In the battle for the hearts and minds (and pocket books) of everyday Americans, the large corporate players in today's industrial food system must be pleased.
Consumer advocates for sustainable, healthy food are fighting with farmers, not because either picked a fight with the other, but because the knowledge gap between them has grown so expansive that misunderstandings rule the day. Credit the gap to industrial specialization and consumer marketing. These misunderstandings often turn personal, further driving apart two groups that have much to gain by working together.
By fighting amongst ourselves, we are paying less attention to the mechanized system generating massive amounts of unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly food and unprecedented concentrations of profits.
For the average consumer, the "black box" of industrial food is a mystery. The general lack of transparency has fueled numerous investigative books and documentaries, which industry quickly lines up to discredit. Keeping us in the dark allows food processors and retailers to paint an idyllic picture of grassy fields and red barns backed annually by multi-billion dollar advertising budgets to reinforce a desired, yet highly inaccurate image of where our food comes from.
This is why it is critical that we -- consumers and farmers alike -- find shared priorities to unite our voices in securing safe, healthy, tasty food for generations to come. Let us abandon overused stereotypes and language that divides us, and instead concentrate on educating consumers about where the food they eat comes from.
Closing the farm-to-plate knowledge gap won't be easy. With the earliest advances in agriculture resulting in food surpluses, people, no longer physically needed on the farm, moved to urban centers to pursue non-agricultural careers. As the years passed and the complexity of the food system increased, people came to rely, exclusively in most cases today, on food processors and retailers to provide for them. In effect, we traded knowledge for cheap, convenient food.
This seemed like a great trade off, and for most of agriculture's history it has been. Civilizations prospered. Farmers made a decent living. Consumers readily found fresh produce, meats, and other ingredients to prepare tasty, nutritious meals. But things started to change. Industrialization intensified. Corporate consolidation accelerated. Seeds became intellectual property. High-paid lobbyists proliferated. Politicians bowed. Most important, people stopped paying attention.
Take a snap shot of today's food system. Study the details. What you find are a number of increasingly dramatic side effects that most people are not aware of, most of which are getting worse.
We have turned our food over to a system that doesn't have our best interests in mind, despite what billions of dollars of advertising tells us. Power is concentrated, not by farms or consumers, but by multi-national corporations. Increasing complexity rules the day, making it harder for even those in industry to keep food safe. And the halls of Congress are jammed with food system lobbyists fighting for more power, or, at a minimum, maintaining the status quo.
It's up to us -- farmers and consumers -- to take back control of the food we eat. At a minimum, we need to fight for the checks and balances needed to ensure safe, affordable, and environmentally-friendly food for generations to come. It won't be easy given the stacked deck industry is playing with. But by thoughtfully considering each other's perspectives, while separating ourselves from the complex, concentrated, industrial food system, we will find the common ground necessary to drive the change we seek.
