A recent article by Eric Schlosser, published April 29, 2011 in the Washington Post, entitled Why being a foodie isn’t ‘elitist’, rebuts the charges of Robert Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), who spoke at the group’s annual meeting.
Stallman railed at those who are calling for government legislation to support sustainable farming and standing up against the industrial agriculture machine in America. Stallman calls these consumer activists “self-appointed food elitists hell-bent on misleading consumers”.
Schlosser pulls no punches in describing the American food processing system, but he says it is the exact opposite of ‘elitist’. The elitism in America’s current system of food production, he states, is the current system – what is happening right now; “overly centralized and industrialized, overly controlled by a handful of companies, overly reliant on monocultures, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical additives, genetically modified organisms, factory farms, government subsidies and fossil fuels — [and] is profoundly undemocratic. It is one more sign of how the few now rule the many. And it’s inflicting tremendous harm on American farmers, workers, and consumers”.
Forty Horrible Years of American Food Processing
Citing the dramatic changes in the markets for meats and poultry, seeds and farm chemicals, since 1970, Schlosser indicates that all such distribution has become highly centralized and ever more-heavily controlled by the USDA, not to mention the appearance of what he calls the “technological marvels” that didn’t even exist until thereafter — genetically modified corn and soybeans, cloned animals, and McNuggets. Some of the statistics he quotes are mind-boggling, and clearly numbers that the average consumer is unaware of.
Consumers Have No Options
Food being the necessity that it is, buyers do not have the option of boycotting this commodity like they do with clothing if, for instance, prices shoot up or they don’t approve of the too-low wages of the migrant farm workers. Migrants' wages have apparently dropped as much as 50 percent since 1980, with some workers making less than those of the last generation. Wherever one lives, regardless of city or town, county or state, most supermarkets and food stores get many of their products and produce from the same large industry distributors.
According to Schlosser, “in 1970 the four largest meatpacking companies slaughtered about 21 percent of America’s cattle; today the four largest companies slaughter about 85 percent”. Presenting further statistics that ‘the average farm household currently earns approximately 87 percent of its income from non-farm sources’, the point is made — protesting how the American food production system evolved into its current unhealthy state is hardly “elitist”, it’s simply American. It involves not only a valid consumer backlash against a warped developmental process guided by money--and misguided by the USDA that favors Big Farma at the expense of the consumer--there is no system in place to enable consumers or farmers to mount a defense against it, or even to complain.
GM Foods Unidentifiable in Stores
Unlabeled Genetically Modified products are mandated and approved by the USDA and the FDA to protect the profits of the gene giant Monsanto and consumers simply have to bite the bullet — with the resulting unidentified genetically modified products that make it to market shelves.
In addition, a recent study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases indicated that close to half of all the meats and poultry sold at supermarkets throughout the country were contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARBs) such as Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
From 1995 to 2009, close to $250 billion in federal subsidy money was allotted to American farmers — but which ones? Well, interestingly enough, about three-quarters of that sum was allotted to the wealthiest ten percent — the members that the American Farm Bureau Federation represents, the same ones that are attacking big government while labeling the sustainability movement ‘elitist’.
Sources:
- Schlosser, Eric; Why Being a Foodie Isn't Elitist, April 29. 2010, Washington Post
- CBS News Interactive; Drug-resistant bacteria found in half of U.S. meat, April 15, 2011
- Mascia, Jennifer; Mark Bittman Blog, Animals, Cruelty, and Videotape, April 27, 2011
Marie Thomas - Marie Thomas (RieT) is an author in multiple genres, with 18 years in technical writing, and freelance work in science, biographical, and ...
