Movies About Food #2

I saw Food Inc two weeks ago. I just can’t get that sick, wobbling cow out of my mind…..

Not much in this movie was new information to me. I’m aware that those beautifully packaged, glossy chicken breasts at the store are from poultry “factories.” That the ground sausage that I buy for my meatballs is from pig “factories.” I’m also aware of CAFOs, corn syrup, and bacterial infections in the food chain. But I want to believe that it’s a distant problem, far away from me and my casserole dish.

Food Inc is like the fast-food movie of the fast-food industry: they attempt to quickly throw together the ingredients and package it for mass consumption. They features stories about chickens in dark, aluminum-roofed boxes, and contrast it with a farmer who beheads all HIS chickens personally. They touch on Monsanto just a little, and on unsanitary conditions and food-borne illnesses just a little. They are correct in stating that the food industry is heavily regulated, government-invested and protected, and that fast-food industry moguls monopolize our food. I think that’s true. But the movie poops out in the end, because they don’t really give an answer to the problems they presented. There’s some stuff about Stony Brook yogurt– the organic stuff from Vermont– and how WalMart made a deal with them. That’s great, but… the answer to our food problems really doesn’t lie in just another mega-company providing an alternative. The answer lies in consumers having more control over their own food. The only way (for the past 6,000 years, anyway) has been to grow it ourselves. Handing our food industry from one group (the company that makes the “bad” foods) to another group (the company that makes the “good” foods) is not the answer– the problem IS that the food industry is too large and has too much concentrated power. And power corrupts. No company or industry will ever have OUR best interests in mind; they will always have THEIR best interests in mind. This is historically true.

So while I’m not saying that every person needs to get their own cow, pig. chicken, and mini-farm with fruits, veggies, and nuts (because while that may have been possible in eras past, it’s not possible today), the individual families and communities need to band together. Our sense of community in this country has completely eroded. What ever happened to the local butcher, baker, and candlestick maker? I think they answer lies in that– in a local community where people know each other, where people are accountable to each other. Kinda like the “checks and balances” that are supposed exist in our form of government (but don’t anymore, for the same reasons that we have problems in the food industry– it got too big and into concentrated hands).

So. Anyway. About Food Inc. It was “OK.” I think a lot of Americans already know about this stuff. But what do we do?! I disagree that with the premise of Food Inc that claims we need “good” companies in charge. Food Inc does say that we need to grow our own foods more, however– so I’m not saying that Food Inc is “all wrong.” Not everybody wants to go back to making their own cheese and yogurt, just like we don’t want to go back to making men’s clothing or building our own furniture, I understand that. I’m just saying that we need to get back control of what we eat. There must be an accountability for something so important.

So Food Inc was an OK movie. Yes, the problem is big, almost too big. What will solve it?

Why Local Food is More Expensive

I found this terrific post at Food Renegade (a terrific food blog!). I’ve often wondered why foods produced locally are so much more expensive than transported food, even food coming from Mexico, China, and California. I figured it had a lot to do with CAFOs and how they are protected by Big Government. And I see that I am correct. But not only does the government pander to Big Farm Corporations, but it punishes the small farmer. Food Renegade had a guest post by farmer Joel Salatin, a self-described “Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, lunatic farmer” wjo has been featured in Omnivore’s Dilemma, Acres USA, and Mother Earth News, among other media.

Many local and real food advocates chafe under commonly higher prices, not realizing that in fact, much of this higher price does not end up in the farmer’s pocket. It is rather siphoned off as regulatory expense to comply with asinine government regulations that either do not scale down to smaller producers, or are outright capricious and inapplicable.

Last year, here at Polyface we entered the mandatory Workman’s Compensation (WC) world when we passed our third employee. This is a state mandated program administered by a private company. I’m not sure about all the arrangements, but there’s virtually no competition. After our insurance agent filled out all the paperwork he could, he set up a three-way phone interview so I could finish the loose ends. “Only 15 minutes,” he assured me. It took an hour and the questions were outrageous when applied to us.

Our interns and apprentices, who receive free room and board plus a modest stipend in return for their education, had to be treated like employees. On our farm, we integrate cattle, pigs, and poultry to such an extent that these different types of animals are in the same area and everyone handles chores for all of them. But in WC land, employees must be segregated between “Beef and Pork” or “Poultry.” They can’t mix. The risk actuarials are different so they must be separately categorized.

The real kicker was a delivery driver who takes frozen meat and eggs to the restaurants and home customers. Since we’re a farm, we can’t have such a delivery driver. The only delivery driver we can have is a live animal hauler–highest risk in the book. If we were a delivery service, we could have a low-risk delivery driver, but that’s impossible with a farm. Farms don’t have those kinds of employees.

Bottom line: our little farm operation is paying more than $10,000 a year for government-mandated Workman’s Comp using an assessment system written for Tyson and Cargill. It’s absurd. And immoral. Guess who pays that huge cost? The customer. In a thousand different ways, this scenario plays out across the local food movement, arbitrarily and capriciously prejudicing the price. And that, dear friends, is the main reason why local food is more expensive.

One of my favorite bloggers runs a dairy farm in Montgomery County, NY: Northview Diary. It’s a beautiful and personal journey into the life of the rural Upstate NY farmer, loving the farm life but struggling– often with tears of frustration– about the burdensome government regulations and problems with bureaucrats. Our farmers deserve much better.

We are seeing Big Government take over the food supply. This is frightening to me, knowing full well how Big Government blunders and butchers its way through people’s lives. It is high, high time to grow, buy, and sell locally– to grow one’s own food as much as possible and to support the local farmers as much as possible.