(Reprinted from a 2007 paper at Presidio, and submission to the Raleigh News & Observer)
Why is it that we often prioritize the things we least need? Why is food, a foundation of our lives, something we treat as a commodity? Why does cost rank so highly over quality in decisions about the most important purchase we can make for ourselves and our families? We’ll easily spend an extra $50 a month on HBO, but balk at the idea of an extra .50 for an organic lettuce.
The commodity price of steak in 2002 was $1.60 per pound. That pound of steak, if you add in the real cost to your family’s health, our environment, our natural resources, human rights and other externalities, would cost $815 per pound. A conventional (non-organic) tomato, if environmental and social costs were factored, would cost us $374. So while organic or local food may seem a bit more expensive or inconvenient, you are paying just a slight bit more at the register to avoid paying the cost to your health and society’s longevity. What is your health, the environment, avoiding animal cruelty, and a safe future worth to you?
Eating local is 17 times less expensive than buying supermarket food[1]. Why?
· Taxes. Farm subsidies, especially to corn, represent $16B a year of your tax dollar. Those taxes go largely to big agricultural corporations – the largest 10% of farms get 66% of the subsidies.
· Environmental Destruction. When people talk about climate change, most of us think of reducing our driving and home energy use. Conventional agriculture, however, is responsible for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions1. Conventional agriculture also misuses incredible amounts of water. Here’s how:
Gasoline use and tilling: It takes ½ gallon of gasoline to grow a bushel of corn. This gasoline pumped from the ground with energy is necessary to supplement soil destroyed by years of monoculture tilling and chemical use. Plowing that soil then causes significant amounts of carbon to be released.
Animal wastes, exacerbated in industrial farming operations by feeding corn to cows who are meant to eat grass, cause 16% of the world’s methane release (methane is one greenhouse gas leading to climate change). These animal wastes also cause run off into local water systems, as happened in
Water overuse is another major problem. 60% of the water used in the
Food miles traveled: The average meal travels 2000 miles from farm to table, further increasing energy use and emitting greenhouse gasses.
System effects of climate change: Increasingly fragile farm systems will be devastated by the temperature rises, changes in rainfall, changes in CO2 in the air, increase in ozone and extreme weather events that are already happening as a result of climate change.
· Bankrupting Your Community. The day of your local farmer is nearly gone. 7% of our nation’s farms sell 72% of the food you eat. The proportion of farmers younger than 35 has dropped from 16% in 1982 to 6% in 2002. Small local farms yield an average of only $10,000 a year in revenue, and have found they can no longer survive in a world where customers won’t pay an extra few cents for healthier, more sustainable, food.
· Bankrupting Other Communities: Because the government uses your tax dollars to pay large agribusiness to produce so much corn that significant amounts of it cannot be sold in the U.S., this excess is ‘dumped’ into third world markets at such low prices that it bankrupts small farmers in those countries as well.
· Animal Cruelty: CAFOs are cruel, sad places where animals live in dark quarters, cannot move for their entire lives, have their beaks and tails chopped to avoid natural fear-induced behavior, and are made to eat food they don’t naturally eat. This vision doesn’t make me hungry.
· Your Family’s Health: While data on nutritional differences between local, organic food and conventional food is currently limited, there are some documented differences in fat content, toxic substances, unnatural homones and bacteria which exist in far greater amounts in conventional food. Corn increases the fat marbling in beef, making conventional beef much more fattening than grass-fed beef. Conventional agriculture techniques utilize massive amounts of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and other poisons that pass from food to human when ingested. Hormones in meat have been shown to cause early sexual development in girls and enlarged breasts in you boys. Corn-fed cattle has also been shown to have higher eColi 0157:H7 counts than grass-fed, free-range beef. This is believed to be because free range cows have less contact with other cow’s manure, and corn makes cows stomachs acidic, giving rise to acid-loving eColi.
To add to all this, conventional food is just plain inefficient. It takes 10 calories of energy to produce 1 corn calorie. 80% of corn is fed to cattle, and it takes 10-16 lbs of grain to make a pound of meat.
So even if you’re convinced, you may still be confused about your options. Which is better: organic or local? Often, the best case scenario is being able to ask the farmer directly about how they raise your food. One way to do local sourcing is through Community Supported Agriculture or farmer’s markets. Increasingly local food is also being sold at both whole-foods oriented and even traditional supermarkets. Weaver Street Market currently sources 20% of their food locally, and is striving to raise this number each year. If you don’t see it, ask your grocer to source locally. Local food avoids the food miles traveled by non-local foods, multiplies every dollar you spend many times over in your local community and preserves local farms. And…the food typically tastes better.
If you can’t get local food, organic is always the next best option. Many small, local farmers are utilizing organic or even ‘beyond organic’ practices but find it too expensive to be certified. While the food miles traveled, till agriculture and sometimes animal welfare issues still exist – at least the lack of pesticides and antibiotics are better than conventional options.
How much extra would you be willing to pay not to cause these kinds of impacts on yourself, your family and your community? Likely - more than the extra few cents it will actually cost.
[1] Sierra Club, truecostoffood.org
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