Putting the Squeeze on Farming

The ‘war on farmers’ that we see playing out in many countries is nothing new.

Lawyer Alexis Baden-Mayer is Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association, a US-based organisation advocating for consumers' rights to safe, healthful food and other products; a just food and farming system; and a biodiversity-rich environment, free of pollutants. One of the many programmes she coordinates is the Real Farms Not Fake Food campaign. Its two interlocking aims are:

• to stop mega-corporations, through the World Economic Forum (WEF), driving farmers off their land, and 

• to stop the replacement of natural foods with synthetic, genetically engineered molecules. 

During Better Way Today on 4 March 2024, Alexis traced the historical roots of these issues with World Council for Health (WCH) Steering Committee member, Christof Plothe DO. In Part 1 of this two-part article we learn about efforts since the 1940s to reduce the number of small farms in the USA. Part 2 deals with concerns about synthetic foods.

Towards a ‘Frankenfoods’ Future

Watch the full episode on our website.

Part 1: Putting the squeeze on farming

The ‘war on farmers’ that we see playing out in many countries is nothing new. Today the excuse may be mitigating damage to the environment from cow farts and nitrogen emissions, and the squeeze may be related to crippling emissions targets and legislation. But for decades farmers have been stuck in a debt trap, not being paid what it actually costs to produce the food and having to rely on bank loans and ever-declining government subsidies to stay in business. 

Alexis identified the source of the problem as corporate control. In the USA the problem originated shortly before the end of World War II, when an industry lobby – the Committee for Economic Development – pressured Roosevelt's federal government administration to get rid of what they called ‘surplus farms’. According to them, two-thirds of the existing six million farms were not producing at a high enough level to make them ‘worthwhile’ in the new hyper-industrialised system of agriculture they wanted to establish after the war. Their lobbying was so successful that, of the six million farms at the end of World War II, fewer than two million remain today. Alexis comments:

This wasn't an accident, and it wasn't the invisible hand of the marketplace. It was the corporations saying, we want to farm differently  and these small-scale farms are going to get in the way of that. 

Messing with meat and milk

Two programmes that have helped to reduce the number of small producers and pave the way for replacing real farms with fake food have been federal meat inspection and mandating milk pasteurisation.

Closing small-scale slaughterhouses

At the turn of the 20^th Century, there were serious concerns about big meat-packing companies, with scandals including dangerous working conditions and companies selling tainted meat to the United States government. The largest companies figured out how to turn this situation to their advantage; instead of fighting regulation, they made regulation work for them. Since the late 1800s when meat inspections began, this could be done at local and state levels, as well as at the federal level. But in 1967 the Wholesome Meat Act declared that meat could not be sold unless it was slaughtered and processed at a facility inspected by federal regulators. This benefited the big meat packers but caused thousands of small-scale slaughterhouses to close, which also affected the butchers who relied upon them. Within 50 years the number of slaughterhouses in the USA shrank from about 10,000 to fewer than 3,000,  with negative impacts on farming operations. In Pennsylvania, the contrast is clear, with meat production continuing to benefit from the presence of small-scale Amish farmers and slaughterhouses. 

Criminalising the sale of raw milk

A factor contributing to the loss of four million farms after World War II was mandating the pasteurisation of milk and making it illegal for farmers to sell raw milk directly to consumers. In 1948 Michigan became the first state to outlaw unpasteurised milk. Strangely, this did not start in big cities like Chicago or New York where there might have been a greater likelihood of problems with industrial dairies producing tainted milk. Instead, it started in a region where it would impact farmers directly. By 1987, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a regulation that prohibited the interstate sale of raw milk. 

In addition to putting the squeeze on small farmers, these measures started slowly laying the groundwork for the replacement of milk and meat with fake food. Indeed, the vision that synthetic foods might one day replace the need for farms had been predicted long before by chemists such as Marcelin Barthelot (1827-1907) in France who proposed an end to farming if it proved cheaper and better to manufacture the same materials than to grow them.

Pushing back

Those who are committed to the Better Way know how important small farms are. We envisage a future where family farms remain an integral part of our lives. There is much we can do to secure this future: let’s get to know our local farmers, buy food directly from them using cash, and in this way build resilient local economies. 

There are many organisations that can provide guidance and support. The Organic Consumers Association helped to create Regeneration International, which produces a regenerative farm map to help people find local meat and milk producers. Other US organisations involved in expanding access to local farmers and food include the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund. 

Watch the full interview on our website.

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