Despite the current critical focus on our carbon footprints, and the ever-increasing calls for a ‘greener’ America, you might be surprised to discover just how much fossil fuel is being expended on the production of the food you consume. According to Michael Pollen, a professor of journalism at UC Berkley, and author of several best selling books about food and the environment, pesticides, fertilizers, feed, production, packaging, and transportation make the food system second only to automobiles in fossil fuel consumption in the American economy. In October, Pollen published an open letter to the president elect in the New York Times Magazine, urging him to change the way we produce food in America, or face serious consequences to both our economy and our environment.

Pointing the finger at farms and farmers may not be as easy or accurate as you might think, either. Since 1971, when Richard Nixon commissioned Earl Butts, the Secretary of Agriculture, to devise a way to bring down rising food prices, the government has been encouraging farmers to exclusively grow industrial mono-crops like corn, soy and wheat, instead of diversified crops and foods by offering hefty farm subsidies as motivation.

Farms are difficult businesses in which to maintain profitability, and so the incentive to stay out of the ‘red’ at the expense of remaining ‘green’ took precedent.

Following the introduction of Secretary Butts plan in the early 1970’s, huge agro-businesses have increasingly made competition nearly impossible for the average small farm. Eventually these behemoth companies began buying up smaller farmers’ lands and businesses, many of which had been family-run for generations. It was the beginning of the demise of regional produce economies in the United States.

The key component to Butts’ plan was based on incentives for farmers of certain crops. Consequently, fields that used to be rotated between grassland cattle meadows and annually varying crops, are now dedicated to one or possibly two heavily subsidized crops such as corn, wheat, or soy, and no longer utilize the natural organic fertilizer provided by farms animals. There are no farm animals. That old, time-tested, practice of crop and livestock rotation was a natural technique in replenishing essential soil nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous, while inhibiting pests that cannot survive beyond the single mono-culture each one typically attacks. Instead now, industrial fertilizers requiring large amounts of oil or natural gas in their production and composition are substituted. Petroleum-based pesticides also replace their organic equivalents, providing yet another method of dumping oil onto the land and into the environment, while hiding behind the veils of ‘modern technology’ and ‘progress’.

And just where did those cows, and pigs and chickens go, anyway? They went to huge feedlots, or ‘factory farms’. Technically listed as ‘farms’, they aren’t held to the clean air and water standards that many industrial factories, or even cities are required to meet. Some feedlots produce as much animal waste as cities the size of Dallas, Phoenix, or Philadelphia (roughly, 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 people) produce human waste. Much of that untreated waste is ultimately sequestered in huge reservoirs, and produces enormous quantities of greenhouse gasses (methane, nitrous oxide, etc), which contribute heavily to global warming. That highly concentrated waste can leach into the aquifers beneath those feed lots as well, and causes serious health problems far beyond the boundaries of those businesses. How do these ‘animal farms’ deal with the unavoidable risks of diseases from that concentrated waste and other illnesses common to livestock? Antibiotics are introduced into the animals’ food and water. The problem is, that many of those antibiotics are used in humans as well. The results are the creation of powerful antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases, and immunity to those same antibiotics in many of the humans that regularly consume meat from those factory-farmed animals.

The industrial demand for corn and soy have not only become essential in the modern American diet, but have also arguably contributed to a myriad of health problems ranging from obesity and diabetes to allergies, infertility and depression. Just go to your favorite fast food restaurant and order a burger, fries and soft drink. The amounts of high fructose corn sweetener in the beverage and bread products, combined with the fries cooked in soy oil, and topped of by steroid and antibiotic charged meats produced in huge feed lots, are enough to start you on your way toward chronic health problems, as well as giving you a carbon footprint that can be seen from space.

Is it more difficult to eat healthier? By today’s ‘fast food standards’ the answer is ‘yes’. It can be a little more expensive and time consuming too. But in the long run, the health benefits outweigh the inconvenience factor. Healthy foods can be cooked in advance and actually save the consumer in both food costs and health-care expenses. It may well be a cultural retrofit that American society needs in order to begin addressing long-term health issues, which are currently on the rise.

The skyrocketing prices of fossil fuels in the past year have forced many companies to re-evaluate their business strategies. For example, growers of broccoli in California used to pay approximately $3/crate to ship their product across the country to markets in NY. But the current surge in fossil fuel costs has more than tripled that price to over $10/crate. Some of those broccoli farmers have seen the writing on the wall, and begun to purchase farmland in New England. Broccoli and carrots are only two of the crops designated as ‘specialty foods’ and not covered under the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Bill, which sets the guidelines for farm subsidies. Because of this, cost is a very serious concern for these farmers. In addition, if you’re growing a subsidized crop and you also grow these ‘specialty foods’ you will lose your subsidy and get a hefty fine to boot. Consequently, much of our produce is imported from as nearby as Mexico and as far away as China, all because of cost. Resultantly, a lot has to change to encourage our current food system to ‘go green’ on the ledger sheet, before we see any real difference in the environment.

The recent fervor over ‘green’ or ‘bio’ fuels also exceeds realistic hopes and expectations, at least at present. It’s estimated that 20% to 30% of the corn grown in the US is now utilized in the production of ethanol. Sounds promising, right? But also it turns out that the same demand for more corn to be grown, has contributed to food, cost increasing by 30% to 40% this year. ‘But it’s green energy’, you say. Well that’s where it gets a little hinkey.

It still takes about half a gallon of oil to produce one bushel of corn. But then, it takes an additional gallon of oil to produce a mere 1.2 gallons of ethanol. Don’t forget the bonus to that formula, which is yet another source of greenhouse gasses. That may be ironic, but on the bright side, at least it’s fashionably ‘green’ irony. So until there is so much bio fuel available that we can use it to replace that gallon and a half of oil, necessary to produce and then transform that single bushel of corn into 1.2 gallons of ethanol… well, you do the math. Right now, it’s a snake eating its’ tail.

The oil companies are not going to go gently into that green night, either. They have a considerable interest in oil consumption increasing, not decreasing. The answer? It may well be the same kind of government regulation that created farm subsidy incentives thirty-seven years ago, in order to operate in the motivated fashion in which they do today. Incentives for energy companies to heavily invest in alternative energy may be one of many necessary solutions. But the one thing that hasn’t changed about farming is, that just like ‘energy’, it is still a business. And when it comes to business, just like the environment, it’s all about ‘green’.

By Dennis J Gleason