Beyond CSA, continued

Economic and Social costs

There are many costs involved with the near-total displacement and disassociation from food production that have taken place in particular over the last century, costs which, in many cases, have not yet been tallied up thoroughly or accurately enough against the related benefits. Of these recalcitrant costs, some might be considered purely economic, or environmental, and some might be considered qualitative. Regarding the economic sort, here are a couple of short points:

It is all too easy to assume that conventional mechanized agriculture (associated with ever-larger farms) is more efficient than traditional and minimally-mechanized, minimally-capitalized techniques (associated with smaller farms). Though sometimes "economy of scale" is impossible to dispute, there are also numerous areas where bigger does not necessarily correspond to cheaper. Our assumption of efficiency is incorrect in terms of energy throughput, for one thing--comparing calories-in to calories-out, "organic" hand work will always win "hands down". Here I am addressing such costs as fuel itself, those of the depletion of nonrenewable energy resources, and of air and water pollution. It is also widely known that the amount of food produced per unit area can be greater with relatively low-tech techniques than it is when (large) machines are in the picture. Here I am addressing such costs as those that arise from pressures to put more land, often fragile, into crop production.

The assumption that conventional agricultural pratcices are the most efficient available is unsound because there are costs, also including others such as, importantly, hastened soil erosion, which have not yet been internalized fully into the market. Once these costs finally are internalized, the side-effects of conventional practices will require that the products of those practices demand higher (more accurate) prices than before, making the whole affair appear as it should, probably not so efficient after all.

Now, when social costs are considered, efficiency takes on a whole knew meaning. One view is that we are all somewhat better off just because we have larger and larger (and fewer and fewer) farms and farm corporations growing our food for us. Increasing numbers of us are, in this way, allowed to engage in activities more "rewarding" than the simple drudgery of farming, right?

Here is what Trauger Groh has to say in the beginning of his 1997 book, co-written with Steven McFadden, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited:

"When we speak about the need for healthy farm organisms, we think first of our food supply, and then we think of the farm as a part of our natural world...Rarely do we have in mind the great contribution that living on farms and working in nature gives to inner soul development and to the shaping of our social faculties."

Some History

When it became apparent earlier in the twentieth century that the widespread introduction of tractors and other machinery was pushing people out of farming, there was talk of "compensating advantage" for those displaced, mostly in the form of decreased prices for commodities (agricultural and otherwise). There are, though, a number of thorny issues regarding the negative social impacts of this transition to mechanization and capitalization.

First, many of those displaced from farming may not have been fully reabsorbed into the economy as well as they were supposed to have been. Could continuing inner city and rural decay have at least something to do with "compensating advantage" never fully realized?

Second, agricultural technology has become increasingly specialized and bound up with land-grant universities and industrial research and development. It continues to be very much of an us-them scenario for those outside the fortress walls. Here is what one H.W. Quaintance had to say in an article from 1904:

"To the skilled workman, machinery opens the way to profit and advancement. But to the unskilled workman, it is a sealed, or unintelligible, book. He does not understand it; and the hopelessness of competing with one who does understand it only intensifies his consciousness of inferiority and increases the burden of his struggle for existence."