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From wheeler@super.org Wed Feb 24 17:48:45 1993 Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:32:46 EDT From: wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler) To: tms@cs.umd.edu Subject: BB Farm Policy FAMILY FARM POLICY Beyond Beef Campaign 1130 17th St., NW Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: 202-775-1132 Fax: 202-775-0074 Beyond Beef Farm Policy By Howard Lyman, Executive Director, Beyond Beef campaign, former senior lobbyist for the National Farmers Union; and Mark Ritchie, Executive Director, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy To an intelligent being from another planet, U.S. food and agricultural policies and programs would appear deranged. Today, U.S. taxpayers are helping to support an agricultural system that feeds livestock before human beings, devastates peasant farmers, causes food shortages and hunger for millions of people in developing countries, and forces tens of thousands of small American farmers out of business. The current system also promotes the production and consumption of fatty and chemical-laden animal-derived foods that are killing us, and is ruining and poisoning the very soil and water we need to keep our agricultural system running. Beyond Beef is promoting a fundamental restructuring of U.S. food and agriculture policy in order to reverse these destructive trends. We need to make a transition from feed to food production by rewarding the nation's small farmers with higher prices for growing food for people instead of feed for livestock. Those who wish to continue producing grain-fed beef should have to pay the true market value of the grain. The world can no longer afford the social and environmental costs of producing grain-fed, or even grass-fed, beef at current levels. Reducing the production and consumptio of beef by at least 50 percent will help free agricultural land to grow food for human consumption rather than feed for livestock. Fewer cattle will also lessen the environmental toll on the world's remaining forests and grasslands. Encouraging consumers who continue to consume some beef to demand beef from cattle that are humanely raised under sustainable standards will help encourage a new commercial market for organic beef -- a market niche that can be filled by the family farm. Only the small family farmer can produce beef and other farm products humanely and sustainably. The Beyond Beef program is working to restore the position of the family farm in American life. In the United States today, three voracious multi-national corporations hold a near total monopoly on beef production. Their priority is cheap livestock feed. U.S. government policies support these corporations by keeping market prices below the cost of production; American taxpayers are subsidizing the production of beef. The small family farmer is in a box. He must produce more product at a return below the cost of production in an attempt to spread his fixed cost over more volume. This dilemma makes the family farmer easy prey for the huge agribusiness monopolies that dictate the rules of the game. Unable to get enough income, the family farmer is forced to abandon beef production altogether in favor of maximum yield production of monoculture feed grain. Even then, he's not receiving a high enough price for the feed to cover his costs. Moreover, attempts to increase yields requires the use of more and more chemical fertilizers that, in the end, are self-defeating because they increase costs and lower yelds in the long run -- they are also polluting the environment. Grain sold in the world market for a price that is below the cost of production is also devastating third world farmers. Unlike their American counterparts, however, they are not receiving taxpayer subsidies to supplement their income. They must either stop farming, try to get a job in the city, or expand agricultural production into environmentally sensitive areas such as the rain forest. Efforts by progressive farm organizations to establish fair prices for corn, wheat, and other crops have been consistently blocked by the giant agribusiness corporations that feed cattle in huge feedlots. The owners of these "beef factories" want to pay the lowest possible price for feed, and they don't care how many small and medium-sized family farmers go out of business or which rain forest gets destoyed. Their only concern is maximum short-term profit. If consumers unite with family farmers to break the monopoly power of agribusiness, it can lead the way to both financial security for family farmers and the elimination of ecologically unsound beef production. Farmers and consumers also need to work together to defeat new government proposals which would open the U.S. market to greatly expanded amounts of imported beef. Most of this imported beef is produced on rain forest land in Latin America, making it extremely low priced. Not only would the expansion of beef imports accelerate rain forest destruction, it would drive down even further the price paid to family farmers, pushing many tens of thousands out of business and leaving the market solely in the hands of the huge conglomerates. For the moment, corporate control over the livestock industry means that farmers and consumers will have to establish a number of alternative marketing routes in order to meet the demand for organically raised beef. We need to follow the lead of other countries, where consumer and farmer groups have agreed on specific standards for price, quality, and ecological considerations, and then established a special label for meats complying with these standards. The Beyond Beef campaign will challenge the unwarranted power amassed by America's agribusiness corporations and the cattle and beef industry giants...and promote a new commercial market for organically raised beef helping to restore a viable market share for the nation's family farmers.