Big Ag Won’t Feed the World

Back in March, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack spoke at an event called the Commodity Classic in Tampa, Fl. Sponsored by agribusiness giants Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta, John Deere, Dow AgroSciences, Dupont, Syngenta, and Archer Daniels Midland, among...

June 14, 2011 | Source: Mother Jones | by Tom Philpott

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Back in March, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack spoke at an event called the Commodity Classic in Tampa, Fl. Sponsored by agribusiness giants Monsanto, BASF, Syngenta, John Deere, Dow AgroSciences, Dupont, Syngenta, and Archer Daniels Midland, among others, the event hails itself as the “premier national trade show and convention for corn, soy, wheat and sorghum farmers.”

According to an account in the trade journal Agri-Pulse, Vilsack spoke “with sometimes evangelistic fervor.” He thundered against critics of corn-based ethanol, reiterated the Obama administration’s goal of doubling US farm exports by 2014 by ramming open foreign markets, and praised the assembled farmers and agribusiness flacks for their record of “ensuring affordable food for US families,” Agri-Pulse reported. The former governor of Iowa ended his speech on an evem more flattering note: “The farmers in this room have provided the prescription that this nation must follow to get itself back totally on its feet … You should never ever bet against the American farmer because if you do, it’s a losing bet.” The audience roared its approval.

The ag secretary was essentially promoting an agribusiness-as-usual vision of farm policy: maximum production of a few commodity crops, mainly to be used to fatten confined animals, create cheap sweeteners and fats, and fill gas tanks. He did so amid much rhetoric about “jobs,” the Agri-Pulse account shows. But that’s ludicrous. The modern food system lionized by Vilsack has been a massive net destroyer of jobs. And the fixation on doubling US ag exports can’t be good news for farmers in the global south, who struggle to compete with their highly capitalized US peers. Ever get a threatening phone call from your ISP? You might as well be their employee, rather than the reverse. Ever get a DMCA takedown notice? Ever have a website taken down by your host in response to an unsubstantiated complaint? Welcome to “our free market system.”

Remember the Pinkertons, uniformed private thugs the bosses used to hire to bust union organizers’ heads? Now Monsanto hires them to snoop around private farms, testing farmers’ crops to see if they contain any genetic material from engineered seeds under patent. The Runyons, an Indiana farm family, were invaded in 2008 by Monsanto’s hired goons in response to an “anonymous tip” that their farm hosted Roundup-ready soybeans.  Sounds almost like – ahem – the Drug War, doesn’t it?