A recent post in Ethicurian about the release of a Sesame Street DVD that featured some “trippy” farm sequences got me to thinking about how the general populace envisions farming and ranching, and how those perceptions affect ag policy, consumer preferences and food marketing.  No other industry I can think of has the details of its production practices so scrutinized by the consuming public.   I suspect that much of what the public sees and thinks about farms falls into one of two camps:

Idealized:  In the Sesame Street version, farms are places where kids come to snuggle with pigs, ride on tractors (NOT a good idea) and ‘play’ with cows.  Farms are multi-species enterprises, run by a single, traditional family where cows are milked by hand, all the animals have a name, and somehow meat appears in the grocery stores without an animal ever being slaughtered.

Villianized:  In the Meatrix version, farms are run by heartless corporate-types with blatant disregard for animal welfare, the environment or consumer safety.  Consuming meat produced by industry-standard methods is tantamount to participating in torture and environmental pillage.

Food and farms are emotional hot-buttons.  All too often those buttons are pushed by people with their own agendas.  I believe we have been unable to get true reform of commodity subsidies because of the ability of politicians to maintain the status quo under the guise of “Protecting the Farm Way of Life.”  I also believe that there are an awful lot of packaged foods being sold under labels designed to appeal to well-intentioned consumers, but that don’t reflect production practices that have any meaningful benefit to the environment, animal welfare, nutritional content, food safety or quality.  I admit I’ve purchased food based on label claims I thought made a real difference, only to discover upon researching the issue, that they were relatively meaningless, or worse.

Farming is a business and, still for many, a way of life.  If it is your living, it must be a business first or your way of life won’t exist.  Costs of production, animal welfare, long-term sustainability and the price of farm products are some critical but sometimes antagonistic factors affecting viability. 

Farmers and ranchers are in the unenviable position of being primarily price-takers.  Many animal welfare and environmental reforms raise the cost of production, at least in the short term.  Often, the premium for products produced under such changes in production practices is not sufficient (or is non-existent) to even break even.  A case in point is what is happening with dairy farmers affected by recent decisions by large milk companies to use “rBST-free” labels.  Most companies are not increasing the price paid to the farmers, nor have they implemented on-farm monitoring to ensure compliance.  Many dairy farmers feel that the price is so low that they can only survive if they “cheat” and use rBST.

Even the apparently simplest issues often have some rarely considered consequences.  I am a huge supporter of buying local.  It is a great way to get consumers in touch with their how food is produced, to have accountability on the part of the producer, and to empower producers to respond to consumer demands and be paid fairly for their efforts.  It would be great if “local” was status quo, right?  

The largest cost of production for many farmers is the cost of their land.  The closer one is to an urban area, the more this is true.

According to the American Farmland Trust, America is losing 1.2 million acres of farmland annually; much of it the best and most productive farmland and near where most Americans live.  I ranch outside of Austin, Texas.  The closest I could get to town and even hope to make a living at ranching was almost 2 hours east of downtown Austin.  Ranchland prices here are 6 times what they were five-ten years ago.  To be economically viable (we hope), we raise high-quality/high dollar registered cattle and sell pastured Angus beef in the North-Austin area. 

Ironically, many of my customers are part of the reason my mortgage is so high; they live in the sprawling suburbs of Austin or on 1-10 acre “ranchettes” that have driven up the price of ranchland.  Of necessity (i.e. to pay the mortgage), my beef is priced about double commodity-standard beef at the grocery store.  One of the Farmer’s Markets at which I sell has a high percentage of WIC (Women, Infant and Children program) customers.  They can’t afford my beef.  Would it be ‘better’ for them to have access only to local beef at twice the price, or to be able to get twice the high-quality animal protein even though it may be produced through large-scale agriculture? 

One of my favorite parts about participating in farmer’s markets is consumer outreach and education (and the education goes both ways!).  I became editor of this blog because I wanted to help people to understand the complexities of food and agriculture issues.  It is really easy to get swept up in emotion, idealism or rhetoric, and not look too closely at the veracity or relevance of what is presented.  I believe in the power of information, choice, science and the voice of the consumer.  I also believe there are no easy answers, if one looks deep into the issues.

Somewhere between Sesame Street and The Meatrix lies the real world.