Food, Antibiotics & Pesticides - Food Chain or Profit Stream?
A lot of confusion reigns when debating the role of the
In a nutshell, we don't feed the world but we supply a whole lot of the food it needs to maintain the status quo. However, productions only part of the equation. For instance, how much of the food we produce is even intended for "human" consumption?
You may be stunned by the result.
For example, the
Yet 80% of the corn grown annually is used for animal feed for domestic and foreign livestock, poultry, and fish production. I did say 80% of all production goes to feed animals and not the two-legged kind.
Numbers can be deceiving. You need to hear the numbers, and the facts
behind the numbers so you can fairly assess what is going on in this world.
We know 1.6 billion humans rely on local, family type farms for their food supply in which the farmers save their own seeds rather than buy them from the new farmers coop, the monolithic, multi-national, agricultural biotech corporations.
The very agricultural economy Germans brought to We know 1.6 billion humans rely on local, family type farms for their food supply in which the farmers save their own seeds rather than buy them from the new farmers coop, the monolithic, multi-national, agricultural biotech corporations.
Ironic isn't it? We have evolved beyond the self-sufficient family farms of the turn of the last century. As late as 1900 most American farmers were of German ancestry because they were widely regarded as the best husbandmen in the land.
Today those family farms in America have
been largely replaced by corporate farms in the form of livestock feedlots,
massive chicken complexes, fish farms and GMO driven field crops.
What drove this evolution of corporate farming
and near extinction of the family farm since 1900? Well, no matter what high and mighty public
service is being gained by the destruction of family farms, I tend to be a
little more jaundice in my analysis of this cultural shift.
To me behind all the "holier than thou" justifications bantered about there are two underlying realities called "antibodies" and "pesticides" combined with corporateAmerica 's insatiable obsession with
greed.
It's no accident "greed" is one of the Cardinal sins or Seven Deadly sins of the Christian teachings.
To me behind all the "holier than thou" justifications bantered about there are two underlying realities called "antibodies" and "pesticides" combined with corporate
It's no accident "greed" is one of the Cardinal sins or Seven Deadly sins of the Christian teachings.
Penicillin was the first antibiotic, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1929, but it was not until the early 1940s that its true potential was acknowledged and large scale fermentation processes were developed for the production of antibiotics.
A few decades ago the owners of this
multi-billion dollar industry realized they were destroying the immune system
with the massive amounts of antibiotics being pumped into us through medicine
and they needed a new market to sell the profit-rich drugs.
How about we take all the cows into feedlots,
chickens into giant barns and fish into fish farms and forever change the face
of agriculture. In order for these
critters to survive in such an unnatural environment we can use the antibiotics
on the cows instead of the people, thus creating a massive new market.
Today 80
percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States goes to chicken, pigs,
cows and other animals that people eat, yet producers of meat and poultry are
not required to report how they use the drugs — which ones, on what types of
animal, and in what quantities.
By 2011 antibiotic sales for human use totaled
7.7 million pounds in
Like antibiotics pesticides exploded on the scene
around World War II. As you will note
from the following list of types of pesticides there is something for everyone
in this global market now worth $45 billion a year.
The major classes of pesticides are as follows:
Type of Pesticide - Target
Pest Group
Acaricide - Mites,
ticks, spiders
Antimicrobial - Bacteria, viruses, other microbes
Attractant - Attracts pests for monitoring or killing
Avicide - Birds
Fungicide - Fungi
Herbicide Weeds
Insecticide - Insects
Molluscicide - Snails and slugs
Nematicide - Nematodes
Piscicide - Fish
Predacide - Vertebrate predators
Repellent - Repels pests
Rodenticide - Rodents
Synergist - Improves
performance of another pesticide
In the United States , pesticides are used
on 900,000 farms and in 70 million households. Herbicides are the most widely
used type of pesticide. Agriculture uses 75% of all pesticides, but 85% of all U.S. households
have at least one pesticide in storage, and 63% have one to five stored. A Minnesota survey 5 found
that on a per-acre basis urban dwellers use herbicides for lawn care at rates
equal to those used by farmers for food production.
I suspect the need to protect and expand the
combined market of $110 billion for antibiotics and pesticides as much as
anything explains the push for packaged food products and expanded requirements
for preservatives.
Add to that the fact chemical company patents on
major drugs in these categories are expiring and the real market is already
saturated and it seems "bottom line profit" is the greatest incentive
for flooding the human and animal market with more stuff that is bad for us,
for our immune system, and for our environment.
In round numbers, U.S. farmers produce about $ 143
billion worth of crops and about $153 billion worth of livestock each year.
Production data from the year 2011 for major agricultural crops grown in this
country are highlighted in the following:
Major
agricultural crops produced in the United States in 2011
(excluding
root crops, citrus, vegetable, etc.)Corn (grain) 84 million harvested acres $63.9 billion
Soybeans 73.8 million harvested acres $37.6 billion
Hay 55.7 million harvested acres $6.7 billion
Wheat 45.7 million harvested acres $14.6 billion
Cotton 9.5 million harvested acres $8.3 billion
Sorghum 3.9 million harvested acres $1.3 billion
Rice 2.6 million harvested acres $2.9 billion
Source:
Corn: The
According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the
Sources:
National Corn Grower's Association 2013 Report. N.p., 11 Feb. 2013. Web.
Soybeans: Approximately 3.06 billion
bushels of soybeans were harvested from 73.6 million acres of cropland in the U.S. in 2011.
This acreage is roughly equivalent to that of corn grown for grain (84 million
acres in 2011).Soybeans rank second, after corn, among the most-planted field
crops in the U.S.
Over 279,110 (2007 Census of Agriculture) farms in the U.S. produce soybeans making the U.S. the
largest producer and exporter of soybeans. , accounting for over 50% of the
world's soybean production and $3-4 billion in soybean and product exports in
the late 2000s. Soybeans represent 50 percent of world oilseed production.
Sources:
United Soybean Board. New QUALISOY Efforts Reach out to Educate Soybean Value Chain. March 2013. Web.
Hay: Hay production in the
Wheat: Over 160,810 (2007 Census of Agriculture)farms in the
Wheat is classified by time of year planted, hardness, and color (e.g. Hard Red Winter (HRW)). The characteristics of each class of wheat affect milling and baking when used in food products. Of the wheat consumed in the
Cotton: Fewer than 18,605 (2007 Census of Agriculture) farms in the
Cotton is used in a number of consumer and industrial products and is also a feed and food ingredient. Most of the crop (75 percent) goes into apparel, 18 percent into home furnishings and 7 percent into industrial products each year. Cottonseed and cottonseed meal are used in feed for livestock, dairy cattle, and poultry. Cottonseed oil is also used for food products such as margarine and salad dressing.
Sources:
"World of Cotton." National Cotton Council. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2013.
Grain sorghum: In the
Some farmers grow sorghum as a hedge against drought. This water-efficient crop is more drought tolerant and requires fewer inputs than corn.
As much as one-third of domestic sorghum production goes to produce biofuels like ethanol and its various co-products. With demand for renewable fuel sources increasing, demand for co-products like sorghum-DDG (dry distillers grain) will increase as well due the sorghum's favorable nutrition profile.
Sources:
"Biofuels." Sorghum Checkoff. N.p., Apr. 2012. Web. 04 Apr. 2013.
Rice: Just over 6,084 (2007 Census of Agriculture)farms produce rice in the
About 50 - 60% of the rice consumed in the
Source:
GMO corn, soybeans dominate Jun 04, 2013 by Veronique Dupont
The discovery of
unauthorized genetically engineered wheat growing on a farm in the US state of Oregon has cast a spotlight on agricultural
biotechnology and the debate about its safety.
The discovery of unauthorized genetically engineered wheat growing on a farm in the
While genetically engineered or genetically modified (GM) wheat has not been approved for commercial planting, GM corn and GM soybeans already reign supreme on American farms.
By 2012, 88 percent of corn (maize) and 94 percent of soy grown in the
And with the
The main players are
Since their introduction in the 1990s, GM products have conquered agriculture in the
Though most genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not directly involved in human consumption, "60-70 percent of processed foods have ingredients derived from GMOs," said Bill Freese of the Center for Food Safety, an anti-GMO organization.
Besides corn and soybeans, GM crops grown in the
In addition, a genetically engineered growth hormone, recombinant bovine growth hormone, is widely injected in cows to boost milk production.
The
But the developers of the GM products are deeply involved in certifying their safety. The FDA, for instance, depends on a consultative process with developers who voluntarily present their plans to the agency before marketing the products.
Doubts are strong in Europe, where a number of countries, including
"If by planting a GMO variety your yield increases faster than it would if you didn't, your future rewards are going to increase," said Bill Nelson, a soybean analyst at Doane Advisory Services.
And the structure of some government crop insurance programs favor that productivity, giving farmers even more incentive to plant GM seeds rather than traditional seeds.
For Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, GM seeds' very dominance is promoting their use.
"It's become harder and harder for farmers to even find conventional seeds," Freese said.
"The big players bought up conventional seed companies," he said, "and the university public sector breeders which used to produce most of the seeds that farmers used have seen their funding reduced."
Freese noted that cross-pollination of conventional fields by GMO strains has become so widespread it is difficult to produce "pure" seeds that are not contaminated.
Some organic seed developers grow their seeds in South America because they cannot find sources to buy pure seeds in the
Yet the seed giants are facing a growing opposition to GM products in the
Ben & Jerry's, the activist ice-cream maker, said in April it would stop using GM-sourced ingredients, which make up 20 percent of its products by volume, by the end of the year.
Whole Foods Market, the upscale natural and organic supermarket chain, announced in March that all its products in its
Meanwhile, the outlook for the seed giants remains bright outside the
With
"That can't happen without the majority being GMO."
.