Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Feed the world policy has failed

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2003

By DENNIS KEENEY, Leopold Center's first director

The 200-acre south central Iowa farm of my youth provided milk, eggs, pork, chicken, beef, lamb and vegetables locally and for markets in Des Moines, just 15 miles west of us.

It was a farm roughly in balance, using the forage and grains grown on the farm to feed the animals and was in one of the first Soil Conservation Service watersheds in Iowa.

In all ways but one – financial – it was a sustainable farm. Hit by droughts, crop and animal diseases, low prices, and finally my father’s failing health, the farm disappeared, a litany many farms are following today.

A major reason for our farm’s failure is the misdirected policy, established in the 1970s, that U. S. agriculture should “Feed the World.”

The mantra of industrial agriculture, this altruistic-sounding policy in various guises was simply to maximize commodity production in the United States and export as much as possible. The government would remove trade barriers to the hungry parts of the world. The rest is history. Farmers maximized production, but the markets did not appear. This policy has failed all but input suppliers, the food processors and retailers and grain exporters.

Feed the World has failed the world.

Those suffering chronic hunger has held steady at around 800 million, even though the world produces enough food to feed everyone, thanks to the fact that food production has outstripped population growth for the last 30 years. It is widely recognized that the principal cause of hunger is poverty aided by natural disasters and war. Our exports go to those who can afford our food, not those who need it. Trade agreements have not addressed the issue of dumping, that is selling grain or food at prices less than the cost of production, displacing farmers in Mexico and elsewhere and increasing the general level of hunger in these countries.

Our food policies fail to recognize that all countries strive for food security for the staples that constitute the core of their diets. Hence the failed Cancun World Trade Organization talks.

Feed the World has failed the United States.

In 2002, 3.8 million households were classified as “hungry,” yet the nation is suffering from an epidemic of obesity and we are well on our way to becoming a permanent food-importing nation, according to a recent Purdue University report. Obesity is partly a result of a farm policy that brings us cheap grains, especially corn. To use this cheap grain, processors market more meat, corn syrups, and other fattening foods. The unhealthy diets have resulted in chronic and increasing obesity to the point that it is one of the country’s most serious public health problems.

Feed the World has failed agriculture.

We pumped $26 billion into farm support programs in 2000, yet it did not secure new markets. Labor-saving technologies and low returns have pushed farmers off the land, as farms must become larger to survive. Rural regions struggle for identity as incomes drop and people leave. And the environment suffers from soil, nutrient and pesticide runoff, and loss of biodiversity.

The production technologies developed largely through superior U.S. research are easily exported. Now low-cost feed grain and soybean producers in South America are out-performing American Corn Belt farmers. This could bring economic chaos to U.S. agriculture in the near future if we continue to battle in the export of commodities. There will always be an export market and we must strive to serve it. However, the U. S. needs to be far more consumer savvy about providing goods that countries want, not what we produce well.

Can the broken parts of our world food system be fixed? It took 50 years or so to get this way, and so we cannot expect solutions overnight.

First, we need to concentrate on food security in this country, not so much in supply as in the type of foods we supply. The concept of regional food systems needs more emphasis.

Think of how the French have done so well with regional wines and cheeses, and even how our friends in Wisconsin are known for their locally produced cheeses and bratwurst as well as vegetables. “Wisconsin Grown” remains one of the most attractive food labels in the Midwest. Iowa has foregone this advantage as we chased the commodity bandwagon.

Improving local and regional economies would help immensely by giving more people the opportunity to be food secure. Reforming subsidies to reward environmental conservation instead of overproduction may be a big part of the solution.
Can we renew our countryside while there is still a countryside left to renew?

My home farm and many like it are gone for good. While I still believe we can restore much of what was lost in the misguided policies of the past 50 years, we will never achieve sustainability if the ill-advised goal to “Feed the World” is our guiding principle for agricultural policy. This is the agribusiness vision.

Instead, I propose we move to a new vision where agricultural policy emphasizes supporting farmers, land and economic diversity of rural communities. The Conservation Security Provision of the 2002 Farm Bill is a good start. It is time for the countryside to take control of its future.

Dennis Keeney was director of the Leopold Center, 1988-1999, and is Senior Fellow for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. This piece first appeared in the Nov. 29, 2003 issue of Iowa Farmer Today. 
 

 

Back to Leopold Letter Winter 2003