> Shoshannah posed this as an "economics of organic agriculture"
> issue. My heart froze when I read that. Solutions to the problem of
> low or suppressed wages for agricultural workers (a reflection of our
> not being able to afford to pay them what they deserve) do not, in my
> mind, include finding someone yet cheaper to do the work. For me,
> that economic view is part of what we in sustag and org-ag are
> fighting. Bottom-line thinking. Profit above all.
>
I was awed by your response. Really, I was. I hesitate to post on this
list because you are all so learned and clearly, deeply involved whereas I
am basically a housewife who wants to start a small farm. That being
said, I often think about the issue of economics in agriculture as I try
to fashion a personal philosophy that is practical while not being
dependent on the exploitation of others. It is often really, really
difficult. Even if you are able to get beyond the constant refrain of
American Society "you are what you buy" it is extraordinarily difficult,
at least it has been for me, to retrain myself to the expectation that I
will actually pay a fair price for those things I buy. I am, and I say
this with some degree of pride, a professional homemaker. I put a great
deal of energy and effort into providing my family with a healthy,
enjoyable diet. I really strive to get value for our money. But therein
lies the rub. If you do not really understand what the value of something
is, then you have no real way of determining what is a fair price. The
same philosophy that promotes the bottom line as the only meaningful goal,
encourages us all to seek the lowest price. I don't how many of you are
familiar with Amy Dacyzyn and her books "The Tightwad Gazette I, II and
III" but she has raised penny pinching to an art form. And their are
bargains to be had. If you put enough time and effort into it you can
easily cut your monthly expenses by a third or more but not:
If you buy organic produce
If you refuse to buy clothing that was produced in sweatshops
If you are unwilling to buy meat that was produced in factories that put
no stock in the humane treatment of animals or make the least effort not
to destroy the environment
If you won't buy products that were made with slave/and or prison labor
etc., etc., etc.,
and this is why, I believe, those people who really promote sustainable
agriculture have such a hard row to hoe (literally and figuratively).
And I am a 'believer'. It has taken me some time but I am really on my
way. We buy 80% of our food from organic sources and my goal is to make
that 100% by the end of this year. We have dropped our meat consumption
by at least 75% and buy virtually no dairy products, those we do buy come
from a local dairy that does not use hormones or antibiotics etc..., I am
not writing all this so that you will all think I'm great but to make this
point: It costs me literally, twice as much to eat this way and that is
because we still economize (I don't buy cold cereal at all anymore, I
really limit the amount of juice and fruit my kids can have etc..). Ala
Amy Dacyszyn, and I am not knocking her, I pretty much got it down to
where I rarely paid more than 99 cents for 1/2 gallon of apple juice. I
am a member of a co-op that orders from Neshaminy Valley and the best
price I can get for organic juice is $3.00 for 1/2 gallon. Not everything
we buy is three times as expensive but much is.
Andy Lee, in his book "Backyard Market Gardening" writes that "Americans
spend roughly 11 percent of their income for food and 12 percent for
entertainment". Growing and selling high value crops is a constant
refrain in every book I've read on this subject. The obvious target of
this sales strategy is the well-to-do yuppie housewife with "more dollars
than sense". Those in the lower economic brackets (who are more likely
paying 1/3 of their income for food) are largely ignored. But in order to
convince people to pay $3.00 for a bottle of juice they are used to
getting for $1.00 (and bear in mind that the bottle $3.00 through our
co-op would probably sell for at least $4.00 in the store) they have to
understand what the real costs are and they have to put aside a feeling of
entitlement that pervades our society.
Most of us CAN afford to pay a fair price for the food we buy. We just
cannot afford to pay those prices and buy all the other things we have
been trained to see either as essential to our comfort or as the measure
of our self worth. But it really takes education to teach people the
value of the food we eat. It takes education to understand the
consequences of the way we do things today, too. But even more than that,
it will take a quantum shift in how we look at other people. And not just
those in agriculture. There are so many people who labor for low wages in
order to make our way of life possible. As long as we are willing to
allow that, then the goal of sustainable agriculture seems out of reach.
I signed onto this list by mistake. I thought it was a farming list. In
the beginning, I discarded most posts unread and would have unsubbed if I
had ever realized the instructions for doing so were at the bottom of each
post. I don't know when or why I started reading them but I learned
things I never, ever dreamed of. I learned about Monsanto and the
Terminator technology. I learned about GE. I've learned so much that
sustains me when I pay those higher prices. And I can pay them without
feeling like a martyr because I have come to an understanding of the
issues involved. I just don't know how those of you who make sustainable
agriculture your life's work are going to get the average American to pay
fair prices and to underwrite the cost for those who truly would not be
able to afford it.
Do you know, I actually worked on a GE project at UC Berkeley? Like most
it had a very noble goal: to identify the gene that some plants have that
enable them to supercool water and transfer it to other plants. I
remember the scorn the graduate students who were running the experiments
heaped on the "ignorant" who objected to a proposed open-air experimental
plot. This was more years ago then I care to remember and I have no idea
what became of it. Truly, I was a peon, gagging as I poured foul smelling
media into petrie dishes under a sterile hood.
> > "There is a free labor source waiting to be tapped."
>
> There is no such thing as free labor--there are people we choose not
> to pay for their labor, or whom we choose to pay little. Labor is
> time and effort. Some people get remunerated for it. Some people
> don't. Farmers are among them. Prisoners are among them. Women.
> Already-poor people.
A great observation. I am not often given to quoting the bible but it
seems appropriate to remember that "the laborer is worthy of his hire".
Sasha
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