Primary Producers? Who Cares?
Back in the mists of history we were all primary producers. Hunters, gatherers. We learned to grow crops, to feed ourselves and our fellows. We reaped just as we sowed.The world was a large place with a small, struggling population. Where indeed, it was the survival of the fittest. If you could not find food in sufficient quantity for existence, existence evaded you.
The world is a smaller place, there are infinitely more of us. Despite which there are far fewer primary producers in agriculture. Scientific agricultural advancement has permitted us to feed more people with less effort. Feed more people with less land under cultivation. Giant farming operations with no allegiance to the countries in which they operate reap great profits, leaving local farming operations and indeed local consumers in the dust. Previously cultivated land for agriculture has given way to vast tracts of suburban houses.
Those teeming populations in all those urban and suburban areas are no longer cognizant of growing seasons and foods in season. We live in prosperous times and we demand more for less. What can be grown can be imported and distributed far from its origins. Farms have become fewer in numbers and farms which were once prosperous family operations encompassing generations of sweat are barely surviving. Huge multinationals are thriving. We revel in food bargains.
Our supermarkets are where we have been long accustomed to selecting our food choices. Farms appear to have little meaning to the vast majority of food consumers in this world (of developed nations) now. Food shoppers look for bargains, expect that the proportion of their incomes which go toward food purchase will be low, lower and even lower, and they're seldom disappointed.
We import, transport, distribute and consume in a void. If it makes good sense for a nation to ensure that its food dependency can be served well at home through domestic farming operations then we are all senseless idiots. Our farmers are struggling just to make ends meet. And the fact is many of them are now in the position of losing money on their farming operations. In essence, farmers are now in the position of subsidizing the food they grow for consumers. The middlemen, the handling and distribution agencies are doing all right. What's wrong with this picture?
As consumers we just don't want to know about it, don't seem to care about it. What happens when we no longer have sufficient home-grown farm operations that can assure us food supplies domestically? When for some unforeseen reason the food that we import can no longer be feasibly imported?
Who will do the crying then?
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, April 16, 2006
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