The CEO of a successful business recently gave a presentation at Tufts. Hillel's Moral Voices invited students on TuftsLife.com "to hear from one of the country's most influential businessmen about how his company approaches corporate responsibility, green business, and social innovation." This man could have been the president of an automotive or technology company. In fact, his "business" is a farm. Gary Hirshberg is CEO and President of Stonyfield Farm.
The appropriation of the language of business to farming, like "CEO," "president," even "corporate responsibility," is only a small part of business' influence on agriculture. Such words evoke images of sparkling clean office buildings, men in suits with meetings and secretaries. The actual business of farming is dirty, of course. And with the modernization of farming, really the corporatization of farming, the business has become much, much dirtier.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, 80 percent of Americans were employed in agriculture -- a legacy of our colonial past. Today, that number is closer to two percent, and yet the United States is still one of the world's most important agricultural exporters. We export corn to Mexico and soybeans to Asia. It seems counterintuitive that an industry so many have left can rebound so quickly and be thriving so effectively.
In reality, people haven't left farming. Farming has been stolen from them by large corporate farms with whom they cannot compete. In the 1970s, the so-called "Green Revolution" began to apply industrial revolution-style business practices to agriculture, even to the point of using assembly lines in butchering animals. The formerly varied-produce small farms of rural America were replaced by monocultural (single product) corporate farms, producing huge yields of specific exportable cereal crops through the generous use of pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified (GM) crops and, of course, illegal immigrant labor. This says nothing of the meat industry, which became something that Upton Sinclair would have to hide his eyes from.
And while corporate farming does produce huge yields, at the end of the day it is extremely wasteful. Huge expanses of land which could be used to produce varied crops for consumption at home and abroad are instead taken up by monocultures. The ecological waste is astounding, and there is no governmental organization or internal auditing for the chemicals released by corporate farms as they are not considered industries.
Stonyfield Farm includes the word "organic" under its company logo. Unfortunately, organic does not indicate anything about the company's business practices or treatment of animals. Chickens are required by organic standards to have "access to the outdoors," meaning chickens are packed literally one on top of the other in small outdoor cages. Organic farms are even allowed to use pesticides and herbicides -- they are only limited in the amount they may use to be considered organic. And of course, there is no evidence that organic produce is any healthier than non-organic produce. Simply scrubbing an apple under the faucet will produce much the same result as growing the apple organically.
The organic movement is not the answer to the crisis gripping agriculture in America. The real answer is a return to local farming. Small farms are healthier for consumers and for the environment. Locally produced meat and vegetables are fresher and therefore taste better. Acre for acre, small farms are actually more productive than large farms because they are not monocultures. While a 100-acre farm that produces only soybeans will produce more soybeans per acre than a 10-acre soybean farm, that 10-acre farm will also produce corn, beets, potatoes, maybe even a couple cows and a draft horse. Small farms do not require enormous amounts of chemicals to survive. They also do not require great numbers of large, fossil-fuel consuming farm equipment like large farms. A little tractor will do.
The government, so willing to bail out the large investment firms (who have undoubtedly invested heavily in corporate farms), should also be willing to bail out the thousands of small farm owners who have been forced to give up the occupation of their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and who have been struggling since the 1970s. And the best part is they have many hundreds of thousands of acres of corporate farms to tax in order to do it. The solution to the problem is really as simple as that: per-acre tax on farms larger than 50 acres, we'll say. Small farms should be given a tax break. Does this plan sound familiar?
This should be accompanied by intra-state protectionist taxes on agricultural products, keeping those products for consumers in-state. Furthermore, the rights of companies to patent agricultural products should be withheld. The law as it stands now allows for producers of GM seeds to sue farmers who have unwittingly crossbred their plants with the GM variety. This violates an ancient tenement among farmers: if you have something that can damage another farmer's crops, like a goat, it's your job to keep that goat fenced in. In this case, farmers of GM crops should be responsible for the spreading of their seed.
Which highlights the huge problem central to this entire fiasco: CEOs should not be in the business of farming, farmers should. Farmers were the original "green businessmen." They have been concerned about the environment since long before it was cool to be so. While some corporate farms may have been taking steps forward in the business world, the very idea of corporate farming is a step backward in the agrarian world. I'm merely suggesting we give farming back to the farmers. I also humbly suggest that student groups invite farmers, rather than CEOs, if they really want to hear what farming is about and what makes a farm successful.
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Stanley Abraham is a junior majoring in history.
