by Ed Schultz
And people want to complain about a safety net for the people who have helped deliver this economic miracle. The farm folks I know aren’t getting rich. If they were, you’d be paying a hell of a lot more than 9.6 percent.
The cost of subsidies to you? A fraction of a percent of the federal budget. Did you know food stamps, school lunch, and other nutrition programs account for 50 percent of current Farm Bill spending—about $44 billion per year—about what it costs for four months of war in Iraq. While major industry has repressed wages, as poverty has inched upward, the Farm Bill is picking up the slack by feeding poor Americans! The Farm Bill is a poverty buster, though that’s not something you’ll hear from editorial writers in the major newspapers. They focus on the aspects of the Farm Bill that subsidize those who don’t need the help, but in doing so they miss the big picture. Unfortunately, there are always people who will find a way to “game” a program. So no, this program is not perfect, and guys from farm states know it. They know the program is too heavily weighted in favor of Big Ag instead of the traditional family farm.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) have unsuccessfully tried to cap federal payments for farming couples at $250,000 annually. The way the system works now, with slim profit margins, it encourages mega farms. The days when a farmer could make a good living on a few hundred acres are gone. Even “family” farms commonly extend over thousands of tillable acres. One of the downsides of the current system is a shrinking of rural communities and a waning of the work ethic and family values that spring from such communities. Still, for now, fewer farmers producing more bushels does mean lower grocery bills for us all.
THE MERITS OF SMALL FARMS VS. BIG AG
When it comes to the safety and security of our food supply, we are much more secure with a vast network of small, independent producers than we are trusting big corporations. There’s an old adage: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” and there’s wisdom in that statement.
Late in 2008, the nation’s largest poultry producer declared bankruptcy. Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, with 25 percent of the market share, filed Chapter 11 because of high overhead, weak market conditions, and a heavy debt load. Pilgrim’s Pride supplies Kentucky Fried Chicken, operates thirty-five chicken processing plants and eleven prepared-food plants. Although the company continues to operate, its bankruptcy casts a shadow on the security of our food supply. Two companies—Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride—produce about half of the chickens in America today. To borrow a phrase from the financial crisis, they have become too big to fail.
In the crowded Big Ag conditions that produce a chicken for slaughter in four to six weeks, disease could wipe out millions of birds pretty quick. Birds are genetically engineered just as crops are for disease resistance and quick growth, but what happens if a disease mutates and kills them all? There’s something to be said for the diversity that family farms have traditionally ensured.
We all realize that there are efficiencies in large corporations, but when it comes to something as personal and important as the food we put into our bodies, we ought to expend every effort to maintain a healthy supply, and that means supporting the independent producer. People seem to be gravitating in that direction. We see more farmers’ markets springing up. More and more, city dwellers look for ways to buy meat on the hoof. There’s a certain comfort that comes from knowing how an animal was raised and processed.
The turkeys I see in the wild in western North Dakota bear little resemblance to the birds sold in stores, which have such large breasts they are actually too fat to breed by conventional means and are propagated through artificial insemination. However, “heritage” breeds are making a comeback. These varieties are typically tastier and bear a closer resemblance to wild turkeys.
As a sportsman, I can tell you that a wild goose, duck, pheasant, grouse, partridge, or turkey makes a far better meal than anything I can find from a factory farm.
PROFIT TRUMPS FOOD SAFETY
As the poultry industry has consolidated, the incidence of food-borne illnesses has increased. A North Carolina State University study found that eight of every ten poultry carcasses in North Carolina were positive for campylobacter, one of the most frequent sources of food-borne illness in people and a leading cause of death from such illness.
According to the World Health Organization, “in industrialized countries, the percentage of the population suffering from food-borne diseases each year has been reported to be up to 30 percent. In the United States of America (USA), for example, around 76 million cases of food-borne diseases, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, are estimated to occur each year” (emphasis mine).
That’s astonishing. The American dinner table has become more dangerous than a war zone. This is happening in industrialized countries! Plain and simple, it’s because profit has begun to trump food safety and consumer protection. Take for instance COOL, the country of origin labeling legislation, which was passed in 2002. COOL would label foods so consumers could decide if they wanted an American steak or one from Canada, where there have been well-publicized incidents of mad cow disease. But bureaucratic and legislative stall tactics have delayed the implementation of these rules. Why? Big conglomerates think it would hurt their business if you knew where your food originated.
Without COOL, American food conglomerates can buy cheap food overseas, which leverages down the price American producers can get for their produce. But knowing that food safety oversight is even more lacking in some countries other than in our own, shouldn’t we, as consumers, be accorded the basic respect of knowing where the food on our plates came from?
Do I think mad cow is a serious issue in Canada? No. But I ought to be able to decide if I want to buy American, Mexican, or Australian beef. Good grief, I know my boxer shorts come from China, but don’t have a clue about my T-bone!
The monopolization of the food industry by just a few corporations is chilling. It drives small producers out of business and puts the control of our food supply in the hands of just a few. In 2005, Smithfield, Tyson, Swift & Company, and Cargill owned nearly 64 percent of the hog market. Also, according to 2005 statistics, Tyson, Cargill, Swift & Company, and National Beef Packing slaughtered 84 percent of the cattle in the United States.
It’s not a stretch to suggest that that kind of market share creates an opportunity to manipulate prices. A cattlemen’s watchdog group, R-CALF, sued Tyson, but after a federal jury ruled for the cattlemen, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the verdict. In June 2009, Tyson, in what R-CALF says was an effort to intimidate, sought attorneys’ fees from Herman Schumacher, a Herreid, South Dakota, cattleman, who led the lawsuit against Tyson. Schumacher, who refused to pay, returned home one day to find U.S. marshals seizing his property.
Schumacher says the official edict taped on his door by the marshals was a warning to any other rancher with the notion to stand up against violations of the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, which prohibits packers from engaging in “unfair and deceptive practices, manipulating prices, creating a monopoly or conspiring to aid in unlawful acts.” In our justice system, deep pockets win out. The rich and the big corporations use the courts to financially bully enemies into submission.
Of the Four Pillars, Feeding the Country is the most important one. Nothing else happens unless the people are fed. Americans have become accustomed to low prices and overall high safety standards, but consolidation and market manipulation have eroded both. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has seemingly looked the other way—in part because urban Americans don’t grasp what is at stake. But I have no doubt that unless we challenge these food monopolies now, we will regret it later.
While it is easy to eat cheap in America, it isn’t cheap to eat healthy. I’ve heard some commentators cite obesity rates as evidence that Americans are doing well. It’s quite the opposite. Inexpensive prepackaged, starchy, corn syrup–laden products fill our supermarket shelves, and t
hat has led to increases in obesity, diabetes, and other life-threatening ailments. Healthy fruits, vegetables, meats, and whole grain breads cost more than many people can afford. According to a study by Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington, a healthy two-thousand-calorie diet could cost almost 10 times as much as one comprised of junk food. Meanwhile, it takes more junk food to feel satisfied, so people quite predictably overeat. A Scripps Research Institute study concludes that the brain responds to junk food just as it does to heroin.
Little Debbie is dealing smack? And she seemed like such a nice girl.
I don’t see any way that we can completely solve our health care crisis without improving the way we eat, an improvement that could take generations of education. And we need to make sure we have food security. A diverse network of small producers is essential, and we ought to support the legislation that will help make that possible. As long as other countries subsidize their farmers, it is only fair that we afford ours a level playing field.
We have seen what unfair trade does to America. Unfair trade began as a shift of our manufacturing base to other countries. If we allow our market to become flooded with cheaper food from other countries, as we do other goods, this may seem great for the consumer in the short haul, but it will drive farmers off the land and destabilize our ability to feed the nation. We must never allow ourselves to be dependent on imports to feed our citizens.
In a perfect world, American farmers could compete handily, with no trade barriers, but Europe is in no hurry to give up subsidies for their farmers. Expect subsidies to continue but to be slowly reduced globally.
In the meantime, it is in our best interest to find new trading partners. Cuba, a country I broadcast from during an agricultural trade mission, is an obvious candidate. Healthy trade won’t necessarily damage relationships internationally; it could actually go a long way toward settling tensions in some corners of the world.
Pillar #4: Educate the People
Later in this book I will make the case that health care should be a basic right for every American. I feel the same way about education. I don’t believe economic circumstances should dictate whether any American has the opportunity to go to college.
As the son of a teacher and as a student who was bused to the slums of Norfolk, Virginia, for high school, I have seen different aspects of the educational spectrum. In many classrooms, students are thriving, but in others, we are failing them miserably. When we fail to educate all of our children, our society begins to fail. Education in America is a crisis that really is not talked about enough.
When we fail to keep students in school, they end up on the streets and become part of what Marian Wright Edelman, one of the leading children’s advocates in the world, calls the “cradle to prison syndrome.” Her website, childrensdefense.org, states, “Nationally, 1 in 3 Black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime…. States spend about three times as much money per prisoner as per public school pupil.”
The fact is, and I’ve seen it, poor kids don’t get the same breaks other kids do.
Poverty becomes a cycle of hopelessness from one generation to the next, and as a country we ought to be grappling with the fact that the richest country on earth has one of the highest poverty levels of any industrialized nation. According to a government report, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, nearly one in five American children was living in poverty in 2007.
There’s no silver bullet solution to such pervasive poverty and lack of opportunity, but part of the solution is addressing the disintegration of the American family and the poverty that is closely related to single-parent households.
Let’s connect the dots. Birth certificate records show 40 percent of the babies born in America in 2007 were born to single mothers. Meanwhile, the National Commission on Children reports that three out of four children from single-parent families will experience poverty before they turn eleven, and the Department of Health and Human Services says that fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. No government program is going to solve this—however, better employment opportunities can. And as a society we need to have a national discussion about the importance of families. The concept of family isn’t an anachronism, it is a cornerstone of society. I know some people will naturally bristle because this has been a right wing bullet point for so long, but it’s time for us to take back the issue. Those right wingers like to talk a good game. Let’s play a good game by at least creating a social and educational framework that allows people from all social strata to succeed.
Now let’s look at schools themselves.
It’s no secret that primary education in America lags in comparison with many other industrialized countries. In eighth-grade math skills, according to a 2007 USA Today report, our best performing state, Massachusetts, with 51 percent of the students proficient, was well behind Singapore (73 percent), Hong Kong (68 percent), Korea (65 percent), Taiwan (61 percent), and Japan (57 percent). When given the choice, most high school students opt out of Advanced Math, Physics, and Science, says the National Science Foundation. That lack of enthusiasm suggests that there is something terribly wrong with the way we are teaching our kids.
In some cases, it is the teachers. Every school has a teacher who cannot teach but who keeps hanging on because no one has the guts to deal with the issue. By and large, I support teachers unions, but let’s get real. Not every teacher is competent or worth defending. The stakes are too high to allow inept teachers to retain their positions. For children, these years from elementary school through high school are their only chance to learn to read and write. For every bad teacher allowed to remain in place, hundreds of children lose the opportunity of a lifetime. You, as a member of a school board or as an involved patron of the school district, can play a huge role in supporting great teachers and not renewing poor ones. When it comes to education, grassroots efforts can make a dramatic difference.
THE TEXTBOOK DUMB DOWN
A 2006 MSNBC.com report by correspondent Alex Johnson touches on an issue most people don’t know about or consider—the sorry state of textbooks. More than ever, just as agenda-driven networks too often tell their viewers what they want to hear, so do textbook publishers, who must appeal to school boards filled with religious zealots on one extreme and granola-munching atheists on the other. When you consider that Texas and California control one third of the textbook market purchases, you can begin to imagine how these textbooks are being crafted to sell to school boards.
The textbook industry has consolidated to the point that there are now just the Big Four—Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Reed Elsevier, and Houghton Mifflin. Consolidation to that extent is never good, because when you don’t have to compete, you don’t have to get better. Profit then matters more than performance. When capitalism allows monopolies to form unchecked, you get the same kind of stagnation you find with unchecked socialism. Ironic.
Diane Ravitch, a senior official in the Department of Education who served Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, said, “[Textbooks] are sanitized to avoid offending anyone who might complain at textbook adoption hearings in big states, they are poorly written, they are burdened with irrelevant and unedifying content, and they reach for the lowest common denominator.”
Monopolies are changing the way we live and think. What’s the solution in education?
POLITICS IN THE CLASSROOM
It seems to me that our schools have become an ideological battleground, places in which being politically correct is more important than being correct. I am a student of history, but most of the real history I have learned has come through my own research. No one taught me in high school that the CIA under Eisenhower helped overthrow the government in Iran in 1953. When you know that, you begin to understand why the Iranian people overthrew the shah. Instead, when American hostages were taken, we had a huge story with no perspective. In a sense, textbooks have been cheerlead
ers for America, more concerned with the political correctness of the day than with objective facts.
Today, a conservative group of shrill Christian fundamentalists have become the new know-nothings. They don’t want evolution taught in the schools despite millions of years of fossils and other scientific evidence, which they feel contradicts the Bible. Polar caps are melting around us, yet climate change doubters abound—and affect what children are learning in school. Information has become so political that we are endangering our futures by withholding crucial facts from students. (I just didn’t understand how my belief in climate change could be liberal until Stephen Colbert famously quipped at a 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”)
I have a friend whose fifth-grade son’s dim-witted teacher told the class the Iraq War was in retaliation for 9/11. When the boy correctly insisted that no Iraqis had been on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, he was “corrected.” So he went home, researched on the Internet, and handed the proof to the teacher the next day. Not surprisingly, the boy did not do well in her class. During student-teacher conferences, this first-year teacher told the boy’s parents the key to their son’s academic performance was church, a statement you can well imagine they took like a poke in the eye.
Must we really incorporate religion into science and succumb to political pressure to include creationism in the curriculum? My faith is strong enough that I don’t feel threatened by an atheist point of view. I look in wonder at the sky at night, and I have to believe something greater than I created it.
Must we constantly fight parental efforts to ban certain books? Why do we fear that “thoughts” might somehow infect our children? That shows a complete lack of faith in one’s parenting skills. The politicization of the classroom reached a ridiculous high when President Obama sought to address America’s students in 2009. The political blowback from the right wingers was so intense that many schools chose not to allow students to hear Obama’s remarks, to avoid controversy.
