It’s Thanksgiving Day — have you hugged a
farmer yet? Actually, we need to do a lot more than hug those
family farmers who bring us such a bounty of good food, for they’ve
become endangered species in the Brave New AgWorld of industrialized,
conglomeratized, and globalized food production that our policy-makers are
pushing. Thanks to such policies, those who till the soil are productive,
efficient, and broke! They’re being forced out of business by
corporate profiteers. The price of everything from seeds to crop loans
keeps going up, while the price farmers are paid for their commodities
keeps going down. Few consumers know it, but very little of what you and I
spend on food goes to the farmer. Out of each dollar we spend, farmers now
get only 19 cents, with such monopolistic middlemen as ADM, Cargill,
McDonald’s, Monsanto, Philip Morris, Tyson, and Wal-Mart grabbing an
ever-larger share. But the good news is that we don’t have to buy
into the self-serving manipulative system of the monopolists. Instead,
there’s a growing mass movement among consumers, small farmers,
entrepreneurs, communities, and others to take back control of our food
economy and food culture by focusing on locally grown foods. Farmers’
markets, for example, are flourishing. There are also community garden
projects, farm stands, and other direct farmer-to-consumer marketing
outlets, as well as more and more grocers and restaurants that proudly
offer food fresh off local farms. Check out these connections for everything from
free-range turkey to organic tomatoes. Buying locally means that you can
get better food at cheaper prices, but it also means that the money you
spend stays in your community and supports a revitalized family-farm
economy. For more information, go to www.localharvest.org.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2005.
