The American Farmer: What Happens When He Is Gone? Part I

The American farmer is a dying breed. Due to a lack of profit, many farmers are forced to sell their family farms to contractors in order to survive. The money they make by selling their farms would have taken them lifetimes to earn by farming . Farming has been around for many, many years and has become a central part of the world’s economy. As one drives out into the heartland of America during the harvest season, he can see thousands of acres of corn and soybeans just waiting to be cut. My thesis is when farmers are outsourced by real estate companies, many catastrophic consequences arise. Six major consequences are an increase cost in food, a possible world famine, the threat of bioterrorism in imported foods, the loss of America as a superpower, a lack of grain in an economic depression, and the emotional loss of selling the family farm.
Many people who visit the grocery store do not think about the farmer when they go to buy a few ears of corn or a pound of ripe tomatoes. Some people might even think that food prices increase because the store is “money-hungry” or the farmer is trying to squeeze every penny out of the consumer. Quite the contrary, food prices are in direct correlation to the amount of cropharvest that year. Supply and demand is at work here. When there is a lack of crops, those particular crop prices increase. The lack of crops could be due to poor weather or the development of farm land. If poor weather or lack of farm land were to stifle a local region’s overall harvest, it would most likely only affect that region. The price of tomatoes would increase by a dollar or the cost of eggplants would double. What if this were to happen all over the “Corn Belt” and other farming areas? The country’s food prices would increase dramatically and many people would not be able to afford food. Instead of paying $4.50 for a gallon of milk, one could possibly pay $5.50. The same price jump could happen to corn and grain. According to Professors Bob Wisner and Phil Baumel, “USDA projections for the year ahead indicate the U.S. corn supply-demand balance is changing from one of chronic surplus production capacity to
an extended period of tight supplies. If so, relatively high corn prices will be needed to allocate limited supplies among alternative users” (Wisner and Baumel, para. 12).

The second major consequence of outsourcing the American farmer is a lack of grain for human consumption. Ethanol production is become very popular in America. With the popularity of everyone and everything becoming “green,” it is not surprising that oil companies and car manufactures would want to appease the masses and develop ethanol fuel and ethanol burning vehicles. Burning cleaner fuel is not a bad idea. However, if too much corn is put into ethanol, what would be left for food consumption. Dr. Keith Collins, the Chief Agronomist of the United States Department of Agriculture, reveals some staggering statistics. Dr. Keith explains that the amount of ethanol manufactured in 2006 was one billion gallons more than in 2005 (Collins, para. 12). He calculated that if the amount of ethanol manufactured was to continue its projected course, 10 million acres of corn would be needed (Collins, para. 12). Dr. Keith continues to explain that the effects of using 10 million acres of corn for ethanol production could possibly cause major food shortages in many countries (Collins, para.13). One may think, “O.K., in order to create equilibrium with food supply and ethanol demand, farmers just need to grow more crops.” That person forgets the amount of land being gobbled up by big name corporations. Back to the furniture store example. If the furniture store needs to be making more furniture, it just has to acquire more wood from lumber yards. A simple solution, right? What if a construction making paper company was using the same forest for manufacturing paper, but was consuming twice as many trees? Eventually, the manufacturing of both furniture and paper would cease due to a lack of raw material. The same could be said about farming. Farmers can not produce enough corn for ethanol production because so many farms are being sold to land developers. A famine could ensue and many people would perish.

A third consequence is bioterrorism in imported foods. If America’s farmers cannot
manufacture enough food to feed their country, America would be forced to find food elsewhere, most likely from other countries. Importing food is not always a bad idea. Our country imports many products such as coffee every week. Although importing food may seem like a good and harmless idea, it could be used for evil. The threat of terrorism is always growing. One can hear a news story on how the terror alert was increased from yellow to orange, or visa-versa. In order to bypass certain security procedures, what if terrorists infected the American populous not through any “dirty-bomb,” but through imported food. The University of Illinois had this to say on food safety, “Terrorists can introduce new pathogenic genes into normally harmless carriers
that are rapidly spread through plants and animals: the “weaponization” of plant and animal pests” (Cross-Campus Initiative on Food, para. 5). Terrorist’s could contaminate the most needed food such as grain and meat with small pox and create a major epidemic.

End of Part I

Citations:

Interview with Eliza Love on November 20, 2007.

Wisner, Bob, and Phil Baumel. "Will There Be Enough Corn: Implications for
Related Industries." Feedstuffs 76.30 (26 July 2004). Ag Decison Maker. Ed.
Don Hofstrand. Sept. 2004. Iowa State U. 28 Nov. 2007
.

Collins, Kevin. “Advancing Renewable Energy: An American Rural Renaissance.” U.S
Agriculture and the Emerging Bioeconomy. 13 Oct. 2006

"Cross-Campus Initiative on Food Security." Cross-Campus Initiatives. U of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 26 Nov. 2007 .

Rempel, Gerhard. "The World Depression and Its Results." The World Depression
and Its Results. Western New England Coll. 26 Nov. 2007
.