Back in October I attended a dinner to promote Michael Pollan’s documentary, The Botany of Desire. Not surprisingly, conversation drifted away from the film and toward Pollan’s more famous work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The author graciously answered questions from the group, discussing the hazards of monoculture, the agri-industrial complex, and the ubiquity of cheap processed food. I listened quietly and was struck by a strange thought. Nearly every one at the gathering (a major donors event for KQED) seemed to agree with Pollan and talked about agriculture as though they owned the issue, while not a single farmer, around whom the whole discussion revolved, was present. It was one-sided to say the least. And that to me is at the heart of the often acrimonious food and farming debate. There is no dialogue between the ag-reform-minded, often urban, ”food” crowd and actual farmers. Instead the two poles of the farming debate spend their time “debating” with like-minded people, preaching to the converted, talking right past each other.
So it was with great pleasure that I stumbled upon a recent article by Los Angeles Times food columnist, Russ Parsons. Finally a nuanced look at the food and farming debate! What immediately won me over was his first point: farming is a business. It’s not altruistic. Most farmers don’t make a whole lot of money anyway. To begrudge them technological advances that might increase their income is to expect a degree of self-sacrifice that is not only unrealistic but also unfair.
This struck home on a personal level this winter when a freeze wiped out part of our mandarin crop. As I’ve said before, there are so many things beyond control in farming: freezes, drought, market conditions. One can understand why a farmer wants to even the odds by using whatever he or she can to boost production, to try to insulate income, as much as possible, from income-killers over which there is no control. In medicine, we call such technological advances progress. In agriculture, they’re called short-sighted or morally wrong.
Now I’m not saying I advocate the status quo, but ag reform is a tough, complex issue. And if some ground rules for dialogue, like those suggested by Parsons, are established, maybe we’ll move beyond acrimony into something more like progress.
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