Some “ FOOD for THOUGHT”
Who’s Paying for Your Food?
John Ikerd
Published in Small Farm Today Magazine, November-December, 2003.
Recently, I was asked by an editor of an organic food magazine to respond to a reader’s question asking why organic foods in the supermarkets always seem to cost more than other foods. I answered with the following:
“Most organic foods cost more than most onventional foods today for several reasons. The most fundamental reason is that the dollar and cent cost of conventional foods do not reflect their “full cost” of production. Producers of conventional foods don’t pay the ecological costs associated with their degradation of the natural environment. They don’t pay for the social costs of the demise of family farms, the decay of rural communities, and the loss of a rural culture of stewardship. And, they don’t pay the costs of the growing risk to human health—including pesticide and hormone residues in foods, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and a national epidemic of obesity. Organic farmers’ costs of production are higher because they farm in ways that do not create the ecological and social costs associated with conventional, industrial production methods. And, organic farmers don’t put the public health at risk in order to minimize their production costs.
That said, many organic products can be produced by many organic farmers at costs equal to or lower than conventional products are produced by most conventional farmers. But this level of productivity generally results after years of experience for a highly skilled farmer working with the same piece of land. Marketing and distribution costs also tend to be higher for organic foods simply because the marketing system is less well developed. Over time, as more organic farmers gain more experience, as more research is devoted to organic production methods, and as organic markets become more efficient, we can expect the dollar and cent costs of organic foods to fall. Over time, we also can expect the costs of food provided by the corporately controlled industrial conventional food system to rise.
In time, organic foods may actually cost less than industrial foods. In the meantime, however, consumers will simply have to decide for themselves whether they are willing to pay the full cost of their food, or instead, are willing to impose the ecological and social costs of their food upon someone else.”
I make no claim of originality for my answer; the reasons organic costs more are well known. But, never before had it become so clear to me, as when drafting this response, that someone is actually paying the full costs of our food, even if we are not. We tend to think of cheap food as a wise choice – we are getting more for less, so we think. But, we should be willing to look beyond price and ask why some food is cheap and other food is expensive. We need to ask who’s paying the full cost of our food.
Some reasons why “local” organic food costs more have been provided by a couple of my University of Missouri friends, Mary Hendrickson and Jose Garcia. In her recent food column in the Columbia Daily Tribune, Melinda Hemmelgarn quotes Mary:
“Locally produced food or organic food represents more nearly the true cost of food production. There are many subsidies associated with the way we grow the bulk of our food in the United States. For example, much of the food that grocery stores feature comes from California, Texas and Florida, and even Mexico and Latin America. In California, growers receive water that is federally subsidized to help offset costs. We also have an incredible system of roads and cheap fuel that are taxpayer subsidized.
In many parts of the U.S., produce is picked with migrant labor farm workers who do not receive adequate wages for maintaining even a minimal quality of life. Housing is substandard, and there are few health insurance programs. Schooling for children is a problem, and migrant farm workers face debilitating injuries from the repetitive work and sometimes from the chemicals that are applied to commercial-scale vegetables,”
Jose continued the theme of unpaid costs of migrant workers in a response to the column by asking: “Would you be willing to have back-breaking, repetitive work with no health insurance, unacceptable housing, and very little money? Migrant workers do, and that helps some of your food coming from California or Florida be ‘cheap.’ Health issues for farm workers are only one of the many they face such as labor, wages, legal, education, and housing.”
So who has paid the costs of food that we haven’t paid? Some have been paid by family farmers who have been driven to the verge of bankruptcy by exploitative competition. Some have been paid by rural communities that have withered and died as farm families have been forced off the land by low commodity prices. And some have been paid by migrants and other farm workers who could see no alternative to exploitative wages and working conditions. These unpaid costs are paid by people who, through no fault of their own, have found themselves at the mercy of others who have more economic power.
Other food costs that don’t show up in food prices are paid in the form of taxes. In recent years, taxpayers have paid an average of $15 billion per year to subsidize production of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sugar, and other basic farm commodities. And, as Mary points out, some of the taxes that go to subsidize water in the West, to building and repairing interstate highways, and to the military costs of keeping fuel costs low are actually unpaid costs of “cheap food.” So what does it matter if we pay the government or the grocery store, as long as we pay, one way or the other? The problem is that most of the tax benefits go to those who are exploiting the people who produce food and the land it is produced on, not to reward those who produce food responsibly.
For the most part, government subsidies go to the large, specialized industrial agricultural producers at the expense of independent farmers who try to support their communities and try to care for the land. These large, commercial operations typically rely heavily on hired labor, agricultural chemicals, mechanization, and distant markets, all of which tend to be exploitative of people, non-renewable resources, and the land. The ecologically and socially responsible family farmers who receive government payments typically get barely enough to put in another crop.
Much, if not most, of our unpaid food costs are being billed to our children, grandchildren, and others of future generations. When our choice of “cheap food” leads to environmental degradation and social injustice, we are not really avoiding those costs; we are simply charging them to future generations. Those of future generations can’t express their preferences and values either in the marketplace or at the ballot box. They can’t choose to pay the full cost of food nor can they redirect government programs. They must depend on us to ensure that they will have land capable of producing enough food and a society capable of ensuring equity and opportunity. Our failure to pay the full cost of food today is destroying the productivity of our land and civility of our society. Much of the unpaid cost of our food is simply being put on a charge account to be paid off by our children’s children and their children.
Of course, paying high prices is no guarantee that food is produced by ecologically and socially responsible means. Some of the highest priced foods, particularly highly processed food and food eaten in restaurants, are produced under the some of the most oppressive working conditions and come from the most highly industrialized production operations. Neither is buying high-priced organic food a sure means of paying the full costs of food. Increasingly, organic foods in supermarkets are produced by large industrial, migrant labor operations in California, Florida, and Mexico. Actually, “fair priced” food need not be expensive, particularly if we are willing to take the time and make the effort to process and prepare it for ourselves, and even those with little income can afford to pay the full cost of good food.
The best way to pay a fair price for food is to know as much as we can about how our food was produced, where it was produced, and who produced it. Then, we should ask, what are the ecological and social implications of our food choices? The easiest way to answer these questions is to buy locally, from someone we know, at farmers markets, through CSAs – directly from farmers we know and trust. But, we are not necessarily limited to direct, local food sources. We can buy from food retail operators and restaurateurs that we trust to buy locally or to buy only from producers and suppliers they know they can trust.
Of course, most of us don’t have realistic opportunities to buy everything we eat from someone we know well enough to know if they are responsible producers. But, the more we look, the more sources we will find, and the more opportunities we will create for producers who have the courage to ask their customers to pay the full cost of our food. Someday, hopefully, we will all have an opportunity to pay and will be willing to pay the full cost of our food. In the meantime, however, we will each have to decide for ourselves whether we are willing to pay the full cost of our food, or instead, are willing to impose the ecological and social costs of our food upon someone else.
Some other interesting thoughts to consider.
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/default.htm
