Commentary—

How To Secure Our Food Supply

By Debra Eschmeyer

In the modern industrial food system, are we vulnerable to attack through the oil we eat?

“I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”

Tommy Thompson stated the above in December 2004 upon his resignation as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services. As we mourn the fifth anniversary of the tragic attacks on September 11, 2001, we cannot help but think: Is Thompson right; do we have reasons to be concerned about “agro-terrorism” when we sit down to dinner tonight?

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, or HSPD9, is the national policy to confront major disasters or possible attacks, and to address where our agriculture and food system is vulnerable. Let’s evaluate the quality of American homeland security in regard to our modern industrial food system. That system is dominated by large, multinational corporations that leave us vulnerable to attack and are a result of agriculture policies written for agribusiness instead of family farmers and consumers. That control means huge factory farms. Marketing and advertising campaigns co-opting the warm and fuzzy family farmer image cannot hide that 81 percent of the beef market is controlled by four beef packers, 59 percent of the pork market by four pork packers, and 50 percent of the broiler chicken market by four processors.

For example, 100 square miles referred to as America’s beef belt produces 80 percent of the nation’s beef, an easier target than diverse family farms spread throughout the country. Federal farm policy promotes this large-scale, industrialized production through a cheap grain policy — at the expense of family farmers.

A recent Congressional Research Service report states that “feedlots with thousands of cattle in open-air pens, farms with tens of thousands of pigs, or barns with hundreds of thousands of poultry” mean an outbreak of a contagious disease would be very difficult to contain. The cliché “do not put all your eggs in one basket” or in this case, all your chickens in one barn, is all too fitting when it comes to our nation’s food supply. A sign in Iowa reads: “Iowan farmers feed the world.” “It really means Iowan farmers feed corporate pigs. We need real solutions that do not give corporations control over our food supply,” states George Naylor, grain farmer and president of the National Family Farm Coalition.

The vertical and horizontal integration of agriculture puts your family’s food in the hands of a few, leaving us dependent on a centralized agricultural system. Besides the fact that these markets are no longer competitive, they are not the safest routes our food should travel.

From farm to table, the average food item travels 1,500 miles. This “fieldtrip” from large-scale monoculture fields to storage and then final transit to the big box store nearest you is quite susceptible to outside forces, and is not sustainable.

President George W. Bush stated in his 2006 State of the Union address: “America is addicted to oil.” Approximately one-fifth of all US energy goes into the food system through fertilizers, gasoline and diesel fueled tractors, processing, and transport. The reliance on the current global food routes operated by large corporations furthers that dependence on oil. A full-armored response going beyond food security is food sovereignty. It means supporting domestic food security through the production of healthy food at a fair price for the farmers’ products, thereby creating robust rural communities with secure food systems to feed our nation.

Joel Greeno, Wisconsin dairy farmer, makes it clear: “Food sovereignty is about fair trade, international security, energy independence, all that, but it really starts with you — where you buy your food, how you take care of your neighbor. It’s that simple.”

America’s food sovereignty depends on economically sound and stable rural communities. The lack of federal policy tools such as domestic food reserves and a process to determine a fair price for what is produced contributes to both the increasing concentration in our food supply and the loss of diversified family farm production. As long as the what, how, and who of our food supply is decided by a handful of corporate giants, we will continue to be vulnerable. A secure, sustainable and equitable food system is possible. Take back control and reclaim your food sovereignty with your next forkful.

(Debra Eschmeyer is the project director of the National Family Farm Coalition, a nonprofit that provides a voice for grassroots groups on farm, food, trade and rural economic issues to ensure fair prices for family farmers, safe and healthy food, and vibrant, environmentally sound rural communities here and around the world.)