C. Roy ReynoldsYOU'D NEVER know it if all you had to go by is what passes for the public media in Jamaica but there are powerful things going on in the world outside which dwarf allegations of government corruption and rumours of corruption. Things that will determine how you live and indeed whether you live or not.
For example I have obtained the September-October issue of "World Watch" the magazine published by the non-profit research organisation. Among the contents of the issue is an extended article titled: "Where Have All The Farmers Gone?" and it is a chilling narrative that ought to interest us all, assuming we were able to take our snouts out of the scandal trough to notice. The main contention of the article is given as: "All over the world independent farmers are being driven out of business - or forced into servitude on their own land, Yet, what we lose when we lose them may be the one link in the agri food chain which we can't live without.
The globalisation of industry and trade is bringing more and more uniformity to the management of the world's land, and a spreading threat to the diversity of crops, ecosystems and cultures. As big Ag takes over, farmers who have a stake in their land and who often are the most knowledgeable stewards of the land are being forced into servitude or driven out."
The article contends that "contrary to frequent news reports it is not simply low commodity prices that are creating these conditions, but a massive restructuring of the food industry. And more than the welfare of farmers is at stake.
"As globalisation accelerates the food industry is being more vertically integrated, with many of the more profitable functions once performed by farmers now being taken over by giant agricultural conglomerates such as ConAgra and Novaris. In the United States the share of the consumer's food dollar actually going to the farmer has declined from more than 40 cents before 1950 to about seven cents today."
It cites the fact that in the cost of a loaf of bread the wrapper in which it comes is as much as what the farmer gets out of it.
Further detailing the plight of farmers the article went on: "Farmers who once selected which crops to grow, whom to buy supplies from and whom to sell their products to, now have little or no choice in those decisions. Often a farmer finds himself in an obligopolistic market where there is only one buyer for the crops - the same conglomerate that is also the single source from which he must buy his seeds and supplies; forced to buy high and sell low the farmer is either driven out of business or compelled to become a virtual serf on his own land."
And what about that economy of scale so often touted by bookish experts? The article contends that the rationale that these large conglomerates are more productive and efficient is in large part a myth. While it might be true that the large outfit produces more per acre of a particular crop than the small farm, production diversity on the small farm produces more food per acre. Additionally smaller farms make more efficient use of factors like fertilisers since they have a variety of crops which feed at varying depths.
Could it be that one of the great problems of our sugar industry as well as the banana industry is due to over concentration on and dependence on a single crop, especially when it is considered that unlike the integrated outfits of industrialised economies our producers have no vertical integration but are merely bottom feeders in a system that is all-embracing.
The article seems to speak to this issue when it contended: "When the farmer becomes little more than the lowest cost producer of raw materials more than his own welfare suffers. Though the farm sector has lost power and profit it is still the one link in the agri food chain accounting for the largest share of agriculture's public goods including half the world's jobs, many of its most vital communities and many of its most diverse landscapes..."
To demonstrate its contention the article pointed to a study of two Californian rural communities, which demonstrated that in one where the land is worked by small farmers it supported 20 per cent more people and had a better quality of life than in the comparable community where giant organisations controlled the land resource.
These are just a few extracts from an extensive article that ought to interest us and excite our imagination. If only we could be more demanding of our media that it feeds us on more than scandal-mongering, and end the domination of the lowest common denominator.
It is a subject that the coming PAJ celebrations might consider putting on its agenda. It is difficult to appreciate the media's exposes of mediocrity when it cuddles mediocrity so close to its breast!
C. Roy Reynolds is a
freelance journalist
