Factory Farming and Family Farms
Where’s the Beef?
By Gerald Baron
Executive Director of Save Family Farming
Even critics of farms eat. With the exception of those who insist that food comes from the supermarket, everyone loves — or at least needs — our farmers. That does not mean they love all farmers or how some farmers farm. Impact on the environment is a major concern and most who are dedicated to making things better focus on big farms. “Factory farming” and “industrial agriculture” are terms used to describe the kind of farming that these critics abhor. Words matter and those terms are specifically chosen to link the “bad” farms with ideas and words that generate the maximum visceral response among urban voters who rule left coast politics today.
Last November a Washington state dairy farmer had a guest editorial published in the Seattle Times titled: “I’m a Dairy Farmer with a Lot of Cows. Is That Bad?” Austin Allred, the thirty-ish dairy farmer with about 10,000 cows explained the price of milk has risen very little since the time his grandfather farmed while costs have risen dramatically. Labor, land prices, crop materials, professional services, equipment — all have kept pace with inflation or exceeded it. The options for him, like most dairy farmers and many other kinds of farmers who want to make a living farming, are to go out of business or grow the farm. But, at some point growing the farm runs into the objections of those who think big is bad.
It’s one thing to hold an opinion on these matters, another to enforce that opinion on others. That is what is happening right now in Minnesota, for example. A sixth generation family dairy farm received a permit to expand from 1500 cows to about 4500 cows. There are multiple families, great great grandchildren of the farm’s founder who started the farm in the 1860s, now earning a living off the farm. To keep the farm in the family and avoid breaking it up to help parents retire, the younger generation is seeking to expand. As Gabe Daley, 24, said, “The way things are moving, you either get bigger or you get bought out,” said Gabe Daley, 24. “Getting bigger seems to be the most efficient way to stay in business.”
But environmental groups challenged the permit and the Minnesota Appeals Court revoked their permit and required an assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions from the expanded farm. Like the opposition to large dairies in Oregon, this is simply about size. Greden Daley DePestel, 26, another descendant of the farm’s founder and part of the farm’s operation today said, “It’s kind of frustrating that we get called a factory farm when it’s like, ‘Hello! This is us!’ ” says Greden, 26.
Dairy farmers who do not wish to grow have few options if they want to continue farming. One, is to take part time jobs and give up on earning their living from the farm. Small, part-time or hobby farms, are among the fastest growing types of farms today. A few dairy farms seek to add to their income through agri-tourism or processing and selling their own dairy products directly to consumers or to local farmer’s markets and retailers. It’s a risky business requiring multiple skills in manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Most dairy farms sell to cooperatives which process the milk and create a variety of dairy products including ice cream, cheese and yogurt. Milk is a commodity which sells on the global market which means the price is set by the market with farmers having no control over it. The US is the largest producer of milk, but other countries are much larger exporters. New Zealand’s farms lead the world in exporting milk at almost 20% of global exports. That compares to just 5.6% exported by US dairy farms.
Because milk prices have stayed relatively low and stable over many years while the cost of production has multiplied, farmers who want to stay in business have to spread those rising costs over more cows. That means consolidation. That means the big get bigger and the small and medium-sized farms either become consolidators or become consolidated. Which raises a crucial question: What do those who are trying to stop large farms want? Do they want more and more of our farm products coming from foreign producers? Do they want only small, part time hobby farms and expect these farms to feed not only our citizens but contribute to feeding those outside the US? Do they want farmers to be able to set prices for their products based on cost of production rather than having to accept prices set by the global market?
Let’s look at each of these answers briefly. Food production today is a global business. While we love locally produced food, more and more of our food is coming from foreign farmers and producers. In 2018 the New York Times reported that over 50% of our fresh fruit and over 30% of our fresh vegetables is imported. Those numbers continue to rise. US farmers are finding it harder and harder to compete because foreign farmers typically pay about one twentieth to one thirtieth in labor costs. Guest workers coming to Washington state, for example, are paid on average over $20 per hour while in Mexico those same workers typically earn the minimum wage of 79 cents per hour or less. The New York Times reporter suggested it was a good thing to import more of our food. Is it? There is the concern about food security: what happens if conflict or trade problems make it expensive or impossible to get foreign foods and we have lost our farmers? There is also the concern about food health and safety. The CDC reports that food related illnesses have risen at the same pace as imported food. The FDA reports that imported food is five times more likely to have pesticide residues above the government limit than domestic food. These facts apparently escaped the New York Times reporter. So, the question must be asked to those opposing big farms: do you really want more of your food coming from foreign farms without the labor, food safety and environmental protections that US farmers are subject to?
Can hobby farms provide the food we need? One leader of a major West Coast environmental group focused on protecting coastal water was asked by a farmer why he and his organization were spending so much time attacking farmers. He said it was his goal and vision to rid the state (Washington) of all farm exports and only have farms that provide to farmers markets and only allow farmers markets to sell food to consumers. We wonder if he mused on this while sipping his Starbucks latte with imported coffee beans, and if it occurred to him that enjoying his coffee would no longer be possible if his vision became reality. Such a vision would not just eliminate coffee from Seattle, but lead to mass starvation. Hobby farms cannot produce the food we need at a scale needed to feed seven billion people, let alone the 10 billion predicted. In the 1800s 74% of the US population was involved in growing food. By 1900 it was 42%. Today, less than 2% of the population grows food for everyone. In my home farming community in Washington state there are about 1700 farms with about 1500 of them hobby farms. This represents about 90% of the farms in this area, but they produce only about 7% of the farm production. Imagine how many farms we would need to produce what the top 10% of our farms produce today and how many workers would have to be employed on these farms. That’s a problem because despite the relatively high pay of farm work (about $20 per hour average in Washington state), very few American citizens want these jobs. Consumers today enjoy the safest, most environmentally sustainable and least expensive food in the history of the universe. But visionaries like the one discussed above want to change that. One can only conclude this is an elitist vision that cares little for the impact on those who cannot afford the luxury of hobby farm food.
The final suggestion may be the preferred one. Why not have farmers set their own prices? Get out of the global commodity system? The global economy is very much under discussion today. It’s an important issue far beyond the scope of this article to discuss. The question is what would happen if farmers were allowed to set their own prices and those prices reflected the actual cost of production? As long as imported food was allowed, there would be strict limits on how much farmers could charge. Milk from a dairy farmer who processes his own milk products and sells to retailers in glass bottles is priced at over $4 per gallon. That’s about a dollar more per gallon than nationally branded milk. Another farmer who is attempting to add value to his milk by following the ethics of cattle in his native India is selling his “ethical” milk for $17 per gallon. No doubt there are a few who will be willing to pay it, and ignore the fact that cows in India produce nine times more greenhouse gas per gallon than US cows. If we returned to the economics of farming in the 1950s, as many apparently prefer, we have to be willing to pay perhaps three to five times more for a gallon of milk and likely about $30 or more a pound for cheese. Pizza? Ice cream? Beyond the means of many.
Today about 97% of American farmers are family farmers. Some are very large and some very small. Those in the middle are being squeezed out. All are needed. Family farms of all sizes need to be supported because of the significant difference in family ownership versus investor ownership. Investor-owned businesses have as their purpose gaining returns on investment comparable to other investments. If they can’t compete for investment dollars against other profitable investment opportunities, they lose. That’s not the goal of family farmers. Income above expenses is, of course, necessary. But almost all family farms have as their purpose the continuation of the farm to the next generation of family members. Today’s farmers are the recipients of the good farming practices of their parents and grandparents and they want to leave the soil, the environment and the farm in better condition than when they took it over.
The Daley’s in Minnesota want and Austin Allred and his like in Washington state want nothing more than to pass their family farms on to yet another generation. They face the rising voices of those who think big is bad and farmers with many cows, acres or tractors are bad people. Voters and consumers who value farming in this great land need to stand with these farmers against those who intend to impose their very flawed vision on everyone.
