic.
However, the larger connections to U.S. farm subsidy policy, NAFTA have not been adequately understood and explored.
Indeed, an earlier diary on NAFTA/WTO and Swine flu brought out the free trade apologists.
Will Swine Flu Finally Make People See Insanity of NAFTA-WTO
So I'm here to lay out how U.S. farm subsidies is tied to the proliferation of factory farming in the U.S., which we are now exporting this model onto Mexico via NAFTA and throughout the world via the WTO. I see this as an opportunity to correct a lot of the myths and misconceptions people have about farm subsidies that I hear over and over, sometimes from progressives.
So for over a decade, I have gotten to read fun studies in various economic journals touting the wondrous benefits of "globalized, integrated markets" in agriculture, that lead to "modern production" and "increased benefits to consumers" because we get cheap meat, or cheap soda. Industrial ag and "free markets" and "free trade" in agriculture is the only way to go.
The rise of the sustainable food movement and the battles we had during the Farm Bill meant people knew the system was broken and there were calls to break the status quo. Unfortunately, many well-meaning groups backed "reform" measures, such as the Ron Kind-Jeff Flake FARM 21 bill, that would only have led to further radical deregulation in farm policy and allowed for more giveaways to the likes of Smithfield and Archer Daniels Midland.
Conventional wisdom has pitted farm subsidies as a case of "millionaire" wealthy farmers growing "bad" crops like corn/soybeans vs. family farmers. The solution, so it goes, is lets take away subsidies for "bad" crops, to give to "good" healthy crops. The severely misleading Environmental Working Group database paints farm subsidies as a case of welfare for "rich corporate farmers." Fact is, the subsidies are helping to underwrite agribusiness profits due to depressed commodity prices. Farmers receive subsidies while agribusiness (i.e. the likes of Archer Daniels Midland and Smithfield) gets cheap corn to put into their Pepsi and cheap feed for factory farms.
My King Corn fact sheet lays out some of this:
King Corn Fact Sheet
A good primer on how agribusiness, not farmers benefit from subsidies.
Whose Subsidy is it Anyway?
My earlier diary on farm subsidies:
Your Food Bill
A fellow Kossack under stands my view...
Is Farm Bill Girl Right on Farm Subsidies?
So once upon a time, like in the 1960s, the majority of grain farmers also raised livestock. They fed their pigs with grain they grew, the manure produced by the pigs was then used as fertilizer and spread on crops, reinforcing a virtuous cycle that benefited the land. Once upon a time as well, under the New Deal, farmers were paid at the cost of production through a price floor (akin to a workers min wage) so there was no NEED for taxpayer subsidies. But agribusiness thought that was too communistic and attacked the farm programs from Eisenhower on, culminating in 1996's radical deregulatory Freedom to Farm Act which was supposed to eliminate all price floors, grain reserves, subsidies and let the "free market" reign. Not surprisingly, commodity prices collapsed, and taxpayer emergency subsidies had to be doled out.
Tufts did a good study on the transformation of the hog industry in the U.S.
Structural Transformation in the Farm Industry
As the price of corn was "deregulated", farmers needed subsidies to make up for that lost income. Meanwhile, diversified hog farmers who raised their own grain couldn't compete with CAFOs buying artificially cheap grain off the market. Up to 90% of hog farmers have been lost in many parts of the country as industrial livestock production takes over, due in large part to cheap corn. A lot of this process intensified after the 1996 Freedom to Farm Bill that was supposed to "get govt out of agriculture".
A fantastic Tufts Study calculated that thanks to "cheap feed" due to low corn prices, factory farms (incl. dairy, beef, poultry, hogs, etc) saved $35 BILLION dollars from 1997-2005.
Smithfield alone saved $2.45 billion
Tufts Study: Feeding at the Trough
Meanwhile, U.S. commodity farmers were facing 1970 prices for crops while hogs farmers saw massive consolidation of their industry and the proliferation of CAFOs, all driven by U.S. farm policy.
So hopefully folks can understand why it hurts my ears whenever Obama says he wants to cut "farm subsidies to agribusinesses" or certain food activists without much understanding of how farm subsidies work and who've been fooled by the likes of EWG say "let's just cut subsidies to corn farmers who produce this evil stuff and give it to organic farmers!" The folks misunderstand how subsidies work and who really benefits. And it's not "wealthy millionaire farmers."
Good interview with George Naylor about his perspective as a corn farmer:
How to Fix Agriculture
Here is a typical elite media editorial from the Washington Post railing against farm subsidies, missing the REAL actors who profit off the system, and advocating for policies that would only lead to more factory farms and cheap processed food...
Washington Post Rails on Subsidies
At issue is the massive system of farm subsidies -- federal giveaways that cost all Americans but benefit few -- that is set for reapproval on the House floor later this week. Currently, half of the cash the country pours into farming goes to only about 20 congressional districts. According to the Agriculture Department, in 2004 a third of agricultural payouts went to "very large" operations that boasted average annual incomes above a quarter of a million dollars.
Never mind the billions in profit for Smithfield, Tyson, ADM, etc! it's farmers who are somehow the welfare queens. the fact that half the cash goes into 20 districts is because that's where the crops are grown. and most of those districts feature depressed economies and aging populations.
We don't need to deregulate ag markets and further corporate control. We need to ensure farmers get a fair price so taxpayers aren't bailing them out with subsidies and that corporations pay them instead. And then CAFOs aren't given an unfair competitive advantage over diversified hog farms. The problem with policies that actually accomplish this?? They violate WTO "free trade" rules! They "distort" markets. Government policies to raise incomes for domestic farmers are seen as "inefficient" and "distorting open trade."
The WTO/NAFTA and free trade ideology is premised upon "integrated open global markets" that are all about "efficiency" and "economies of scale." never mind if those "economies of scale" produce massive waste, environmental catastrophe and now public health disasters. Never mind that this logic means your average processed food may contain components from 9 countries or that Brazil grows GM soybeans it exports to Europe/China so they can feed their industrial factory farms.
After NAFTA passed, U.S. cheap, below-cost corn began being dumped into Mexico. Corn is a sacred crop in Mexican culture, but too bad. ADM and Cargill began a takeover of the Mexican grain market. 1.7 million Mexican farmers were driven off the land (often ending up working in U.S. CAFOs and meatpacking plants). Do you think U.S. farmers benefited? heck no. Agribusiness got cheap corn to export, farmers on BOTH sides of the border faced depressed prices. But U.S. farmers did get bailed out with subsidies that Mexican farmers did not have access to.
Prior to NAFTA, Mexican hog farmers were mostly small scale and diversified, raising their own grain. Post-NAFTA, with the lifting of tariffs on pork and corn, the dumping of hog products also drove Mexican hog farmers out of business.
Statement by Mexican Hog Producers Group
U.S. exports of pork to Mexico increased about 40% between 2007 and 2008 and now supply about half of the domestic pork consumption in Mexico, said Alejandro Ramirez González, with the Confederation of Mexican Hog Farmers.
Anti-dumping tariffs were levied for a time on US hog imports. At the same time, industrial livestock operations began to expand in Mexico, backed by the likes of Smithfield, and copying the U.S. model made possible by NAFTA deregulation, using cheap US imported grain instead of Mexico biodiverse grain! To date, I have not seen anyone really make these connections even though the problem of U.S. corn dumping in Mexico is well known.
This is what is enabling the growth of livestock factory production everywhere around the globe.
This analysis is by Steven Zahniser, a USDA ag economist. Remember the name...He says the growth in the Mexican hog industry has been a catalyst for U.S. grain exports.
US-Mexico Trade Under NAFTA
Rising demand for meat in Mexico has driven sustained growth of Mexico’s hog and poultry industries, which in turn has been the primary catalyst for the expansion of U.S. grain and oilseed exports to Mexico. These industries, in their efforts to expand output and lower production costs, rely heavily on U.S. grains and oilseeds. Imports account for roughly half of the feed ingredients used by Mexican poultry producers.
This same Steven Zahniser issued a JOINT Presentation with one Victor Ochoa of Granjas Carroll in Veracruz....yup, the very same Smithfield-backed CAFO thought to perhaps be ground zero for Mexico's swine flu (and keep calling it that, no matter what the National Pork Producers say...) Any further proof USDA should be renamed Dept of Agribusiness when you have taxpayer-funded government economists doing presentations with Smithfield in a foreign market no less? Ochoa has been quoted in several news articles and trying in general i think to keep reporters from getting too close to the Veracruz CAFO.
JOINT PRESENTATION: Mexican Hog Industry: Moving Beyond 2003
Their recommendations for making the Mexican pork industry more "competitive"? "Free trade for entire production chain" Because with more "free trade," they can start importing more cheap grain from the U.S.! It is otherwise, "Extremely hard to compete when facing [grain] prices "artificially" high through import restrictions." Well, since the 14-year NAFTA phase out period on corn tariffs just expired, maybe they'll be able to do just that! (Mexican corn farmers had massive protests on just this tariff expiration in January this year!)
Smithfield's own documents show that it plans to perhaps export Mexican pork into the U.S. Yum!
Smithfield's Plans in Mexico
Grupo Alpro, which produces a variety of products for domestic consumption in Mexico and for export to the Asian Rim, plans to broaden its line of retail and foodservice items and penetrate new markets in Mexico as well as the United States. At present, Grupo Alpro is the largest federally inspected hog processor in Mexico and is U.S.D.A. certified for export to the U.S.
I am sure we are all reassured that USDA has certified them as "safe to export." so that's "free trade" globalization logic for you...use monoculture genetically engineered corn/soybeans imported from the United States for factory farms in Mexico who get to use cheaper labor, benefit from laxer enviro standards, and then ship that meat back to the United States. Viva the logic of global integration! But this is what was taught to me in all my economics classes as somehow the most "rational" efficient system for food production and why free trade is so great.
See typical bloodless blather about "modernizing" technology and Mexican hog CAFOs and how they improve sanitation (!!!) and are such a better product.
http://www.choicesmagazine.org/...
Ew. I think I will stick to my locally produced pork and bacon that comes from a farm 90 minutes away that raises its own feed.
Further reports on NAFTA and the devastation it causes to farmers in all three countries--Mexico, Canada, US--by pitting all farmers in a merciless race to the bottom to the glee of agribusiness. Free trade shifts our food model away from localized regional food systems to globalized, centralized industrial practices that are in many ways the root of our immigration crisis as well. Food Sovereignty, not free trade, is what we need.
http://www.nffc.net/...
http://www.iatp.org/...
Obama, after promising to look at renegotiation of NAFTA, has since backed off that promise.
A recent groundbreaking meeting earlier this year featured livestock producers from Mexico, Canada and the US rallying around their common agribiz enemies and NAFTA. see statements here:
http://www.tradeobservatory.org/...
Press release:
Livestock Producers from Mexico, Canada and United States Seek New Trade Policy and Market Reforms
Billings, Mont. – Representatives of consumer groups and livestock producer organizations from Canada, Mexico, and the United States today called on leaders to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and address concentration in livestock markets.
The groups have been meeting in Billings to address the challenges faced by family farmers and ranchers from trade policy and uncompetitive livestock markets.
"NAFTA is not working for Mexican and Canadian farmers," said Gilles Stockton, a rancher from Grass Range, Mont., representing the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC). "It is certainly not working for U.S. farmers and ranchers. We also learned that it is not working for consumers."
So remember, farm subsidies benefit SMITHFIELD, not the farmers who receive them. Simply gutting subsidies with no policies in place to provide farmers a fair price will simply make a bad situation worse. And will do nothing to curtail dumping into Mexico.
And perhaps swine flu (and avian flu threats...) will finally wake policy makers up to the nightmare of industrial factory farms and they can start to rethink some of our food and trade policies???