EAT AND ACT YOUR POLITICS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 174

While many good-food organizations like the ones above are using traditional and online organizing to
urge political intervention, others are focused primarily on developing local and alternative food systems.
These local food initiatives are extremely valuable for farmers and eaters to “build community” and to
educate a broad range of people about food issues. However, it is doubtful that a wide-reaching alternat-
ive food system that serves a broad segment of the population and replaces the dominant model can be
achieved through local initiatives alone. Despite the value and worth of these efforts, addressing the needs
of a large share of the American population will take fundamental structural changes.
The USDA has documented that although direct marketing through CSAs and farmers' markets is grow-
ing, it tends to be isolated to urban markets. While the $4.8 billion in sales is impressive, it is very small
in comparison to the $1,229 trillion in sales of conventional foods. Furthermore, only farmers who live in
close proximity to a population center really have a way to participate in a direct sales market. Half of all
farms that sell directly to consumers are located near metropolitan areas, whereas two thirds of all farms
are rural with no nearby urban population.
This speaks to the difficulty that farmers in sparsely populated regions face in trying to shift from grow-
ing commodity crops to vegetables or fruit. Rural commodity farmers do not have access to a distribution
network for their products in a food system where distribution is controlled by the consolidated grocery
industry. In most cases, farmers do not have a climate or growing conditions that allow them to compete
with California or the globalized produce market. They do not even own or have access to the equipment
available to seriously enter into the produce growing business.
Reforming the dysfunctional food system must go further than offering direct sales opportunities or
building food hubs. It requires food activists to involve themselves in organizing for political change. We
must build the political power to take back our democracy and our food system.
Michele Knaus, president of Friends of Family Farms (FoFF), says that her organization is using mul-
tiple approaches in Oregon to change the food system, including education, advocacy, and grassroots or-
ganizing. FoFF is working on the problems farmers have today, with an eye for making major changes in
the future. As an organization that has built a strong and united voice for independent family farmers and
eaters, FoFF has already been able to pass legislation in the Oregon legislature that makes it easier for pro-
ducers to sell and process local food in the state.
Knaus says, “The legislative victories we had this year will make it possible for small farmers to process
chicken on their farm and to sell jams, jellies, and other food products made from the fruits and veget-
ables they grow. This is just a first step in a much larger legislative agenda to create a viable food system.
Eaters are realizing that they are stakeholders in agriculture policy. When eaters join farmers, their collect-
ive voice gets the attention of legislators from urban and rural areas alike and demonstrates how integral
agriculture is to our local economies.”
Rural sociologist Mary Hendrickson believes that creating alternative food systems that benefit the
community and urging political action must both be pursued. Hendrickson, who along with her colleague
Bill Heffernan was among the first academics to research and disseminate information about the extreme
concentration of the food industry, says that reforming antitrust law is key, but there is an important place
for creating local food systems, too. She notes, “We have used our special 'standpoint' as land-grant uni-
versity researchers and extension educators working out of the University of Missouri to illustrate the size
and scope of the corporations involved in this global food system, and to help farmers understand these
companies' strategies.”
Hendrickson says that simply reporting on the data without providing a framework for understanding
how change can come about disempowers people. With this in mind, she began working with the Kansas
City Food Circle (KCFC) in 1994, using a pragmatic approach as an extension agent to help create an al-
ternative community food system. KCFC's roots are in an initiative put together by the Greater Kansas