The Economist has a thought-provoking article out on the implications of "green" food. The newspaper takes on the recent trendiness of organic, fair trade, and locally-produced food, arguing that these practices may perpetuate or even worsen the global status quo they set out to remedy.
On organics (via shortage):
Following the "green revolution" of the 1960s greater use of chemical fertiliser has tripled grain yields with very little increase in the area of land under cultivation. Organic methods, which rely on crop rotation, manure and compost in place of fertiliser, are far less intensive. So producing the world's current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn't be much room left for the rainforest.
On fair trade (via supply and demand):
Prices of agricultural commodities are low because of overproduction. By propping up the price, the Fairtrade system encourages farmers to produce more of these commodities rather than diversifying into other crops and so depresses prices--thus achieving, for most farmers, exactly the opposite of what the initiative is intended to do.
On local production (via unintended consequences):
A study of Britain's food system found that nearly half of food-vehicle miles (ie, miles travelled by vehicles carrying food) were driven by cars going to and from the shops. Most people live closer to a supermarket than a farmer's market, so more local food could mean more food-vehicle miles....What's more, once the energy used in production as well as transport is taken into account, local food may turn out to be even less green. Producing lamb in New Zealand and shipping it to Britain uses less energy than producing British lamb, because farming in New Zealand is less energy-intensive.
I'm not sure if it's disillusionment with politics as a vehicle for positive change, or if it's the seduction of believing that each individual consumer has the power to cure AIDS and halt the ravages of poverty simply by buying that red t-shirt Bono's endorsing nowadays or plonking down that extra 50 pence for the fair trade Starbucks latte, but all of a sudden everyone seems ready to believe that the secret to ending poverty, climate change and oppression the world over is to buy certain things. Certain expensive things, as it turns out. Call me a cynic, but I tend to believe that someone trying to sell me something is, well, trying to sell me something.
I'll deal with the articles' targets one at a time.
Organics
The article's point about the lower intensity of organic farming requiring more land for the same amount of food is well-taken, although for me not very convincing. I really don't envision an all-organic world any time in the near future, with compost fields encroaching into the rainforests at rates that would make fern gully weep. What does get me about organic food is the recent revelation of
Fair trade
This has been kind of a bane to me for the past couple of years. It's very easy to look at the situation on its surface and think that it's an obvious win-win. Fair trade matches socially-conscious consumers who are willing to pay more for their coffee/bananas/woven bags with farmers who need the extra money. And that's fine, if all you want to do is temporarily patch up a non-workable situation for a select few. The first time I ever heard about fair trade was at a panel discussion in San Francisco with a representative of TransFair, who explained that due to a sudden glut of coffee from Vietnam, the worldwide price of coffee crashed and farmers in Central and South America were suffering badly as a result. She put forth fair trade as the solution, effectively paying the farmers to keep producing by giving them above-market prices for their goods. My questions were (and are, as they have never satisfactorily been answered):
1. Why should they keep producing coffee when someone else clearly has an advantage in it? Wouldn't they, in the long run, be better off switching to a non-glutted production market?
2. What happens to the farmers who are unable to get fair trade certification? Do they just carry on in penury watching their neighbors (who, judging by the criteria by which a collective gets certified, were probably better off than they to start with) get richer? I am unaware of any trickling out effects to non-fair trade producers other than price effects from overproduction.
3. Is there any mechanism by which we can expect the wealth transfer involved in fair trade to free up the producers to go into a more profitable line of work so that eventually they don't need fair trade? Or do we just expect the economic south to remain poor on the whole, producing our coffee and fruit and appreciating our generosity?
If anyone knows of any research into the effects of fair trade outside the immediate, licensed producer community, please let me know as I'm curious to learn more.
Local production
This is the hardest consumer preference to take issue with. It probably is less energy-efficient, less resource-efficient, etc. to have local small farms produce and sell to buyers in their area. However, the fact that some people do indeed get a lot of satisfaction from knowing that their dinner salad came from a farmer down the road, and that when they bought the ingredients they had been picked just days ago, is difficult to object to. But I do agree that if people buy locally out of the misconception that it saves on carbon emissions because the avocados have not been flown on a cargo jet from Ghana, then they should be made aware of the error in that line of reasoning. Also noteworthy is the contradiction inherent in buying fair trade and local, in that the two movements have exactly opposite aims. It's like filling in a hole with the right hand while the left hand scoops it back out. (Assuming either the filling or the scooping is effective at what it claims to achieve).
In retrospect, I've put forth quite a few ideas in this post of which I've not entirely convinced myself. Reading back, I seem to object to consumers' buying organic, fair trade and locally-produced goods, when in fact I don't. The beauty of the market system is that if people are willing to pay a little more for something organic, or fair trade, or local, then they absolutely should have the opportunity to do so. If someone gets a little jazz from picking up an organic soy fair trade latte to enjoy with their locally-farmed fruit salad, far be it from me to say that they should not do exactly that. I don't really believe that any of these movements will actually make things worse. But I don't think they really help, either. I just think it would be a tragedy if, some years down the road, we discovered that the house burned down while we were busy re-painting the walls in "soft eggshell".
What I really object to is the willful and encouraged ignorance of what will actually make a difference in developing countries. It's too facile to say, "buy fair trade and Guatemalan farmers won't starve anymore", or "buy local and the ice caps won't melt". It's too easy to tell people that they can change things with a swipe of their credit cards, and that then they don't have to worry about American and European farm subsidies' denying southern farmers a fair shake in global markets, or energy inefficiency going unnoticed because prices don't reflect the externality cost to the environment, or the difficult economic, cultural and social changes that will be required to slow (I'm not optimistic enough to say "stop") the AIDS pandemic.
It's time to take notice of the fact that we've got a huge consumer base who cares enough about global inequities to try to effect some change. And then it's time to stop treating these consumers like children, placating them with pretty ideas. It's time to start telling them that if they really want to see change, then it will not be as easy as a single choice in the grocery store. That it will take many, many choices in elections, and a lot more effort in learning about the way the world truly works.
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This post is 90% correct. One problem this misses is the tragedy of the commons issue with organic meat. Unsafe (standard in America) farming practices, in which animals are continually given antibiotics, are producing new breeds of supergerms. The effect is global -- the supergerms spread from farm to farm -- and a single farm discontinuing it would have minimal effect on its own safety. The real danger is a plague that wipes out the entire meat crop, and possibly spreads to humans. There is a very real incentive for individual farms to continue unsafe farming, whereas globally reducing it would help a bunch.
A second issue is that many people don't buy local, organic food for hippy-feel-good effects, but because it tastes better. My impression is that this has nothing to do with specifically being organic, but that as a luxury item, organic foods just tend to have less taste-sacrificing cost-cutting, and so taste better. If someone where to put the same type of effort into non-organic foods, it would taste just as good (and cost almost as much). Local food is obviously usually fresher.
Finally, although fair trade is a horrible, horrible idea, there is a question of big/remote farms leading to income inequities. They are more efficient, but there is a very real question about how to phase them in without leading to lots of unemployed former small farmers.
I think you're missing a couple things about fair trade.
One of fair trade's main benefits is that the extra income lets farmers invest in community projects--for example, buying a coffee mill, setting up schools, or sponsoring training for better farming techniques/new crops. Although it sounds simple, just buying a coffee mill makes a big difference, since milled coffee is sold at a higher price than raw coffee beans. This lets farmers keep more money for themselves, and then they can turn around and invest that money into better systems. 10 years down the road, these community projects will let coffee farmers either transfer to a different market entirely, or move up into much more profitable parts of the coffee industry.
Another advantage is that, since fair trade cooperatives are run democratically by the farmers themselves, people learn skills like entrepreneurship, accounting, how to negotiate for better prices, etc. Entrepreneuers are more likely to be able to transfer to different markets, if there's a glut, than people who have worked on plantations all their life, which is better for both the farmers and the market as a whole. I think the above two things address your point "3".
In contrast, the typical farmers working on a plantation are paid subsistence wages and have no democratic control over the farm, so these kinds of community projects are impossible.
And as for point 1: it's not true that Vietnam is more efficient at producing coffee--the Vietnamese government provides export subsidies which distort the market and drive out Central American and African farmers. Fair trade, since it has a minimum price of $1.26/pound, helps to protect these farmers from unfairly-subsidizied competition.
Hope that addresses your concerns!
more data on the local produce front. your definition of "farmers market" is different than the one I'm used to. a farmers market is a collection of "local" (less than a couple hours truck drive away) producers who sell their items at a centralized location. the plum that i buy there is going to have less carbon used than a plum flown in, then trucked to the food distribution site, then trucked to the local retail store. of course, I'm not riding my bike to "u pick em" sites, or to the actual farmers fields. in my personal case, I pick up the trucked in the produce by bike. if the truck were biodiesel (or horrors, non corn ethanol), it would be far closer to carbon neutral then the "consumer" driving to the farmers stand, or having the jet or ship transport the item thousands of kilometers.
the other point which you don't always seem to get is that many of the products you write about can not be economically produced except in tropical areas. bananas, coffee, sugarcane require tropical areas for production. the US and UK can not produce these items within their respective borders.
Lots of commentary with no facts. And I will continue the trend. Small scale intensive organic production is more efficient than large scale monoculture. The use of chemicals has a cost which is not mentioned here. A worldwide switch to Organic production might result in a decrease in overall production. But I think that the rainforests would be safer. Production would increase for some farmers.
As for Fair Trade why don't big time growers get certified? Or set up their own? They already have the savings from being big. Raise the pay and raise the cost. I thought the consumer was always right.
I've lived on two small-scale local farms, one of them a "teaching" farm, so I've got a whole bunch of arguments why supporting local farms is worth more than just the snob appeal of a fair trade hormone-free latte. But I'll stick to the most empirical reasons:
# Local food preserves open space. When farmers get paid more for their produce, theyre less likely to succumb to offers from housing developers.
# Local food preserves genetic diversity. Supermarket plant varieties are chosen for durability, looks, and their ability to withstand a week or more or transit time. Local farms prioritize plant variety to provide a long harvest season, and distinguish themselves from other growers. Take a trip to the San Fran greenmarket sometime, and take a look at the tomato selection. Among producers at the NYC Greenmarket alone, producers grow:
* 47 varieties of peas and beans
* 120 varieties of apples
* 170 varieties of tomatoes
* 350 varieties of peppers
# Local food sticks it to the Man. Farmers in 2002 earned their lowest real net cash income since 1940. Meanwhile corporate agribusiness profits have nearly doubled (increased 98%) since 1990.
# The conditions on local farms are objectively less disgusting than at big farms. I'll be the first to admit that chickens are disgusting animals anywhere you raise them, but if you've ever seen a commercial slaughterhouse... Then consider that four agribusinesses control 80% of beef slaughter, 59% of pork packing, and 50% of broiler chicken production.
# Local food keeps taxes down. Local farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, whereas most other kinds of development contribute less in taxes than the cost of the services they require.
# I don't buy into the idea that driving to a farmer's market tips the carbon emissions balance in favor of shopping at grocery stores. Two reasons: 1. Grocery store f ood in the U.S. travels a very long way (an average of 1300 miles from farm to table), and 2. Farmer's Markets are abundant in popoulation centers (there are at least 3100 farmer's markets in the U.S., concentrated in urban and exurban areas). You can check out the distribution of farmer's markets at http://www.localharvest.org).
Brandon,
A couple of your points seem to undermine each other.
First, you claim that fair trade will make farmers capable of being more responsive to gluts in the market, but at the end you state that it will keep them producing coffee in a market where there is a glut due to ag subsidies. While the Vietnamese policy may be stupid, it's also a bad idea to keep producing coffee in South America and Africa when it is in effect. What Fair Trade is trying to do in response is get people to adopt a price floor, which is equivalent to a subsidy in terms of its impact on the market. What would actually happen in a market glut like this is that non-Fair Trade growers in SA and Africa would leave the market since they cannot compete in the Fair Trade-only market and are undersold in the general market. Further, as you point out, a lot of the profit is going to go into capital goods, such as a coffee mill, which are going to be primarily suited for coffee production, especially considering they're making above market returns on their coffee, while they'd only be making market-level returns on other crops, since the plantation farming operations would already be in the more capital intensive produce markets since they wouldn't be liquidity constrained.
It seems most commentators tend to be somewhat sympathetic to the organic, small farm concepts. And while there can be no doubt that the tomatoes from Farmer Bob down the lane will be juicier than those trucked in from far away, we must acknowledge that there is a reason why large, commercial growers have prospered. It is simply because large growers can feed more people, more cheaply than Farmer Bob. And it's not due to American agribusiness subsidies. The concept is economy of scale and it applies to all businesses to a point.
I would think by now all would agree that advances in agriculture, and by that I mean most importantly, the advances in large farming conglomerates, are responsible for the inexpensive feeding of our world's expanding population.
It is somewhat disingenuous for us to sit at our keyboards pining away for the agrarian lifestyle of yore. The material advances in the world, both technicological and cultural, have occurred because more and more people were able to leave the farm and pursue industrial growth. Prosperity occurred synchronously with the decline of small farms and the increase in city life. If everyone had to raise his own food (and this is the logical extension of global small farm organic farming), we would have no Blackberries, computers, plasma TV's and certainly no time to sit around at the computer screen blogging about it.
Hi MattXIV,
re: the Vietnamese subsidies. These subsidies are temporary--Vietnam is set to enter the WTO sometime in 2007, and will have to abandon their farm subsidies (to my knowledge). With subsidies gone, African and Central/South American coffee farmers will become more competitive again.
Had fair trade not existed, a lot of farmers would have gone out of business due to the glut, only to re-enter the market later as foreign subsidies dry up--the problem is that in the transition, I would expect most smaller family farms and cooperatives to go bankrupt (since they dont' have much spare capital), and larger, richer plantations to re-expand in their place. I think smaller farms are likely to be inherently better for the reasons listed above--namely, that more income goes to the farmers themselves and they are democratically run--so I think this outcome is a net gain (although yes, somewhat inefficient in the short term).
You can think of fair trade as buffering against the effects of a temporary market imperfection (farm subsidies in Vietnam). That seems perfectly acceptable to me.
As for some other arguments you made:
Fair trade is subtlely different from a price floor and doesn't have the same problem of oversupply. Farmers already have to be producing coffee before than can be certified, so there's not a strong incentive for people to join the market--they can't be certain to be certified even if they do go through the trouble of buying land, planting coffee trees, etc. For this reason I don't think the higher prices provided by fair trade will cause people to enter the market, and hence won't cause a glut. Now, it may cause people to not leave the market, but I think the overall effect of that is likely to be small compared to the benefits.
re: "[farmers would] only be making market-level returns on other crops". Yes, this is a problem. There's not much incentive for coffee farmers to go into other crops, as is. I think the solution, however, is more fair trade--if fair trade became popular for alternatives like bananas, beef, and cocoa, there'd be a financial incentive for farmers to enter those markets, while still being compensated fairly and retaining the same beneficial cooperative structure.
I think the social benefits of fair trade are pretty obvious--farmers, with a guaranteed price, can afford to send their children to school, feed their families (avoiding malnutrition), and also receive extra funds to invest in future businesses (coffee mills or other crops--it's the farmers' choice) which will bring them out of poverty in the long term. It seems to me that none of these advantages are had by plantation labor--while plantations may be able to produce coffee more cheaply, the laborers are paid poorly, usually don't receive education, and have little chance to move to higher-paying jobs. As a result, they're usually stuck in a cycle of poverty. For me, it's fair trade's ability to let farmers lift themselves out of poverty in the long term that's the main reason to buy it.
(Sorry for the speech, but I wanted to explain some positive reasons to support fair trade rather than just shoot down other peoples' arguments.)
Why in the world would we want to produce the world's current agricultural output? We have far more food than we need.
Caledonian said:
There's a definition problem here. We certainly don't want all the current output of wheat, but we would (well, I would) want a much higher output of Rainier cherries, say.
Because not everyone has all the food that they want. In the US and the UK you get a choice of pretty much everything you might want (except really good bananas). Why shouldn't the Chinese (or Indians or Ethiopians) be able to buy Rainier cherries or dragon fruit? The issue is not that we're producing too much food, it's that we're not producing enough foods of the right types.