Is Food a Commodity?

Commodity

Investopedia: A commodity is a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other commodities of the same type. Commodities are most often used as inputs in the production of other goods or services. The quality of a given commodity may differ slightly, but it is essentially uniform across producers.  Wikipedia: In 1864, in the United States, wheat, corn, cattle, and pigs were widely traded using standard instruments on the Chicago Board of Trade, the world’s oldest futures and options exchange.

Understanding I am going to over simplify, and probably repeat myself, let me approach this topic agreeing that I am not an expert. What I am is just an interested amateur.

Why Does Food As Commodity Matter?

From a capitalist perspective, big Agriculture business has a fiduciary duty to generate profits and shareholders dividends. The influence of money and markets generate innovation, more food to feed everyone, and more jobs. In fact, 1 in 12 USA jobs are related to agriculture. For example, our food system involves: devising and selling propriety seeds, farming equipment, chemical fertilizer companies, actual farming and farm workers, food processing, food transportation, sponsored food research in Universities, marketers, and sales outlets.

From a planet perspective, Earth has nearly 400k plant species, ~300k are edible by us humans. Globally, we eat only ~200 species of plants. Half of our daily nutrients, however, comes from just 3 grasses (corn, wheat, rice). What we grow, how we grow, how we process and transport, cook and eat all matters to the health of our planet, our environment, and us.

From a conservationist perspective, growing food for profit (industrial farming) generally has lead to ruined soils, loss of bio diversity, loss or pollution of water and waterways, introduction of hazardous chemicals, and the extinction of animals, insects, and plants. The UN reports, there are major global warming effects of agriculture, deforestation and other land use, such as harvesting peat and managing grasslands and wetlands. Together, those activities generate about a third of human greenhouse gas emissions, including more than 40% of methane. Their conclusion is that farmlands need to shrink, and forests need to expand to help fight global warming.

From a socialist perspective, it matters because it changes what is a necessity for life, into a means for making money. Profit and greed then become major factors in food production. And over time, big businesses take over small farms and start industrial farming. As history repeatedly shows, greed generally wins in the short term, and health and safety suffers in the long term.

So there are many interests, and various competing stories about food production. (And the Ag + Meat + Dairy businesses have famously well funded and aggressive lobbying efforts.)

History of Foods to Commodity

My simple take on recent history (1940’s to now) is that following World War II, our relationship with food changed. There was:

• an ever growing, human population boom,
• we immigrated from rural to more urban settings,
• coupled with the start of the industrialized agricultural age,
• the onset of large and major corporate farming,
• and organized international food production + distribution.
• As a result, food became a commodity, subject to wall street, big business, and politics.

No matter where you went, tomatoes here tasted and looked like tomatoes there. (That is, tomatoes looked great, but tasted awful; after modification for better transport their taste was lost.) Food was like other household items, mass produced; and, every household Became convinced they needed whatever was being sold. This turned our households into consumers.

Businesses wanted to sell us their food and processed foods so they turned to marketers. Their job was to convince us to use newer, better, more convenient, longer lasting, and “healthier” food stuffs created just for us. (Remember the old paper and magazine ads, featuring a young Pres. Reagan, touting that cigarettes were healthy for us? Great marketing, bad advice, then and now!)

Further, we turned farmers, herders, fishers, and food craftspeople into consumers of goods as well. So much so, they changed their fertilizers, seeds, feed, bought expensive equipment, and changed farming practices.

Governmental Hands Stir the Pot

In the 1930’s the government felt it had to step in to help feed the growing population. Certain foods, soy, corn, wheat, cotton, sugar, diary, and livestock started to receive large subsidies. This governmental action provided cheaper foods so that the 1928 quest of a “chicken in every pot” eventually was realized. The 1930’s also capped a lot of political action regarding farming as a response to World War I, the Great Recession, and Dust Bowl conditions. Of course, once started, the government continued with major policies enacted throughout the decades.

Then in the 1970’s, it culminated in the idea that farms should “get big, or get out.” That idea, supported by policy, left us in 2008 with less than 2 percent of the population … directly employed in agriculture. In 2012, there were 3.2 million farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers and an estimated 757,900 agricultural workers were legally employed in the US (Wikipedia).

Modern farming started to include artificial and cheap pesticides. There was a reduction in certain seeds costs and increased availability. Amazing farming equipment were invented that lead to revised farming techniques. The overall result seemed to be improved amounts of food grown and sold. Our households no longer had to grow our own or be without. In fact, the less we knew about the food we bought and ate, the better. This detachment from our food, and the land and animals that inhabit it, is critical to desensitizing us to harmful food practices.

The ways I see this all happened was:

• Certain foods received government subsidies
• This caught the eye of big business who started buying farms
• So what was grown or not grown was controlled by policy and money
• Because certain crops were grown more there was surplus
• A national/international demand had to be created to buy the food
• Marketing food and creating new food habits became big business
• Cheap food crops and byproducts started showing up in everything
• As Ag corporations grew globally, we were not bound by seasons or locality of food
• Processed foods became dramatic time savers, and were made up of cheap subsidized products and lesser quality foods that could not be sold at premium – a win-win for companies
• Shelf life of food expanded saving consumers money
• US refrigerators (and families) became larger, to store more food
• Every US house had a fridge and freezer, to store even more

This wonderful story led to the increase of food and decrease in overall starvation. But it has a very dark side, as all stories tend to have.

Dark Side of Governmental Subsidies

Subsidies to farmers is in the billions of dollars (great chart on farm subsidies from WaPo.). According to DownSizingGovernment, the money mainly winds up in the hands of a minority of very wealthy people and corporations. They report that subsidies cause a range of economic harms, including overproduction, distorted land use, distorted choice of crops, and inadequate cost control.

Whenever governmental money is involved, DownSizingGovernment reports, so is bureaucratic waste and recipient fraud. One problem is that the government distributes disaster payments in a careless manner, with payments often going to farmers who do not need them. But there is also an international effect, for subsidize farm production … boosts commodity exports, … undermines foreign producers and distorts global trade patterns. 

Farming policies continue to get tweaked and subsidies reviewed with each budget cycle. At some point, during those early decades, there was a change in the US federal farm policies. Where federal money went from being sent directly to farmers in general, started to specifically support a few select crops. So what we now have is billions of dollars in subsidies supporting just a handful of selected foods.

Dark Side of Food History

We started to treat animals brutally, inhumanely, as commodities of walking meat to be sold on the market. Animal meat came pre-butchered and surgically clean and wrapped. Every attempt was made to separate the meat we bought, from the fact that we were consuming animals. (Language shows this, eating cows becomes eating beef, eating baby cows is eating veal, eating pigs becomes eating pork,) Further, we still are consuming animals that are often not only mistreated, but sick and tortured. Even now, some states have laws making it illegal to record what happens at feed lots. MotherJones reports there are “Ag Gag” bills in 9 states.

People started to eat the same foods due to globalization and marketing. For instance only one type (the Cavendish) of banana is now generally grown although there are ~1k banana varieties. Lots of our foods are, in fact, clones (apples, grapes, strawberries, etc.) while bananas are more like twins; Bananas are not a tree but an herb and grown from bulbs. However, my point is all it would take is one disease or pest, and overnight all the bananas we normally eat would be gone. This is the dark side of mono-agriculture.

We now have businesses owning the genetics and seeds. This is the real down side of GMO, the ownership of genetics or seeds for our foods. Variety and open source seeds are critical to being able to overcome disease and pests.

We lost seasonability and knowledge of foods from our areas, so that some people cannot identify the veggies or fruits in stores. Who knows what a turnip, rutabaga, kohlrabi, or celeriac looks or tastes like? Who knows how to cook them?

We started losing cooking skills and knowledge about our food, which in some cases, is tied to our ethnic identities. This is very true with Native American populations, as it is with other recent immigrants; our regional foods are critical to cultural grounding and ethnic identities. (That is one reason I feel so disheartened by seeing fast food joints in every country. What a terrible export the US has created that can drown out native foods, flavors, aromas, and textures.)

Subsidized food is cheap and overused in EVERYTHING. Foods like corn started to show up everywhere and in every conceivable product. They are reformed into plastic wrapping, sweeteners, gas for our cars, batteries, etc. I will write something on corn, it has an amazing story to tell.

We have ruined natural systems with our farming. Water reserves and waterways are drained or polluted. Forests destroyed for farmland or grazing. Sewage and farming waste (mainly from animals and chemical pesticides) are polluting the air, water, and soil. Soils are depleted and barren of all life. In some places, according to the SmithsonianMag, with droughts and depleated soils, there is a return to 1930’a dust bowl conditions.

Our farming has lead to the dwindling diversity of crops, privatization of seeds, loss of insects and animals. As I have said before, we are now at the place where our necessary pollinators are at risk. FAO reports that right now, 75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species. They also state that 6 livestock breeds are being lost each month, and more than 90 percent of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers’ field. Staggering numbers.

It has exposed our poorly designed and run food processing and transportation systems. One result is hunger existing in areas where food is sent, but not received. Not to mention the growing numbers of recalls. This is what I call a “peeing in your own drinking water” tendency humans have.

The dark side, on a personal level, has meant ill health: diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and inflammation. On a global scale it has meant the State Department using food to achieve foreign policy goals. Sometimes this has resulted in inappropriate foods sent to places that cannot eat it (i.e., pork) or grow it (non-drought resistant seeds send to drought areas).

Counter Movements Respond

Greenpeace writes, International food giants like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bunge, Dreyfus, ADM and Cargill dominate virtually every step in the cycle of global food production. They decide the type of seeds we plant, the price of major crops, how they are grown and how they are brought to market. They are the ones that advance the industrial agriculture model that putting an unbearable strain on the planet. As these companies become more and more powerful, they make decisions that benefit their appetite for global dominance, not the health of consumers or the planet.

Before presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed breaking up “big ag,” there were consumers, farmers, and non-profit organizations all responding to the agriculture complex in their own ways.

The Buy Local goals, in terms of food, are to:

• Pursue a growth in farmers markets
• Create community and unity between farmers and consumers
• Reduce long distance and global distribution systems
• Buy locally grown, shorter distanced food
• Buy from family or cooperative farms
• Provide food generally organic or pesticide and preservative free
• Buy seasonal whole foods
• Improve food safety by reducing the number of hands touching it
• Help preserve farmland and farms by local support
• Improve genetic diversity

Farmers themselves started to worry about what they were seeing in their soils (or not seeing is more the case) and started to voice concerns. The UnionOfConcernedScientists argue: ultimately, it is farmers themselves, by adopting sustainable practices, who will turn sustainable agriculture from a movement of forward-thinking innovators into standard operating procedure for U.S. food production. But it is not just farmers that need to worry, herders and fishers need to also start making changes.

We also need to encourage younger people to consider farming. I read that the average age of farmers is now 58-59 years old; we do not want to loose the information they have acquired and lessons they have learned. Making the “return to the land” a smart business and livelihood move that we all need to support.

So Politically What Can We Do?

Support changes to the policies driving Big Ag Business. I want my taxes used wisely, so I support:

• Reduce the subsidies to big enterprise Ag businesses
• Support family farms and cooperatives
• Support surplus foods feeding the hungry in our nation
• Stop subsidizing individual products like corn, dairy, meat, etc.
• Support soil conservation efforts
• Start enforcing clean water ways and water systems/aquifers
• Support soil health
• Plant for food, not high fructose corn syrup or ethanol
• Support organic and humane farming approaches
• Stop feed lot meat production and the industrialization of animals
• Clean up farming waste and sewage
• Support open source seeds initiatives
• Stop chemical fertilizers and favor organic natural fertilization efforts
• Remove inorganic arsenic and “forever chemicals” from food supplies

Personally What Can I Do?

• Do not buy from or invest in companies that do not share my values
• Grow our own and share seeds, plants, and food to keep diversity
• Learn to cook, garden, compost, and make our own
• Buy humanely raised meats, eggs, and dairy
• Modify our yards to support pollinators
• Support local stores and buy at Farmers Markets
• Try differently colored familiar foods and eat in season
• Stop or limit processed foods in our diets

Okay time to get off the soap box and back to cooking.

–Patty

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NEWS: Frozen Avocado was recalled due to listeria concerns. Listeria monocytogenes is a bacteria that, when ingested, can cause a serious and life-threatening infection in pregnant women, newborns, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems. The item recalled is Signature Select Avocado Chunks in 12 oz. bags, with a best before date of October 11, 2020. They were distributed to: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming, Texas, and Utah. The product was sold at: Albertsons, Safeway, Safeway Community Markets, Carrs-Safeway, Eagle, Lucky, Pak N Save, Pavilions, and Vons. Toss immediately or return to store.

Recipe: Added a heavy meat dish from Spain Huevos a la Flamenca and a lighter fish one from Japan Tamari Glazed Bonito Rice.

Article: Japanese Cooking Elements highlights certain food-stuff used in Japanese cooking and some differences between options or alternatives to use. Eventually I will have something like this for each section and each page will grow as I add more recipes.

Tip: Make sure your food tastes good. That means tasting it at various points in the cooking process. Then, have one final taste before plating.This will let you know if you are serving a good dish or not. A cook who does not taste their food will always require salt + pepper seasonings at the table.