"GLOBALISATION CHEAPENS EVERYTHING."-- The True Cost of Cheap Food.

[seedcorn]

Steve, I'd be curious as to their definition of "farmers" and "Ag workers". Farm Bureau says in Indiana that the number of farms is constant but the definition of what a farm is has changed to now include part-timers who just use their farming as an excuse to buy their toys. Altho state and federal IRS are clamping down on that, you buy it or are given it, you pay taxes on it.

We probably lost more farmers in the '80's than in the previous 30 years total. Professional Ag employees are actually increasing in the # of jobs and pay/benefit scale. Now if we could just get 3rd world countries to live by our enviromental/work standards.............I can dream

 

[digitS']

Seedcorn, the Labor Department separates "farm, ranch, and other agricultural managers" from farmers and they show an expected increase.

The "ag workers" are differentiated (I nearly said, "broken down") as:

Agricultural inspectors
Animal breeders
Graders and sorters, agricultural products
Miscellaneous agricultural workers

The miscellaneous agricultural workers group is where the real collapse in jobs occur (20% loss of jobs in those 10 years).

Management grows while ownership stays about the same. Workers wither on the vine.

S'

 

[seedcorn]

Seedcorn, the Labor Department separates "farm, ranch, and other agricultural managers" from farmers and they show an expected increase.

The "ag workers" are differentiated (I nearly said, "broken down") as:

Agricultural inspectors
Animal breeders
Graders and sorters, agricultural products
Miscellaneous agricultural workers

The miscellaneous agricultural workers group is where the real collapse in jobs occur (20% loss of jobs in those 10 years).

Management grows while ownership stays about the same. Workers wither on the vine.

S'

Yep, that's me.

 

[Rosalind]

From the article:

if farmers stop growing food, their families dont have anything to eat

My goodness, here I thought I was the only one who really "got" this! At least there's one other soul.

I grew up in Amish country in PA. My cousins, aunties, uncles are Old Order Mennonite and Amish. I picked peas, greenbeans, pulled carrots and horseradish, picked fruit on my uncle's farm. My cousins had the dairy farm, and thank heavens I rarely had to help with that. (I did once in a great while. Let me just say that the sight of calf-pulling chains being put into use was enough to make me inform my husband, then-fiance, "I love you very much, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I've always felt that if I have children I'd rather adopt.") If you have enough land to grow a garden big enough to feed your family, it is really very frugal to do so--much cheaper than relying on WalMart to supply your needs. If you have enough land to farm but are making so little money that you cannot spare the half-acre or so it would take to grow your family's food, then farming is not going to work out for you long-term, and the first bad year is going to wipe you out. I've seen farmers trying to squeak through bad years, planting soybeans right up to the front door, and all it does is put them $200k in debt instead of only $100k because they kept taking out seed/fertilizer/pesticide loans they couldn't recover. I completely sympathize with the love of being your own boss and getting out in the fresh air and the seasonal rotation of the work, but you gotta be realistic, it's a risky business.

So when I hear that impoverished farmers in India aren't getting enough Vitamin A and need Golden Rice, I have to ask: why aren't they growing the veggies traditional in Southeast Asia that already contain plenty of carotene--carrots, yams, pumpkins (not the same as our pumpkin, similar though), spinach? Surely they already know how to grow those, and can do so without a special license or subsidy? Why isn't helping them get vitamin A a one-shot deal: Buy them some OP spinach/carrot/pumpkin seeds, and be done with it? That's gotta be way cheaper than paying a science geek to whip up a GMO to produce extra vitamins--I know how much us science geeks charge for such a thing and let me tell you, $100+k/year/science geek buys a lot of carrot seeds.

I grew up wearing hand-me-downs from my cousins. When I wanted new clothes, I did chores for the neighbors for pocket money to buy new clothes. I did not grow up wealthy and always considered myself middle-class because all my cousins and friends wore a lot of hand-me-downs, too--didn't find out I was "poor" until 7th grade, when I went to a consolidated middle school that included the truly middle-class who had never missed a meal and got a new winter jacket every year. But at least I could get food, and pretty good food at that, because between my garden, my neighbor's garden, and my uncle's farm, we always had food. Including jelly sandwiches for lunch pails.

I guess I really just do not understand the economics of how buying food at the WalMart is somehow cheaper than growing your own. I work 50-60 hour weeks with a nasty commute and still find that I save about $3000/year growing fruit, veggies and raising poultry. I can see not having enough space, but that is not the case here--farm families can spare a half-acre. Yet I have met many people who assure me that they MUST buy dino-shaped McNuggets and blue ketchup and other assorted items to eat or else their entire household economy will collapse...so that they can pay the ChemLawn bill!

One more thing, then I promise I will shut up: At one time, farmers did have a union. It was called The Grange. Still exists, but like most unions it is very small and relatively powerless these days, on account of having so few members. I don't agree with a lot of their policies, and I doubt many farmers or ex-farmers do, but at one time they were quite powerful and got a lot of legislation passed in their favor. There's not any political reason why farmers could not have a union, it's just that having one wouldn't do much good considering that all the farmers together aren't very many people.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

Why is government with a small g being blamed for the loss of farms and farm jobs? Government is not the biggest jobs creator.

Blame big AG/Corporations. No one can compete with that unless you are organized. Duh! What do you think happened in Mexico years ago? Big AG went down there and JUST threw the farmers off their land. They just took it. They didnt pay for it, they just took it.

Then two things happened. One: It caused people to move to the cities, one of the largest cities in the world is Mexico City. This caused massive unemployment and when people could not find work , they migrated so they could feed themselves and their families.

For this, they are criminalized and abused in other countries, only because they are trying to survive. Would you let your family starve? I do not think I could sustain being bent over in a field of strawberries or a sewing machine for 12 hours a day and more for sometime less than minimum wage. Could you? What upstanding and high paying jobs did landless people take away from someone else?

Two: BIG AG took over a majority of the growing and manufacturing of CORN. There was so much corn being sent from Mexico to the States that it caused the prices to bottom out.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? You have to look outside of the box for the answers. You are part of the world and you have to pay attention and care about what happens to others in this world so you can avoid it happening to you. And when you are so inspired..you learn to have compassion and to help other people. By helping other people so, are you helping yourself.

The world is round.. and silly me, I sometimes think that that was done on purpose. Whatever you send out into it.the world, so it will return to you. Hence the sayingWhat goes round, comes round.

 

[wifezilla]

Why is government with a small g being blamed for the loss of farms and farm jobs?

Because farm policy, subsidies, regulation, etc... has such a profound effect on the every day operations of a farm.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

Yup. Jamaican Dairy Farmers...
http://eurostep.antenna.nl/detail_pub.phtml?page=pubs_position_coherence_jamaicad

 

[seedcorn]

If the Jamacians would value whole milk over powdered milk, no problem. According to article powdered milk is their problem. Where were the locals explaining the value of local milk vs imported powdered milk? That seems a no brainer as I hate the taste of powdered milk. Consumers got what they wanted.

When Government protected them, they were fine. When they had to compete in world market they couldn't. So are you advocating governments propping up failing farmers?

Why did they dump milk tho? Getting $10/100 would be better than just dumping it on ground.

For anyone who does business in other countries, BIG AG did not steal or take any land from anyone, PERIOD. Their government controls everything. One day you can be in business in another country and the next, government takes federal control of non-local business and you are history.

 

[wifezilla]

The problem is the subsidies paid to the EU farmers that allow them to sell milk powder (which is cheaper than milk) below their cost of production.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

Dear Seedcorn and others:

I am very sorry for this long note. I do it in friendship and because I care about getting information to people. No one is ether right nor wrong here. This is a good discussion and I would like to keep it going.

I know this is a contentious subject. It affects us all. That is why it must be discussed in a rational manner. Yes, it is emotional. It is OK to be angrybut one must try to understand what and who to be angry with in order to create a better world. Personally, I do not want to be fighting every other human being on this planet for the rest of my life in order to get the things I need to survive. That is not a life. That is a day, after day living death sentence.

Since the early nineties things like NAFTA and GATT have been going on. My fellow political travelers and I have been learning about it, and protesting against its now well-established harmful policies. Most of the people that were with me were in their eighties and were some of the smartest people I know. They had been around this block before and they were fighting and protesting for all of us. They were protesting while everyone elses attention was elsewhere taking care of business, families and just trying to stay on top of the economical trash heap.

At that time, I was not a very well informed either. However, I learned, and thanks to an open mind and to other community groups and representatives of my government, I was provided with a much-needed education.

Seedcorn you are neither right nor wrong. You said:

For anyone who does business in other countries, BIG AG did not steal or take any land from anyone, PERIOD. Their government controls everything. One day you can be in business in another country and the next, government takes federal control of non-local business and you are history.

For the first part of your statement about big AG... When you say federal control that should mean it is controlled by the people. When it is NOT control by the peoplethat is a dictatorship. When corporations tell governments what to do.that is called fascism. You can look that up. That is not a quote from me.

I did a very quick search on the Internet .That used to be my job research. I found this article.

http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/international/gleanings/2003/july/mx_nafta_print.shtml

I have never seen this article before now. However, the information presented is factual as I can recall it. If I must, I can present others. That is if people are willing to take the time to read it. A lot of this terminology may seem like mumbo jumbo to someone just now hearing about it. I am not ashamed to say that back ten years ago, I was the same way. However, I had a thirst for more information, and in time, I saw it all take shape before my eyes. Now it is too late! NOW these policies are not just conjecture anymore. These policies are now part, and parcel of our daily lives. Remember that little guy who told us about that sucking sound and we all laughed at him. Who knew so many things would be effected.

The second part of your statement: Well, to tell you the truth, some corporations are bigger than whole countries. They are so big that they can bribe anyone and it would not take much to get a small peasant off their lands. I can present documentation and articles about your friendly neighborhood Chamber of Commerce who went full-bore encouraging local businesses to take their manufacturing companies to Mexico. Who in the heck are they working for anyway?

I used to do commercial collections and recovery for my companies. I did that for twenty-five years and worked with people all over the world. They had a lot of first hand information.

Some people do not want you to open the box and look in to it. I am just bringing you the box, or another box. I will never force anyone to look into the box or insist that someone do anything that they do not want to do. I will not insist that I am right and any of you are wrong. You all bring something to the table. I learn something new every day.

However, I do feel you have a right to ALL THE INFORMATION THAT IS AVAILABLE. You may think there is no censorship in this countryperhaps not. However, that does not stop UNDER REPORTING of real information concerning the American people. Ask anyone overseas.

 

[seedcorn]

I understand most do not understand AG at all. Why I bother w/these threads when all I want to do is discuss gardening for a hobby.

NAFTA is a whole 'nuther story. Makes American workers work for slave labor wages.

% on Ag products prices/profits can be whatever snapshot you want to be. Corn prices in last few years have went from $1.98/bushel to over $8.00/bushel. Milk from $10/cwt to over $22/cwt. Pick a snapshot you want to prove any point you want.

I work in AG, I know what we're doing, I know what is going on and why. I also know all the false info. being passed as facts by people not in AG who are making a living (very good at that) by being activists against anything we do. They will preach anything to make themselves rich.

Too many people believe the false info because it fits what they want to believe and get emotional when you ask questions they don't like the answers to. Want an example.

Popular statement--glysophates make barren soil. Fact is corn/wheat yields will double if they follow RR soybeans over conventional or organic farming.