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

[Hattie the Hen]

"Globalisation cheapens everything. The problem is that some things just shouldnt be cheapened. The market is very good at establishing the value of many things but it is not a good substitute for human values. Societies need to determine their own human values, not let the market do it for them. There are some essential things, such as our land and the life-sustaining foods it can produce, that should not be cheapened." by Timothy Wise


This is a quotation of the last paragraph from:-

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/05-9

I found this article, unlike many others I've tried to plough trough, easy to understand. I think it very important that we don't impose our countries' needs & desires on others.

*****Please be careful of how you reply to this as I am anxious not to have this thread closed.

Thank you in advance, for your co-operation my friends.

Hattie

 

[boggybranch]

When the Arabic oil producing countries decided THEY wanted to have more control of oil prices, they banned together to form OPEC........maybe there should be a FARMPEC.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll start Hattie and I'll try to be nice. You are right. This is one that can be shut down if someone on either side gets too carried away.

I remember when the world changed. Dad got a job. He grew up in a rural east Tennessee hill community with several siblings on what I call a dirt farm. That's where you have a cash crop for things you have to buy (like horseshoes, sugar, and flour) but you grow or make most of your stuff. Dad was senior high school class president (I found out after he died), did his tour in the Army Air Force in the early 1940's, worked in a shipyard in Maryland as a young man, even had one semester at college, but his deam was to be a farmer. He married, got a farm (76 acres), and had kids.

Why did Dad get a job? He did not want to. He would much rather have stayed on the farm. With kids in school he needed more cash than he could get working on the farm. He had two cash crops, tobacco and cattle. Every year, whether our tobacco allotment was 0.9 acres or gradually sank to the eventual 0.59 acres, he brought home about $1000.00, thanks to government enforced allotments and price subsidies. Every year, even with the shrinking allotment, he grew about a ton of tobacco thanks to improving seed varieties and fertilizer. He did not clear $1000. Out of that he had to buy the seeds and fertilizer.

He ran about 10 head of cattle. Each calf would bring about $60 to $70 as veal or about 50% more than that if he was able to keep it (did not have to have cash) and raise it on grass until the fall where it was sold as beef. He often needed cash. These prices did not keep up with inflation either.

Dad and Mom did not go easily. They fought it as much as they could. They tried other cash crops, growing 1/2 acre of sweet pepper for example. And one summer we picked and sold over 150 gallons of blackberries above what we used to make jelly (US gallons Hattie, not as big as yours but still a lot) out of a pasture field.

Why did Dad need the cash. School was a big part of it and school was important. Whether you packed your own lunch or paid the $0.20 per day for a school lunch, it took cash. Clothing was another part. Mom still made dresses and shirts out of the flour sacks but it just was not enough. We still needed more dresses and shirts plus the work pants and such were just not good enough quality to wear to school. Mom would have been horrified to think of us wearing torn or patched jeans to school or anywhere out in public. Shoes were a big expense. Not just those dress leather shoes you had to wear but the tennis shoes for Phys Ed. Contrary to public perception, we did wear shoes in the hills. We wore them in the winter, to church, to the store, when visiting relatives, and I was not going blackberry picking without them. But brogans worked for all this. And unless I had to, I did not wear shoes from school out until school starts all summer. You throw in school supplies, such as paper, pencil, crayons, scissors, what ever, and you can see a growing need for cash.

School was not the only thing that changed. Expectations changed. We always had a radio to listen to the local station for news, weather, obituaries, and music, but television was available. Everybody had to have a TV. It was after Dad had been working a while that we actually got a TV. A tiny black and white with lousy reception, but we had one!!! And we finally got a little red wagon. One Christmas I got a construction block set, similar to Lego's, that I used for several years. Like any parents, mine wanted us to have things. If Dad worked, we could get them. If he did not work, we did not get them. We could even occasionally afford to buy exotic foods, like canned salmon or, bless the day, bananas.

I propose it is not just the big bad meanies exploiting the masses that is causing the problem. I propose that the world has changed, mainly because of communications. I've worked in Asia and Africa. There are TV's, cell phones and computers in a lot of small isolated subsistence living communities. Parents in these communities want their children to be better educated, to have things, and to live an easier life. In case you are not aware of it, subsistence living is hard. And when the kids are sick, they want medical help. They don't like to see their kids die of a curable illness any more than we do and medical care takes cash.

I'm not saying that the requirement for corporate executives to maximize profit for their shareholders does not lead to results unsatisfactory to me. I wasn't born yesterday. Actually I was born a lot of yesterdays's ago. I'm saying that the situation is a little more complex than some people seem to think.

Anyway, this is my perspective. Fire away!!!

 

[boggybranch]

They call them "the good old days" round here, Rr.

 

[seedcorn]

When the Arabic oil producing countries decided THEY wanted to have more control of oil prices, they banned together to form OPEC........maybe there should be a FARMPEC.

Nice thought but farmers won't form a union or stick by it if they did. See the dairies. Too many problems w/outside governments supplementing the industry. The top 10% of the world's wealth could care less about the price of food to them, they just don't want the mases rising up in revolt.

Ridgerunner, good summary of how we got to where we are at.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I lived those times. Reality does not always match perspective. There were some good times and I really enjoyed most of my childhood but I decided I was not going to live that way and neither were my children. It was not the hard work. Every job worth having should require hard work, whether physical or mental. It was the uncertainly to not being sure you can feed, clothe, and house your family, it is wanting something better for your kids, and it is the snobbishness (not just kids but parents too) of people who have more and don't mind at all letting you know it. Kids are not the only ones that can be cruel to kids. I wanted mine to be able to afford to take part in Little League and to not think that a 20 mle trip to see relatives was an extremely rare event and took considerable planning.

 

[seedcorn]

I lived those times. Reality does not always match perspective. There were some good times and I really enjoyed most of my childhood but I decided I was not going to live that way and neither were my children. It was not the hard work. Every job worth having should require hard work, whether physical or mental. It was the uncertainly to not being sure you can feed, clothe, and house your family, it is wanting something better for your kids, and it is the snobbishness (not just kids but parents too) of people who have more and don't mind at all letting you know it. Kids are not the only ones that can be cruel to kids. I wanted mine to be able to afford to take part in Little League and to not think that a 20 mle trip to see relatives was an extremely rare event and took considerable planning.

I understand entirely as I grew up very similiar. Some elitest people (not just the rich) don't want to understand that. They want things like they thought they were not understanding what they were........

 

[boggybranch]

When the Arabic oil producing countries decided THEY wanted to have more control of oil prices, they banned together to form OPEC........maybe there should be a FARMPEC.

Nice thought but farmers won't form a union or stick by it if they did. See the dairies. Too many problems w/outside governments supplementing the industry. The top 10% of the world's wealth could care less about the price of food to them, they just don't want the mases rising up in revolt.

Ridgerunner, good summary of how we got to where we are at.

Yea....remember, years ago, when the farmers, supposedly, banned together and drove their tractors to Washington. It was a big movement, then, in the right direction. The problem was..... too many chiefs and not enough Indians and not many of them was REALLY willing to "force" the issues. Their 'threats' were as hollow as the tires on their tractors......viva capitalism.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

God bless you Hattie!

What is it that people do not understand how their money is being spent? Hummmm? Taxes spent where? Where would you like your taxes to go?

Right now, the people in Iceland are voting on how they want their money spent. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8552971.stm Can you ever recall that happening here? Duh!

The first thing I do in the morning is check the BBC News and Common Dreams. That is because I will not accept the shock and schlock that passes here for news. The news over hereif it bleeds, it leads. People who are better informed are able to make better decisions and choices. Oh, I wonder if the corporate owned news....er...entertainment businesses ever thought of that. I thrive on sarcasm. So shoot me!

 

[journey11]

Intriguing article, Hattie. Definitely not wise to put all of our eggs in one basket, is it.