ISEC’s Local Food Toolkit
– Factsheet –
ISEC’s Local Food Toolkit describes how the globalization of the food supply—supported by government policies—has been disastrous for consumers, farmers, local economies, and the environment. We also outline the many benefits of shifting course and supporting local food systems instead. This supplemental fact sheet provides a range of statistics supporting the Toolkit’s arguments, and debunking some of the myths of global food.
Global Food and the Environment
Biodiversity
- Over 75% of the planet’s agricultural biodiversity has already been
lost. 1
- 90% of the crop varieties that were grown a century ago are no longer commercially
produced. 2
- Each year genetic diversity in crops decreases by 2% worldwide; the number
of livestock breeds decreases by 5%. 3
- 9 crops supply 75% of the world’s food, and 3 crops provide 50%. 4
- 1/2 the vegetable servings eaten in the US in 1996 came from only 3 vegetables:
lettuce (mostly iceberg), potatoes, and tomatoes. 5
- In the last 80 years, the number of produce varieties produced on at least
1% of Iowa farms has fallen from 24 to 4. 6
Food Miles and Global Warming
- Global warming is already underway. Temperatures in Antarctica have risen
2.5o C in the last 50 years—causing the recent collapse of two ice shelves
over 1,000 square miles in area 7—and the North Pole
melted last year, for the first time in 50 million years. 8
- The global food system is one of the single most important causes of increased
greenhouse gases 9; in the US it accounts for almost a fifth
of the nation’s energy consumption. 10
- Per capita, the US uses more energy for food production, processing and
distribution than Asia and Africa use for all activities combined. 11
- The typical plate of food in the U.S. has traveled 1,500 miles from source
to table, 22% more than in 1980. 12
- International trade in agriculture has increased 70% since 1990, 200% since
1980, and 1800% since 1970 (a 19 fold increase). 13
- Domestic transportation of grain products doubled between 1978 and 1995
while consumption remained constant 14 ; agricultural products
now account for close to 1/3 of all domestic freight transportation. 15
Air Pollution
- Factory farms, especially intensive livestock operations, have been associated
with air pollution—including release of ammonia nitrogen—and impact
neighboring communities with problems ranging from respiratory illnesses to
declining property values. 16
- Factory farming of animals is responsible for 30% of acid rain in Netherlands. 17
Water Pollution and Waste
- Irrigation practices in the US so wasteful - accounting for a full 2/3 of
all groundwater used 18- that millions of acres of farmland
must be abandoned each year due to salinization. 19
- Hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22
states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. 20
- Abnormally high levels of nitrates have been found in 10% of the drinking
wells near hog and chicken operations. 21
- In 1999, a large waste lagoon burst and dumped 22 million gallons of hog
waste into North Carolina’s New River—that’s twice the quantity
of oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez. 22
- In 2002, Cargill—one of the world’s largest agribusinesses—was
charged with illegally dumping hog waste through valves and holding ponds
into Missouri’s Loutre river, contaminating five miles of the river
and killing 53,000 fish. 23
Erosion
- Since World War II, 37% of the world’s cropland has been eroded 24,
and topsoil is currently being destroyed 17 times faster than it can be regenerated. 25
- The UN Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that 140 million hectares
(350 million acres) of high quality soil will be gone by 2010, mostly from
the food-short regions of Africa and Asia. 26
Genetic Engineering
- The impacts of GE documented so far include damage to vital organs and the
immune system, increased pesticide resistance in insects and weeds, and DNA
transfer to non-engineered varieties. 27
- 75% of all GE crops worldwide are grown in the US. 28
- Over half of all cotton and soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified.
Over four dozen GE foods are now being grown or sold in the US 29 and several dozen more are in the final stages of development. 30
- Most processed food items in the US now have GE ingredients. 31
- Research has shown GE potatoes to cause damage to the vital organs and immune
system of laboratory rats. 32
- In 1989, a genetically engineered dietary supplement killed 37 Americans
and permanently disabled 5,000 others. 33
- The claims that genetically engineered seed would reduce pesticide use have
proven false: for most commercial crops, pesticide use has not decreased and
for some crops it has actually increased. 34
Global Food and Human Health
- Over 1/4 of meals consumed in US are ‘fast food’. 35
- In the US, 1/5 of all meals are consumed in a car. 36
- The US Surgeon-General reports that almost 2/3 of Americans are now significantly
overweight (compared with 55% in the early 1990s, and 46% in the late 1970s),
and the proportion is rising steadily. Each year, the obesity epidemic costs
the medical system $117 billion in bills and causes 300,000 premature deaths. 37
- 3/4 of all antibiotics used in the United States are for livestock, mostly
in the absence of disease—this has the effect of increasing pathogenic
antibiotic resistance. 38
- Despite the prolific use of antibiotics, factory farms and meat processing
plants are breeding grounds for bacteria like E. coli and salmonella. 39 In 2002 alone, ConAgra was forced to recall 19 million pounds of beef contaminated
at one of its meat-packing plants with a deadly strain of E. coli. 40
- The rate of food-borne illnesses in the US is soaring. Salmonella cases
have doubled since 1980, and similar increases are reported for other food
borne bacteria. 41
Chemicals
- In the US, the use of pesticides has increased 33 fold since 1945. 42
- In California, use of carcinogenic pesticides increased 127% between 1991
and 1998, while reproductive and developmental toxicants, groundwater contaminants,
and acutely toxic pesticides increased as well. 43
- Globally, pesticides kill 20-40,000 farmers each year. 44
- The documented health effects of pesticide exposure include: leukemia, brain
tumors, prostate cancer, sterility, birth defects, damage to the immune system,
and cognitive disorders such as impairment of memory and psychomotor speed,
anxiety, irritability, and depression. 45
- These chemical inputs simply aren’t working as predicted: in the U.S.,
the quantity of crops lost to pests has increased 20% since the introduction
of pesticides 46, and $40 billion a year is now spent on
pesticides to save an estimated $16 billion in crops. 47
Politics and Economics of Global Food
Disappearing Farms and Local Economies
- While 40% of Americans were employed in farming in 1910, today that figure
is less than 2% 48, and the number of farmers in the US
has declined by 65% since 1950. 49
- Family farmers in the US typically lose more money than they make 50—their
average income declined by over 60% between 2000 and 2001 alone. 51
- When 235,000 US farms failed during the mid-1980s, roughly 60,000 other
rural businesses also went under. One agricultural region, McPherson County
in Nebraska, has lost two-thirds of its population—as well as 19 post
offices, 58 school districts, and 3 entire towns—since 1920. 52
- Farmers’ prospects are so bleak that in many regions suicide has become
their leading cause of death. 53
- The National Retail Planning Forum in England found that each new supermarket
eliminates 276 more jobs than it creates. 54
Global Food and the South
- The world already produces more than enough to provide a healthy diet for
everyone on the planet. 55 The problem is not that there
is a food deficit, it is the unequal distribution of food and the control
of food by profit-driven corporations that leads to world hunger.
- There are currently 840 million people in the world who are hungry. 56
- In 1979, 92% of China’s population lived on the land; China’s
abandonment of collectivized agriculture and efforts to integrate rapidly
into the global economy have reduced the number to less than 40% today. In
one year alone, 10 million Chinese peasants left their farms. 57 Free market reforms in China have already led hundreds of thousands of farmers,
mostly women, to commit suicide. 58
- Largely because so many farmers in the South have been pulled from the land,
there are now 20 more Third World cities with populations over 10 million
than there were in 1970. 59
- India is a net exporter of food, even though 400 million of its people go
hungry every day; it has been a net exporter of food even during its worst
famines. 60
Poverty and Inequality
- While the inflation-adjusted income of the bottom 60% of American households
has stagnated since 1970, the income of the top fifth has risen by over 50%
and that of the top 5% has almost doubled. 61
- Today, the richest tenth of the world’s population earns 118 times
more than the poorest tenth—a gap almost twice as wide as twenty years
ago. 62
Centralization
- A handful of massive agribusinesses now dominate farming: the largest 6%
of farms currently capture almost 60% of all farming revenue. 63
- The average farm size in the US has increased by 25% since 1970, while the
number of farms decreased by 40% in the same time period. 64
- In 1995, the top 4 supermarkets controlled 24% of industry sales; in 2000
they controlled 42% and in the coming years, it is expected to climb to over
50%. 65
- In 1980, not one of the world’s 7,000 major sources of planting seed
held an identifiable share of the commercial seed market. By 1999, the top
10 seed companies held 1/3 of the world’s market. 66
- Nine companies sell 90% of the world’s pesticides 67 and in the US four companies slaughter 80% of all cattle. 68
- The top four wholesalers control almost half of the market for Florida tomatoes,
and the top two account for three quarters of all fresh-cut salad sold in
supermarkets. 69
- This concentration gives farmers fewer and fewer places to sell their harvests
by enabling powerful middlemen, such as wholesalers and supermarkets, to squeeze
out all of the profits. By 1990, only 9 cents of every dollar spent on domestically
produced food in the US went to the farmer, while middlemen, marketers, and
input suppliers took the rest. 70
Subsidies and Regulations
- In 2000, 3/4 of government agricultural subsidies went to the largest 15%
of farms, and the largest 7% of farms received 43%. 71
- In addition, large farms receive greater tax incentives for capital purchases
to expand their operations, while exemptions from federal labor laws give
them the advantage of low-wage farm labor. 72
- Farm subsidy recipients include wealthy hobby farmers like David Rockefeller,
Ted Turner, basketball star Scottie Pippen and several members of Congress.
Meanwhile, the average family farmer earns a negative income. 73
Benefits of Localization
Environmental Benefits
- A study in Iowa showed that food distributed through local food programs
reduced the distance traveled by the average meal from 1500 miles, down to
45 miles. 74
- The same study calculated that buying produce from a supermarket resulted
in 17 times more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere than buying
from a farmers’ market. 75
- Simply buying 10% of our most common fruits and vegetables locally would
save more than 300,000 gallons of fossil fuel and keep up to 8 million pounds
of CO2 from being emitted. 76
Economic Benefits
- Buying direct from local farmers generates 44% more revenue for the local
economy than purchasing food at supermarkets. 77
- There are now over 2,800 registered farmers’ markets in the US, at which
nearly 20,000 farmers sell their produce. 78
- In Massachusetts, a $470 share in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
project was shown to provide the equivalent of $700 worth of produce from a
supermarket. 79
- In direct marketing initiatives, farmers take home 80-90% of each dollar the
consumer spends, as opposed to an average of 9% when consumers buy from supermarkets. 80
Health Benefits
- Fresh, organic vegetables have significantly higher levels of vitamin C, iron,
magnesium and phosphorus than conventional vegetables 81.
For some nutrients, they are on average ten times more nutritious than regular
supermarket vegetables. 82
Productivity
- The idea that factory farms produce more food is a myth: the total productive
output of food per acre on small, diversified farms is up to 1,000 percent higher
per unit area than on large farms. 83
REFERENCES
1) FAO 1996. State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources. Rome: FAO.
2)Tuxill. 2000. “The Biodiversity That People Made.”
World Watch. 13 (3): 24-35.
3) Mooney, Pat 1999. The ETC century: Erosion, technological
transformation and corporate concentration in the 21st century. In: Development
Dialogue 1999 (1-2).
4) Withgott, Jay. 2001. “Saving Seeds, Saving Cultures.”
BioMedNet. 19 March 2001.
5) Schueller, Gretel. 2001. “Eat Local.” Discover.
22(5).
6) Pirog, Richard et al. 2001. Food, Fuel and Freeways: An Iowa
Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Usage, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Iowa State University, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. September.
7) Vidal, John. 2002. “Antarctica sends 500 billion tonne
warning of the effects of global warming.” The Guardian. March 20, 2002.
8) Smith, Gar. 2000. “Goodbye North Pole?” Earth
Island Journal. 15(4).
9) Shrybman, Steven 1999. Trade, Agriculture and Global Warming:
How Agricultural Trade Policies are Fuelling Global Warming. Draft document
for discussion. Ottawa: West Coast Environmental Law Association.
10) Pimentel, D. and M. Pimental 1996. Food, Energy, and Society.
Niwot: Colorado University Press.
11) Schueller, G. 2001. “Eat Local.” Discover.
22(5).
12) Pirog, Richard et al. 2001. Food, Fuel and Freeways: An
Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Usage, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Iowa State University, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. September.
See also Hora, Matthew and Jody Tick 2001. From Farm to Table: Making the Connection
in the Mid-Atlantic Food System. Washington: Capital Area Food Bank.
13) FAO statistics tables, 2000.
14) USDA 1998. Transportation of U.S. Grains: A Modal Share
Analysis, 1978-95. Washington, DC: USDA.
15) Klindworth, K. 1999. Agricultural Transportation Challenges
for the 21st Century: A Framework for Discussion. USDA AMS Transportation and
Marketing Programs. Cited in Hora and Tick 2001.
16) Donham, K. 1998. "Community and Environmentally Acceptable
Livestock Production: Defining the Challenge". Presentation at Animal Feeding
Operations and Ground Water Conference. November.
17) Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Todd Merrifield and Steven Gorelick.
Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness. Kumarian
Press, Bloomfield, CT. 2002.
18) Pimentel, David et al. (1997). “Water Resources:
Agriculture, the Environment, and Society.” BioScience. 47: 97-106.
19) Hora, M. and J. Tick 2001. From Farm to Table: Making the
Connection in the Mid-Atlantic Food System. Washington: Capital Area Food Bank.
20) Sierra Club website. Keep Animal Waste out of our Waters:
Stop Factory Farm Pollution. www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms.
21) Rudo, Kenneth. Memo to Dennis McBride, State Health Director,
RE: Nitrate Well Water Testing Program Adjacent to Intensive Livestock Operations.
August 14, 1998.
22) Hogwatch. 2002. “Environmental Impacts of Hog Factories
in North Carolina.” Accessed: 25 April, 2002. Available: [http://www.hogwatch.org/html/gtf/fctsht/gtf_fctsht_envimpct.html].
23) Krebs, A.V. (ed.) 2002. “Cargill to pay $1 million
fine and costs for polluting central Missouri river with illegal dumpings of
hog wastes.” Argibusiness Examiner. Issue #147, March 11, 2002.
24) Mooney, Pat 1999. The ETC century: Erosion, technological
transformation and corporate concentration in the 21st century. In: Development
Dialogue 1999 (1-2).
25) International Union of Geological Sciences, Geoindicators:
Tools for Assessing Rapid Environmental Change. On-line: http://www.gcrio.org/geo/title.html
Excerpted from: Berger, A. and W. Iams. Geoindicators. Assessing rapid environmental
changes in earth systems. A.A.Balkema/Roterdam/Brookfield 1996. P. 466.
26) UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 2002. Available:
http://www.acnatsci.org/research/kye/kye82002.html. Accessed: November 21, 2002.
28) USDA 2001. Agricultural Biotechnology Briefing Room. Available:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/biotechnology/ Accessed: May 20, 2002.
29) Cummins, Ronnie. Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods
and Crops – Why We Need a Global Moratorium. Factsheet. Little Marais,
MN: Organic Consumers Association.
34) For example, see Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge and William McBride
2000. Genetically Engineered Crops for Pest Management in U.S. Agriculture.
USDA Agricultural Economics Report No. 786. Washington: USDA Economic Research
Service. Available: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer786/aer786e.pdf.
35) Schlosser, E. 2001. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of
the All-American Meal. New York: Perennial.
36) Primedia 2002. What’s Cooking: The Food Industry
Looks to Shifts in the Country’s Demographic Composition, Social Behaviour
and Attitudes to Grow Dormant Sales. Primedia Company American Demographics.
March.
37) Cited in: Gumbel, A. 2002. Fast Food Nation: An Appetite
for Litigation. The Independent. United Kingdom. June 4.
38) Mellon, M,, C. Benbrook and K. Lutz Benbrook 2001. Hogging
It: Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned
Scientists. Available: http://www.ucsusa.org/index.html.
39) Tauxe, R. 1997. “Emerging Foodborne Diseases: An
Evolving Public Health Challenge”, Emerging Infectious Diseases. 3(4)
October-December.
40) Graham, Judith. “Two US Meat Inspectors Warned USDA
in February Concerning Possible Con-Agra E-Coli Contaminated Beef; Agency Took
No Action Until Late June. From Agribusiness Examiner #177 July 26, 2002.
41) Tauxe, R. 1997. “Emerging
Foodborne Diseases: An Evolving Public Health Challenge”, Emerging Infectious
Diseases. 3(4) October-December.
42) Schueller, Gretel. 2001. “Eat Local.” Discover.
22(5).
43) PANNA 2000. “Hooked on Poison: Pesticide Use in California
1991-1998. San Francisco: PANNA. Available: www.panna.org.
44) Postel, S. 1998. Controlling toxic chemicals. In: State
of the World 1988. New York: WorldWatch Institute.
45) Solomon, Gina, O.A. Ogunseitan, and Jan Kirsch. 2000. Pesticides
and Human Health: A Resource Guide for Health Care Professionals. Santa Monica,
CA: Physicians for Social Responsibility.
46) Ableman, Michael 1993. From the Good Earth. New York: Harry
Abrams Inc.
47) Altieri, Miguel A. 2000. “Modern Agriculture: Ecological
impacts and the possibilities for truly sustainable farming.” Agroecology
in Action. July 30, 2000.
48) USDA Economic Research Service 2000. Using Historical Statistics
of the U.S., Colonial Times to 1970. Series D 1-10, p. 126-127. Census and BLS.
Cited in: Hora, Matthew and Jody Tick 2001. From Farm to Table: Making the Connection
in the Mid-Atlantic Food System. Washington, DC: Capital Area Food Bank.
49) USDA 2001. Trends in US Agriculture. Available: www.usda.gov/nass/pubs/trends/index.htm.
50) USDA National Commission on Small Farms 1998. A Time to
Act. A report of the USDA National Commission on Small Farms. Available: http://www.reeusda.gov/smallfarm/report.htm.
51) USDA 2001. USDA Agricultural Income and Financial Outlook.
Washington DC: USDA.
52) Nicholas D. Kristof, op. cit., p. 18.
53) See for example: Lee, M. 1999. "Study Shows Suicide
High Among Farmers", Tulsa World, September 12; and Lee, M. 1989. "High
Suicide Rate Linked to Farm Financial Stress", Tulsa World, September 16;
Lewis, P. 1989. "Preventable Agricultural Deaths in Oklahoma 1983-1988:
Self Inflicted or Suicides", Agricultural Engineering Department, Oklahoma
State University. Unpublished.
54) National Retail Planning Forum cited in Pretty,
Jules 2001. Some benefits and drawbacks of local food systems. Briefing note
for Sustain AgriFood Network. November 2. Essex, UK.
55) Rosset, P. 1999. “Why Genetically Altered
Food Won’t Conquer Hunger.” New York Times. September 1, 1999.
56) FAO, 2002. State of Food and Security in the World.
Rome, Italy; FAO. Available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/Y7352E/Y7352E00.htm/.
57) Dyer, Joel. Harvest of Rage. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1998, p.110.
58) MacLeod, Callum 2001. Farmers’ wives paying
a terrible price for progress. The Independent. August 11. Section A
59) David Morris, “Unmanageable Megacities”,
Utne Reader, September-October 1994, p. 80.
60) UN Food and Agriculture Office http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X8731E/x8731e07.htm#P4_37.
61) Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 2001. The Ingenuity Gap. Toronto:
Alfred A. Knopf. 340.
62) Weller, C.E., and A. Hersh 2002. Free markets and
poverty. The American Prospect. 13(1).
63) USDA National Commission on Small Farms 1998. A
Time to Act. A report of the USDA National Commission on Small Farms. Available:
http://www.reeusda.gov/smallfarm/report.htm.
64) National Agricultural Statistics Service 2000.
Trends in U.S. Agriculture: A Walk Through the Past and a Step Into the New
Millennium. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture.
65) A.C. Nielsen. 2000. “An Update on Retail
Consolidation.” Consumer Insight Magazine. 2(2). [Available: http://www.acnielsen.com/pubs/ci/2000/q2];
and Arthur Andersen Corporate Finance. 2001. Food Retail Industry Consolidation
– Halftime Report. Chicago: Arthur Andersen. [Available: http://www.andersen.com/website.nsf/content/IndustriesProductsRetailResourcesMASurvey].
66) Mooney, Pat 1999. The ETC century: Erosion, technological
transformation and corporate concentration in the 21st century. In: Development
Dialogue 1999 (1-2).
68) USDA National Commission on Small Farms 1998. A
Time to Act: A Report of the USDA National Commission on Small Farms. Available:
http://www.reeusda.gov/smallfarm/report.htm.
69) Calvin, Linda et al. 2001. U.S. Fresh Fruit and
Vegetable Marketing: Emerging Trade Practices, Trends, and Issues. (Agricultural
Economic Report No. 795.) Washington, DC: Market and Trade Economics Division,
Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
70) Stewart Smith, “Farming Activities and Family
Farms: Getting the Concepts Right”, presented to US Congress symposium
“Agricultural Industrialization and Family Farms”, October 21, 1992.
71) USDA 2001. USDA Agricultural Income and Financial
Outlook. Washington DC: United States Department of Agriculture.
72) USDA National Commission on Small Farms 1998. A
Time to Act. A report of the USDA National Commission on Small Farms. Available:
http://www.reeusda.gov/smallfarm/report.htm.
73) Reidl, B. 2001. Ag Legislation Would Be a Boon
to Rich Farmers, Analysts Say. Washington, DC. Heritage Foundation.
74) Pirog, R. T. Van Pelt, K. Enshayan and E. Cook
2001. Food, Fuel and Freeways: An Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels,
Fuel Usage, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture,
Iowa State University.
77) Hill, Caroline, Sarah Higginson, and Julie Lewis.
2001. “Leaky Bucket Causing a Stir.” Plugging the Leaks (New Economics
Foundation). July 2001.
78) USDA Agriculture Marketing Service 2002. USDA AMS
Farmers Markets website. Available: www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/facts.htm.
79) ATTRA 2000. Available: www.attra.org/attra-pub/csa.html.
80) Pretty, Jules 2001. Some Benefits and Drawbacks
of Local Food Systems. Briefing note for Sustain AgriFood Network. November
2.
81) Worthington, V. 2001. Nutritional Quality of Organic
Versus Conventional Fruits, Vegetables and Grains. Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine. 7(2):161-173.
82) Organic Retailers and Growers Association 1999.
Press release: Is our food supplying us with adequate nutrition? Study performed
by the Australian Government Analytical Laboratory and commissioned by the Organic
Retailers and Growers Association. 3 November.
83) Rosset, P. 1999. The Multiple Functions and Benefits
of Small Farm Agriculture in the Context of Global Trade Negotiations. Policy
Brief #4. Oakland: Institute for Food and Development Policy. September.