How our subsidies and trade deals enabled the broken globalized food system (interview with christopher d. Cook of diet for a dead planet)
Christopher D. Cook (@chrsdcook) is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of the acclaimed book Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis.
His writing has appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, The Economist, The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other national publications.
In this podcast episode, Christopher sheds light on how our subsidies, trade deals, and policies have incentivized the inefficiencies and nonsensical back-and-forth trades in our modern, globalized food system; why politics can actually be very unifying when we examine the real issues that the majority of the people are facing today; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Christopher and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Mountain Twin by Joel Porter (@JoelPorterMusic)
“The U.S. agriculture system has flooded foreign markets and dominated foreign markets to the point where they’ve decimated local agricultural production and made it impossible for some small farmers in other parts of the world.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological balance, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app to stay informed and updated on our latest episodes.
On how government subsidies have shaped the food industry:
"The vast majority of [our subsidies for farmers] go to the production of just a handful of commodity crops, such as different grains like wheat, soy, and corn. Cotton and grapeseed oil are often on the list as well.
These commodity crops are not really eaten—they're part of the processed food system, and they're also centrally part of the meat industry and livestock production.
What you also see is that the vast majority of the subsidy dollars (i.e. taxpayer dollars) are going to a small portion of the largest farmers because they groow the most acreage and the most crop volume, so they're getting most of the subsidies.
Environmental Working Group has done some great research on this, and people can look up some of the data there if they want. I have a lot of data in my book about the history of the subsidy system, how we got to where we are today, and the incredible inequities in the subsidy system that again, is going to the largest, wealthiest farmers, and also to these crops that are essentially about meat production, dairy production, and fuels (e.g., ethanol production).
We're not even really subsidizing food production, and we're not subsidizing the things that I would argue are urgently essential for food as well as for farmers, our health, and the environment: to subsidize smaller-scale, local, and regionally-oriented agriculture that is organic and with a whole set of practices that have been proven for decades—sometimes centuries—to be ecologically smart and sustainable."
On how U.S. policies have impacted the global food system:
"Between the formula of heavy-duty export of American agriculture and farm products as well as a history of food aid and food assistance abroad from the U.S. (another thing that sounds great but has some real problems with it), what's happened is that the U.S. agriculture system has, in many cases, flooded foreign markets and dominated foreign markets to the point where they've decimated local agricultural production and made it impossible for some small farmers in other parts of the world, causing parts of the less economically developed world to really struggle.
So you see, for instance, the impact of NAFTA, which is still largely in effect. Even though there's been some recent talk of changes, these changes don't happen overnight. The NAFTA policies have been incredibly harmful to farmers in Mexico and Central America by really prying open markets in Mexico and Central America to American industrial agriculture.
And these are not markets that smaller, organic American farmers are accessing, by and large. This is really about Cargill, Monsanto to some extent, and Archer Daniels Midland, as well as some of these other big corporations. They are flooding these markets throughout Mexico and Central America with cheap, subsidized American corn and maybe some soy as well.
What that's done is really wreck life and the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of farmers in Mexico and Central America, whose livelihoods depended on corn.
Many of them went out of business; many of them ended up fleeing poverty and desperation to come to the United States. And now we're having all this scapegoating and immigrant-bashing, even though the United States has played a big role in creating that economic desperation that's caused so many to come north to the United States."
On what the human realities show us about the types of policies we need in the U.S.:
"People talk about right and left, and we get caught up in this idea of ‘right and left.’ But if we talk about actual human realities on the ground—people's daily lives, what they're dealing with—what the data and human stories show us is that nearly half the country lives paycheck to paycheck, even with the so-called economic boom.
We have about 4% of official unemployment, but it's really said to be closer to 8% or 9% in real unemployment because so many have given up looking for jobs and are not actively participating in the workforce. And tens of millions of Americans with no more than $400 in savings—one crisis away from poverty or homelessness.
You're seeing massive indebtedness from the student loan crisis and from medical debts from healthcare costs. And then you've got millions of people who still don't have healthcare coverage, even after the Affordable Care Act.
When you look at those human realities and surveys and polls over time, more and more people are showing strong support for transformative programs such as Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare, and a Green New Deal.
Surveys are showing up to 80% support for a Green New Deal; more than half of Republicans are even supporting some form of a Green New Deal. There's also very high support for Medicare for All.
It's gone down a little during the elections because most of the center-right Democrats have been bashing it—opportunistically, I would say. That's really unfortunate because they know that you can't just have a 'Medicare for All who want it' or 'Medicare Choice' because that changes the equation and changes the risk pools.
They know how this stuff works: They know that they're protecting these profits and these corporate interests (of the insurance and pharmaceutical industry) and a structure that is totally destructive and unsustainable.
Meanwhile, again, beyond left and right, you just have human reality. Part of what we have to do is converse with people who are in those situations who we might disagree with somewhat, and try to have more of these extended conversations where we can talk about and empathize with their reality or their suffering—whether it's an economic crisis, indebtedness, health issues, etc.
They know they need something—they need help."
Final words of wisdom:
"Let's keep our eyes not only on the latest news, the crisis, and the anecdotes, but really on the fundamental underlying system that has created this havoc and harm—capitalism and corporate power over our economy and our politics.
We're not going to really make a sustainable shift until we change those power relations into a system that is politically, economically, and ecologically more equitable and more sustainable.
These systems are fundamentally interrelated and interconnected. The crisis, as well as the solutions, come from looking at the system itself.”
