Hot News

2.01.2008

By Tamara Scully
AFP Correspondent

New Brunswick — It’s common knowledge that the farmer receives only a small portion — typically about 17 cents per dollar — of the cost of food purchased through the conventional food system.
With brokers, processors, distributors, retailers and numerous other entities making the most from the food dollar, farmers are left out in the cold, struggling in many cases to keep the farm running at any profit.
With cheap food fare available everywhere, consumers become irate when the cost of bread or milk rises a few cents.
Yet these same consumers will spend $30,000 on a new car and think nothing of it. Why is the cost of food such a concern in the United States, where less than 10 percent of a family’s income is spend on the necessity of food?
Dr. Hugh Joseph ddressed this topic at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey (NOFA) annual winter conference. Addressing a standing-room-only crowd, Joseph explained how cheap isn’t just about price, but is about the quality and the costs — hidden, unaccounted and inadvertent — of America’s obsession with low food prices. Then he explained how to go about changing this.
Hugh spoke of how “the industrialized food system has worked to commodify as much food as possible.”
By centralizing growing, processing and distribution, food has become uniform. By adding fillers of sugars and fats, manufacturers have turned natural food into artificial packed goods. Food identity has been lost, and consumers can no longer connect food with a product grown or raised on a farm. With processed “food” the norm, consumers expect to be able to purchase identical items anywhere they may find themselves. And, they want it available immediately, 24 hours a day, with no preparation needed.
As the industrial food system makes plentiful “food,” it adds value by taking something wholesome and nutritious and modifying it into an unhealthy, detrimental form. This unhealthy product is typically made with little regard for the environment, the laborers, the animals, the farmers, biodiversity or the preservation of non-renewable resources. With the government’s blessing in the form of tax exemptions and subsidies, large industrial players are paid to continue producing this inexpensive “food.”
Meanwhile, the hidden costs of this system go unnoticed by the consumer, who continues to purchase the products and expects to procure them at a price that does not reflect the damage left in the wake of their creation.
The consumer also becomes so accustomed to this cheap — low in shelf price and low in quality — product, that it has “diminished their abilty to taste the intrinsic flavors” of natural food, Joseph said. “Food is exchangeable.”
With artificial “food,” hidden costs, disconnection from natural foods and a social mentality that demands convenience, consumers today are then expected to make decisions between equally bad choices, wade through meaningless labels and blame themselves for health issues such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The industrial food system continues to feed people, and consumers continue to pay the price — in environmental degradation and personal health issues — of cheap food.
With price playing such a decisive factor in the consumer food mentality, foods that come direct from the farm, grown in a sustainable manner, without the hidden costs to the environment or health of animals or people, are not able to compete in the industrial marketplace.
Until food becomes more of a societal priority, and the diversity of natural foods, the preparation of meals and the quality of what we consume is given the utmost consideration, Americans will continue to feed their families cheap “food” at home, at work, in school and in restaurants.
There is a way for consumers to opt-out right now, Joseph said. Choosing to buy natural foods, grown in a sustainable manner, direct from the grower, is a meaningful way to implement change.Farmers and advocates can sway the population to do this by differentiating their food from that of the industrial food system.
In a sustainable food system, cost is more than the price tag. Cost reflects the impact on the environment, the laborer, the farmers need to make a viable wage and the health of the worker and the consumer. Sustainable agriculture requires a sustainable food system, Joseph said, or it will not be viable.
Farmers and advocates can help to educate the public and to create this sustainable food system by emphasizing the quality of the product. Quality adds value. Consumers can justify paying more for a product that is of a higher caliber. Farmers need to change the focus on food from being “a commodity into a special product,” Joseph said.
How? Utilizing all the senses is the key. Freshness of the food is a controllable aspect, and food that is picked at its peak of ripeness, handled and stored properly and brought to market expediently is fresh. Fresh food has characteristics that can not be found in inferior products. Farmers can educate customers about their harvesting techniques and why they are important. Farmers can pay closer attention to the storage and handling of product. Visually, products can be displayed nicely in a way that is not damaging to them.
Taste is important, but factors that affect the taste can be highlighted and explained.
Skin characteristics on produce, the aroma, the feel and the color are all factors that separate one product from another.
The diversity of local food is important. Focusing on the qualities that differentiate one tomato or carrot or potato or chicken from another can add value to the product. Products with unique, special characteristics will generate a higher price than common varieties. Customers will pay for these qualities.
In order to move customers out of the cheap food system, the cheap food mentality needs to change. Through education and through interaction, real food and its connection to sustainable agriculture can become “value-added” to the consumer. As the quality of a product becomes more important than the “cheapness” of its price, food can return to the farm, money can return to the farmer and health can return to the people and the planet.
Hugh Joseph holds a master’s and Ph.D. in nutrition from Tufts University and serves as research associate at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. He is the project developer of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project.