~ guest blog post by John Coupland
Farmers are essential in our food system, without farmers we would all starve, but farmers don’t make food. There is almost nothing produced on farm that is immediately edible. Post-farm processing can be so minor you scarcely notice – wash the apples, it can be significant but traditional – mill and separate wheat to make bread flour, or it can render the source material unrecognizable – separate the corn starch then digest with enzymes to make HFCS. All of these are food processing and are required to turn farm produce into food that people eat. So what are the connections between the farm and the table? There are many possibilities, but let’s start by following the path taken by most of our food.
Almost all food processing in the developed world is done at an industrial scale. The supermarkets and restaurants we buy most of our food from in turn buy their supplies directly or indirectly from other companies that make it. These companies in turn buy their ingredients from other companies and so on until someone pays the farmer for the produce to feed the cycle. A simple example is tomato ketchup – tomatoes, salt, vinegar and spices. The tomatoes were grown by a farmer, ground and concentrated into paste in one factory then shipped to a second factory to be blended with salt, vinegar and spices, cooked, and bottled as ketchup. Sure, without farmers the food system wouldn’t happen, but the same could be said for the retort operators, truckers, microbiologists, sensory scientists and factory workers.
The system is responsive at one end to the perceived demands of the consumer (and great efforts are made through advertising and public relations to shape those demands.) If people demand cheap food, organic food, “natural” food, local food or anything else, then the amoral forces of capitalism reach back through the food system until the effects are ultimately felt on the farm. In contrast, farmers have little “push” in the other direction. Very little of the retail price of food is due to the cost of raw ingredients and so changes in individual farm efficiency have little effect on the consumer. Similarly “quality” at the farm gate is only important to the immediate purchaser of the produce and is unlikely to have any effect tasted by the consumer. Buyers for the food industry care more that the product is consistent than it is sporadically excellent. (Food safety is another matter. Good agricultural practices contribute to safe food).
The costs and underlying shape of the food system is also affected by changes in regulatory, fiscal or trade policy. Farmers may seek to influence the food system through lobbying or through customer education but in doing so they are in political competition with other interests. There are other food systems, direct farm sales being a notable example, which give the farmer more control. While these can be locally important, the dominant food system feeding 9 billion people will be driven by efficiency. A good place for political engagement by farmers would be to better define what efficiency means.
John Coupland is a Professor of Food Science at Penn State. He was born and educated in England and moved to the U.S. for work. He teaches courses in the chemistry of foods and does research into how fats and oils lead to food texture. He blogs at http://johncoupland.tumblr.com/ Although his spare time is mainly taken up by his family, he manages to maintain his reputation as the worst fisherman in the state of Pennsylvania.
