Eating in America: At What Cost?

The pleasures of the table also beget responsibilities—to one another, to the animals we eat, to the land and to the people who work it. It follows that food that is healthy in every way will cost us more, in time and money, than we pay now. But when we have learned what the real costs of food are, and relearned the real rewards of eating, we will have laid a foundation for not just a healthier food system but a healthier 21st Century democracy. - Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse restaurant, writing in The Nation, August 2006 A small dairy farm in western Maryland. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture defines ''small farms'' as those averaging $50,000 or less in gross sales annually--which net, on average, $23,159. © Scott Bauer / U.S. Dept. of Agriculture The distance from farm to table has grown vast. The food chain for the 21st Century runs from farmers to manufacturers to distributors to wholesale markets to retailers and, finally, to consumers. It involves a wide range of people including those working on farms, marketing professionals, multinational corporate executives, regulators, supermarket owners, and government officials, among many others. In reality, the farmers themselves now play a very small role in this mix. Multinational companies like Cargill, which has close to 150,000 employees in 63 countries, dominate the market for processing, packaging, and distributing food. In the United States alone, the agribusiness industry accounts for nearly one fifth of the gross national product and employs close to one fourth of the labor force. Some economists and business leaders assert that feeding the world’s 6+ billion people—or the 300 million people that live in the United States—requires an ability to get the most food at the lowest cost to the most people. To accomplish this, large supply networks have developed to increase economic efficiency and lower costs. But a growing number, particularly in the United States and other more affluent parts of the world, are beginning to see that the conventional food system ignores many environmental and social costs, shuts out rural producers, and that the food produced often has limited nutritional value. As such, movements toward buying organic, buying local, and savoring well-prepared, fresh food have become increasingly popular. Page 1 - Eating in America: At What Cost? Page 2 - A Closer Look at Food Miles Page 3 - High Fructose Corn Syrup and Other Processed Foods Page 4 - The Future of Organics Page 5 - The Slow Food Movement PERSPECTIVES HOME: Farm to Table

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