[ok-sus] Are we headed for a food fight?

[Harlan Hentges]

Are
<http://www.organiclawyers.com/blog/farming-and-ranching/17-are-we-headed-fo
r-a-food-fight.html>  we headed for a food fight?


Frequently, I hear two types of news related to food. One item reports that
agricultural giants are using their market power to further industrialize
production of crops and animals. The other item reports that farmers,
consumers and small businesses are attempting to build alternative food
supply chains because they believe the industrial model is damaging to
health, food safety, rural communities, workers and the environment. Are
these two parts of our food system on a collision course? Is it necessary
that one must win and the other lose? 

I don't think so. The industrial food system and an alternative local food
system each contains within it the key to the other's success, not its
destruction.  The industrial system's ability to gather and use data is a
key to the economic success of alternative food supply chains. The local
food movement's deep understanding of the cultural and social values related
to food is the key to the progress of industrialized agriculture. Success or
failure of participants in either the existing of new supply chains will
depend upon their ability to add the skills of the other.  

The Value of Access to Data 

The industrial giants that have emerged from the food industry have amassed
huge amounts of data. They mine the data, analyze it, restrict access to it
and determine new ways to accomplish a specific objective -- profit
maximization. To solve the problem of profit maximisation, these data reveal
solutions such that baby formula and diapers be on opposite sides of a
store, that candy be next to the check out stand, that beef, pork, chicken
and fish be fed corn, that meat be bland, that artificially flavored
marinades be used to improve the taste of meat, that animals be confined to
eliminate natural behaviors and maximize growth, that food be highly
processed, that high fructose corn syrup be in all types of food, that food
travel 1,500 miles before it is consumed, etc. The ability to collect and
use vast amount of data has given rise to highly sophisticated problem
solving skills in the food industry. 

While data have given the industrial food giants an economic advantage, the
downside is that the industrial giants focus on data related to profit
maximization. They do not consider data related to the quality of life of
farmers, farm animals, the environment, the economy, consumer health and
safety or many other things that would actually increase the value of  food,
decrease costs, and grow the economy. Without such data the industry's
solutions to the profit problem have created problems that the industrial
giants do not even perceive. As a result, the industrial giant do not see
that there is a vast unmet demand for a certain type of food -- food that is
raised in a manner that is consistent with values of good stewardship, the
golden rule and sound economic principles -- food that does not bankrupt
farmers, foul the environment or mistreat animals.  

Value of a Farmer and the Values of a Consumer 

Industrialization brought bigger farms and fewer farmers. Farmers who left,
farmers who remain, and consumers are keenly aware of the change. Consumers
know industrial food is not consistent with their social and cultural
values.  They seek food grown by local farmers. They expose and oppose
mistreatment of agricultural animals. Farmers are responding to the
consumer.  Farmers are serving local markets, raising organic crops and
grass-fed or free-range animals. They are raising food that consumers value
more than the commodities produced by industrial agriculture. They are
building processing facilities.  They are using new marketing approaches.
Due to consumers and farmers working together they have developed valuable
trust in each other, valuable growing methods, valuable products and values
to guide their business dealings.    

While some farmers and consumers have come together, the process is not
efficient or profitable. The demand for food of greater value remains unmet
because there is simply no easy way for the farmer and the consumer to
connect and exchange the information necessary information to coordinate the
supply chain and exchange money for products. Coordinating a new supply
chain is a daunting task. There must be enough farmers and enough consumers
to be economically viable.  This will require very efficient access to
information that is easy and inexpensive to process, but there is no easily
accessible market information about farmers, processors, transporters,
retailer, distributors or consumers for food of great value.  Thus the
demand remains unmet. 

Future Values and the Future of Food

The value of food is both economic and cultural. Industrialized agriculture
results in an economical product with little social or cultural value. Local
food raised by farmers results in a culturally significant product that is
either not profitable to produce or not economical to consume.
Industrialized agriculture will not destroy the cultural value of local,
farm-raised food. An alternative food system will not destroy the economic
profitability of industrialized agriculture. The industrial model and the
alternative model do not embody each others destruction.  

Instead, each embodies the key to the other's success. An alternative food
supply chain now appears to be possible due to information technology. In
the way that social networking sites have transformed the coordination of
our social lives by giving us extraordinary ability to access, process and
exchange information, related technologies could enable the coordination of
new, smaller and more valuable food supply chains. On the other hand, the
existing food system could be transformed it recognized the usefulness of
data related to farms and farmers, the welfare of animals, and the
environment.  If consumers, farmers and all supply chain participants were
provided with the data and permitted to respond to social and cultural
values the industrialized system would change and produce food of greater
value.

The conclusions seems inescapable. Information will change our food system.
The current industrial food system gathers, processes and restricts access
to vast amounts of information regarding what is important to maximize
profits. But it ignores a vast amount of information that is relevant to the
social and cultural values of producers and consumers. The local food
movement understands the information related to the values of producers and
consumers, and will soon have access to technology needed to gather and
process this data. The information age is reaching the food industry.  

   

 

 

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