Why does the bad-for-you food cost less than the good-for-you food?
I have been asked this question many times by my kids over the years, and my answer is always less than satisfactory to them. “It’s because of the Farm Bill”, I repeat. Then I watch their eyes glaze over while I prattle on about the evils of high fructose corn syrup, the political tail that’s wagging the proverbial dog, and fertilizer from idle chemical munitions plants after World War II. I know they don’t care. But it enrages me to think how a crappy piece of legislation from 1933 has caused an epidemic of obesity, tobacco-related death, food-safety threats, polluted water and increased mortality from heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
That got your attention? Good. The 2018 Farm Bill negotiations are about to begin, and as informed citizens (and eaters), we need to be aware of how a 357 page document (the 2014 Farm Bill), spent $489 billion taxpayer dollars to enrich Big Food at the cost of the health of Americans. Whoa, I’m getting fired up just typing that. Let me slow down and explain.
Farming is a tough business. The people that grow our food face many types of risk to their livelihood, most of which are completely outside of their control. Weather, disease, pests, global commodity markets, and export embargoes can each, on their own, wipe out an entire year’s earnings for a farm. And I have some perspective on this: I hail from a family of rural farmers. I’ve witnessed the obsessive monitoring of the weather and the way the noontime crop price report during Paul Harvey could influence moods. It’s damn hard.
If we want to keep eating, our farmers can’t quit, despite these potentially crippling risks. So our government created a system to offer a ‘farm safety net’ to protect our nation’s food supply without reliance on foreign governments. So far so good.
The way they do this is through the Farm Bill, which is renewed every 4–5 years. It includes crop insurance, marketing loans, and income and price support for five foods. Wait, hold the phone … what? You read that right, the Farm Bill dollars primarily subsidize five crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton (and you can’t eat cotton). But what about the fruits and vegetables that the USDA says should make up 50% of what we eat? Well, Congress doesn’t consider those, or the farmers who raise them, quite as worthy of support.
You see, the Farm Bill defines crops into two categories: Commodity Crops and Specialty Crops. Commodity Crops are defined as corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton — they received $5 billion in subsidies in the last Farm Bill. Specialty Crops include fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, floriculture and ornamental products — they received a paltry $98 million. So much for alignment of our government’s values.
Now don’t get me wrong, grains are important to human nutrition, and those who farm them deserve support. But the subsidies distort how the grains are used. Take corn for example (the most subsidized crop in America). About 40% is used to make ethanol, 36% goes to livestock feed, then most of the rest is exported, at a price that is lower than the cost to produce it (thanks, Farm Bill!). Only a tiny fraction is used to feed Americans, and of that, most is in the form of high-fructose corn syrup.
And what kinds of foods do we eat with this cheap-because-it’s-highly-subsidized high-fructose corn syrup? Twinkies. Coca-Cola. Ranch Dressing. Chicken McNuggets (yep, made of 56% corn products). Hmmm … something seems amiss.
But it didn’t start out this way. It started as an effort to help both farmers (who couldn’t sell their products) and hungry Americans (who couldn’t afford to buy them) in the midst of the Great Depression. But along the way, politicos and lobbyists got involved, and what was once a sound idea morphed into today’s expensive system of perverse incentives. Direct payments to idle your farm land, anyone?
Oh, and I haven’t gotten to the weirdest part yet. The vast majority (80%) of the spending on the Farm Bill is for the federal food stamp program, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. What the ???
The SNAP program is important, and has prevented 46 million of our fellow Americans from hunger and its ravages. Because of today’s income inequality, the food supplied by this program mostly aids the working poor, not the able-bodied unemployed as is often assumed. But how the heck does it fit into legislation sending 70% of its subsidies to 10% of U.S. farms?
You see, there are very few congressional districts that have a high concentration of farming as their main industry — just 26 out of 435 (mostly Republican-leaning). But more than half of House Districts have a population that is 85% or more urban (mostly Democratic-leaning). So in 1973, as congressional support for both programs was waning, lawmakers got together to create the ‘farm-and-food-stamps coalition’. And ever since then, the bi-partisan voting bloc has generated enough votes for both farm and hunger programs that otherwise would not have existed. A maneuver called log-rolling.
So with the votes in place, special interests waded in to make their desires known. And the biggest influencer of the Farm Bill, and thus the food that our farmers produce for us to eat, is the $1.5 trillion dollar behemoth known as Big Food. Big Food is the well-funded industrial complex comprised of:
- Big Ag — large-scale corn and soybean growers (along with a smaller number of the other Commodity Crops) and the companies that supply them with seed and chemicals
- Big Meat — the tiny number of companies that feed, slaughter and process most of the meat that we eat
- Packaged Food — transforms the Commodity Crops into the building blocks of processed food
- Supermarkets & Fast Food Retailers — who make those foods readily available to American consumers
Fruits and Vegetables, anyone? No. Okay, just checking.
To be accurate, the 2014 Farm Bill did allocate 1% of its funding for the production and marketing of organic fruits and vegetables. So quit your whining!
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU, explains this with an indelible image. She makes the case that if you divvied up your plate at mealtime to match where the government aims its resources, you’d get a stern lecture from your doctor.
“More than three-quarters of your plate would be taken up by a massive corn-fritter (80% of benefits go to corn, grains and soy oil). You’d have a dixie cup of milk (dairy gets 3%), a hamburger the size of a half-dollar (livestock: 2 percent), two peas (fruits and vegetables: 0.45%) and an after-dinner cigarette (tobacco: 2 percent). Oh, and a really big linen napkin (cotton: 13%) to dab your lips”. (Nestle, 2017)
Wow — that’s sobering. So what’s my point? Keep your eyes out as the 2018 Farm Bill negotiations begin to heat up this summer. Let your elected representatives know that reforming this perverse system that encourages poor health is important to you. Because it really does matter. And this piece of legislation is so complex and confusing that farmers in Iowa are the only people who understand it! Don’t let that be the case again this year — our health depends on it.
Oh, and buy some fruits and vegetables directly from your local farmer too!
