ISECRIPE FOR CHANGE
R ETHINKING C ALIFORNIA’ S F OOD E CONOMY

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTUREINTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTUREACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors:

Executive Editors:

Katy Mamen, Steven Gorelick, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Diana
Deumling
Helena Norberg-Hodge and Steven Gorelick

Report Advisory Committee:

A special thanks to the report advisory committee for their assistance,
support, and editing: Miguel Altieri, Dave Henson, Sibella Kraus, Jered
Lawson, Anuradha Mittal, Monica Moore,Thomas Nelson, Mark Ritchie,
Vandana Shiva, and Alice Waters.

Contributors:

We gratefully acknowledge the following people who contributed text
boxes to the report: Renata Brillinger,Tracy Lerman,Victor Menotti, Skip
Spitzer, and Food First.
The compilation of this report was made possible by the hard work ofmany people. In particular, ISEC staff Jennifer Barkan, John Page, Becky
Tarbotton, and Zachary Norris contributed valuable research, writing, andproduction assistance. In addition, ISEC interns and volunteers Alex Jensen,
Winnie Bird, Sonya Binnewies, Janine Elliot, Christine Garvin, and Owen
Williams helped compile research and crunch data.
We are grateful for the comments, assistance, and data from the following
people: Felix Ammah-Tagoe, John Batson, Elly Benson, Sylvan Brackett,Henrich Brunke, Pat Canning, Colin Carter, Paul Cultrera, Stephen andGloria Decater, Lisa Dillabo, George Draffan, Gail Feenstra,WilliamFriedland,Walter Goldschmidt, Lauren Gwin, Fletcher Hall, Dana Harvey,
Bill Heffernan, Mary Hendrickson, Phil Howard, Phil Kaufman, Al Krebs,
Jeffrey LaFrance, Bruce Lambert, Sherin Larijani, Lucy Levers, Barbara
Maxwell, Phil McGrath, Brent Newell, Jessica Prentice, Sunny Putnam,
Heidi Reichert, the Straus family, Leland Swenson, and Adam Wolpert.
Many thanks to these and countless other individuals and organizations fortheir valuable assistance and support.
We would like to sincerely thank the Columbia Foundation, the Richard
and Rhoda Goldman Fund, and Patagonia for supporting the productionof this report.

Copyediting:
Layout:Lauren Gwin
Design Action Collective www.designaction.org
The International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC) is a non-profit
organization that promotes locally-based alternatives to the global consumer culture.
May 2004 © The International Society for Ecology and Culture
Please feel free to reproduce and distribute with appropriate credit.

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMYTABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Chapter 1:

From Indigenous to Industrial: A Brief History of California Food Production . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Chapter 2:

Globalizing California Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Chapter 3:

Consolidating the Food Supply Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Chapter 4:

Transportation and Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Chapter 5:

Health and the Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Chapter 6:

The Ecology of California’s Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Chapter 7:

Food Insecurity and Hunger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56
Chapter 8:

The Food System and California’s Rural Economies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Chapter 9:

Community and Social Cohesion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
Chapter 10:

The Global Impacts of California’s Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
Chapter 11:

Propping Up the Global Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86
Chapter 12:

Moving Forward: Strengthening the Local Food Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Box 3.1: Horizontal integration profile: Sysco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Box 3.2: Vertical integration profile: ConAgra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Box 3.3: Wal-Mart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Box 3.4: Industrial organics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Box 4.1: Lack of access in the information age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Box 4.2: Trade liberalization hurts California commodity farmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Box 5.1: Contamination and the industrial food system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Box 5.2: Farmworkers’ health. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Box 5.3: Food irradiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Box 5.4: Making it work: From farm to school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
Box 6.1: Sterilizing the Sacramento River. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Box 6.2: California’s water crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Box 6.3: Globalization and Salmon Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48
Box 6.4: Genetic engineering looming in California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Box 6.5: Climate change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Box 6.6: Making it work:The Straus Family Creamery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Box 7.1: Reclaiming food deserts: Beyond the supermarket solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Box 8.1: Wine in the global economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Box 8.2: Farmland conversion in California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
Box 8.3: Making it work: McGrath family farm

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

Box 8.4: Making it work: Steps toward sustainability in the Capay Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Box 9.1: The political and social influence of Big Ag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Box 9.2: Making it work: Farming with live power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Box 9.3: Making it work: Not your average grocery store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
Box 12.1: Making it work:The Edible Schoolyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
Figure 2.1: Percent change in farm numbers by size: 1982 – 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Figure 4.1: Truck flows for international products traded via California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Figure 4.2: Direct international trade at California ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Figure 4.3: US trade in agricultural products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Figure 4.4: Trade in processed tomatoes between the US and Mexico/Canada . . . . . . . . . . . .30
Figure 11.1: Number of regional trade agreements (RTAs) worldwide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
Table 4.1: Top five commodities shipped to, from, and within California

by all modes: 1998 and 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
Table 4.2: California’s agricultural exports, 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
Table 4.3: Import share of US-consumed food – selected items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Table 6.1: Farmers’ market vs. terminal market food miles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMYINTRODUCTION
n recent decades, the efforts of countless individuals, organizations, and government agencies

I

have been devoted to addressing the problems in California’s food system.Though many small
victories have been won, the overall picture continues to deteriorate.The food system remains

heavily dependent on toxic agricultural chemicals, fossil fuels, and food crops with an extremely narrow genetic base. Irradiated and genetically engineered foods line the shelves of supermarkets, eventhough neither technology has been proven safe.The number of small and medium-sized farms continues to decline, and farmworkers are still impoverished, their working conditions abysmal. Giantcorporations are consolidating their control over every segment of the food system, pushing out
smaller producers, processors, and retailers. Despite a growing obesity epidemic, many Californians areunable to put enough food on the table.
Why has so little progress been made? One reason is thateven though many people are aware of the food system’s
shortcomings, they are usually seen as a series of unrelated
problems, each to be addressed individually. As a result,attempts to solve them are like a number of “band-aids” thattreat symptoms, while ignoring the underlying illness.
This fragmented view makes common interests and goals all
but impossible to discern: thus, farmers in the North appear
to be competing not only with farmers in the South, butwith farmworkers and consumers at home; the needs of theenvironment and the economy appear mutually exclusive;
food can apparently be made healthier only by making it
more expensive, and so on.The impression left is that there
really are no solutions.
Solutions can be found, however, by stepping back to examine the California food system from a systemic perspectivethat reveals root causes common to virtually all its problems.
Seeing the broad connections among the many crises weface can be immensely empowering, and can reveal strategies
that are solution-multipliers—simultaneously benefiting
farmers, farmworkers, and consumers, protecting the environment and supporting the economy, improving the qualityof food and lowering its cost.
In this report we argue that economic policies supporting
globalization—encouraging ever more trade and transport offood—are a root issue that must be addressed in order for
our food systems to be made healthy and sustainable. Most
people do not prefer their food to be doused with toxic
agrochemicals; they don’t want to see rural economies guttedand small family farms eliminated; they don’t ask that theirfood systems be unsustainable or incapable of providing foodsecurity for the poor; they haven’t agreed that decisions
about food should be made in the boardrooms of transnational corporations, rather than democratically.The public
has asked for none of this, but this is what we are getting as
globalization proceeds.

1INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

This analysis not only points to the common roots of many ofthe problems facing California’s food system, but to a powerfulsystemic solution: localization.This means a shift in direction
away from the global food system toward numerous smallerscale food systems that are more localized, diverse, democratically accountable, and ecologically-based. It does not mean anovernight cessation of all trade but a gradual striking of a better balance between trade and local production, with people
everywhere meeting as many of their food needs as close tohome as possible. Localization does not mean protecting ourown economies at the expense of people in the global South,
nor does it imply ignoring the needs of those whose
economies are currently trade-dependent.
In fact, though this report focuses on the prospects for localization in California, it should be understood that the same
principles apply to every food economy, in the global Northand South alike. In that sense, localization would ultimately
benefit not only the majority of Californians, but food producers, consumers, small businesses, local economies, andcommunities across the US and around the world.

A tour of the report
This report is intended as a resource for food and farming
groups, social and environmental activists, students and teachers, policymakers, and the civic-minded public, and as a tool
to help make California’s rapidly growing local food movement more effective.The report includes a wide range of
information, from case-studies and personal testimonies tocharts, graphs, and data-rich appendices. Our aim is not tosimply describe the problems in the food system, but toexplain why those problems arise and how most of them canbe alleviated by a shift toward the local.
We do not provide details on every commodity produced,
marketed, or consumed in the state, nor do we offer exhaustive descriptions of every sector of the food economy.
Instead, we hope to make clear the broad forces at work in
California and how they affect every link in the food chain.

In Chapters 1–4, we review California’s place in the global
food system, from past to present. Chapter 1 is an overview
of the historical growth of California’s industrial food system. Chapter 2 gives a picture of the state’s industrial agriculture; and Chapters 3 and 4 describe two important trends
emerging from the globalization of California’s food system:
increased consolidation, and increased trade and transport.
Chapters 5–10 detail the consequences of California’s globally-oriented food system, as well as the potential for local
food to solve many of these problems: damage to our health(Chapter 5) and to the state’s ecosystems (Chapter 6); foodinsecurity and hunger (Chapter 7); the breakdown of rural
economies (Chapter 8); and the erosion of community(Chapter 9); and the destruction of local food systems
beyond California (Chapter 10).
Chapter 11 takes a look at the current subsidies and policy
supports for the global food system, revealing some of thereal costs of “cheap” global food. Finally, Chapter 12 presents
a variety of policy changes needed for a shift to the local,
and strategies to help build the local food movement.

The role of economic policy
If global economic policy is a root cause of many of the
problems in California’s food system, it is important to ask,
“what is globalization?” It is certainly not what its promoterswould have us think: a way of bringing us all together into apeaceful Global Village based on closer communication andmore rapid transport, with increased trade portrayed as a wayof creating interdependence, avoiding war, and eliminating
global poverty.
The reality is very different. Far from a “rising tide that lifts
all boats,” globalization has exacerbated poverty and greatly
widened the gap between rich and poor. Rather than bringing us together, trade deregulation is forcing people to compete more intensely with one another.The only winners inthis system are global corporations, which can take advantage

Photo: Lisa M. Hamilton

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

of cheap labor, lax environmental laws, and loose health andsafety regulations wherever they may be found, and can market an ever-larger range of commodities and services to an
expanding pool of global consumers. As globalization breaks
down local economies and communities—thereby adding to
the tide of mass urbanization—corporations are also provided
with dense concentrations of easy-to-reach consumers, as well
as ready supplies of desperate workers.

economic globalization. An incredible diversity of local systems once provided people with foods suited to particular
ecosystems, with their unique climates, soils, and otherresources; today, those diverse systems are being amalgamatedinto a single global food system, a monoculture of heavily
processed fast food, instant ramen, and microwaveable dinners. Once the linchpin of people’s connection to place, foodis becoming just another commodity, one that economists
argue should be produced wherever ischeapest and most “efficient,” even if that
Globalization is often
means the other side of the world. Rather
than a vehicle for cultural expression andspoken of as if it were
nourishment for the hungry, food isinevitable, the result of
becoming primarily an object of financial“evolutionary” forces beyond investment and speculation.

Economic globalization is often spoken
of as if it were inevitable, the result of“evolutionary” forces beyond people’sability to slow or stop.This is simply
untrue: globalization is largely the product of systematic government support,
and the policy choices behind that suppeople's ability to slow or
port are no more evolutionary or
At its heart, the global food system is built
inevitable than last year’s campaign
on the 18th century economic theory ofstop. This is simply untrue:comparative advantage.The assumption ispromises.The current corporate-domiglobalization is largely thethat if each region specializes in those foods
nated global economy could never haveproduct of systematic
it can produce more cheaply than any othertaken shape, for example, without the“free trade” treaties signed by governgovernment support, and the region, and then imports all its other foodneeds from regions that can produce themments, nor the heavy subsidies every
policy choices behind that
more cheaply, everyone will be better off. In
nation provides for its trade-oriented
this economic abstraction, income and contransport infrastructure. It would immesupport are no more
sumption levels are the only measure ofdiately falter without military expendievolutionary or inevitable
human well-being. National boundaries andtures to protect international investment
cultural traditions are ignored as irrelevant
and keep oil flowing from the Middle
than last year’s campaign
to the model, as are such “externalities” as
East, thereby enabling trucks, trains, ships,
promises.
wild nature, community, and the needs ofand airplanes to crisscross the globe with
future generations.
“efficiently” produced goods. Large andglobal corporations would never have supplanted smaller
With the commodification of food, agriculture itself isenterprises without huge government subsidies for exportchanging, becoming an industry run by the universal stanpromotion, for industrial research and development, and fordards of the modern factory, with little regard for local tradieducational institutions that prepare children for life in ations or environmental conditions.When applied to farming,
global, rather than their own local, economy.With economic
the global economic model is giving us food that is neither
accounting systematically ignoring the many environmental
very flavorful nor nutritious, at the cost of depleted soil, poiand social costs of policies that favor the global over thesoned
air and water, and a destabilized global climate. It is
local, the public is left believing that globalization simply
destroying
rural livelihoods and hollowing out communities
represents efficiency and “progress.”in both North and South. Perhaps worst of all, people everyDespite the rhetoric of “inevitability,” globalization represents where are being encouraged to rely on a single model offood production, one that is dangerously lacking in diversity,a process of planned change. Our governments, working
hand-in-hand with the biggest corporations in the world, are thereby jeopardizing long-term food security worldwide.
paving the way for a particular future, one that is westernAs local markets are destroyed and dependence on the global
ized, homogenized, industrialized, dominated by hugeeconomy grows, the scale of the food system becomes larger
transnational corporations, and ultimately unsustainable.
at every point: farms are becoming ever larger monocultures,food miles are increasing exponentially, and the input suppliFood in the global economy
ers, wholesalers, distributors, supermarket chains, and other
Since food is something everyone, everywhere needs every
agribusinesses that benefit from this world-spanning flow ofday, it is a critically important lens through which to look at
foods are growing to gargantuan proportions.

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

California in the global food economy
From the earliest European settlements in the region,
California has been at the forefront of this process.Today, thestate’s computerized mega-farms provide billions of dollars inexports, helping make California’s agricultural economy far
larger than any other state’s, and in fact larger than the second- and third-ranked states (Iowa and Texas) combined.1 As
this report shows, that economy does not benefit the majority of Californians, and the list of serious problems emanatingfrom the food system is long. Nonetheless, with California’s
agribusinesses sitting atop the global food economy, otherregions, states, and nations look to this state as a role model.
The broad systemic subsidies that have been so profitable forthe state’s agribusinesses are now being embraced by othercountries.Their lower wages and looser regulations areenabling many of these regions to invade the markets for
California-grown foods, and the state’s export-based foodeconomy is at risk.With trade-based subsidies smoothing theway, agribusinesses find it cheaper to obtain garlic from
China, asparagus from Peru, and wine from Chile, South
Africa, and Australia. One by one, California export producers are coming under pressure.To avoid losing their markets
to agribusinesses elsewhere, growers are being forced toreduce costs—by exploiting labor more ruthlessly, by becoming still more large-scale, mechanized, and input-dependent,
by extracting more subsidies from the public, and by externalizing more costs onto the environment and future generations.Welcome to the race to the bottom.
The problems facing California’s food system are near a crisis
point, but there is reason to be hopeful. Just as the inequitiesof the expanding global economy have led to a backlash in
the form of huge protests in Seattle, Genoa, Prague, andwherever the architects of economic globalization meet, theproblems of the global food system have given rise to adiverse worldwide movement for systems that are more justand sustainable.The influx of corporate fast food outlets into

Italy has spawned a Slow Food movement that has spreadworldwide. In Bangalore, farmers dismantled the first
Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in India and eventually drove
the corporation from the country. In the UK, a local foodmovement is rapidly taking hold, with the number of farmers’ markets rising from zero in 1996 to 450 by 2003, withan estimated 15 million visits annually.2 Here in the US, salesof organic food—a key indicator of people’s desire forhealthier, more sustainably-produced food—increased at least
20 percent a year during the 1990s,3 reaching $11 billion in
2002.4 And when the US government chose Sacramento,
California, as the site of its 2003 Ministerial and Expo topromote high-tech industrial agriculture to the rest of theworld, thousands of protesters gathered to demonstrate theiremphatic disapproval.
Importantly for California, this state which has been so longat the cutting edge of the global-industrial model is today aleader in the sustainable agriculture movement. Grassroots
trends here and around the world are beginning to provethat another way is possible. If the systemic policy supports
for the global food system were shifted, small-scale initiatives,
many of them already underway, would grow and flourish.
Since California agriculture is the model that so many otherregions emulate, positive change here is of immense significance. Shifts toward the local in California would reverberate
throughout the rest of the world, helping to change policies
that are equally disastrous everywhere.
The benefits of localization—healthier food, a cleaner environment, stronger communities and local economies, better
food security—are not pipe dreams. On a small scale, grassroots steps toward the local in California and elsewhere
have already proven to be effective “solution-multipliers.”
With policy support at the local, state, and national level,
these initiatives can thrive and spread, and lasting solutions
to the problems of California’s current food system will
finally be at hand.

Photo: Alex Jensen

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

CHAPTER 1:

From Indigenous to Industrial: A Brief
History of California Food ProductionF

rom the time of its earliest European settlements, California has been at the cutting edge ofwhat is now the global food system: it has been a pioneer in everything from large-scale
mechanized agriculture and long-distance trade to corporate farms and biotechnology, andmuch more. But before the arrival of European settlers in the 1700s, California exemplified precisely
the opposite: food systems that were diverse, small scale, and local.Those indigenous food systems andthe cultures that depended upon them were destroyed to make way for a “modern” culture and its
commodity-based food system, just as land-based cultures in other parts of the world are being decimated today by the spread of the global economy. For this reason, the history of California agriculture sheds light not only on the evolution of the global food system, but on the parallels between
colonialism and economic globalization.
Indigenous California

When the first Spanish explorers arrived in what is now
California, the region was already home to roughly 300,000
indigenous inhabitants, comprising hundreds of tribes spreadthroughout all of the region’s major ecosystems.1 Throughlocation-specific adaptation, each of these groups evolved its
own customs and rituals, as well as unique means of providing food, clothing, shelter, tools, and medicines from local
resources. Most groups had a distinct language: it is estimatedthat 120 different languages were spoken in California, themajority of them “as mutually unintelligible as English andChinese.”2
These populations provided for themselves primarily throughhunting, gathering, and fishing, though some groups supplemented these practices with agriculture.3 Making use of what

was available within its own ecological niche, each group was
almost entirely self-sufficient.
This is not to say that trade was nonexistent. In fact,
California’s native inhabitants “loved to trade,” according toresearcher and writer Malcolm Margolin:
Extensive networks of trails and trade routes criss-crossed theentire state, north and south, east and west—trails that extended through Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, trails that crossed
the Central Valley to the Sierras and beyond to the GreatBasin.The California Indians viewed trading as an ancient,almost permanent part of their world.4
The goods traded, however, tended to be luxuries, such asdyes or objects made from materials that were common locally but rare elsewhere. Food was not a traded commodity,5

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

These myriad local food systems weresuccessful on another level as well: they
were sustainable. Indigenous people madetheir home in California for many thousands of years without undermining theecosystems of which they were part.

European conquest

The European impact on California’s indigenous populations
thus closely parallels the effect of conquest and colonialism
on countless other indigenous cultures throughout theworld. Significantly, the dismantling of local economies andfood systems, the appropriation of labor
and resources, and the erasing of local
cultural identity are all features oftoday’s economic globalization as well.
Photo: Library of Congress, Edward S. Curtis Collection

though it was often given to visitors and—in years of plenty—distributed to neighboring groups through elaborate
feasts.When food was in short supply, conversely, people
would visit other tribes, where they could expect to be treated to a feast in return.“In fact,” says
Margolin,“the sharing of food and otherresources was so successful and reliable
that it was one of the major reasons why
famine was totally unknown in Central
California.”5

A different direction
What replaced the indigenous populations’ locally-adapted food systems? It’sno surprise that the food system thatevolved was radically different from themainly hunting-and-gathering systemsof native Californians. But, importantly,
it was also very different from what
was developing in other parts of theUS—particularly in the North andEast, where tight-knit farming communities and largely local markets were
the norm. In these places, farmers had
a close working relationship with theirland and neighbors, and grew most of
their food on their own small farms.

In 1769, however, Franciscan monks from
Spain began establishing Missions to “civilize” the indigenous population and convert them to Christianity.The method
A Coast Pomo woman gathering seeds.
employed, in effect, was to imprison roughly 1,000 native people in each Mission,
guarded by a detachment of soldiers.Those who attempted toescape were whipped and bound. Prevented from pursuing
The majority of farmers in California, by contrast, produced
their traditional hunting and gathering practices, indigenous
for export, not for local needs. From the early days of Spanish
people were instead forced to tend the monks’ cattle and theirrule, California was sending cattle-hides, for example, tofields of wheat and corn.A contemporary account likened the
Boston shoe manufacturers, and by the mid-1800s was
Missions to a cross between a monastery and a slave plantation.6 exporting wheat as far away as England.7 Unlike farmers inother parts of the country, California farmers generally did
At the same time, thousands of square miles of California
not feed themselves directly from their farms, but grew spewere being carved up through land grants and handed over ascialized cash crops for sale, using the proceeds to buy food.8
ranchos—the private property of elite Spanish, and later
Many California farm owners did not even live on their
Mexican, settlers—whose huge cattle herds displaced the deerfarms, preferring to send indigenous people, and later, immiand elk that had provided food for many indigenous groups.
grant laborers, to the fields.The wealthiest spent their sumFor the most part, however, Spanish and Mexican control
mers in San Francisco and their winters in Europe. In theof California left native populations relatively undisturbed
mid-19th century, author Stephen Powers depicted California
beyond the reach of the nineteen Missions. But if indigefarmers this way:
nous ways of life could have withstood the Spanish Mission
I did not see ten honest, hard-fisted farmers in my whole jourand rancho systems, they could not withstand the later
ney.There are plenty of city-haunting old bachelors and libarrival of Anglo settlers, who poured into the region folertines, who own great ranches and lease them; and there arelowing its annexation by the US in 1848 and the discovery
enough crammers of wheat, crammers of beans, crammers ofof gold that same year. The systematic annihilation ofmulberries, crammers of anything that will make their fortune in
California’s indigenous populations in the decades that fola year or two, and permit them to go and live and die in
lowed makes it one of the most brutal epochs in American‘Frisco.’9
history. Within 150 years, ways of life that had served people well for millennia had been effectively eradicated,
In the 1940s, one California farmer described agriculture in
destroyed in large measure by the elimination of their foodthe state as “a business. . . not a way of life.”10 Still today, thesovereignty.
6

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

term “farmer,” with all its emotive connotations, is less commonly used in California than “grower.”

There were some small farms in California, of course, andeven some pockets of more “traditional” family farm communities, particularly in the Stockton area.18 As in other parts
A related distinction between California and much of theof the West, settlers came by the thousands hoping to homerest of the country is that the farms and ranches here werestead and eventually own a small tract of land. But inquite large from the very beginning of European settlement.
California so much land was controlled by wealthy land
By the time the US annexed California in 1848, the 500 ran- barons and railroad companies that there was very little left
chos granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments covfor homesteaders.What’s more, many land claims ultimately
ered more ground than Massachusetts,
derived from the Spanish and Mexican
Delaware, and Rhode Island combined,
land grants, and it was often unclear
California’s large farms wereaveraging almost 19,000 acres each.11 By
whether land was private or public. In
a primary beneficiary of thecontrast, lots granted to western settlers bymany cases, people settled on andthe US Homestead Act of 1862 were justhuge government investment improved land only to find, after years of
160 acres each.
hard work, that the land actuallyin a transcontinental railroad:“belonged” to someone else. According toEven after the US took control ofearly 20th century political writer Henry
they now had a pipeline to
California, land ownership remained highGeorge:ly concentrated. In 1871, more than 8.5
the nation’s largest markets
million acres of land were owned by justThere is no state in the Union in which
3,000 miles away, and
516 men, an average of nearly 17,000
settlers in good faith have been so persecuteverything in between.
acres each; in Fresno County, 48 people
ed, so robbed, as in California. Men haveowned more than 79,000 acres each.12
grown rich, and men still make a regular
One of the state’s biggest land barons wasbusiness of blackmailing settlers upon public land, or of approWilliam S. Chapman, a speculator and cattle baron who
priating their homes, and this by power of the law and in theaccumulated more than one million acres in California,
name of justice.19
including much of the best agricultural land in the state.
Chapman eventually lost his holdings in an ill-advised investReaching distant markets
ment scheme, with most of the land going to another specuWhy did California farmers focus on distant markets so early
lator and rancher, Henry Miller.13 In 1919, Miller’s empire
on, when settlers in other parts of the country were producwas so huge he claimed he could ride on horseback froming food mostly for themselves, their neighbors, and nearby
Canada to Mexico and sleep every night on one of his own
14markets? It is often claimed that California’s mild climate andranches.
long growing season represented a comparative advantage so
These huge estates were not used entirely for agriculture, but great that the state’s farmers were bound to become major
farms in California were generally large in scale and concenexporters to the rest of the nation, and later the world.The
trated in ownership.The US census reveals that in 1860 thefact is, however, that California’s climate saddled farmers
proportion of farms larger than 1,000 acres was higher inwith important disadvantages as well. Much of the state, andCalifornia than in any other state except Louisiana.15 In fact,
most of the Central Valley, is semi-arid, with no rain at all for
it is no coincidence that the only states in which farms
roughly half the year.Without significant investments inapproached the scale of California’s in that year were in themechanical pumps, water diversion schemes, and irrigation
South—the other notable exception to the model of small,projects, most of California would be unsuited to large-scale
locally-based farm economies—where agriculture was also
export-oriented farming, particularly in products like rice,based on exports, primarily cotton and tobacco.
cotton, and vegetables.
By 1870, the Civil War had put an end to the South’s plantation system, and California ranked supreme among largefarm states: it was home to more than twice as many 1,000acre farms as any other state; 60 percent of its farms werelarger than 100 acres in that year, compared with 22 percent
for the country as a whole.16 This pattern held firm in theyears that followed: in 1939, a writer observed that“California is not a land of farms but a country of plantations and estates.”17

Other factors more fully explain why California’s earliest
growers focused on production for distant markets. One isthe close connection between export-led agriculture andlarge farms. If farmers are producing for export, systemicpressures lead to the production of single crops on a large
scale. Conversely, when farms are large—as in early
California—farmers have the ability to produce food andfiber in quantities far greater than local markets can absorb.
In other words, growers with huge holdings need to export
7

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

their production if they are to extract as much profit as possible from them.

California’s large farms were a primary beneficiary of thishuge government investment: they now had a pipeline to thenation’s largest markets 3,000 miles away, and everything in
between.This subsidized transport infrastructure, and theInterstate Highway System that came later, enabled
California growers to penetrate the market of virtually every
other farmer in the United States.

The enticement to export would have been particularly
strong in California 150 years ago, when farms were not
only huge, but the population, and hence the size of thelocal market, was very small. In 1850, for example, there
were six cities east of the Mississippi with populations larger than the entire territory of California: Boston’s population alone exceeded California’s by nearly 50 percent, while
New York City’s was more than seven times as large.20
Though California’s population grew rapidly following theGold Rush, it wouldn’t surpass that of New York City until
the 1940s.21

Labor shortages: immigrationand mechanization
These factors—concentrated ownership of large-scale farms,
an export-oriented agricultural economy, and substantial
government support—gave California a huge push in the
direction of industrial agriculture. Many of the trends of theyears that followed, culminating with California agribusinesses becoming global leaders in their economic might, stem
directly from these peculiarities of the state’s early history.
Figure 1.1 depicts some of the key developments in theindustrialization of California agriculture.

But reaching those cities required a sea voyage around thetip of South America, or overland routes that were similarly
long and difficult. If California growers were to become
major food exporters, they would need a far faster and morereliable transport infrastructure. As we will see in Chapter 4,
this is a critical requirement for every participant in the
global-industrial food system.

Another factor driving the state toward industrial agriculture
was the recurring shortage of labor.With the exception of
the Mission system, California farms never relied on slavelabor, unlike the export-based plantations of the pre-Civil
War South. Nonetheless, the absentee owners of California’s
huge farms required an abundant supply of cheap labor ifthey were to maximize the financial return from their holdings.24 That supply generally came from immigrants, first
those who poured into the state during the Gold Rush, followed in time by Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, and manyothers. Not all the immigrants were foreign-born:
California’s fields were filled with unemployed industrial

Help for those hoping to market California’s products out-ofstate was not long in coming. In 1862, the US government
began providing massive subsidies for the building of atranscontinental railroad. By the time the rail link was completed in 1869, the subsidy amounted to almost four times as muchas the US paid Russia for the entire territory of Alaska twoyears earlier.22 Much of the subsidy was in the form of land,enabling the railroad corporations to accumulate vast quantitiesof the California land base: by 1919, in fact, Southern Pacific
was the biggest single landowner in the state.23

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California and its foodproduction system throughtime

1769 First Spanish Missions founded

8

1800

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

workers from eastern cities during a depression in the 1890s
and with displaced farmers from Texas, Oklahoma, andArkansas during the 1930s Dust Bowl.

nization was also used by growers to keep workers fromdemanding higher wages and better working conditions andto undermine efforts to unionize farm workers.27

Thanks to this continual influx of immigrants, agriculturallabor in California was often quite cheap. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad, Chinese workers, forexample, were willing to work for almost nothing:

Mechanized planting and harvesting techniques were devisedin the late 19th century and, partly because of the state’s labor
problems and its orientation towards large-scale agriculture,
were embraced more quickly in California than in any otherstate. By 1910, the value of farm equipment per California
farm was nearly 2.5 times the average for the rest of thenation.28 By 1950, half of all farm machines in the UnitedStates were in use in California, and half of the state’s crops
were harvested mechanically. In the rest of the country, bycontrast, only 10 percent of crops were being harvested bymachine at that time.29

Wages of $1 per day or $25 per month, and with extremely
low costs for board, coupled with the employers’ complete lack of
responsibility toward the workers when not needed, made for alabor supply which was often considered cheaper than slavelabor.The use of Chinese labor did not require capital investment, as did slaves, nor very much in the way of housing andequipment.25
Despite the farm system’s dependence on cheap labor,
California has had an uneasy relationship with foreign immigrants. Growers welcomed the influx of laborers willing towork hard under poor conditions for very little pay, but
Anglo workers often aimed their frustration with their own
labor difficulties on those of different color, ethnicity, or
national origin. Immigration patterns have therefore resembled a swinging pendulum, with active efforts to bring cheap
labor into the country followed by attempts to seal thenation’s borders to particular immigrant groups.26

California was the source of many biological innovations as
well. But while pre-industrial farmers the world over haveselected traits and created varieties tailored to particular soils
and micro-climates, innovations in California have more
often suited the needs of large-scale production and trade—such as fruit and vegetable varieties that can withstandmechanical harvesting and long-distance transport.31
California has the dubious distinction of being home to thefirst whole food created through biotechnology, the Calgene

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The recurring shortage of labor for California’s huge farms
has been an important impetus for the mechanization of thestate’s agriculture. Every new machine and every advance infarm technology (including herbicides, in particular) could
potentially eliminate the need for hundreds or even thousands of agricultural workers.The threat of further mecha-

Irrigation needs and the development of specialty crops
demanded other mechanical innovations, and the farm implement industry in the state thrived. California pioneered technologies such as grain combines, track-laying tractors, airplaneseeders, and mechanized tomato and sugar beet harvesters. It
is believed that the first use of electricity for irrigation pumping took place in the Central Valley just before 1900.30

1900

2000

9

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Flavr Savr tomato, introduced in 1994.Technologies such asthese have often been subsidized by the public, through theparticipation of publicly-funded university researchers intheir development (Chapter 11 further discusses the role oftaxpayer-supported research in industrializing California’s
food system.)

Dependence on inputs

monocrop grain farming, involving little useof crop rotation, fallowing, fertilizer, or deep
plowing, mined the soil of nutrients and promoted the growth of weeds. Complaints thatthe land no longer yielded paying wheat
crops became common from the 1890s.32

Salinas field, 1939.

Photo: Library of Congress

Because the global food system relies on large quantities ofsingle crops from individual producers,
California’s early orientation toward
exports helped lead the state’s agricultural
system down the road of monocultural
production. Wheat and barley monocultures, for example, were widespread fromthe middle of the 19th century. Within a
few decades, these industrial farming
methods had overtaxed the land. It wasreported that:

Agrochemicals were not the only external input required tomaximize production on California’s large-scale landholdings: water was also a critical factor.With rain scarce or nonexistent for much of the year, groundwater pumps, irrigation
systems, and water diversion projects were needed to growwater-intensive export crops like rice and to keep orchards
and hay fields green in the middle of the desert. By 1870,
small diversion projects and rudimentary drill rigs andgroundwater pumps enabled growers to irrigate 60,000 acresof farmland.The total grew quickly to 1.1 million acres by
1889, and more than doubled again by
1902.With massive projects to divert rivers
and 80,000 pumps pumping groundwater,
the irrigated acreage totaled 6.5 million
acres by 1950.35
In the early stages of this process, individuals
and private partnerships made the required
investments, but government subsidies haveplayed an increasing role, particularly in theyears since World War II.The huge Central
Valley Project, consisting of a series of massive dams, pumping stations and aqueducts
to deliver water from northern California tothe arid Central Valley, cost an estimated $4
billion. Originally authorized under a federal Act that limited its benefits to small family
farmers, the Project’s benefits have instead
flowed mainly to large agribusinesses (seeBox 6.2).36

California’s early growers
Many growers switched from grains tofruit, but their monocultural practices
focused on the large-scalecontinued. The first full shipment of fruit
production of single crops
was exported in 1886, but early fruit
By the 1970s, water for more than half of thegrowers also depleted the soil, and by thefor distant markets.
state’s irrigated acreage was supplied by irrigaturn of the century many were forced totion districts—public corporations run by local
switch again, this time to sugar beetlandowners and empowered to distribute water from themonocultures. This boom and bust-the-land cycle continCentral Valley Project and other federal and state works. In addiued until the development of agricultural chemicals—tion, thousands of miles of major levees were built by the Army
including fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides—
Corps of Engineers to channel the state’s inland waterways, benthat could artificially boost and maintain output. Anhydrous
efiting large-scale rice growers in particular.37
ammonia, which now accounts for more than 35 percent of
the nitrogen applied to US fields, was first used inWith its early lead on the road to industrial agriculture,
California, where it was added to irrigation water in 1932.
California has been ahead of the pack ever since. For examThe chemical was first injected directly into the soil inple, huge industrial feedlots—farm operations where animals
1942, also in California.33
are fattened for slaughter—were pioneered in California andIn the years following the end of World War II, a number ofpesticides with roots in chemical warfare research were
widely introduced into California agriculture.These included
the insecticide DDT, the herbicide 2, 4-D, and several new
fungicides.34 As Chapters 5 and 6 point out, this “solution”
created far more problems than it solved.

10

Arizona in the 1950s. By 1953, more than 92 percent of thestate’s grain-fed cattle were in feedlots of 1,000 animals or
more.Within a decade, the capacity of the state’s feedlots had
tripled, and almost 70 percent of the cattle on feed were in
feedlots holding at least 10,000 animals.38 In 1963, the average California feedlot had 6 times as many animals as a Texas
feedlot, and almost 50 times as many as a feedlot in Iowa.39

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Serving it up: fast foodIn addition to writing much of the blueprint for industrial
agriculture, California also introduced “fast food,” now acommonplace feature of the industrial food system. In 2001,
Americans spent over $110 billion on fast food, more thanthey spent on computers, higher education, or new cars.40

supplying distant markets.These factors have helped orient
the state’s agricultural system toward large-scale monocultural production, mechanization, a heavy reliance on fossil fuels,
the use of external inputs and biotechnology, and dependence on cheap, easily exploited labor.

As the following chapters will show, these trends have been aboon for a handful of agribusiness corporations but have
The fast food craze began with drive-in restaurants, which
been very costly for California’s environment, its rural comfirst appeared in Southern
munities, and the vast majority ofCalifornia in the early 1940s.
its population. Large-scale indusTwo brothers, Richard andtrial monocultures have damaged
Maurice McDonald, created theCalifornia’s environment andnation’s first truly fast fooderoded the food security of its
restaurant in San Bernardino ininhabitants.The trade-based food1948. It was based on their revosystem has been heavily subsilutionary “Speedee Service
dized by the public, which has
System,” which aimed to increase
paid for most or all of the transspeed, lower prices, and raise theport, energy, water, and researchvolume of sales.
infrastructures the entire systemdepends upon.
The brothers eliminated almost
Fast food is the pinnacle of the global food
two-thirds of the items on their old
As these costs become increassystem: it is corporate-controlled,
menu.They got rid of everything
ingly clear, a grassroots movethat had to be eaten with a knife,standardized, mass-produced food produced ment to shift the food systemspoon, or fork.The only sandwiches
at the lowest possible cost and served to the toward more sustainable, localnow sold were hamburgers andized, and diversified food systems
cheeseburgers.The brothers got rid of
highest possible number of people.
is gaining momentum. The
their dishes and glassware, replacing
objective is not to remake
them with paper cups, paper bags,
California’s food system in the image of the indigenous
and paper plates.They divided the food preparation into sepacultures that inhabited this land 350 years ago. Even if thisrate tasks performed by different workers. . . . For the first time,
were desirable, a return to food systems based largely on
the guiding principles of a factory assembly line were applied toindigenous practices would of course be impossible: thea commercial kitchen.41
number of people living in California today is over 100
times more than when the first Spanish Missions were
The McDonald brothers’ restaurant was eventually taken
founded.
over by Ray Kroc, whose use of franchising was a key element in the spread of the fast food model.The system wasNonetheless, California’s indigenous cultures reveal some ofimitated by other California entrepreneurs, with Carl’s Jr.,
the principles needed to create more just and sustainable
Taco Bell and Jack in the Box among the state’s contribufood systems, including the importance of human scale,tions to the industry.
diversity, and local knowledge. As the following chapters willshow, globalization is taking California’s food system in
In many ways, fast food is the pinnacle of the global foodexactly the opposite direction. Shifting course doesn’t meansystem: it is corporate-controlled, standardized, mass-proeliminating all trade; it simply involves giving production for
duced food produced at the lowest possible cost and served
local consumption a higher priority than production forto the highest possible number of people. Its reliance on
speed and standardization, which favors technology and prof- export. It means allowing food systems across the state toits over labor and food quality, is a form of “efficiency” much reflect local resources, micro-climates, and needs, thereby
bringing diversity back to the agricultural landscape. It
admired by profit-driven food corporations of every kind.
means giving support to smaller, more diversified, and more
ecologically-managed farms, instead of large input-dependent
Learning from the past
monocultures. Finally, it involves shifting the balance of
Beginning with the earliest European settlements,
power away from a few giant corporations, toward a multiCalifornia’s farms have been large and highly focused on
tude of smaller, independent farms and businesses.
11

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 2:

Globalizing California AgricultureA

fter so many years at the cutting edge of industrial production, where is California’s agricultural system today? Some will argue that it is a roaring success: the supermarket shelves arebursting with food, and the state’s $27 billion in annual farm production is higher than thenext two states combined. Food exports, meanwhile, bring in $6.5 billion each year. Numbers likethese, the argument goes, show that the agricultural system is not only working, but working well.
However, the items in an upscale supermarket and the dollar
value of California’s farm production reveal relatively little
about the food system’s impact on the majority of people or
the environment. A broader look, in fact, reveals a very troubling picture. California agriculture remains heavily tilted
toward large farms.The number of farmers is declining, andcorporate control of farmland is increasing. Monocultural
practices remain prevalent, which means a continued relianceon external inputs toxic to the environment and humanhealth. Beyond the farm, food is being sold through fewer,
larger, and ever more centralized retail outlets, with unprecedented power over the entire food system. As these massive
retailers vie for control with similarly large corporate processors and distributors, small enterprises in every sector of thefood system are being squeezed out.
As for the powerhouse of California agribusiness, tradederegulation is stripping away the unique advantages
California’s producers once had in the global marketplace,putting the state in direct competition with countries where
production costs are far lower. As a result, California’s foodexport balloon may be about to burst.
The following pages outline the connections among thedominant trends in California’s agriculture system today, but
it should be noted that it is not possible to draw strict
12

boundaries around the state and describe only what happens
within those lines. Globalization is increasingly making suchboundaries irrelevant—even when they make sense—and
therefore many features of California’s food system extend toother states and nations, while many companies and forces
originating outside California have a huge impact here.

On the farm: the big get bigger
The industrialization of agriculture began earlier in
California than in any other state and, at least partly for thisreason, has proceeded farther than anywhere else in theworld. But the process is by no means over. Global economic
forces impel the state’s production system to continuallychange—to become more industrialized, still larger in scale,and even more concentrated in ownership. As a result, thespread of the global food system is exposing California tomany of the same wrenching dislocations endured by rural
populations the world over.
In the global food economy, large quantities of single commodities need to be centrally collected, processed, and marketed. Such a system is only efficient if it is supplied by asmall number of large monocultural farms, rather than a far
greater number of small, diversified farms.Though California
farms have always been large, the consolidation of farm own-

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

FIGURE 2.1:

Percent change in farm
numbers by size: 1982 - 19975

Thanks to the prevalence of these factory farms, the numberof animals per farm is rapidly growing statewide, though it iscommonly believed that the trend toward concentrated production peaked in the 1970s. A few examples illustrate therapidity of change:■

Forty years ago, the typical California dairy farm had 63
cows. By 2001, the average had risen to 721, nearly twelve
times as many.7■

Between 1982 and 1997, the number of beef cattle per
farm increased 33 percent, dairy cows by 160 percent, andlaying chickens by 117 percent.8■

Today, the average broiler (meat) chicken “farm” sells nearly one million birds annually.9■

By 2002, 80 percent of laying hens in California were
found on “farms” with 100,000 or more birds.10■

Seventy percent of California’s hogs are raised on farms of
5,000 or more.11

70%
60%
50%
40%

% Change

30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
Under
$2,500$2,500 to$4,999$5,000 to$9,999$10,000 to$24,999$25,000 to$49,999$50,000 to $100,000 to $500,000 or$99,999$499,999
more

Farm Income Category

ership is growing: between 1954 and 1997, average farm size
increased 25 percent,1 and the largest 1 percent of farms now
control 46 percent of the state’s farmland.2 These two trends
are associated with a decrease in the number of small andmedium sized farms, which have difficulty surviving in a system that so heavily favors large producers.This is a nationwide trend—reflected in the fact that large commercial farms
in the US net an average of $149,300 annually while theaverage rural residence farm loses $1,400 a year.3

In dollar terms, dairy is California’s largest agricultural sector.
With $4.6 billion in annual milk output,12 California has surpassed Wisconsin to become the biggest dairy producer in the
United States. California produces half of the nation’s non-fat
dry milk, 20 percent of its butter, and 28 percent of its cheese.13
This growth has come about largely through the adoption offactory farm methods.At the forefront of this trend are Kern,
Tulare, and Riverside counties, where dairy farms average
1,000 to 2,000 cows each. Plans are even afoot for a huge factory dairy project in the Mojave Desert.With 90,000 cows, itwould be the largest dairy complex in the country.14
Photo: Jeff Vanuga, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

In California, the total number of farms decreased by 10 percent between 1982 and 1997.That decline is significant but
tells only part of the story.While the number of small farms,
those with annual sales below $50,000, consistently
decreased, the number of farms with sales higher than thatfigure actually increased. In fact, the largest farms, those withannual sales over $500,000, grew by more than 50 percent
over the 15 year period.4 In other words, smaller farms arebeing driven out, and their land and markets are being takenover by their larger competitors (see Figure 2.1).

The concentration of animals in these conditions affects not
only their welfare but also the environment and the health ofCalifornians living nearby and downstream.

Old McDonald’s factory farm
The consolidation of California’s farm economy is evenmore dramatic than the rising acreage numbers indicate,since some of the “biggest” dairy, meat, and egg farms cover
relatively little ground: on these industrial-style factory farms
the closely confined animals don’t graze or roam, and little if
any of the feed is grown on the farm. For example, a 25,000
square foot, controlled-climate building can house 125,000
laying hens, each confined to 0.2 square feet of space.6

13

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Farm, Inc.
Along with the trend toward still larger farms and more concentrated ownership, there is a distinct trend in California
toward corporate ownership. Although the majority of thestate’s farms are still owned by families or individuals, one inevery 14 is owned by a corporation.15 In many cases, thesefarms are controlled by vertically integrated agribusinesses
that dominate other parts of the food chain as well.16

allows counties to vote on whether to oppose corporate
farming, and over 20 have done so, as have several localities
in Pennsylvania. In fact, this is one of the few areas in which
corporations have been successfully challenged in their“rights” as persons under the law.

Continued reliance on chemical inputs

The methods employed on California’s large-scale monocultural farms are highly unsustainable. Rather than workCalifornia already has a higher proportion of corporate
ing with nature’s cycles, industrial production requires thefarms and a smaller percentage of family farms than theuse of manufactured inputs. Perhaps the most damaging of
national average, and the balance continues to shift toward
these inputs are the heavy chemical applithe corporate: between 1982 and 1997,
cations required to keep pests at bay inthe number of family farms decreased by
Trade deregulation ishighly unnatural monocultures and to
13 percent, while the number of corpoartificially supply nutrients to growing
stripping away the uniquerate-owned farms rose 8 percent.17 Not
plants. Though it will take generations toadvantages California’ssurprisingly, California’s corporate farms
know the full impacts of these practices
tend to be among the state’s largest: coron the health of people and the environproducers once had in the
porate farms average roughly 1,000 acres
ment, the known consequences areglobal marketplace, puttingin size—almost three times the statealready severe (see Chapters 5 and 6).
norm.18 Corporate farms also account forthe state in direct
The use of agrochemicals, especially herbialmost half of all farms with a net incomecompetition with countries
cides, also reduces the need for humanover $500,000.19
labor; this is a major reason so few people
where production costs are
The shift toward corporate farm ownership
remain on the land in California.The same
far lower. As a result,is troubling for a number of reasons.
is true of mechanized production methods,
Though economic pressures can lead evenwhich today means replacing human andCalifornia’s food export
family farmers to adopt abusive agricultural
animal power with equipment run on fossil
balloon may be about
practices, those pressures are greatly magnifuels. In 2000 alone, California farmers
fied for corporate farms. Like corporations
to burst.
spent $574 million on petroleum prodgenerally, corporate farms are driven by theucts,21 inputs whose real costs are highly
quest for short-term profits, and in fact are
subsidized and externalized (see Chapter 6).
legally bound to this goal by state constitutions, corporate
The need to continually adopt new farm technologies is one
codes, and other legal mechanisms. As a result, a corporationof the chief reasons farmers are on a “technological treadis far less likely than a family farmer to be concerned withmill” that leads nowhere but to greater indebtedness, andthe so-called “non-economic” values of the farm—the needs
siphons farm income into the coffers of equipment manufacof wildlife, the long-term health of the soil, the quality ofturers. In 1997, the average California farm expenditure on
farm workers’ lives, the farm’s role in the neighboring farmmachinery and equipment was $69,590.22 Today that figure iscommunity, or the viability of the farm’s ecosystem several
even higher: the cost of farm inputs, including machinery,generations into the future. Corporations are also more sucincreased 15 percent between 1997 and 2001.23 In recent
cessful at extracting subsidies, both direct and indirect, fromyears, farm technology has become increasingly high-tech
the public: corporate farms in California receive twice as
and even more costly, with such innovations as biotechnolomuch in government subsidies as the average California
gy and the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites
farm.20and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology for
Because of the heavy social and environmental impacts of“precision” agriculture. As ever, California is at the forefront
corporate farms, citizens in several states have pressed theirof these trends.
governments to limit their spread. Nebraska and South
Despite their ongoing reliance on farm technology to
Dakota have anti-corporate farming rules written into theirreplace farmworkers, California’s growers are still dependent
constitutions, while Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota,
on cheap labor.The average wage for farm laborers in the
Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Wisconsin have statutes
state is under $6/hour, a rate that leaves a full-time wage
restricting corporate involvement in agriculture. Kansas also
14

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

earner with one dependent at the poverty line.24
Nonetheless, labor costs are a major sticking point for the
profits of California agribusinesses, which increasingly mustcompete with countries where the price of labor is far less.
As a result, the globalization of food is exerting heavy downward pressure on farmworker wages, not just in California
but throughout the North. Chapter 8 describes the plight ofCalifornia’s farmworkers in greater depth.

California fisheries in the global economy

Even more important, the factory-like technologies thathave been applied to fishing are putting unsustainable pressure on ocean ecosystems. These techniques extract tremendous quantities of fish, often in non-targeted ways thatdamage breeding grounds and harm marine mammals (seeChapter 6). As with industrial farming, this trend is supported by government subsidies, with many nationsattempting to increase the global competitiveness of theirown fishing industries by making their fleets still more
“efficient.”
Aquaculture, or fish farming, is increasingly promoted as asolution to both collapsed fisheries and world hunger. But
these industrial aquatic feedlots require intensive inputs offeed, fertilizer, and antibiotics, and have harmed local communities and ecosystems.27
With stocks of more valuable species collapsing, the catchof smaller and economically less valuable fish like sardines
and squid is increasing; as a result, California’s fisherpeople
are earning less money per pound caught.28 Squid areexported primarily to China and sardines exported toAustralia and Japan to feed farmed tuna and bait longlines.29

The increased global trade in fish has meant, among otherthings, that California’s fishing industry no longer supplies
the demands of the state’s residents: in 2000, only 12 percent
of fish consumed in the state were caught in California. At
the same time, almost 75 percent of California’s catch isexported to other countries; since most of the exported fish
are less valuable species, the state spends over ten times asmuch on imports as it receives fromexports.30
Photo: C. Ortiz Roja/NOAA

The fishing industry represents an important part ofCalifornia’s food production system, andit too has been affected by globalizing
forces. California fisheries include squid,
Dungeness crab, sea urchins, Chinook
salmon, swordfish, sardines, lobster, tuna,and rockfish.25 But the industry is on asteep downward slope, in part becauseof the deregulation of trade. In the
1970s, for instance, the state’s tuna canning industry was among the largest andmost profitable in the world, with tuna
representing roughly half the state’s
landings. In 1985 the industry abandoned California for American Samoa
and Puerto Rico, which have lower
labor costs and less stringent environmental regulations.26

While these small fish are less valuable in dollar terms, they
are important parts of the marine ecosystem: they feed
many other species, and when they are overfished, theentire food chain is affected.

Food production tomorrow

The enormous scale and centralized
nature of the global food system hassignificant implications. In order to be“efficient” and profitable, the huge distributors and supermarket chains that
dominate the system cannot make purchases from a great number of small,diversified farms; instead they must be
supplied by farms producing massive
amounts of single commodities. In thisway, the architecture of the global food system is driving
farms to become larger and more monocultural, thus increasingly dependent on fossil fuels, chemical inputs, and biotechnology.
As with so many other aspects of the global food system,
California has been at the forefront of these trends. As wewill see, these have had devastating consequences for theenvironment and for the vast majority of the state’s residents.
Nonetheless, California agriculture continues to be “showcased” as a successful model to be emulated by other regions,particularly the countries of the South.31
Fortunately, there are better agricultural alternatives—thosethat are smaller in scale, more diversified and ecologicallysound, and more supportive of equitable economies and nurturing of local communities. As the problems of industrial
production for global markets become more apparent, clear
alternatives are emerging through the sustainable agriculture
movement in California. Regrettably, government support
for this movement is still a tiny fraction of what is supplied
to “conventional” agriculture.What’s more, policies promoting the globalization of food inherently undermine any
effort to improve the sustainability of the state’s agricultural
system. A shift in direction is sorely needed.

15

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 3:

Consolidating the Food Supply Chain
he global economy is affecting more than just food production: other components ofT

California’s food system, from processing and shipping to wholesaling and retailing, are also
feeling the impact.With the “rules of the game” rewritten to favor the largest firms, small

businesses in every sector of the food economy are being consumed by the largest, and control isbeing consolidated within a handful of huge corporations. Although these trends are occurring
worldwide, corporate concentration in the food system is happening more rapidly in California thananywhere else on the continent.1

The consolidation of businesses across one level in the foodother links of the food chain into their operations, such as achain is called horizontal integration, as when two shippers ormeat packer that acquires grain handling facilities, feedlots, orseed companies merge or a retailer acquires another retailer
businesses that market directly to retailers.3 This trend has
proceeded so far that it is now common for large marketers(see Box 3.1 for an example of horizontal integration in
to grow and ship their own products and tofoodservice). One of its impacts is a reducsell directly to retailers, absorbing the function in market alternatives. For producers,
Concentration leads to antions of traditional wholesalers and brokerthis has serious implications: if a farmer
overall increase in retailage firms into their own operations, andrejects the price offered by what might bethereby increasing their power in the foodthe only wholesaler left in her region, shefood prices, since the effectsupply chain.4
may be unable to sell her product at all.
of increased market power
Market alternatives for consumers are also
One of the most striking examples of vertiovershadows any costdiminishing, as supermarket chains andcal integration is ConAgra Foods Inc.,
superstores come to eliminate otherefficiencies.
which controls a large portion of the marregional food marketing options.
ket in everything from farm inputs to highly processed TV dinners (see Box 3.2). Another company, Del
Another result of horizontal integration is the increased
Monte, boasts that: “Del Monte Fresh Produce Company
transport of food.With local buyers for raw farm products
truly does it all! We grow, pack, ship and distribute our proddisappearing, food must be shipped to large centralized buyucts ourselves.”5
ers, often great distances away. For example, more than twothirds of California beef cattle are shipped out of state for
The increase in horizontal and vertical integration, achieved
feeding and slaughter.2
primarily through mergers and acquisitions, raises a host of
The globalization of food is also encouraging another form
anti-trust concerns. Among other things, these highly consolof consolidation, vertical integration, in which firms assimilate
idated middlemen are in a position to exert tremendous con16

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

trol over prices—both those paid to producers and thosecharged to consumers.This eliminates competition andresults in a type of oligopoly that makes it virtually impossible for smaller businesses to survive or for new enterprises togain a foothold.The net result is decreased returns for farmers, relatively higher prices for consumers at the checkoutline, and record profits for the food system’s corporate middlemen.6

Consolidation in food retail
Many of the changes in the food supply chain have been
accelerated by the rapid consolidation of the retail sector (seeBox 3.3).The top five supermarket corporations in the

In California, where 93 percent of food is sold throughsupermarkets,7 control of food retail is even more concentrated.The top three supermarket chains (Safeway, Kroger,
and Albertsons) control 47 percent of the market inNorthern California and 63 percent inSouthern California.8 (Appendix 1 profiles California’s top three supermarket
companies.) Thanks to economic globalization, the consolidation trend is notconfined to the United States: economists anticipate that six or fewer corporations will soon dominate food retailing worldwide.9
Photo: Katy Mamen

Numerous complaints by producers
have challenged the legality of thishighly integrated system. But theselegitimate concerns have mostly been
disregarded, not only by the corporations in power but in many cases by
Justice Department anti-trust officials
as well.This is because it is assumed
that globalization has changed the standards by which illegal monopoly
power is measured: within the global
economy, it is argued, firms must be
huge to survive. If smaller firms arecontinually absorbed by larger ones, this is attributed to theinfallible hand of the free market, working to eliminate less“efficient” businesses.This view, however, completely ignoresthe “hand” of these same corporations in rewriting the rulesof the global economy in such a way that larger scale is constantly demanded.

United States (Kroger, Albertsons,Wal-Mart, Safeway, andAhold USA) increased their control of the market from 24
percent of retail sales in 1997 to 42 percent in 2000.

The degree to which this process isoccurring has been largely hidden frompublic view, in part because the dominant companies often keep the original
names on stores they acquire. Most shoppers at Smith’s, Fred
Meyer, Quality Food Centers, Ralph’s/Food 4 Less, City
Market, Kessel, PriceRite, and PayLess stores are unlikely toknow that these markets are all owned by the largest US
retailer, Kroger. Nor are the customers of the chains Stopand Shop, Bi-Lo,Tops, and Giant likely to be aware thatthese stores are owned by Netherlands-based Royal Ahold,which operates retail food outlets around the world.10
Though retailing has already become highly concentrated,
the process is by no means over.The industry journal
Progressive Grocer points out that in the future, “the number

BOX 3.1: Horizontal integration profile: Sysco
In 1969, Zero Foods of Houston,Texas, merged with eightregional foodservice distributors to become Sysco. Since
then, Sysco has expanded significantly, purchasing approximately 70 other companies (or divisions of companies)33 tobecome the largest company in the foodservice distribution industry in North America. Sysco has 145 distribution centers throughout North America and delivers morethan a quarter million different items of food and otherrelated products to some 420,000 restaurants, hospitals,
schools, prisons, hotels, military bases, and other facilities
throughout the continent.34

Sysco reported sales of $26.1 billion and net earnings of$778.3 million in 2003, representing about 13 percent of thefood service industry total and dwarfing its two chief competitors, U.S. Food Service, and Performance Food Group.35
Sysco has a strong presence in California, including 17 distribution centers. In recent years, Sysco acquired several
California-based businesses: Newport Meat Company of
Irvine (one of the largest distributors of meat and seafood inSouthern California), FreshPoint of Southern California, Lee
Ray-Tarantino Company, Royal Foods Company, and thefoodservice operations of Smart & Final.36

17

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

of mega mergers is expected to be limited . . . primarily
because there are not many large companies left to buy. But
watch out as the mega-chains gobble up small and mid-sizedindependents as fill-ins to solidify their market share andincrease their buying power.”11
As consolidation in this sector has grown, the largest retailers
have gained immense leverage, not only over the retail sector, but over other parts of the food system as well.
Producers, suppliers, processors, and wholesalers are all being
forced to consolidate further in the hope of matching theretailers’ economic clout.12 In this way, the global food system
requires and rewards larger scale at every level.
For example, the retailers’ control of so much of the market
enables them to command low prices and volume discounts
from suppliers.13 This allows them to undercut smaller retailcompetitors, which cannot demand similarly low prices fromsuppliers. Powerful retail chains have also begun to mandatethat suppliers pay for product placement in stores. It is estimated that roughly 50 to 75 percent of the total net profit oflarge supermarkets comes from these fees, which include
slotting fees, display and presentation fees, failure fees, and“pay-to-stay” fees.14
These fees can be large: getting bagged lettuce on supermarket
shelves, for example, can cost a supplier $10-20,000 for small
retail accounts, $500,000 for a division of a multiregional chain,
and up to $2 million for a large multiregional chain.15 These

huge fees keep smaller suppliers out: if they cannot afford to
pay the charges, they are left without access to markets.
The dominant position of the supermarket chains is forcing
suppliers to consolidate or risk losing still more power to theretailers.16 This, too, has the effect of driving out the smallest
firms. One study found that large retailers obtain 85 to 97
percent of their total purchases from their top four suppliers,
leaving little of the market for smaller businesses.17

Growth run amok
Consolidation is taking place throughout California’s, andthe nation’s, food system, whittling down the number ofcompanies and focusing control in the hands of the everlarger companies that remain. Consider these examples:■

By 1998, the four biggest wholesalers accounted for 21
percent of the $147 billion US industry; the sector has
become still more consolidated, with 26 mergers andacquisitions recorded between 1997 and 2000 alone.18■

The top 20 “food manufacturers” are now responsible formore than half of the nation’s processing, twice their sharein 1954.19■

One company,Tyson Foods, is responsible for one-fourthof all US chicken sales.20■

Two companies in California, Dole and Fresh Express,
control two-thirds of the country’s bagged salad market.21

BOX 3.2: Vertical integration profile: ConAgra
Together, ConAgra’s four divisions—Agricultural
Products, Food Ingredients (including seasonings, flavorings, and grain), Meat Processing, and Packaged Foods—
encompass nearly all aspects of food production, processing, and distribution. Producing everything from herbicides to frozen dinners, ConAgra is a dominating presence
throughout the food system, a strategy that netted thecompany $19.8 billion in sales in 2003.37
As ConAgra’s website proclaims, “It’s time to eat . . . it’stime for ConAgra Foods!” Indeed, it would be difficult formost consumers to avoid ConAgra at mealtime.The company produces a myriad of highly processed products forevery meal of the day. Giving an illusion of choice in the
supermarket, many of their brands even overlap: the “competing” margarines Blue Bonnet, Parkay, Move Over
Butter, and Fleischmann’s are all produced by ConAgra.38

18

ConAgra’s influence over the food system is global inscope. For instance, ConAgra Foods promotes, throughmanufacturing and marketing, the use of pesticides andsynthetic fertilizers on four continents. ConAgra markets
these agrochemicals in the United States, Argentina,
Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru,
South Africa,Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.39
In 2003, ConAgra was the nation’s third-largest food company after Kraft Foods and Nestle USA.40 Although
ConAgra revenues have declined since most of its meat
processing division was sold, the company remains one ofthe dominant food production and marketing agribusinesses in the US.41

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: ISEC

BOX 3.3: Wal-Mart■

Wal-Mart, with 3,400 US stores and counting, is thelargest grocery retailer in the world—in fact the largest
company in the world when measured by annual revenues.
Wal-Mart already operates in 11 countries42 and recently
purchased some of the leading supermarket chains in
Britain and Germany. Fiscal year profits for 2003 werereported at an astonishing $8 billion.
Globally, the threat posed by Wal-Mart is so great to otherretailers that even the largest are being forced to merge orexpand in order to cope.43 Thus, France’s Carrefour andPromodes recently merged in direct response to WalMart’s global presence, becoming second only to theAmerican giant among global retailers.
Wal-Mart’s massive presence is helping drive change
throughout the retail sector and beyond:■

The Food Marketing Institute estimates that Wal-Mart
has helped push the median grocery store size from40,500 square feet up to 52,400 square feet in just two
years.44 Wal-Mart Supercenters range from 180,000 to
225,000 square feet.

■

Whenever one of its stores opens in a community, manysmaller independent shops are forced to close. Studies in
the US have shown that five years after the opening of a
new Wal-Mart, stores within a 20-mile radius have lostan average of 19 percent in retail sales.45■

Despite employing more than 962,000 “associates”
across the US, making it the largest private employer inthe country, the opening of stores like Wal-Mart results
in a net loss of jobs.46■

Wal-Mart and other large grocery outlets tend to locate
outside of town centers, undermining the vitality ofurban cores and forcing customers to drive greater distances to shop.

Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices” come at the expenseof other businesses within the food economy.The slotting fees and low prices demanded of suppliers ripple
down through the food system, ultimately putting pressure on the prices received by farmers and the wages
received by workers at every level.

Wal-Mart has had a significant impact on California’s
economy: the state is home to 133 Wal-Mart discountstores and 30 SAM’S CLUB stores. Wal-Mart’s plans for
expansion in California include the development of 40
Supercenters, bringing the company’s food retail division
into the state for the first time. Non-unionized Wal-Martoffers lower wages and fewer benefits than the state’s
unionized supermarkets, which are attempting to trim
their own labor costs to make themselves more competitive. This was the main reason behind a strike by some
70,000 grocery store workers at 859 supermarkets inSouthern California that began in October 2003.47 In
response to accusations from unions that the companies
were slashing benefits, “the grocery companies countered
they were no longer willing to absorb all the costs
involved in maintaining health care benefits, saying they
face pressure from Wal-Mart, Costco and other supermarket operators that don’t pay as much toward employee benefits.”48
Superstores such as Wal-Mart are a growing concern forcommunities around the world, and many municipalities
are taking a stand. California towns like Martinez andOakland have established laws regulating the size andscope of retail outlets. A recent Contra Costa County
ordinance prohibited retailers with footprints in excess of
90,000 square feet from dedicating more than 4,500
square feet of retail space to groceries and other nontaxable items. The law would, in effect, prevent superstoresfrom opening full-line grocery stores and help stem theloss of neighborhood stores and local jobs. In the wordsof Contra Costa citizen Liz Perlman: “they just shouldn’t
have a supercenter that’s the size of 15 football fields.”49
Fearing such a precedent in a state where it has majorplans for expansion, Wal-Mart organized to get a measureon the March 2004 ballot in the hope of overturning theordinance. The company spent over $1 million on thereferendum, and succeeded in eliminating the law fromthe books.50

19

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Just four companies control peach canning in California,22
down from 37 in 1960.23■

The number of cattle slaughter facilities in California
dropped from 52 in 1972 to just 10 in 1997.24■

The top 20 fruit and vegetable shippers
account for 59 percent of retail sales in
the US.25■

Even producer cooperatives are being
forced to “get big or get out.”The cooperative Sunkist now controls more thanhalf of citrus output. Blue Diamond,
another co-op, dominates the almondindustry and Sunmaid the raisin
industry.26■

In California, retail consolidation drove agroup of produce companies—including
Teixeira Farms, PacFresh Produce, Gold
Coast Packing, A&A Farming, Byrd
Farms, and Church Brothers—to form
one large company, FreshKist Produce.
This massive new conglomerate expects
to ship an estimated 15 to 20 million
cartons of California produce to global
destinations each year.27

porations onto the rest of society, including smaller producers, smaller marketers, and the public.The intensely centralized food system requires so much transport, for example,
that it could not survive without heavily subsidized transport
infrastructure, or petroleum products at prices reflecting onlya small fraction of their true costs.
Photo: Katy Mamen■

The largest retailers havegained immense leverage,

A full accounting would reveal that thisindustry structure is efficient only interms of maximizing the profits of a few
corporations. If measured in different
terms—for example the most efficient use
of natural resources—it is clear that the
global food economy is in fact highly
wasteful.The Organization forCompetitive Markets (OCM), a grouphighly critical of the current state of thefood system, views “the current consolidation of agriculture as market failure
resulting in misallocation of resources andthe destruction of rural economies andculture.”29

Consumers, too, have been negatively
affected by these trends. As the food syssector, but over other partstem falls under the control of fewer andlarger corporations, food is subject toof the food system as well.
Horizontal and vertical integration, stratehigher applications of chemicals, it is
gic alliances, food system clusters—to read
Producers, suppliers,transported farther, processed more, andthe food industry news is to get a crashsits in trucks and on supermarket shelves
processors, and wholesalers
course in strategies for achieving ever larglonger—all of which compromise theare all being forced toer scale.These trends have now even begun
taste and nutritional value of food. Even
to take over the organics sector (see Box
consolidate further in thewhen regarded through the narrow lens
3.4).The scaling up has become a positiveof food prices, the benefits for consumers
hope of matching the
feedback loop—a process of growth run
are hard to discern. Food prices have risen
amok. Far from a problematic glitch in theretailers’ economic clout.
only marginally slower than the overallsystem, however, this trend is an unavoidinflation rate,30 and in fact, researchers
able outcome of economic globalization, with the scale ofhave found that concentration leads to an overall increase in
the global economy requiring firms to become huge if theyretail food prices, since the effect of increased market power
are to compete globally. “What you are seeing,” said Robert
overshadows any cost-efficiencies.31 What’s more, consolidaFraley, co-president of Monsanto’s agricultural division, is “ation of the food supply means that the public has even lessconsolidation of the entire food chain.”28 This admissionaccess to information about how and where its food is proshould have warranted a visit from Justice Department andduced.
Federal Trade Commission anti-trust lawyers; but in the eraof economic globalization government policymakers not
Farmers dependent on this system shoulder an especiallyonly turn a blind eye to runaway growth, they systematicallyheavy burden.They have no control over the price of theencourage it.
inputs their industrial methods require, nor over the priceoffered for the one or two commodities they produce.The
Who gains?
monopoly power of buyer corporations not only enables
them to squeeze farmers with low farmgate prices; the conIndustry proponents argue that this consolidated industry
tracts they offer often stipulate equipment upgrades the
structure is more “efficient.” But the efficiencies claimed
involve little more than passing costs from the dominant cor- farmers must pay for themselves (particularly common in the20

not only over the retail

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: Alex Jensen

BOX 3.4: Industrial organics
Organic food has become abooming business: in the last
decade, sales grew roughly 20
percent annually, and organic
acreage gained considerable
ground. Although organic
products still account for lessthan 2 percent of US foodsales, and organically certified land is only 0.3 percent of
the nation’s farmland, the demand for organic food showsno sign of slowing.51
California produces more than half the country’s organic
produce, with more certified organic crop acreage than
the rest of the states combined (California ranks fourth
overall if organic pastureland is included).52 In 2001,
California had slightly more than 1,000 certified organic
farms, up 12 percent from the previous year.53
At first blush, the meteoric rise of organic food seems an
undeniably positive trend. Farming organically, without
toxic pesticides or chemical fertilizers, is an essential ingredient in more sustainable food systems: it is better for consumers, farmers, farmworkers, and the planet. But a closer
look at the growth of the organic sector reveals many of
the same problems that plague the broader food system.
Organic food is now traded as an international commodity
by the same multinational corporations that dominate conventional agriculture.54 Today many of the big supermarket
chains, including Wal-Mart and Kroger, stock organic produce and processed foods, signaling that organic food hasreached the mainstream. In the process, it has moved further from its original emphasis on human scale, community, and strong ties between producers and consumers.
Today’s organic market is dominated by companies like
Horizon Dairy, “the Microsoft of organic milk,” a $127
million corporation that controls 70 percent of the organic milk retail market.55 Horizon is owned by Dean Foods,
which was recently bought by Suiza, the largest US dairy
manufacturer and distributor. California-based Muir Glen
Organics is owned by Cascadian Farm, another leadingorganic brand, which is a subsidiary of giant food conglomerate General Mills. In other words, the same huge
agribusinesses that dominate the rest of the food chain are
taking over the lucrative organic market as well. And the
production, distribution, and marketing of these corpora-tions’ organic product lines, from lettuce to TV dinners, isfacilitated by the same transport and energy infrastructuresthat subsidize other industrial foods, with the same builtin ecological, social, and economic impacts.
California has jumped aboard the industrial organic train.
Today five giant farms control half of the state’s $400 million organic produce market.56 Surging organic sales inrecent years have not led to greater numbers of organic
farms so much as increased return per acre and the expansion of existing farms.57 The average size of certified
organic farms in California more than tripled between
1985 and 1992;58 California Certified Organic Farmers(CCOF), the state’s leading organic certifier, has registered
growers with farms totalling more than 15,000 acres.59
The certification process itself plays a role in the increasingly unlevel playing field in organic farming.The National
Organic Standards put in place by the USDA in 2002
make no allowance for location-specific diversity, instead
imposing a one-size-fits-all scheme on the entire country,
largely to give US organic exports a consistent label. One
result is regulations that are often inappropriate and prohibitively expensive for small-scale organic farmers. A moresustainable and democratic model for organic standards
would limit farm size, incorporate social and labor considerations, address the humane treatment of animals, andencourage locally adapted, flexible certification schemes.60
Has the organic food movement taken a wrong turn? A
rift is growing between the effects of today’s consolidatingorganic industry and the original intentions of the organic
movement to build a food system with ecological andsocial integrity. Organic is more than just chemical-freefarming, it is an integral element of a healthier, more equitable and sustainable society.
A shift toward organic food remains an important part ofbuilding a sustainable food future, but organic at theexpense of local fails to address the more systemic problems
in the food system. Putting the “local” back in organic
would inherently limit the scale of producers and marketers and make it impossible for huge centralized agribusinesses to dominate the entire organic market. Redirecting
subsidies away from the needs of industrial food production, and instead toward incentives, research, and opportunities that help diverse small-scale local organic farmers
thrive, would be a big step in the right direction.

21

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

poultry industry), while any risk of loss falls on the farmer,
not the corporate buyer. As a consequence of this “efficient”
food system, many farmers receive less for their production
than it costs them to produce it.These farmers are told thatthe only way they can turn a profit is to increase their scaleof operation in order to become—what else?—more “efficient.”
The cost of efficiency can also be high for communities
whose economic livelihoods depend on providing labor forthis concentrated system. Globalization allows companies toscour the world for the biggest subsidies and the lowest costs,
and communities unable or unwilling to provide them caneasily have the “economic rug” pulled out from under them.
For instance, the closure of a Heinz ketchup and tomato
paste plant in Tracy in 1997 improved the company’s economic bottom line but meant layoffs for the plant’s 460 fulltime and 200 seasonal employees. As part of a “capital invest-

22ment” plan designed to save the company $170 million over
five years, Del Monte has closed numerous California processing plants since 1999, including fruit processing facilities
in San Jose and Stockton and a tomato processing facility inWoodland.
Jeff Boese, president of the California League of Food
Processors, makes the usual claim that all these trends represent progress: “we produce more processed foods than weever have today with less than half of the factories [we had]
15 years ago.”32 Yet the benefits of this and other restructuring in the food industry have only accrued to a small handfulof corporations and their shareholders.The centralized control and power of middlemen in the food system leverages
decision-making power and economic resources away fromboth producers and consumers. It is this distancing of producers and consumers that is at the crux of many of today’ssocial and ecological crises.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

CHAPTER 4:

Expanding Transport and Tradehe global food system is full of externalities, costs that are left out of the economic account-Ting, thereby making the whole system appear far more “efficient” than it really is. Amongthese, transport is one of the most conspicuous.

From the point of view of big corporations in the food sysFood miles
tem, it makes sense for massive farms to produce commodi“Food miles” is a term given to the distance food travels
ties in huge monocultures, and it makes sense for those raw
from the point of production to its ultimate consumer. In a
commodities to be amassed centrally, distributed to hugemore localized food economy, food miles may include thecentralized processors and manufacturers, then redistributed
distance from a farm to the farmers’ market, and from there
to massive retailers. It also makes sense for consumers toto the consumer’s home. In the global food economy, it regdrive to a few centralized retail mega-stores to purchaseularly involves transport from the farm to storage, grading,heavily-processed foods that have been advertised to them as
and sorting facilities, to processing and manufacturing plants,“cheap” and “convenient.” In the end, food from this system
to wholesalers, retailers, and finally to conwill have traveled thousands of miles evensumers.The distances involved continue to
California is exporting morewhen it could have been grown nextgrow, with individual food items crossing
food than ever before, while
door—even if it was grown next door—
international borders, sometimes back andand consumers will have collectively travat the same time relying onforth, before arriving at the point of pureled millions of additional miles to shop.
chase.
imports to feed its own
According to its proponents, this system is
The movement of global food after it
population.
efficient. But it is hard to imagine how aleaves the farm is often so complex that it
system that systematically increases the distance between prois all but impossible to know with any certainty just how far
ducer and consumer, thereby leading to excessive and wasteit has traveled. For example, someone in Oakland who buys
ful transport of food, can be anything but inefficient.
a bottle of Heinz organic ketchup may rightly suspect thatthe tomatoes were grown in California, reasonably close to
California, a bellwether for many of the destructive trends
home. However, they are unlikely to know that thosestemming from the globalization of food, is exporting more
California-grown tomatoes were shipped to Ontario, Canada
food than ever before, while at the same time relying on
to be processed and bottled before returning to retail shelvesimports to feed its own population. It is exporting manyin Oakland,1 a round trip of 5,000 miles.
food products, while simultaneously importing the identical
foods. It is shipping raw foods to other states and countries
for processing and then re-importing them for in-state consumption. At a time when wars are being fought over oil andthe global climate is changing because of fossil fuel combustion, California is adding needless food miles to products its
residents need every day.

The difficulty of tracking food miles is compounded by thefact that no government agency or research institution compiles comprehensive figures on food miles, while the corporations dominating the food chain consider statistics on foodtransport “proprietary information” that can be kept hidden

23

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

from the public (see Box 4.1). However, enough data are
available to know that food miles are considerable and rising.

Food transport in California
The quantity of food transported into and out of California isimmense. In 1998, for instance, $124 billion worth of food
was traded in, out, and through California,2 and the trend
continues upward. As Table 4.1 illustrates, the value of foodtransported in the state is projected to increase by more than
250 percent as the global food economy expands, and to leadall other goods by 2020.3

FIGURE 4.1:

Truck flows for international
products traded via
California23

Today, most food transported out of California is sent bytruck, including 93 percent of fruit and vegetable shipments,
representing half a million truckloads each year.4 It is estimatedthat only 43 percent of vegetable output stays within the state.
A little less than half of the remainder is shipped overseas andthe rest is distributed across the US, with three of the top four
destination states east of the Mississippi.5 Similar transport patterns are observed for other foods. Of particular concern, thetransport of live animals averages 1,149 miles per shipment,with obvious implications for animal welfare.6
Increasing amounts of food are also shipped into and out of
California by air7—a practice that adds considerably to greenhouse gas emissions.Transporting the same weight by planeemits almost 6 times as much CO2 as transport by road, nearly 30 times as much as by rail, and over 40 times as much as
by ship.8 More than 44,000 tons of California-produced foodare transported by air to other states each year,9 while additional quantities are flown overseas. Similarly, California
imports significant amounts of food by air, including herbs
from France, papaya and pineapples from Hawaii, and citrus
fruits from Spain.10

California’s export economy
In California, international trade has long been seen as themain avenue for market expansion. In 1985, the California
Legislature declared that:
The State’s agricultural economy is dependent upon international trade. . . . It is in the public’s best interest to assist
California agriculture in market development for agricultural
products, and to expand world trade in these products to maximize growth in the state’s economy.13

TABLE 4.1:

Top five commodities shipped to, from, and within California by allmodes: 1998 and 202011
COMMODITYTONS (million)
1998
2020

COMMODITYVALUE ($ billion)
1998
2020

Crude petroleum/natural gas

375

420

Transportation equipment

158

385

Petroleum/coal products

132

289

Food/kindred products

124

440

Nonmetallic minerals

129

286

Machinery

113

432

Chemicals/allied products

101

206

Secondary traffic12

89

354

Food/kindred products

90

125

Photo/optical instrumentation/equip 85

398

24

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMYTABLE 4.2:

California’s agricultural exports,
200121
Rank Commodity

ExportMain
Valuedestinations($ million) (% of exports)

1

Almonds

685.6

EU (50%), Japan(11%), India (9%)

2

Cotton604.5

South Korea (17%),
Japan (15%),
Indonesia (12%)

3

Wine

470.9

EU (61%), Canada(16%), Japan (10%)

4Table grapes

394.5

5

6

7

Dairy

Oranges

322.1

297.5

Processed tomatoes 211.7

Canada (27%),
China/Hong Kong
(20%), Malaysia(9%)

Almonds: The EU is the leading recipient of California
almonds, yet 4 of the 5 top almond-producing (andexporting) countries—Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey—
are all current or prospective EU members.

■

Central/SouthAmerica (55%),
Pacific Rim (33%)

Cotton: China is the world’s largest producer of cotton, yetJapan imports cotton from California, adding an extra
4,000 miles of transport.

■

Grapes: Twenty percent of California’s table grapes are destined for China, yet China is by far the world’s largest producer of table grapes.

■

Oranges: China is also the world’s third largest citrus producer, yet it annually imports $60 million worth ofCalifornia oranges.

■

Processed tomatoes: Half of all exports of California
processed tomatoes are destined for Canada, yet the US
imports $36 million worth of Canadian processed tomatoes yearly. Canada is the United States’ top foreign sourceof processed tomatoes.22

Canada (24%),
Japan (22%),
China/Hong Kong
(20%)
Canada (49%),
Mexico (11%), EU(9%)

Walnuts

179.1

EU (49%), Japan(20%), Canada (9%)

9

Rice

166.4

Japan (59%),
Turkey (11%),
Uzbekistan (6%)

Beef and products

154.8

Much of this trade in food makes little sense, except to theagribusinesses that profit from it. For example, a large portionof California’s exports are to countries that either produce(often for export) the same commodities they are importingor to countries that could obtain the same product muchcloser to home. Some examples drawn from Table 4.2
include:■8

10

which it accounts for 100 percent.18 California’s principal
export markets for agricultural products are East Asia (especially Japan and China),19 the European Union, Canada, andMexico.20 Table 4.2 shows California’s top 10 export products and their main destinations.

Japan (46%), South
Korea (25%),
China/Hong Kong
(13%)

Agriculture is second only to computers and electronics
among state industries reliant on foreign trade.14 Close to
one-fifth15 of California’s agricultural products, worth $6.5
billion,16 are now exported abroad.This is more than isexported by most countries, including major exporters suchas Australia and Canada.17
Not surprisingly, California is the leading food exportingstate in the US: almost half of all the nation’s foreign exportsof vegetable and fruit products come from California fields.
There are 24 commodities for which California is responsible for over 85 percent of total US exports, and twelve for

In addition to logging food miles overseas, California exports
travel great distances before they even leave US soil, as foodis shipped by truck and train all over the country before
being exported. Figure 4.1 depicts the truck transport flows
of goods traded internationally via California, indicating thesignificant transport burden on the US road system fromgoods destined for overseas markets. Half of the exports ofCalifornia’s farm products leave the country via other states,
while approximately half of farm products exiting from
California ports originate in other states. Exports throughthe Port of Oakland, for example, include poultry from
Arkansas, beef from Montana, and cotton from the South.

The Golden State: a net food importer
Given the abundant amount of food California produces andexports, it would be reasonable to suppose that the state islargely self-sufficient in food.This is, in fact, what our politicalleaders would have us believe for the US as a whole. In the25

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

words of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman:“Year in andyear out we produce far more than we need to fully meet thedemand here at home, so we naturally turn to the foreign
markets.”24 But in truth even California—the nation’s biggest
food producer by far—must import food to feed its residents.
Since the global economy systematically encourages so muchtransport, it is difficult to pin down the degree to which
California is currently food self-reliant.The California tomatoes transported to Heinz’s ketchup processing plant in
Canada, for example, appear on the ledger as both an exportof raw food and an import of processed food. Grain from theMidwest is imported for California’s feedlots, then most of
the fattened cows are sent out of state for slaughtering, only
to be re-imported, both or home consumption and export.
Nonetheless, it is clear that California does not come close
to meeting its own food requirements. Even while 43 percent of California’s raw farm tonnage is exported out of thestate, 59 percent of the state’s demand for raw farm products
is brought in from elsewhere.25 When processed foods areincluded, California relies on out-of-state food for 40 percent of its total needs.26 In total, 66.8 million tons of raw andprocessed food come into the state, and 36.5 million tons aresent to other states and countries.This means that despite
California’s reputation as an agricultural export powerhouse,
the state is a net food importer.
Not only is California relying on out-of-state food to feed
its residents, an increasing proportion comes from othercountries.The amount of overseas food imports coming into
California ports has been growing steadily, rising 75 percent
between 1992 and 2002 alone.27 This trend is not unique to
California: the US as a whole is increasingly dependent on
imported food, which reached 8.8 percent of the total consumed in 2000.28 As Table 4.3 shows, the proportion of staple
foods being imported is rising across the board. As California
has typically been the main supplier of many of these commodities for the US, this is another indication of the eroding
market for California exports.

Redundant trade
As a result of the globalization of the food economy, food
simply travels farther and farther. Even though California still
supplies much of the American diet, a great deal of its production is exported to foreign countries rather than serving
needs much closer to home. At the same time, demand forfoods consumed in the US is being met by producers evenmore distant than California.This relationship holds true forstaple foods of which California is a leading producer, as well
as for tropical foods that the state cannot produce.

26

Even worse is purely redundant trade, the simultaneous importand export of the same foods (see Figure 4.2).Thus, while
California is by far the leading exporter of fresh fruits andvegetables in the country, the state is a net importer of fresh
vegetables. If present trends continue, it will also be a net

TABLE 4.3:

Import share of US-consumed food—selected items29
Selected items

Import share
1980 (%)
2000 (%)

Beef

8.7

11.0

Pork

3.3

5.2

Lamb

9.4

35.6

Fish and shellfish

45.3

68.3

Dairy products

1.7

2.7

Fruits—fresh and frozen

5.8

21.8

Citrus

2.1

11.5

Avocadoes

1.6

26.0

Grapes

12.6

44.3

Melons

10.5

25.7

Fruit juices

11.6

31.6

Olives, processed

21.0

75.0

Tree nuts

25.5

38.5

Vegetables—fresh and frozen

5.9

14.0

Asparagus

10.8

59.0

Tomatoes

22.8

31.9

Potatoes

1.0

14.0

Olive oil30

96.6

104.4

Spices

4.8

13.9

Wheat

0.3

8.7

Rice

0.3

9.6

Barley3.3

17.0

Confectionery products

2.4

11.1

Malt beverages

2.6

9.9

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Fresh
Strawberries

importer of fruit within a few
years.31 Similarly, the majority ofbeef consumed in California
comes from Midwestern states,
even though beef is California’s
10th most valuable agricultural
export.

FIGURE 4.2:

49,858

Direct international
trade at California
ports

33,086

38,797

Asparagus

Redundant trade is emblematic of
the way trade for trade’s sake is promoted within the global economy.
Despite the needless transport, as wellas pollution, greenhouse gas emissions,Freshand wasted fossil fuels, that result, redunGarlicdant trade is not an anomaly but aninescapable consequence of the logic ofglobalization. It is also on the increase, notonly in the US, but the world over. Here are a
few examples of products that effectively crosspaths in opposite directions:
■

■

■

■

in thousands of dollars
17,53325,967
4,538

322,525

Frozen MeatBrussels sprouts:While California brussels sprouts
are being trucked throughout the year to Detroit tobe shipped to Canada, we import similar quantities ofBelgian brussels sprouts via Detroit, and Mexican brussels sprouts via San Diego.

770,934

Fresh
Vegetables

Cherries: Canada is the second most important destination
for California cherries, yet each year the US imports $19
million worth of Canadian cherries. California ports also
receive shipments of cherries from Chile, Italy, Eastern
Europe, Germany, and Washington state during cherry season here, including some imported by air.
Pistachios:The New York City port alone exports $70,000
worth of California pistachios to Italy each year andimports $50,000 worth of Italian pistachios.32 Despitesending 50 percent of California’s harvest abroad, the US
imports pistachios from countries such as Turkey, Iran,
Lebanon, Canada, Afghanistan, France, United ArabEmirates, and Pakistan.
Almonds: In one year, the New York City port exported$431,000 worth of California almonds to Italy andimported $397,000 worth of Italian almonds.Two-thirds of
the California almond harvest is exported—such a large
quantity that California accounts for 75 percent of theworld almond supply33—yet California ports receive
almonds from Turkey, Germany, and China.34

Superfluous trade is now commonplace around the world andacross all commodity groups. Still, promoters of the global
economy claim that the system improves “efficiency.” But asformer World Bank economist Herman Daly has sardonicallypointed out, redundant trade reveals the stunning inefficiency

197,61137,402

Rice

70,989191,273of the global food economy:“Americans import Danish sugarcookies, and Danes import American sugar cookies.
Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient.”35

Why are we importing and exporting more?
At the national level, agricultural imports and exports areboth increasing rapidly (see Figure 4.3). In 2001, the US
exported $58 billion and imported $44 billion worth of foodincreases of 25 percent and 57 percent, respectively, from just
8 years earlier.36
What accounts for this explosion in food trade? Most explanations assume that consumers are driving the trend. Someargue that rising ethnic diversity is the cause, with immigrant
demand for familiar foods from their countries of origin
leading to increased imports.38 Although this may explain relatively small amounts of imported niche products, it doesnothing to explain the skyrocketing imports of such common foods as cheese, apples, garlic, or strawberries.39 Others
claim that rising consumer incomes are the cause.40 Again,27

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Mexico: US imports from these countries increased 105 percent and exports increased 73 percent since the agreement
was implemented in 1994.43 As an example of redundant
trade under NAFTA, Figure 4.4 shows the movement ofprocessed tomatoes at individual border crossings in North
America. Since few policymakers question
the premise that trade is always good andthat more trade is even better, they largely
ignore the destructive implications ofthese trends.
Photo: David Bacon

this may account for added imports of expensive exotic fruits
from South America or caviar from Russia, but says nothing
about everyday staple foods. Still others point to the lower
price of overseas produce.41 This comes closer to the mark,but it is not consumers that are demanding these imports. In
fact, 75 percent of American consumers
prefer that their food be grown within the
US.42

Ultimately, the rising tide of food imports
stems not from a penchant for foreign
foods or an overwhelming demand for offThe impact of trade on
season produce, but from trade liberalizaCalifornia agriculturetion policies and a vast system of subsidies
Like ever-larger scale and ever-farther
and supports that artificially lower thetransport, increased specialization is an
price of global food.These policies make it
inevitable product of the globalized foodeasy for huge food corporations to obtain
economy.Today, California’s farms profood wherever it can be produced mostduce 350 different products, more than 75“cheaply” regardless of the human or enviof them grown on a “major commercial
ronmental exploitation involved, or the
scale.”44 Yet the state’s farm acreage is highextent to which other costs are externalDespite California’s
ly specialized regionally, with many thouized, and to sell it wherever it will bring
reputationasanagricultural
sands of contiguous acres devoted to sinthe highest price. If apple juice is cheaperin Hungary or Chile or China, that isexport powerhouse, the state gle crops. As global trade presses forward,
it is likely that farmers growing many ofwhere the juice on California’s supermaris a net food importer.
California’s commodities will not be able
ket shelves will come from, even if it could
to compete with cheaper production from overseas, and thehave come from apple orchards in California.
range of products grown in the state will narrow.
One need only look at the spikes in food trade following the
The pressure for California’s agricultural sector to become
enactment of “free trade” treaties to see how crucial governless diverse is already being felt.With transport costs subsiment policies are in promoting more trade.The North
dized and externalized, other producing nations, most of
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), for instance, hasthem in the South where labor costs are far lower and enviled to huge increases in US food trade with Canada andronmental laws less strict, are exporting their food into markets that California once dominated. Farmers in California
are already plowing under crops or pulling up vines because
FIGURE 4.3:of stagnating prices on the global market (see Box 4.2).
37

US trade in agricultural products
70,00060,000

million $50,00040,000

Exports
Imports

30,00020,00010,000

28

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

1965

1960

1955

1950

1945

1940

1935

0

Some proponents of increased food trade claim that foreignimports are not a problem for California growers because
they occur primarily in the off-season here; in fact, the argument goes, imports benefit California agriculture by creating a
year-round demand for fresh produce.This claim is largely
unfounded.While it is true that some products (for example
peaches, nectarines, and grapes) are mostly imported during
California’s off-season, many others are imported throughout
the year. Imports of strawberries, for example, are highest
during prime strawberry season in California.45 Other
imported products are harvested in California year-round,including broccoli, carrots, celery, lemons, lettuce, tomatoes,
and oranges.46 What’s more, many are being imported fromcolder climates, for example tomatoes, carrots, and broccoli
from Canada.47

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

BOX 4.1: Lack of access in the information age“It is revealing that the same corporate globalists who eagerly promote the free movement of goods and money, which tends toundermine community self-determination and self-reliance, areadamantly opposed to the free movement and sharing of information and knowledge that has the potential to increase self-determination and self-reliance.”48 —International Forum on Globalization
One of the most alarming impacts of the rise of corporate
power is the erosion of the public’s access to information.
Most of us, however, probably feel the opposite—that we aredeluged with far more information than we can possibly
process. On a daily basis we hear about floods in Bangladesh,the political maneuverings of candidates for public office,train wrecks in Ohio, the latest fashions from Milan, violencein the Middle East, the exploits of professional athletes, andthe day’s Dow Jones Industrial Average.The Internet in particular seems like a bottomless pit of information. It is often
difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there certainly seems to be no shortage of information.
There is a shortage, however. One problem is corporate
control of the mainstream media and the selective filteringof much of the news and information the public receives.
Just five media conglomerates (Viacom, Disney, AOL Time
Warner, NewsCorp, and NBC/GE) control the big four
networks, most cable channels, and vast holdings in radio,
publishing, movie studios, music, internet, and other business sectors.49
Although people are beginning to understand the dangers of such tight control over the media, there are other
implications to the growth of large corporations and thederegulation of trade. With vertically- and horizontally
integrated corporations dominating ever-larger segmentsof the economy, it has become increasingly difficult, evenfor the government, to obtain access to certain kinds ofinformation. Some data are no longer being collected,
and some of the data that do exist are tightly held in private hands. Information on food transport is a case inpoint.
Accurate data on food transport and trade can be essential
to everything from ensuring a secure food supply to monitoring the spread of food-borne illness, from documenting trends in energy consumption to assessing the fullcosts of food.Yet transportation data are not collected in acoordinated manner, and some important basic information about food is no longer available.
While it is relatively straightforward to find out how much ofa given farm product is imported to, or exported from, theUS, this basic trade information is not collected at the statelevel. For instance, even though the vast majority of food istransported around the country by truck, the US trucking
sector is, with the exception of safety issues, completely

deregulated.As a result, trucking companies are not obliged
to divulge information on their movements or cargo.
There are other difficulties as well. In the past, state-to-stateand international transport of food could be measured bytracking data from terminal markets—facilities where food
wholesalers, brokers, and distributors are grouped together
to supply regional retail outlets.Today, most integrated
retail chains now have their own distribution centers andcentralized buying offices and are not required to report
data on their transport or trade of food. In 1998, theAgricultural Marketing Service of the USDA ceased collection of arrival data at terminal markets because of“money constraints and lack of cooperation from distribution centers,” according to an analyst at the USDA.“We asa government agency had limited success” obtaining relevant data, she acknowledged.50 Similar gaps appear
throughout the pages of government databases. Even themost reliable sources on food transport in the US, such as
the Census Bureau and the Department of Transportation
Commodity Flow Survey database, are full of gaps due inlarge part to their reliance on voluntary reporting.
Large corporations have their reasons for withholding datafrom the public. So few corporations control so much of
the food economy that making information available
about a given sector can be tantamount to exposing theinternal workings of a single corporation. For example,
Census of Agriculture statistics on the number of laying
hens on large farms are “withheld to avoid disclosing datafor individual farms.”
While data collection available to the public is being cut
back because of “money constraints,” some information isstill available for a price. For example, the Port Import
Export Reporting Service (PIERS) offers a:comprehensive database of timely, accurate, import and export
information on the cargoes moving through ports in the
U.S., Mexico, Latin America, and Asia. PIERS collects datafrom over 25,000 bills of lading every day—then translates
the raw data into the kind of meaningful intelligence thatcompanies around the world use.
The price for details on the import of one commodity to
California in one year is $6,180. If you want the data
organized into Excel report format, make that $8,220.This
may be “meaningful intelligence” that the public can use,
but it’s not information the public can afford.
Corporate concentration and deregulation have led to a situation in which the public is increasingly left in the dark.
With corporate cooperation a “voluntary” matter, it
becomes very difficult indeed to gather all the informationneeded to challenge the interests of large food corporations.

29

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

The rising amount of food exported from other countries
may in fact harm California growers dependent on the global food system, but it would be pointless to blame farmers in
China, Chile, New Zealand, or any other nation: they, like
California farmers, are only following the blueprint drawn
up for them by the architects of globalization, which insists
they specialize their food production for export.The solution
is not to manipulate the system to protect California’s
export-dependent growers at the expense of farmers in othercountries, but to change the system more fundamentally, sothat it promotes diversified, small-scale production for local
markets everywhere.

duces, as well as the food it consumes, is being transported
ever greater distances, often needlessly.
If policies supporting and subsidizing trade liberalization
continue apace, California can expect to see still more of its
agricultural markets eroded, and the state’s consumers willfind that their food is produced farther and farther fromhome. In hopes of making ends meet, farmers will comeunder stronger pressure to convert their fields, orchards, andvineyards to the commodity-of-the-moment in order tofetch a decent price from global markets, while much of theremaining agricultural land will be turned into housingdevelopments and strip malls.

The future of the food system$75,115,1
65

St. Albans

Ogdensburg
Ogdensbu
rg
Buffalo

El PasoBorder crossing or port.

Miami
$28
8,02
0

Tampa

$53
,186

Laredoo$60,413$2,818,2
48

Mobile$12,065
,341

$3,3
02,9
41

$3,225,97
6$8,314,47
6$4,573,13
8$6,803,21
4

Los Angeles

Nogales$822,271

PortlandTrade in processed tomatoes between
the US and Mexico/Canada

San
Diego

30

Detroit

FIGURE 4.4:

San Francisco$79,923$579,785

Minneapolis$35,575,956

Duluth$15,764$71,744$6,593,75
5$2,285$9,611,84
7$96,802$9,411,64$866,2253

Pembina

5
21
00
4,
,0
30
71
2,
,5
$1
$6

Great Falls

08
0
,3
04
99
4,
$2
$2
84
05
,5
,3
93
41
,3
,5
$8
$1

S
Seattle$24,021

California, like most regions in the world, is capable of supplying the vast majority of its food needs from small, diversified local farms. Not only would this cut down on foodmiles, conserve fossil fuels, and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, it would also provide fresher, healthierfood at a lower price, improve food security, and build a foodeconomy that benefits people rather than corporations. It is
not too late to redirect the food economy away from theglobal and toward the local.

The optimistic econometric numbers that describe
California’s food system today mask serious problems. By tailoring its food system to the needs of the global economy,
California has paid a high price.The state’s farms are decreasing in number and increasing in size; they are becoming
more specialized and less sustainable, and more focused onexports.To the detriment of a multitude of small farms andbusinesses, the food supply chain has grown in length andcomplexity and is increasingly under the control of a handfulof massive corporate agribusinesses.The food the state pro-RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

BOX 4.2: Trade liberalization hurts California commodity farmers
Research by Food FirstIn response to the “severe cost-price squeeze” that
California farmers are experiencing, the California Farm
Bureau Federation (CFBF) declared a state of “farm crisis”
and initiated a task force to address root causes of the hurting farm economy and to make recommendations.The
task force’s April 2001 report,“Crisis on the Farm,” reports:
The state’s apricot growers have been hurt by a sharp
increase in dried apricots from Turkey and a flood ofcanned apricots from South Africa . . . Last year 11,000
tons of apricots were lost due to the tri-valley bankruptcy.
US buyers are purchasing larger volumes from overseas . . .
Since the 2000 growing season an estimated 1,000–
2,000 acres of California pears, representing about 20,000
tons, have been removed in an effort to deal with falling
prices . . . Fresh market prices dropped to nearly one-thirdof normal. South African canned pears are entering theUnited States at $2 per case below US prices. Labor is a
big component in the cost of marketing pears on and off thefarm. South Africa’s wage rates are substantially lower.51
Similar stories can be told for other California commodities. In the 2003 clingstone peach season, growers pulled
out over 1,700 acres of trees (equivalent to about 30,000
tons of fruit) in response to oversupply created by surging
foreign imports from Greece, Spain, and other countries.52
With only four major peach canneries left (Del Monte,
Pacific Coast Producers, Signature Fruit Co., andCalifornia Fruit and Tomato Kitchens), it is becoming
more difficult for growers to obtain contracts.53 While two
decades ago California was annually exporting 1.5 million
cases of cling peaches to Europe, state farmers only
exported 30,000 cases in 2000.54 California Canning Peach
Association President Ron Martella is not optimistic about
the future of the cling peach industry:
I really believe that this cling peach industry is in a war. . . .
Our current battles include imports, uncontracted fruit, rapidly rising production costs, and mergers and acquisitions ofretailers and distributors that our processors sell to.
Essentially, because of these four issues, we are in a battle
for survival.55
Meanwhile, imports from below the border are threatening California’s avocado growers. From 1996 to 2000, US
exports of avocados (five-sixths from California) declined
from 9,400 tons to 3,300 tons. During the same period,

imports from Chile and Mexico rose from 14,600 tons to
52,200 tons.56 While California’s export value of avocados
was $12.7 million in 1995,57 in 2001, it was just $2.1 million.58 When adjusted for inflation, this represents a realdecline in export value of 85.8 percent.
Because California farmers cannot compete with foreign
producers who face lower labor costs and less stringent
regulation, they are being displaced in both their domestic market and abroad.This is causing the bankruptcy of
California farmers and is prompting agribusiness to relocate outside of California. For instance, in July 2000,TriValley growers, a food processor owned by 500 California
farmers, filed for bankruptcy.59 Meanwhile, “unacceptable”
returns prompted Dole to lay off 1,600 workers in the
San Joaquin Valley and to exit the deciduous fruit businessin California.60 Third generation Central Valley raisin
farmer Mike Jerkovitz is also a case in point. Low prices
have forced Jerkovitz to place his property for sale.While
it costs Jerkovitz $900 to produce a ton of raisins, he wasonly offered $350 per ton in 2002. Just four years earlier,
he was receiving $1,100 a ton.61
Foreign competition is not the only factor which has
driven down the prices that California growers receive.
Consolidation and concentration of sales outlets have also
placed a downward pressure on prices. For instance, while
15 years ago there were 900 apple buyers, now only adozen purchase eighty-five percent of the nation’s crop.62
California grower Tory Torosian doesn’t blame the packinghouses for the low prices, citing retail consolidationand fewer grocery store chains. “Even when supply isdown, there is no incentive for prices to go up,” he says.
“We’ve been kicked in the teeth by the traditional industry and are subject to a market over which we have nocontrol.”63
Trade liberalization has not had a uniform effect on all
California commodities. NAFTA, for example, has had apositive effect on the U.S. trade balance for processed
tomatoes and strawberries. NAFTA eliminated both
Mexico’s 20 percent tariff on strawberries and Canada’s
6.61 cents per kilogram tariff on fresh strawberries, causing exports to these two nations to soar.64 The impact thishas had on farmers in Canada and Mexico, of course, isanother issue.

31

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 5:

Health and the Food System
alifornia may be the birthplace of fast food, but the health problems arising from the state’sCfood system go well beyond the sugar and fat content of a McDonald’s Happy Meal.The globalized food system is polluting the air Californians breathe and the water they drink. It is con-taminating their food with a wide array of dangerous chemicals and exposing them to the effects ofpotentially hazardous technologies. Meanwhile, the nutritional content of food is declining, and foodborne illnesses are on the rise.A shift to the local would simultaneously address all of these concerns.
Factory food
Most of the health problems associated with global food stemfrom its tendency to treat food as an industrial product.Whenfood is produced on a massive scale in factory-like conditions,lowering the cost of any of the “parts” that go into a given
food product can increase corporate profits tremendously,
even if the food that results is less nutritious or less safe to eat.
For huge cattle feedlots and industrial dairy operations, amajor cost is the feed that must be provided to the confined
animals. By incorporating cheap protein sources such as
chicken litter (including chicken feces) and bone meal fromdead livestock that have been boiled down and ground up, a
few cents can be pared off the cost of feed.When tens of
thousands of animals are involved, this can translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional profits.
As most people by now know, the result of this particularindustrial efficiency was the appearance of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Mad Cow
Disease.This disease, which first appeared in the UK in 1985,

32

has now been discovered in the US, in a cow sent to aslaughterhouse in Washington in December 2003. (According
to some reports, the cow was a “downer” cow, one so sickand weak that it had to be dragged to the slaughterhouse.
Using such unhealthy animals as food for human consumption represents still another risky feature of the industrial
food assembly line.)
A disease that ultimately kills livestock is bad enough: BSE
killed 175,000 cows in Britain before the government
ordered the killing of an additional 2.5 million animals in an
attempt to eliminate the disease. But BSE has the ability to
cross the species barrier to affect humans, in the form of thedeadly Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD). It is likely that another
innovation of the global food system, the “mechanical separation” of meat, played a role in spreading the disease tohumans.The process extracts minute amounts of meat frombones by forcing it through a sieve under high pressure,
resulting in a paste-like product, a legal ingredient in various
cooked meat products, that may include spinal cord tissue
from infected cows.1 As of the end of 2003, no cases of CJD
linked to Mad Cow Disease had yet been reported in the US.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Mad Cow Disease is a headline-grabber, but the crowded
and unnatural conditions in factory farms and feedlots are
inherently unhealthy for animals and make it easy for any
infectious disease to spread rapidly. One example of this is
the 1971 California outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease(END), a contagious and fatal virus affecting poultry.This
outbreak prompted the killing of nearly 12 million birds on
more than 1,300 farms over a period of three years and cost
California taxpayers $56 million in eradication costs.2

that corporate lobbyists have succeeded in cutting back on
government oversight of meat-packing operations.
Despite claims of improved food safety from agribusinesscorporations, salmonella-related illnesses in the US have doubled in the last two decades, and similar increases are reported for illnesses from E. coli 0157, campylobacter, and lysteria
bacteria.6 California is no exception: the total number ofconfirmed and suspected food poisoning cases in the state
has nearly tripled since 1989.7

When END broke out in California again
in 2002, local, state, and national authorities declared a state of emergency, quarantined six counties, and ordered the killingof huge numbers of hens, including a million on one farm in San Bernardino
County. Numerous countries banned
imports of California poultry products,
fearing a further spread of the disease.

As the scale and speed of industrial meat
packing operations increase, bacterial conThe total number oftamination is resulting in massive recalls ofmeat.The largest recall in the nation’s hisconfirmed and suspected
tory occurred in October 2002, after 44
food poisoning cases inpeople became ill and seven died in a listeria outbreak, leading to the recall of 27.4
California has nearly tripled
million pounds of processed sandwich
since 1989.
meats from a subsidiary of Pilgrim’s Pride.
Conditions in large-scale poultry operaJust three months earlier, 19 million
tions are ideal for the spread of illnesses
pounds of beef were recalled after 16 peolike END, admits Dr.Travis Cigainero, corporate veterinarianple were stricken by E. coli traced to a ConAgra meatpacking
for Pilgrim’s Pride, the country’s second largest processing
plant in Colorado8 (see Box 5.1 for other recent food contamination incidents).
poultry producer: “If you’re an exotic disease like Newcastle,
you just died and went to heaven.There’s no doubt that theevolution of the industry . . . made it more vulnerable to cat- Consolidation in production and processing has greatly
widened the range of food-borne disease outbreaks. In theastrophic diseases.”3
past it was common for illnesses to affect a small group of
To prevent such outbreaks, antibiotics are routinely used topeople at a time, for example from undercooked meat at a
keep infectious diseases from taking hold. In fact, three-quar- backyard barbecue.The global scale of today’s food systemters of all antibiotics used in the US are given to livestock,means that people in widely scattered places can be sickened
both to prevent disease and promote growth.4 This prolificfrom one incident: the listeria outbreak described above, foruse of antibiotics is leading to resistant strains of pathogens
example, affected people in 8 states.9
and reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics for human use.
What’s more, the reluctance of agribusiness to share informaThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and thetion on where their foods are distributed can compound
World Health Organization have called for a moratorium on
health problems.When ConAgra’s meat packing plant inmost uses of antibiotics in agriculture, yet factory farm operColorado was linked to the 2002 E. coli 0157 outbreak, theators have lobbied against the move. Nonetheless, the tide iscorporation
ignored requests from California health officials
beginning to turn: growing awareness of the health impacts
to reveal where in the state 50 tons of the tainted meat hadof antibiotic use on animals (thanks in part to the work ofbeen distributed. According to an official with the healthfactory farm activists and scathing indictments of industrial
agency, “this blatant disregard for a request from a public
livestock-rearing practices in such recent books as Fatal
health agency is unacceptable and may have jeopardized theHarvest and Fast Food Nation) has led McDonald’s to require5
health of [California] citizens.”10
its chicken suppliers to refrain from antibiotic use.

Food-borne illnesses
Meat packing plants and other processing facilities alsosqueeze extra profits out of their operations by literally
speeding up the assembly line, shortcutting safety procedures,and minimizing time “wasted” in testing food. In the process,food contamination becomes more likely, at the same time

The complex route traveled by food in the global systemraises other risks of contamination by food-borne pathogens.
After leaving the farm, food passes through countless hands
and undergoes multiple procedures in industrial-scale processing, any one of which is a possible source of contamination.11 Food imported from overseas is particularly problematic: the Food and Drug Administration reports that less than33

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

2 percent of imported produce is inspected, yet a significantly greater proportion of imported produce tested positive fordisease-causing bacteria (4.4 percent) than domestic samples(1.3 percent).12 In addition, the plastic wraps used to package
many processed foods create anaerobic environments that
increase the potential for pathogen growth, including botulism, salmonella, and listeria.13

Food additives
While most people shudder at the thought of adulterating
cattle feed with chicken feces or dead animal parts, the manufactured food we eat is subject to similar cost-cutting
economies. Processed foods and even “fresh” produce arevariously treated with hormones, dyes, bleaches, waxes,
antioxidants, preservatives, chemical flavors, buffers, alkalizers,
acidifiers, deodorants, moisteners, drying agents, expanders,modifiers, emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, clarifiers, disinfectants, defoliants, fungicides, neutralizers, anticaking andantifoaming agents, hydrolyzers, hydrogenators, antibiotics,
and other treatments.The goal is to extend shelf life andmake food seem fresh, flavorful, and appealing despite its origins in a handful of bland hybrids from which most of theoriginal flavor and color has been destroyed during processing and manufacturing. Consumers are rarely aware of thepresence of many of these additives, and information about
their impacts is not readily available to them.14
In addition, food supplied through global distribution channels relies heavily on packaging to facilitate long-distancetransport and lengthy storage. Plastic bottles and food wrappers often contain chemicals such as pthalates and bisphenol
A, which leach into food during storage and can be absorbed
by humans after ingestion.15 These chemicals are reproductive
and developmental toxins, are endocrine disruptors, and leadto many of the same problems as pesticide exposure.16
Bisphenol A is of particular concern since it has been linked
with aneuploidy (chromosomal dysfunction during cell division), the leading identified cause of miscarriages and birthdefects such as Down Syndrome.17

Chemical agriculture in California
In the global food system, hazardous cost-cutting practices starton the farm. Chemical inputs like herbicides, insecticides, andfungicides are endemic to California’s large-scale agriculture
system.When applied to fields and crops, agrochemicals tend toleave residues in food, with serious implications for humanhealth.These chemicals have been linked to a variety of healthproblems, including cancer, neurological damage, reproductive
disorders, and gastrointestinal ailments.18
A recent study found that processed grain products (such asbread and pasta) are often highly contaminated withorganophosphates, a family of chemicals accounting for 70
percent of the insecticides applied in the US.19 Apples, peaches, grapes, and pears are also commonly contaminated; unsafe
levels of organophosphates have even been found in a number of commercial baby foods.20
Meat from the global food system is of particular concern,
since the pesticides used to grow animal feed end up concentrating (or bioaccumulating) in the fat of meat we eat.
Four of the major crops used in animal feed—corn, soybeans, cottonseed, and wheat—account for 80 percent of thepesticides used in the US.21
Though pesticide residues in food are of grave concern, thoseat greatest risk from them are the farmworkers who apply
them (see Box 5.2). According to a UN study, 20,000 to

LOOKING GOOD? Decades of agribusiness and supermarket advertising have persuaded people that fruits andvegetables must conform to narrow standards of size, shape, and color. Accordingly, consumers often select produce based on these characteristics rather than flavor and nutrition. Many consumers are now so disconnectedfrom agricultural reality that heirloom varieties of unusual shape or color are not considered to be real foods at all.
A range of chemicals are needlessly being added to our food to maintain the appearance of freshness and uniformity in foods transported long-distance. For example, sulfites are added to dried fruit and wine in order tomaintain color. Brominated oils, which cause damage to vital organs, are used to preserve the appearance offreshness in fruit juices. Potatoes are treated with pesticides after harvest in order to prevent the natural,
harmless spotting that may occur on their skin, and maleic hydrazide is applied to prevent sprouting duringlong-distance transport. More and more, real freshness is being substituted by chemical window dressing. Local
food systems circumvent the need for many of these additives and provide real quality and freshness.

34

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

40,000 farmworkers worldwide die each year from pesticide
exposure.22 Another study estimates that 10,000 to 20,000 US
farmworkers suffer from pesticide-related illnesses each year,
probably a serious underestimate due to underreporting.23
As corporate agribusinesses seek cheaper sources for the foodthey sell, more and more of it is coming from countries
where pesticide regulations are weaker than in the US. Evenas we enact laws to protect the health of our families and of
farmworkers here at home, the health of unseen workers on
the other side of the world is being compromised as theglobal food system spreads.
The application of industrial chemicals is not limited tocrops and livestock. Now that subsidized fleets of offshore
fishing vessels are depleting the ocean’s fish stocks, aquaculture, the industrial “farming” of fish in artificial environments, is becoming more and more common. Unfortunately,
aquaculture technology can lead to higher levels of chemicals
in our fish. Because of the manufactured fishmeal they arefed, for example, the average farmed salmon steak contains
almost 10 times more toxic PCBs than wild salmon steaks.24
And since the high densities of farmed fish increase the riskof disease, antibiotics are routinely used.25 Pesticides are also
regularly applied to control problems such as sea lice andalgae blooms.

Breathing and drinking toxins
Industrial agriculture not only affects the health ofCalifornians through the food we eat, but also through the
air we breathe. It is no secret that California is the nation’ssmoggiest state: babies exposed to California’s air will reach
the EPA’s limit for acceptable exposure to toxic air contaminants in less than a month; by age eighteen, they will haveexceeded the lifetime acceptable exposure level for cancer
several times over.26 What is less well-known is the central
role the global food system has in polluting the air.While theblame for much of the smog in California is given to vehicles (a significant proportion of which are container trucks
transporting food and farming-related items), three-quartersof air pollution actually comes from off-road mobile sources,
such as farm equipment. In fact, many people will be surprised to know that since 2001 the San Joaquin Valley, not
Los Angeles, has been home to the nation’s dirtiest air.27

BOX 5.1: Contamination and the industrial food system■

More than 90 percent of US chickens are raised on factory farms where they eat their own fecal matter.The
USDA detected E. coli in more than 90 percent ofchicken carcasses tested.70■

A Consumer Reports sampling of fish taken from several US markets, including Santa Cruz and San Jose, found“almost 40 percent of the fish tested in the “beginningto spoil” range, and an additional 25 percent of the samples with bacterial counts that exceeded the upper limitsof our test method.”71■

In 2002, milk products from Berkeley Farms of
Hayward, which provides milk to Berkeley Farms,
Ralph’s, Sysco, Smart & Final, and Albertsons, among
others, were recalled because they contained penicillin,which can initiate a “severe allergic reaction.”72■

SoBe Green Tea and SoBe Energy products wererecalled in December 2002 because they were contaminated with dextromethorphan, which is commonly
found in over-the-counter cold and cough medications,and may cause “serious health risks.”These products
originated in Connecticut, but were distributed in 11
states, including California.73■

Susie brand cantaloupe, imported from Mexico during
May 2002, was recalled because of its association withan outbreak of salmonella poona infections in California,
several other states, and Canada. At least 54 cases were
investigated nationwide as being linked to this particular
fruit. salmonella poona can cause serious and fatal infections in young children or the elderly, and fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain in healthy
individuals.74■

A nationwide outbreak of salmonellosis in 1994 afflicted
approximately 224,000 people. It was traced to a shipment of Schwan’s ice cream that was contaminated bysalmonella when it was shipped in a tanker truck trailer
that had been previously used to carry unpasteurized,
liquid eggs.75■

Outbreaks of Hepatitis A that sickened hundreds inTennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania,
and killed three people in 2003, were traced to shipments of scallions from Mexico, shipped via California.76

35

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Industrial agriculture is responsible for much of California’s
particulate air pollution—airborne soot and dust—which is amajor contributor to asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
The state suffers 9,300 deaths from air pollution each year, as
well as 16,000 hospital visits and 600,000 asthma attacks.28
Currently, 2.2 million Californians suffer from asthma, thenumber one cause of hospitalization for children in the state.
In California’s leading agricultural county, Fresno, the childhood asthma rate is three times the national average.29

Pesticide drift from sprays, dusts, and fumigants can travel formiles, causing both air pollution and health impacts ranging
from acute poisonings to chronic disease. More than 90 percent of the pesticides used in California each year are prone
to drift, and recent data suggest that hundreds of thousandsof Californians—not just farmworkers and farmers, but alsourban and suburban residents—face high exposure from pesticide applications.30

BOX 5.2: Farmworkers’ healthDespite the dependence of California agribusiness onfarmworkers, one of the most frequently overlooked
impacts of industrial agriculture is on farmworker healthand safety. Farm-related health problems include injuries,
pesticide-related illnesses, skin and respiratory conditions,musculo-skeletal and soft-tissue disorders, reproductive
health problems, bladder and kidney disorders, and eye and
ear problems.77 Thanks in large part to the high degree of
mechanization, agriculture is now the nation’s most dangerous industry.The rate of on-the-job fatalities stands at
35 per 100,000 compared to the national average of 5 per
100,000.The state of California alone accounts for morethan one-fourth of all disabling injuries among hired
farmworkers in the US.78

literacy and English comprehension rates render warninglabels largely useless. Even if pesticide labels were consistently posted and read, farmworkers may be unable to takethe necessary precautions.

Illnesses related to pesticide exposure are a particularly
severe problem. From 1997 to 2000, a yearly average of
475 cases were reported statewide;79 but one study estimates that 80 percent of pesticide illnesses go unreported.80 Reporting rates are low in part because less than one
farmworker in ten receives any medical benefits, leaving
the majority unlikely to seek medical attention.What’smore, most farmworkers are working illegally and risk
deportation if they seek public health assistance.

While higher safety standards for farmworkers are clearlyneeded, strengthening local food systems would systematically reduce the pressures that lead to the rampant use ofagrochemicals, one of the most serious sources of farmworker illness. More importantly, strengthening rural
economies globally would help improve life in the countries from which most workers in California’s toxic fields
have emigrated. For hundreds of years beginning with theera of conquest and colonialism, the cultural traditions andeconomies of rural communities in the South have been
undermined, their resources stolen. Globalization, a continuation of that process, is making it ever more difficultfor people to remain in their own communities, in large
measure by destroying small-scale agriculture. As a result,millions of farmers and rural laborers are being pulled into
the South’s exploding urban centers, while thousands
more are choosing to emigrate—legally or not—to richer
countries in search of employment. California’s immigrant
farmworkers endure many hardships, and improving theirlives should be a high priority. But steps should also betaken to better the lives of people in the rural communities of the South. Localizing food systems, globally, canhelp do both.

Exposure to pesticides occurs primarily through drift during application and through skin contact with pesticide
residues on crops. Exposure to organophosphate nerve
toxins is of particular concern. Among other impacts, thesepesticides can severely damage the nervous system, andeven low-level exposure can affect fetal and childhood
development.81 Not surprisingly, the pesticides to which
they are exposed leave California’s farmworkers with a 59
to 70 percent greater likelihood of developing cancer.82
Violations of safety regulations were involved in about halfof reported cases of pesticide poisoning. Almost half offarmworkers receive no pesticide training.83 Low rates of36

In addition to these occupational hazards, farmworkers
often face unsanitary working and housing conditions,which make communicable diseases a problem. Ironically,
farmworkers have the highest rate of malnutrition of any
sub-population in the country, despite the key role theyplay supplying the nation with food.84 Unfortunately, thefood system in California is built around a disposable labor
force: production is paramount and the health and wellbeing of farmworkers an afterthought.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: Leonard Nadel/Smithsonian Institution, NMAH

Bracero farmworkers in California being deloused with DDT, 1956.

California’s citizens are also affected by water pollution resulting from animal waste, hormones, and agrochemicals released
into the state’s rivers, streams, and groundwater by industrial
farms. Effluent from huge dairy farms is a particularly serious
problem: one study found that manure from dairy farms
threatens the drinking water of 65 percent of Californians.31
Well contamination is another widespread health hazard, particularly in rural areas: 75 pesticides or their breakdown
products have been discovered in wells in more than threequarters of California’s counties.The most widely detectedpesticide, Dibromochloropropane (DBCP), is one of themost potent carcinogens known and has been banned in the
US for 20 years. Still it was found in one-third of the wells
tested, most often in concentrations exceeding the maximum
levels established under the Safe Drinking Water Act. As aresult, it is estimated that more than 875,000 people in
California are at risk of exposure to DBCP, of which
211,000 could be at an even higher risk of cancer; it will
cost millions of dollars to make Central Valley water supplies

safe again.32 The herbicide Atrazine, the fourth most commonly detected pesticide in California wells, has been linked
to breast and ovarian cancer.33

Toxic fertilizers
Small-scale diversified farms that include both crops and livestock typically use animal manure to maintain soil fertility.
On large industrial farms, by contrast, synthetic fertilizers arecommonly used instead.This practice not only damages thesoil, it has human health impacts as well. Commercial fertilizers generally consist of only a few key nutrients (in particular
nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus) while other nutrients
important to food crops and our health are depleted in thesoil—and consequently in the plants we eat, which ultimately affects our body chemistry. Numerous studies, including
those by the UK Medical Research Council and the US
Department of Agriculture, have shown that the nutrient
levels in food crops and meats have declined between 50 and
75 percent since the beginning of the Green Revolution,
when the use of synthetic fertilizers exploded.35

37

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE“A dark powder from two Oregon steel mills is poured from rail cars into the top of silos attached to Bay Zinc Co.
under a federal permit to store hazardous waste. The powder, a toxic byproduct of the steel-making process, istaken out of the bottom of the silos as a raw material for fertilizer. ‘When it goes into our silo, it’s a hazardous
waste,’ said Bay Zinc President Dick Camp. ‘When it comes out of the silo, it’s no longer regulated. The exact samematerial. Don’t ask me why. That’s the wisdom of the EPA.’”34

Perhaps worse is what passes as “fertilizer” in the global foodsystem. Under the guise of “recycling” chemicals, toxic wastefrom a variety of industries is being sold to fertilizer companies
and farms, and is ultimately spread on fields. Between 1990 and
1995, over 270 million pounds of toxic waste were shipped tofarms and fertilizer companies around the US. California
received more of that waste than any other state, 38 million
pounds. Of that amount, 24 million pounds came from theelectronics industry, and consisted of copper compounds,
ammonia, hydrochloric acid, and other chemicals.36 Preliminary
results of a 1997 study by the California Department of Foodand Agriculture showed that roughly 10 percent of fertilizers
sold in the state contained enough lead, arsenic, or cadmium towarrant carrying cancer warning labels.37

Whistling in the dark
Despite reassurances from agribusiness corporations, it is virtually impossible to know the full health impacts of all the industrial chemicals in our food and in the environment.To theextent these chemicals are tested, they are studied in isolation,with little regard for the effects they may have in the multiple
combinations to which people are routinely exposed.A study
in the journal Science revealed that some endocrine-disrupting
pesticides are up to 1,600 times more powerful when combined with other pesticides than they are alone.38 The 80,000
chemicals, including pesticides, currently marketed in the US
are completely untested for such synergistic effects.What’smore, as Peter Montague of the Environmental Research

BOX 5.3: Food irradiation
Tracy Lerman, Public Citizen

Food irradiation exposes food to high doses of ionizing
radiation in order to kill bacteria, destroy pests, and extend
shelf life.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
has approved most of the food in the US diet for irradiation, including meat, wheat, fruits, vegetables, spices, eggs,
and juice. Food irradiation is promoted as a “food safety”
technology but in fact it poses troubling health and environmental risks. Over the 20-year course of legalizing
food irradiation, the FDA has ignored a growing body ofevidence suggesting that irradiated foods may not be safe
for consumption.85 Irradiation has raised concerns among
consumers because the process destroys essential nutrientsand creates known toxins and carcinogens in food as well
as chemicals with unknown effects on human health.86
In 2002, the USDA approved irradiation as a treatment for
destroying invasive insects on produce imported into the
US.Those insects are considered “barriers to trade” by theWorld Trade Organization because they limit trade of
agricultural products with certain countries. Additionally,
irradiation dramatically extends the shelf life of produce,
allowing it to be shipped long distances over extended
periods of time.Thus irradiation will further facilitate theinflux of cheap imports into the US, as transnational

38

agribusiness corporations set up operations in countries
that have the fewest labor and environmental regulations.
The flood of imports facilitated by free trade policies andtechnologies like irradiation threatens the economic viability of California agriculture. For example, imports of
Mexican tomatoes, California’s 9th ranked agriculturalcommodity, increased by 60 percent since the passage of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in
1994. Irradiation could shift production of other perishable commodities grown in California, such as strawberries or oranges, outside the US.
Small farmers in other countries also lose out.The
agribusiness and irradiation industries are looking toBrazil, the Philippines, and other countries to create large
industrialized farms that grow cash crops, such as mangoes,to be irradiated and shipped to wealthy nations.
Irradiation is a critical piece of the centralized, globalized
food system envisioned by agribusiness leaders. Indeed,
USDA officials have stated that this vision cannot happen
without irradiation. California can help create an alternative vision by rejecting irradiated food, for the sake of ourhealth, our farmers, and our planet.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMYFoundation points out, even testing 10 percent of those chemicals in unique combinations of 3 is beyond the ability of themost advanced scientific laboratories:
How many combinations of three chemicals can you make out of
80,000 chemicals? The answer is 85 billion. Let’s assume we
could test one million different combinations each year—surely apreposterous overestimate of human scientific capacity. It would
then take 85,000 years to complete the tests. In other words, [a]rational program based on the very best science will NEVER
protect wildlife, humans or the environment from damage.39

Desperately seeking technofixes

trointestinal tract. A lectin produced by the potatoes stimulated growth of the mucosa in the GI tract of mice.44■

A new generation of genetically engineered “pharm”
crops, designed to supply pharmaceuticals, risks transferring drugs from the host plant to wild species or otherfood crops, effectively “dosing” otherwise healthy segmentsof the public with powerful drugs.45

Because so little is known about the long-term impacts of
GE foods on human health, the Royal Society of Canada
issued a report declaring that the presumption of no
increased risk is “scientifically unjustifiable.”Thousands ofother scientists from around the world are calling for adherence to the precautionary principle with respect to GE technology.46 Yet, despite the many risks, agribusiness hopes tounleash these untested technologies in California on a broad
scale (see Box 6.4. See also Chapter 6 for ecological effects
of GE technology).

The many health problems described above are directly linked
to the architecture of the global food system, and realistic steps
to prevent those problems must include reducing the system’s
ever-expanding scale. Needless to say, no such strategy is being
considered by either government or industry. Instead, technological band-aids are layered one on top of the other in an
Another techno-fix is food irradiation, a process that kills
attempt to limit damage, even while the trend toward larger
pathogens in food (see Box 5.3). Food can be irradiatedscale accelerates.Two such techno-fixes—
using one of three methods: gamma rays
genetic engineering and irradiation—are
from radioactive materials, electron beams,
Techno-fixes
likegenetic
worth looking at more closely.
or x-rays.The US Department of Energy
engineering and irradiation
originally sponsored food irradiation to
Proponents of genetic engineering argue
arelikelytocreatefar
morecreate a favorable image of nuclear powerthat the technology, as applied to food,and to dispose of radioactive waste. But
poses no risk to humans.The Food andhealth problems than they
nuclear food irradiation poses the risk ofDrug Administration agrees, based on
solve.
accidents in the transport, use, and disposal
research conducted by the biotech indusof nuclear materials and has already contry itself, and has decided not even totaminated the environment. For example, radioactive water
undertake any studies monitoring the long-term healthescaped from a food irradiation facility in Georgia in 1988,
impacts of genetically engineered (GE) food.40 Yet countless
independent scientific studies do in fact suggest that GE food leaving taxpayers with $47 million in cleanup costs.47
may have significant adverse effects on human health, includAlthough electron beam irradiation is now being hailed bying the introduction of new allergens into the food supply, a
the food industry as a safe alternative to gamma ray technolreduction in the effectiveness of antibiotics, and the activaogy, the effect on food is the same. According to Public
41
tion of toxic chemicals in plants. For example:
Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project:■

In 2000, the GE corn trademarked as StarLink was inadvertently introduced into the food supply; an investigation
concluded that 28 people who had eaten tainted corn
products had experienced “apparent allergic reactions.”42■

Research at UK’s John Innes Centre confirms that theviral promoter used in the genetic modification of mostplants can facilitate abnormal genetic recombinations, leading to serious disruptions of body chemistry or to thegeneration of new and hazardous chemicals. Additionally, itis thought that parts of these viruses could recombine intonovel and more dangerous viruses.43■

A study in the medical journal The Lancet showed that GE
potatoes, and possibly other GE foods, can affect the gas-

Food irradiated by either process is deficient in vitamins andother nutrients, has caused serious health problems in laboratory animals, tastes and smells worse, is bereft of beneficial
microorganisms that keep botulism and other potential deadly
maladies at bay, may contain carcinogens and mysterious
chemical compounds, and in the case of meat may still betainted with feces, urine, pus and vomit resulting from filthy
slaughter-house practices.48
Along with killing insects that are “barriers to trade” infruits and vegetables (see Box 5.3), those slaughter-housepractices are among the main problems this techno-fix ismeant to address. Inadequately inspected meat packing

39

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

plants that cut corners in order to speed up processing are
relying on irradiation as a magic bullet to “clean up” contaminated food just before it is shipped. Meanwhile irradiation helps create stronger, radiation-resistant bacteria thatwill continue to contaminate the food supply under largescale meat production.49
Irradiating food for the benefit of global food traders andindustrial meat-processors is likely to have health costs thatwill be borne by the public. According to Dr. Samuel
Epstein, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, “theFood and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA) have ignored the strong
evidence on the cancer and genetic risks of irradiated food,”in allowing this potentially hazardous techno-fix to be

implemented.50 California is one of 13 test market states forirradiated foods,51 and many of the products on supermarket
shelves are already being subjected to irradiation.

Fast, convenient, and unhealthy
Thanks in large part to the popularity of fast food, Americans
are eating higher-fat diets, including record consumption ofmeat and 50 percent more added fats and oils than in the
1950s.52 Half of household expenditures for food are now
spent on eating out, primarily at fast food restaurants, compared with 25 to 30 percent of expenditures in the 1970s.
The rise of the fast food culture in the US has corresponded with a rapidly escalating obesity rate, which has

BOX 5.4: Making it work: From farm to school
Photo: Tyler/Center for Ecoliteracy

The much maligned school hot
lunch, served up in mysterious
globs from steam tables or prepackaged in foil trays and shipped acrossthe country, may soon become an
endangered species. Driven by concerns about nutrition, childhood
obesity, environmental education,and the plight of small-scale farmers, Farm to School programs—
which bring farm-fresh produce into school lunches andcurricula—have been springing up all over California andindeed the entire country.
Many California school districts have begun setting more
rigorous nutrition standards for their school lunch programs, banning fast food vendors and soft drink vending
machines.The Los Angeles school district, as part of asweeping ban on junk food on school campuses, is urging
schools to provide more fresh fruits and vegetables forlunch, and will require all high schools in the district tohave salad bars within two years and all elementary schools
within six years.87
But the benefits of Farm to School programs go wellbeyond providing healthy meals.Visits to local farms where
the fruits and vegetables are grown help students understand where their food really comes from. In the long run,they are more likely to make better food choices and convince their families to do so if they become aware that
fresh, local, seasonal food is both tastier and better for their40

health and their communities. In addition to the benefits
for kids, local farmers get a market for their produce, andthe school district’s money stays in the community.88
The University of California’s Sustainable Agriculture andResearch Education Program (SAREP) has been monitoring a pilot Farm to School program at Cesar Chavez elementary school in Davis.The researchers found that 88
percent of students chose the salad bar over the standard
school lunch in the 2001/2002 school year.These students
consumed an average of 3.6 servings of fruits and vegetables, while students eating the hot lunch consumed lessthan one serving.They also found that “students choosing
the salad bar are reported . . . to be more engaged withdifferent types of food; to be learning more about different
foods and nutrition; to be exercising more independence
in their choices of foods; and to be “calmer and moresocial” during the lunch break.”89
Even the federal government is getting involved.The
Department of Defense, which oddly enough provides
much of the food for school lunches, began the DoD
Fresh program in 1995 to allow districts to obtain locallygrown fresh produce for school lunches.The program now
operates in 39 states with an annual budget of $25
million.90 And the Farm to Cafeteria Projects Act, a billrecently introduced to the US House and Senate, would
provide school districts and non-profits with grants toimplement farm to cafeteria programs, benefiting both
small farms and students alike.91

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

The global food system has taken the fast
food diet everywhere, and it is now being
blamed for obesity epidemics the world
over: “ . . . the problem of excess consumption has spread to every corner of the
globe, except for pockets of Africa.The
United States, in other words, no longer
enjoys a competitive advantage when it
comes to corpulence.”58

chains such as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut were in more thanhalf of the schools surveyed.60 It is now also commonplace
for under-funded schools to sign contracts with multinational soft drink corporations to sell their products in exchange
for cash payments.61 These contracts often include exclusivity
rights prohibiting schools from selling other beverages,
including healthier alternatives such as
juices.
Photo: Katy Mamenroughly doubled over the last 20 years. Today, nearly onethird of all American adults are obese,53 and more than halfof California’s adult population is considered overweightor obese.54 Obesity, the second leading cause of preventable
death in the country,55 increases the risk of 30 serious
health conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer,
and stroke.56 In California as in most of
the United States, obesity is particularly
prevalent among men, African-Americans
and Latinos, and adults with low levels of
education.57

Fast food and convenience foods are intimately connected to the global food system. Not only are they largely in corporate hands, they exemplify the system’s
need to homogenize tastes and market thesame products everywhere, regardless of
local traditions or nearby resources.

There is another connection as well. In
the US, a change in the structure of the
farm subsidy system in the early 1970s—
coinciding with the beginning of the
In most California school
most recent obesity epidemic—began sysdistricts, up to 70 percent of
A trend closely related to fast food is thetematically promoting overproduction ofrise of “convenience” foods, food meant to
the food sold in the cafeteria global commodities, particularly corn,
be consumed with little or no preparation,
wheat, soybeans, and cotton (see Chapter
is pizza, hamburgers, french
whether at home or away. In order to mini11). Overproduction has led to a downmize or eliminate cooking time, these foods
ward spiral in prices, helping to keep thefries, cookies and other fast
are highly processed, heavily packaged, andcost of raw ingredients for processed
foods.
include a great many additives, all of which
foods low, at taxpayer expense.This has
compromise the nutritional value of the food. Many are
been a valuable hidden subsidy to the major food processors,
designed to be eaten on the run or while “multi-tasking.”
manufacturers, and fast food chains. Cattle and chicken, for
New lines of “meals-on-a-stick,” for example, are being tarexample, can be fattened up on highly subsidized grains, soygeted at web-surfing teenagers, who keep one hand on thebeans, and cottonseed, artificially lowering the cost of thecomputer mouse, leaving only one hand free for eating.
burgers, chicken “nuggets,” and other products served at fast
food outlets. Corn sweeteners, which have taken the place ofThough the obesity problem is reaching crisis proportions, acane sugar in most fast foods, are also cheap thanks to public
new generation of corporate-backed “consumer freedom”
subsidies and find their way into everything from ice creamorganizations is urging us to believe that “there are no goodand breakfast cereals to Slurpees and Big Gulps.
or bad foods,” and that proponents of healthy eating arenothing more than scaremongers trying to take away our
The government subsidies have not only fattened the bottom
freedom to eat what we want.59 This argument, of course,
lines of food corporations, they have fattened much of thecompletely ignores the fact that food corporations have no
public as well. As writer Michael Pollan points out,
qualms whatsoever about telling people what to eat: almost
When the raw materials for food become so abundant andall food advertised in the mainstream media is fast food andcheap, the clever strategy for a food company is not necessarily toconvenience food of dubious nutritional value.
lower prices—to do that would only lower its revenues. It
Meanwhile, these foods have also become firmly establishedmakes much more sense to compete for the consumer’s dollar byin our schools, ensuring Californians that their children will
increasing portion sizes. . . . So McDonald’s tempts us by takhave an early indoctrination into unhealthy eating habits. A
ing a 600-calorie meal and jacking it up to 1,550 calories.62
recent Public Health Institute study found that in more than
Pollan also argues that these heavily subsidized commodities
two-thirds of the California school districts surveyed, up topromote the creation of ever more highly processed foods:
70 percent of food sold in school was fast food such as pizza,
hamburgers, french fries, and cookies. Corporate fast food41

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

The game is in figuring out how to transform a penny’s worthof corn and additives into a $3 bag of ginko biloba-fortified
brain function enhancing puffs, or a dime’s worth of milk andsweeteners into Swerve, a sugary new ‘milk based’ soft drink tobe sold in schools.63
In this way, food corporations are not meeting the demandsof consumers, as is often argued; consumers are instead meeting the demands of food corporations, to the detriment of
their own health.

Fresh and healthy local foods
Most of the health hazards associated with the industrial
model of food production can be alleviated by shifting
toward smaller-scale, more localized food economies.This
means abandoning the notion that food producers can continually embrace factory-style methods and other“economies of scale” without compromising the health ofthe public and the environment.
One reason that large scale can lead to added health risks isthat responsibility becomes so diffused. In the global foodeconomy, producers are distant from consumers and largely
anonymous to them. Shoppers in a modern supermarket may
find products labelled Holly Ridge Bakery or Knots Berry
Farm, but there is no “bakery” and there is no “farm”: theseare merely ConAgra brands with names carefully chosen to
disguise the factory nature of the food.The shareholders andcorporate managers of ConAgra’s food empire have virtuallyno connection with those who consume its products, seeing
them largely as demographic groups to be targeted in orderto maximize profits.
In more localized food economies the distance between producers and consumers is greatly reduced, and the layers ofcorporate anonymity disappear. Consumers are far more likely to know what producers are doing to the land, adding totheir animals’ feed, or putting in the food they produce.
Producers, meanwhile, are far more likely to know their customers and less likely to take shortcuts to improve theirfinancial return at the risk of their neighbors’ health.
A shift to the local would reduce other health hazards. Many
Californians have turned to organic foods with the understanding that these products are free of toxic agrochemical
residues and that their production is far less harmful to theenvironment, farmworkers, and downstream communities.
Although not every small farm uses organic methods, thenature of more localized food economies makes the transition
to organic both more likely and easier to accomplish.This isbecause farmers serving local markets—and particularly thoseselling directly to consumers—have an incentive to diversify

42

their production, since their customers need more than one
or two monocrops. Diversified farms, in turn, are far easier tomanage organically than monocultures, with rotations, companion planting, biological controls, and human labor taking
the place of pesticides. Diversification enables farmers to integrate livestock and crop production: rather than a source ofwater and air pollution, animal manure becomes a valuableasset, replacing synthetic fertilizers.
Shifting to smaller-scale, more ecological food systems would
have other benefits for human well-being. One study, forexample, showed that the odor from factory farms has detrimental effects on the mood of nearby residents, including
increased anger, depression, and tension.64 Other studies haveindicated a correlation between aggression and exposure topesticides.65
At the same time, the compatibility of local food systems
with organic methods can make food more nutritious.
Numerous studies have shown that organic produce contains
higher levels of vitamins and minerals than conventional
crops.66 This makes sense, as organic production leads tohealthier, more nutrient-rich soil.67 Sustainably farmed vegetables have also been shown to have higher levels of antioxidants68 and consistently lower levels of pesticide residues.69
Local food systems not only encourage diversified farms,
they promote diversity within the crops grown. Farmers canselect varieties that suit the particular conditions of theirfarm and those that maximize flavor and nutrition, rather
than transportability, shelf-life, and the homogenized tastes ofglobal markets. For that reason, farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture farms often boast a wide rangeof local heirloom varieties unavailable in the supermarket.
Initiatives to get local food into institutional meal programs
are also an important way to get local food to the community (see Box 5.4).
Local food that reaches the consumer through direct marketing is likely to be far fresher than distantly produced global
food; it is therefore healthier, since the nutritional content offood is lost over time. Since fresh local food is not destined
to be transported to supermarkets thousands of miles away, it
has little need for preservatives and other additives.The
amount of processing required is also reduced, and any processing needed is usually smaller in scale, reducing the risksof contamination associated with large-scale industrial methods. Ultimately, local food means safer, healthier food.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

CHAPTER 6:

The Ecology of California’s Food Systemor years now, efforts have been made by environmental groups, public agencies, and farmers

Fthemselves to reduce the high ecological costs of industrial agriculture in California. But aslong as the state’s farm economy remains focused on distant markets, real progress on thisfront will be limited. A continued commitment to the global food system means that California’s
agricultural land will remain dominated by monocultural, industrial-style farms. Dependence on
external inputs—large-scale equipment, fossil fuels, hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, irrigationwater, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers—will continue.The costs of this dependency for California’s
environment have already been immense and will only increase.
Chemical inputs

In the four decades since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring first
appeared, the hazards of pesticides have become increasingly
well documented. Many people assume that because of heightened awareness and stringent regulation, our farms and thefoods they produce depend less and less on those dangerous
inputs.That assumption is wrong, particularly in California.
Growers in the state apply 97,500 tons of pesticide active
ingredients annually, including 32,000 tons of the most toxic
pesticides.1 California is far more pesticide-dependent than
the rest of the country: approximately 25 percent of farm
pesticide use in the United States occurs in California,2
where per-acre use is almost ten times the national average.3

Meanwhile, we are importing more food from countries
where pesticide use is less controlled. As US environmental
regulations become more stringent, chemical companies havetaken to dumping banned pesticides overseas instead. From1997 to 2000, an average of 45 tons of pesticide products perhour were shipped out of US ports, a 15 percent increaseover the rate from 1992 to 1996. Pesticides that are banned orseverely restricted in the US were exported at a rate of 22
tons per day, along with 16 tons per day of pesticides thatwere never even registered or evaluated by the EPA.These arelikely to be low estimates due to improper documentation.4
A high proportion of these toxic pesticides are destined forthe global South. In effect, we are following former World

43

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE“Every time I see a chemical farm magazine I understand their motivation. These guys would really just like tosell as many chemicals as they can. They create all kinds of reasons for NPK and the ‘Cide sisters’ (Herbicide,
Pesticide, and Fungicide). My organic soil conditioning manuals rebuff these practices and I draw great comfort
from them. . . . I can’t think of a more satisfying life [than organic farming]. I think of all the years that Dad
subjected himself to chemical overspray and I thank a few bold authors (Fred Magdoff, Robert Parnes, andWilliam R. Jackson) for freeing me from the chemical mindset. I have studied a little psychology looking for thereason farmers cannot cut loose and go organic. It appears to be a thing called ‘Paradigm Paralysis.’ Whenever
you try to think in a new way the old map just keeps popping up in front. The change is too frightening.”6
Arne Anderson, with his wife Noelle, is a fourth-generation almond grower in Hilmar, California.

Bank economist Lawrence Summers’ infamous advice torelocate our most toxic industries, and the environmental
damage they cause, to the “less developed” world. But ultimately, many of these banned or restricted pesticides returnto the US, carried as residues on imported foods.5
The environmental costs of pesticides are by now familiar:
not only can they kill exposed wildlife outright, they cause
reproductive and developmental damage and physical deformities, and can reduce or eliminate critical habitats and foodsupplies.7 For example, very low levels of the herbicide
Atrazine have been linked by researchers at UC Berkeley tosexual deformities in frogs, a finding that may help explain

the worldwide decline in amphibian populations.8 More than
62,000 pounds of Atrazine were used in California in 2001.9
Another example involves the impact on birds: an estimated
10 percent of birds exposed to pesticides die, while those thatsurvive exhibit chronic symptoms such as weight loss andincreased susceptibility to predation.10 In California, the pesticides Diazinon (used on almonds and stonefruits) and
Carbofuran (used on alfalfa, grapes, and rice) are responsible
for most documented bird kills. Carbofuran alone kills an estimated 17 birds for every 5 acres treated with the chemical.11 It
was sprayed on over 258,000 acres of California farmland in
2000—in the process killing some 877,000 birds.12

BOX 6.1: Sterilizing the Sacramento River
Most of us are not directly aware of agrochemical impacts
on wildlife, which often take the form of increased rates ofdeformities and reproductive problems, declining wildlife
densities, and diminished levels of biodiversity. Dry statistics about these chronic effects can also numb us to just
how lethal these chemicals really are. Far more revealing is
the harm done in particular places, by particular chemicals. In July 1991, for example, a train derailed outside
Dunsmuir, California, spilling 19,000 gallons of metam
sodium—a soil fumigant—into the Sacramento River. 61 In
water, metam sodium breaks down quickly into several
byproducts, one of which is a gas similar to methyl isocyanate, the chemical that caused the 1984 disaster in
Bhopal, India.
The contaminant moved steadily downriver and by thenext morning had annihilated wildlife along 42 miles of
the Sacramento River. According to the California
Department of Fish and Game, “Virtually all of the plants

44

and animals in the river were killed instantly: fish, algae,
plankton, insects, and other organisms. It literally sterilized
the stream.”
One would expect that serious questions would be raised
about a food system that routinely requires such dangerous
chemicals. But the Metam-Sodium Task Force empowered
to look into the calamity kept its focus so narrow thatafter two years of study its main recommendation was that
the EPA “require the use of the signal word ‘Danger’ on
all labels of products containing metam-sodium” abovecertain concentrations.The EPA agreed and, for the agrochemical industry, it was back to business as usual.
In 1991, the year of the Sacramento River disaster,
California farmers applied 4.8 million pounds of metam
sodium to their fields. By 2001, the amount used had risen
more than 130 percent, to more than 11 million pounds.62
And it is just one of scores of similarly toxic pesticides
applied to California fields, day in and day out.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Certainly there is still more to learn about
the environmental impacts of pesticides butwhat we know already should be sufficientfor us to begin to phase them out immediately.Yet this will be derided as an “unrealistic” option, and so it tends to be if we
remain committed to a globalized, tradebased food system.That system depends
upon a scale of production and degree ofcentralization that only monocultures canprovide. But as Michael Pollan writes:

lost directly to the environment, where it contaminateswater, food, and the atmosphere.19
It is ironic that much of this artificial fertilizer would be
unnecessary if industrial agriculture did not find it more
“efficient” to separate livestock onto factory farms, instead of integrating themwithin diversified farms where theirmanure can be used as fertilizer.Thus,
while some California farmers are dousing their fields with chemical fertilizers
and toxic waste, others are trying to dispose of their share of the 27.5 million
tons of manure that California dairy cows
produce annually.20
Photo: Tim McCabe, USDA

California waters commonly contain concentrations of pesticides that are lethal to fish, aquatic plants, and zooplankton, orthat can stress fish populations by affecting reproduction andreducing food supplies. Pesticides are heavily implicated in the
declining health of the San Francisco BayDelta, where fish and zooplankton populations have plummeted over the past 25
years.13 In addition to such chronic impacts,
the widespread use of farm chemicals canresult in acute disasters that severely impact
the environment (see Box 6.1).

Squandering our water
resources

Water is one of California’s most precious
resources, and industrial agriculture ispesticide-dependent than the highly wasteful in its use.This is not only
exacerbating conflicts between the needs
rest of the country: per-acreof farmers, urban dwellers, and wildlife, it
use here is almost ten times
is undermining the basis for agriculture
Nothing else in agriculture is so poorly fitted
itself: salinization, the result of inapproprithe national averageto the way nature seems to work.Very simply,
ate irrigation in California’s arid climates,
a vast field of identical plants will always bepermanently
damagessoil. Over 8 million acres of
exquisitely vulnerable to insects, weeds, and disease—to all the
California’s
croplandare
irrigated,21 and roughly half of thatvicissitudes of nature. Monoculture is at the root of virtuallyarea, primarily in the western San Joaquin Valley, is affected
every problem that bedevils the modern farmer, and from which
14
by salinization.22 Not surprisingly, the biggest farms are thevirtually every agricultural product is designed to deliver him.
most dependent on irrigation water: 93 percent of irrigatedacreage is on farms larger than 500 acres.23 Large-scale farms
Stripping the soil
also negatively affect water quality by polluting waterways
Soil, the living skin of the Earth, makes agriculture possible.
with pesticides, fertilizers, sediment, and livestock waste (seeYet California soils are being rapidly degraded by practices
Box 6.2).
that systematically deplete organic matter and diminish soil
California’s offshore environment is suffering as well.Today,
quality: monocropping without rotation, excessive tillage,
most commercial fish stocks—not only in California but
massive applications of agrochemicals, and the use of largeworldwide—are either overfished or on the brink of becomscale farm equipment.The natural rate of soil formation ining so.24 Furthermore, the quality of the world’s fisheries is
California is thought to be as slow as one inch every 2,000
declining, as measured by the average trophic level, or posiyears, yet the state loses as much as an inch of topsoil everytion on the food chain, of the catch. As trawlers and driftnets
25 years—an alarming 80 times more quickly than it can bescour the ocean, fish are being over-harvested from higher
restored.15
trophic levels, and fisherpeople are forced to catch more fish
Degraded soils lead to further erosion, compaction, loss offrom lower down on the food chain, with devastating effects
nutrients, and lower yields. As a result, farmers are led onto
on the entire marine ecosystem.25
an endless treadmill of chemical inputs, which are poor subCalifornia’s fisheries are no longer healthy.The state’s catch,
stitutes for the rich organic matter in healthy soils.16
California growers spread 4 million tons of synthetic fertilizwhich peaked in 1976 at 900 million pounds,26 shrank to 395
17
18
er every year, including 19,000 tons of toxic waste. Much
million by 2002.27 The catch of more valuable fish, includingof this ends up as pollution, since 30 to 80 percent of themany species of groundfish, has been declining since the early
nitrogen in fertilizers is not taken up by crops but instead
1990s. In response, the US Secretary of Commerce declared a
California is far more

45

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Photo: Tim McCabe, USDA

BOX 6.2: California’s water crisistion. In fact, more than half of US irrigation water neverreaches crops but vanishes due to preventable losses during
pumping and transport.68 With prime farmland converting
to other uses, agriculture has expanded to marginal soils,
where irrigation water is used even less efficiently.

Ecological impacts

Agriculture is not only California’s biggest water consumer, it is the state’s biggest water polluter, threatening
the very resource that is its lifeblood. In fact, the bounty ofCalifornia agriculture is a fragile one, propped up by massive irrigation projects that subsidize the large-scale production of water-intensive export crops. How can a sustainable, clean supply of water in California be ensured forgenerations to come? Local, diverse food systems offer an
important solution.
Rainfall and surface water are distributed very unevenly in
California, but massive efforts to collect and channel water
have led to agricultural and settlement patterns that ignore
naturally available water resources. As a result, about 75
percent of the demand for water is south of Sacramento,63
even though more than 70 percent of the annual runoff
occurs in the northern part of the state.
From its earliest farming days, Californians have used irrigation to provide water for the state’s parched areas. Early
efforts to pump groundwater for agriculture were later supplemented by huge federal and state water schemes like theCentral Valley Project and California State Water Project,which today supply about half of the San Joaquin Valley’swater and over 90 percent of the Imperial Valley’s water.64
With more than 8 million acres of irrigated farmland65—
an area roughly the combined size of Massachusetts andConnecticut—agriculture currently consumes 80 percentof the pumped water in the state.66 Nearly all ofCalifornia’s cropland is irrigated—86 percent—as is muchof its forage and pasture land.67 Partly because subsidies
make water seem “cheap,” enormous amounts of it arewasted through inefficient irrigation, seepage, and evapora-46

To provide the vast quantities of water used in agriculture,
the state’s surface and groundwater resources are alreadybeing used beyond regeneration capacity. Although 70
percent of the state’s agricultural water comes from surface
water, groundwater is an important additional source.69
But those groundwater reserves are being rapidly depleted.
In the San Joaquin Valley, the water table has dropped
nearly 10 meters in some places in the last 50 years,70 theland surface has settled 30 feet in some places,71 and crop
yields have been reduced due to salt build-up.
Waterlogging is also a problem: the Bureau of
Reclamation recently agreed to pay more than $100 million to landowners in the Central Valley to stop farming
roughly 34,000 acres because of severe water drainage
problems.72
Pesticides from industrial agriculture have also contaminated both surface and groundwater. According to the
EPA’s 2002 list of impaired water bodies, over 600 miles ofrivers and streams in the Central Valley are so polluted bypesticides that they are unsafe for fishing, swimming, or
drinking.73 The use of pesticides known to contaminate
groundwater increased 17 percent in California between
1991 and 1998,74 and nearly 11,000 assessed groundwater
acres have been found to be contaminated.75
In the summer dry season many California rivers areseverely contaminated by irrigation runoff, and pesticide
pulses often coincide with fish spawning periods.76
Selenium is mobilized by irrigation and leaches into waterways, affecting water birds and other wildlife.77 Nutrient
loading from fertilizers causes eutrophication of rivers,
lakes, and oceans, affecting aquatic life and human health.
Farm runoff also contaminates drinking water for millions
of Californians, with pesticides, pathogens, nitrates, andsalts detected in drinking water sources for at least 46 of
the state’s 58 counties.78 Roughly a quarter of Californians
drink water from systems that are contaminated by nitrates
at levels that exceed government health standards.79

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Livestock waste from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), or factory farms, causes significant waterand air pollution. California’s large dairy farms generate 27
million tons of cow manure each year,80 with farms in theCentral Valley alone producing as much waste as a city of
21 million people.81 As a result of manure waste from
California dairy farms, hundreds of square miles ofaquifers, rivers, and streams have been contaminated, and.
22 groundwater basins and 15 areas of waterways are classified as impaired or significantly polluted.82 Dairy manure
also contributes to fishery depletion, since these waterways
are crucial spawning and feeding grounds. Unfortunately,
the situation is rapidly worsening: there was a 75 percent
increase in the number of dairy cattle in the San Joaquin
Valley in 2002 alone.83

The 1902 National Reclamation Act, which delivered irrigation water to small farmers in the West, imposed a 160acre limit to ensure that the water would only be used byfamily farmers. But the Bureau of Reclamation never adequately enforced the acreage limitation, which large corporate farms easily circumvented with elaborate leasing
schemes and other legal ploys.90 In 1977 a Bureau study
found that in the Westlands Water District of the San
Joaquin Valley (the largest single beneficiary of subsidized
water from the $4 billion Central Valley Project), 99 percent of the land was farmed in operations greater than 160
acres, with an average farm size of 2,249 acres.91 In 1982,
the 160-acre limitation was changed to 960 acres with thepassage of the Reclamation Reform Act, but even thislimit has yet to be strictly enforced.

Subsidizing water waste

Today California farmers pay the government between $2
and $20 per acre-foot of irrigation water—as little as 10
percent of the water’s full cost if priced to cover construction, operation, and maintenance of the projects that deliver it.92 Decades of artificially cheap water in California
have discouraged efficient water use, guaranteed polluted
water resources, and encouraged farmers to continue
growing water-hungry crops,93 creating an unsustainablesituation that will increasingly force difficult policy decisions around food production, urban water use, andecosystem protection.

It takes a lot of water to grow food in monocultures, especially in an arid climate. Of course, some foods are morewater-intensive than others; producing a pound of animal
protein requires on average about 100 times more water
than a pound of vegetable protein.84 To produce just one
egg using industrial methods takes an estimated 63 gallons
of water.85
Much of California’s water supplies large scale, industrial
farms that produce cotton, alfalfa, and rice. Alfalfa stands
out as the biggest water consumer, using 20 percent ofCalifornia’s developed water supply.86 This thirsty crop
covers more of California’s farmland than any other, withmuch of it grown in the state’s parched southern deserts
using inefficient irrigation techniques like flooding.
Seventy percent of the alfalfa crop goes to feed California’s
dairy cows. In fact, it is estimated that 7,000 gallons ofwater go into keeping a single cow alive for a day.87
Scaling back alfalfa production and instead supporting
local, small-scale, pasture-raised meat and dairy could yield
tremendous water savings.
Using precious irrigation water for crops like forage alfalfa
and rice is only possible thanks to generous taxpayer subsidies estimated at $236 million each year,88 with alfalfa
receiving the largest portion, $70 million annually.89
California’s biggest agricultural sector, the dairy industry, isthus heavily subsidized through alfalfa water use.

Local food saves water
Small scale, diverse local agriculture conserves water byemphasizing crops that are suited to regional climates, andby employing water-saving farming practices that may bedifficult or impossible in massive-scale monocultures.
Integrated farming systems also recycle manure as fertilizer
and tend to use fewer chemicals; soil structure and waterretention are enhanced, and there are fewer wastes that cancompromise water quality.
Local food systems save water in the post-production
stages of processing and packaging, which can be highly
water-intensive as well. At each link in the food chain,
operating at a smaller, local scale allows for greater innovation and the implementation of water-conserving
approaches such as water recycling, efficient irrigation, andimproved processing technologies.

47

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

commercial fishery failure, and in 2000 Congress establishedthe Groundfish Disaster Relief Program.28
While overfishing is a prime cause of the ecological damage
done to California’s fisheries, large-scale agriculture is having
an impact as well. Industrial farming harms fisheries throughwater diversion, pollution, and other habitat degradation.
Other pressures emanating from the global economy, including hydropower projects and deforestation, are damaging
fresh-water fisheries in particular. Salmon and steelhead populations are down more than 90 percent from their historiclevels, hit hard by California water policy decisions of thepast half-century.29 The decline of Chinook salmon has been
dramatic, with California losing 75 percent of its commercial
salmon fishing boats in the past 10 years (see Box 6.3).30

Destabilizing ecosystems
Besides wearing out the resource base with abusive, toxic,
and ultimately unsustainable production methods, large-scalemonocultures further destabilize ecosystems by eliminating
biodiversity, both within the crops grown and in the wild.
While agrochemicals damage wildlife populations directly,
expansive monocultures eliminate wildlife habitat and displace native crop varieties. A German study revealed thatindustrial farming is that nation’s leading contributor to theloss of biodiversity, with more than 500 plant species endangered or extinct due to agriculture.31
California agriculture, too, has had a profoundly negative
impact on biodiversity. Much wild habitat, for example, has

BOX 6.3: Globalization and Salmon Nation
Photo: Gary Kramer, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Victor Menotti, International Forum on Globalization

48

Although California
is a place filled with
contrast and irony,none may be so
tragically stark as thestory of how theindustrialization ofagriculture has all
but destroyed what isperhaps the most important source of protein in our local
food system: salmon.

The ugly truth is that California’s industrial farming is sacrificing our salmon stocks to grow export crops. Contrary
to conventional wisdom, the depletion of local salmon
stocks is not due to overfishing by greedy fishermen but
to the destruction of fish habitat that is vital to the species’survival.The logging of forests, damming of rivers, anddiversion of water for irrigation has left salmon with
nowhere to eat, grow, or reproduce.Water that used toflow freely into rivers and streams to provide salmon habitat has been sprayed on fields of cotton, rice, almonds, andother water-intensive crops.

Salmon have been the most important of our local fisheries, providing a vital source of sustenance for Native
Californians, as well as early settlers who told of streams
swollen with so many fish that they could be caught byhand. Salmon were also the basis of the region’s oldest
industry, feeding a vibrant, small-scale commercial fishingfleet that was the economic anchor of northern
California’s coastal communities. Aside from serving
human nutritional needs, at least 137 additional species
feed on salmon. California’s forests are fed nitrogen bysalmon returning from the ocean to the very streams
where they were born, only to reproduce before dying,decomposing, and starting the circle of life once again.

For example, farming continues to divert water from
California’s Klamath River (which holds some 15 percentof the state’s salmon stocks, according to the Institute forFisheries Resources), to grow crops in water-scarceregions. In 2001, the Secretary of the Interior decided tosupport the demands of farming interests to withhold
water from the Klamath River below levels mandated by
the Endangered Species Act and instead divert water for
irrigation.The result was predictable and inevitable: thedeath of more than 34,000 adult salmon and steelhead.
Salmon fishermen were so mad they shipped a cargo loadof dead salmon to Washington, DC and dumped them atthe Department of Interior’s doorstep.

But the salmon’s life cycle is being interrupted. Five of thesix species found in the Pacific are endangered.The
salmon’s slide toward extinction is a deliberate policy
choice driven largely by industrial agriculture and logging
corporations serving globalized markets.

Salmon don’t just need water, they need cold water.
Intensive logging in riparian zones and along steep hillsides sends soil sliding into stream beds, causing heavy siltation.The loss of shade trees exposes streams to direct
sunlight, increasing water temperatures and decreasing theRIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

been displaced by large contiguous crop fields and wetland
draining and compromised by agrochemical runoff.Thanks
in large part to industrial agriculture, more than 99 percentof the Sacramento Valley’s original native grasslands havebeen lost, along with 95 percent of its wetlands and 88 percent of its riparian areas.32 Overall, Central Valley river systems and the San Francisco Bay-Delta have been severely
damaged, losing 98 percent of their original riparian habitat,
95 percent of spawning habitat, and 95 percent of delta tidal
wetlands.33
All across the state, chemical-intensive farming is also eliminating habitat for a wide range of beneficial insects, including native pollinators, which provide an essential service tofarming as domesticated honeybee populations decline.34
Imported exotic pests and diseases also threaten native biodiversity, a problem that has worsened with increased foodtransport and trade.
It is not only wild biodiversity that is disappearing.The UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that at least
75 percent of the planet’s agricultural biodiversity has alreadybeen lost.35 Each year, genetic diversity in crops decreases byanother 2 percent worldwide, and the number of livestock
breeds decreases by 5 percent.36 Wheat, rice, and corn—now
the three most abundant plants on Earth—provide 60 percent
of human food.37 Of the crop varieties that were grown a century ago, 90 percent are no longer commercially produced.38

likelihood that salmon will reproduce. Clearcutting in
California forests increased with the introduction of “freetrade” agreements like NAFTA in the 1990s. Sierra PacificIndustries, the state’s largest private landowner and largest
purchaser of public timber, increased clearcutting by
almost 2,500 percent.

salmon exist). Fishing, farming, forest, and indigenous
communities are uniting to restore salmon stocks by protecting forest habitat, raising water levels in streams andrivers, removing dams and other barriers to salmon’s
migratory paths, and controlling the discharge of pollutants into waterways and marine habitat.

As wild salmon stocks dwindle, “salmon farms” are sprawling across temperate coastal zones worldwide to cash inon growing demand. Industrial aquaculture requires building enormous “pens” on the coast to hold the growing
fish, then applying antibiotics and fungicides to preventthe spread of disease. An unregulated industry in many
places, salmon farms are destroying precious coastal habitats and displacing traditional fishing communities.

At the same time, the forces of globalization must also be
kept in check so as not to undermine the recovery of local
fishing communities.That means increasing existing tariffand quota barriers on imports of farmed salmon, and educating consumers about the impacts of different kinds ofsalmon in the marketplace.

Moreover, an overabundance of farmed salmon is now
flooding the global market, sending salmon prices torecord lows. Cheap imports of farmed salmon from Chile,
British Columbia, Norway, and Scotland are being“dumped” in the US markets, leaving California salmon
fishing communities in a crisis.

Reclaiming Salmon Nation
Saving salmon makes up a big part of the growing movement to rebuild local food systems in California. Somepeople view salmon as a cultural symbol around which we
can identify as a distinct region with a unique naturalbounty, calling it Salmon Nation (which includes northern
California and the greater Pacific Coast watersheds where

Re-localizing production and consumption cycles is oneof the most important steps toward social and ecologicalsustainability. A first step toward that end is to de-globalize
trade in natural resources such as farm, fish, and forest
products.This “de-linking” agenda can be advanced byinsisting that social and ecological costs are included in theprice of a product. At the same time, environmentalists
must support the efforts of natural resource-based communities that are uniting worldwide to change the rules ofinternational trade in order to protect rural livelihoods andthe natural systems upon which they depend. Some call it“protecting the local, globally.”
As the world’s seventh largest economy, what happens here
in California will inevitably have global implications. So
let the global revolution start here at home.

49

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Photo: David F. Warren, USDA

If the use of genetically modified seeds becomes more
Speeding up the global treadmill
widespread, agricultural diversity will decline even further,
California’s farmers are beginning to face difficult choices.
with the food supply increasingly dependent upon patentOther regions, particularly in the global South, are not only
ed genes. Genetic engineering poses other threats to thecatching up with California in subsidizing their transport andnatural environment. GE crops have been shown to crossenergy infrastructures, they have labor
pollinate with non-GE crops and withcosts that are a small fraction of the wages
wild relatives, threatening the creation of
paid to food industry workers in the state“super-weeds.” Some GE crops modified(even though these are hardly livable
to contain their own pesticides have also
wages). California will face another disadbeen shown to kill “non-target” insects,
vantage in the global food economy:such as the monarch butterfly. The release
though they are not consistently enforced,of crops that are genetically engineered
environmental laws are more stringent
with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a nonhere than in many other parts of thechemical pesticide used by both organic
world, leading to a relatively higher costand conventional farmers, could lead toof producing, processing, and transporting
pest resistance to Bt and seriously threatfood in California.
en organic farming in the US. These areparticularly looming threats in California
For California to remain competitive in(see Box 6.4).
global markets, its farms will face presCentral Valley pea harvest.
sure to become larger and more specialMost commercial hybrid and genetically
For California to remain
ized and to further sacrifice the environengineered varieties are designed to meet
ment in the name of economic success.
competitive, its farms will
the demands of the industrial food system:
This is already happening, as illustrated
face pressure to become
they are suited for mechanical harvesting,by the ongoing story of methyl bromide,
long-distance transport, long shelf-life,
larger and more specialized.
a potent and highly toxic soil fumigant
visual uniformity, and supermarket appeal;
widely used in California for strawberfew if any are designed to be hardy withries, tomatoes, grapes, and a variety ofout the application of agrochemicals.
other crops. Methyl bromide is not only a known carcinoWhat’s more, their narrowed genetic base makes crops
gen, it is also a powerful destroyer of the Earth’s ozone
increasingly vulnerable to pest outbreaks, which fuels thelayer. For this reason, the Montreal Protocol, an internaneed for new—and increasingly toxic—pesticides.
tional agreement signed by the US, calls on the industrialThe spread of GE seeds has already led to an increase in pesti- ized world to phase out its use by 2005, and the developingworld ten years after that.
cide use. Part of the reason is that many GE crops are modified for resistance to certain herbicides, which leads tobroader-scale applications and eventually the need for evermore chemicals as weeds develop resistance.Thus, the 550
million acres of GE corn, soybeans, and cotton planted in the
US since 1996 have led to an increase of 50 million pounds
in pesticide use.39
Despite the agribusiness hype, genetic engineering emanatesfrom the corporate drive for profit, not from the noble goalof reducing pesticide use or feeding the global population.
So far, the majority of commercial GE seeds have been
designed to work hand-in-hand with pesticides marketed by
the same corporations that control the seeds.The so-called“Terminator” gene, designed by Monsanto to eliminate thepossibility of seed-saving by making seeds sterile, is a clear
indication that corporate profit, not humanitarian concerns,
are at the root of this risky technology.40

50

California’s agribusinesses have been fighting hard against
implementation of the Protocol.The California Farm Bureau
Federation (CFBF) is calling on Congress to renegotiate thetreaty, arguing that the “continued use of methyl bromide [is]necessary to provide consumers with a safe and reliable foodsupply.”41 The real reason has little to do with “safe and reliable food,” and everything to do with production costs andtrade.42 The CFBF points out that:
China and other developing nations, such as Chile andMexico, would have access to methyl bromide until 2015, while
the US would face a phase-out deadline of Jan. 1, 2005.
Many of these developing nations are major competitors with
U.S. producers in specialty crop markets such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries, to name a few.43
By pitting producers everywhere in the world against eachother, globalization continually pressures countries to drop their

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

BOX 6.4: Genetic engineering looming in California
Photo: Scott Bauer, USDA ARS

Renata Brillinger, Californians for GE-Free Agriculture

Through the spring of 2003,
California agriculture remained
virtually free of genetic engineering (GE), with the notable
exception of cotton used to produce fiber, animal feed, and cottonseed oil. However, since theearly 1990s there have been
more than 1,500 field trials of
many other GE crops, and thebiotech industry is making plans
to commercialize GE rice, wheat,strawberries, lettuce, wine grapes, walnuts, and other fresh
produce, grains, and nuts grown in this state.
As the largest agricultural producer in the United States,
California is being targeted as the next commercial breeding ground for GE crops. California is also the largest
organic fruit and vegetable state, producing more than 50
percent of the country’s organic produce.Through pollen
drift, seed contamination, and mixing during processing,
GE crops can spread their DNA to other crops and plants.
Once released into the environment, GE crop contamination cannot be recalled. Genetic contamination by GE
crops threatens not only the market niche of conventionaland organic farmers who currently choose not to growGE crops but also the potential for a systemic shift toorganic production in the future.

as early as the 2005 growing season.While wheat is grown
in relatively small amounts in this state, California produces
23 percent of the country’s rice. Half of California’s rice isexported, most of it destined for countries with strict antiGE regulations (Japan, Korea, and Turkey).
Commercialization of GE rice in California could havedevastating impacts on the industry. Representatives fromthe Bayer Corporation have stated that the company wants
regulatory authority to conduct airplane seeding of its
Liberty Link herbicide-tolerant rice in the Central Valley.
If this occurs, it will be impossible to California’s non-GE
rice from being contaminated. Such contamination will
threaten California’s sizable organic rice sector, and willrisk the economic future of California’s non-GE rice
growers. Several major rice growers and millers in
California have expressed opposition to the introductionof GE rice because it will weaken confidence in all
California rice, threatening their access to both domestic
and export markets. Glufosinate, the acutely toxic herbicide applied to Liberty Link rice and other GE crops,
threatens both wild ecosystems and human health throughresidues in food and drinking water.94

While industry secrecy and lack of government oversightand regulation make it almost impossible for the public to
get information about the incursion of GE crops into
California, the crops presently in the pipeline include
Bayer’s herbicide-tolerant rice;Ventria Bioscience’s pharmaceutical rice (with human genes); and Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerant strawberries, lettuce, and rice.

A coalition of ecological farming, environmental, and consumer groups has formed Californians for GE-Free
Agriculture to oppose genetically engineered agriculture
in California.This group is currently working to educate
consumers about the threats of GE foods and to encourage them to reject these foods in the marketplace. Future
outreach will inform farmers and processors about the
problems with GE technologies, with the aim of slowing
producer demand for GE seeds. Californians for GE-Free
Agriculture advocates an economically and ecologicallysustainable agricultural model, one that benefits California
producers, consumers, and residents.

Herbicide-tolerant rice and wheat are at most imminent riskof widespread introduction: both are expected on the market

To learn more about this campaign, contact Californians for
GE-Free Agriculture at www.calgefree.org.

environmental standards to the lowest level anywhere.This is
the infamous “race to the bottom,” in which the biggest losers
are the environment and all who depend upon it.
It remains to be seen whether agribusiness interests will force
a renegotiation of the Montreal Protocol or gain exemptions
for specific crops; meanwhile alternatives to the use of

methyl bromide are being desperately sought. Unfortunately,
there is as yet little discussion of a shift to smaller-scale andmore localized food economies in which chemicals like thiswould be unnecessary.The EPA, for example, is looking for a“cost effective, technically viable alternative to methyl bromide” that is less damaging to the ozone layer.The options
so far are several other highly toxic fumigants, including51

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

methyl iodide, telon (a known human carcinogen), andmetam sodium, the same chemical that devastated the
Sacramento River (see Box 6.1).44 Clearly, a more fundamental rethinking of the problems of industrial agriculture isneeded.

A well-oiled machine
Many of the ecological costs of global food stem from its
heavy dependence on energy. Partly because pesticides andsynthetic fertilizers are petroleum-based, industrial agriculture consumes huge amounts of fossil fuels. In 2000,
California farmers used $1.7 billion worth of pesticides andfertilizers, $574 million worth of other petroleum products,
and almost $600 million worth of electricity, not counting
the fuel needed to transport their products.45
Beyond the farm, global food requires enormous amounts offossil fuels, electricity, and other resources for processing,packaging, refrigeration, storage, and transport, as well as forconstructing all the infrastructure that industrial production
and global trade require. In fact, most of the energy consumed by the food system is not used by farmers, but byprocessors, manufacturers, shippers, wholesalers, and retailers,
to convert raw farm products into meals on the kitchen

table.46 For example, it takes twice as much energy just to
package a can of corn as it does to produce the corn itself.47
Because it is so transport- and energy-intensive, the food system is a major contributor to global warming. Overall,roughly 10 to 20 percent of US energy consumption and acorresponding proportion of carbon dioxide emissions are
attributable to the food system (see Box 6.5).48 In fact, theindustrial food system uses so much energy that it has been
described as “a black box for converting fossil fuel energy
into edible food energy.”49 It is not a very efficient converterof energy, either: it takes an estimated 7 to 10 units of fossil
fuel energy to produce 1 unit of food energy in the US.50
Increased transport adds substantially to global food’s energy
addiction. Since 1961, the tonnage of food shipped between
nations has grown twice as fast as the global population.51 With
local food economies being displaced everywhere by the global
food system, food miles are skyrocketing.An average food itemin the US now travels 25 percent farther than in 1980.52

Other ecological impacts
The increase in food transport, packaging, and processing
demanded by the globalization of food has significant andBOX 6.5: Climate change
The global food system contributes significantly to climatechange. Besides the CO2 released from fossil fuel use, agriculture adds to the atmospheric carbon stock through forest clearing and the release of soil carbon through cultivation.95 All told, the food system is one of the single largest
sources of greenhouse gases, contributing an estimatedthird of the world’s emissions.96 Yet most climate change
policy overlooks trends in the food system that are actually
increasing those emissions.
Californians emit a substantial portion of the world’s
greenhouse gases, including over 400 million tons of CO2
each year.97 The state’s food system both contributes to climate change and is vulnerable to its impacts.The consequences of global warming for California farmers may
include:98■

52

hotter and drier California summers, with reduced
stream flow intensifying the competing demands forwater;■

lower yields or crop failure due to heat stress, pest or
disease infestations, and reduced water storage;■

lower profitability of water-intensive crops like alfalfa,
cotton, and grapes;■

increased vulnerability of perennial crops like fruit, nuts,
and grapes, because it can take years to bring more suitable cultivars into production to adapt to shifting conditions;■declining fisheries due to increased water temperaturesand salinity.

Localization would reduce fossil fuel consumption and CO2
emissions at every level of the food system—from production to distribution and marketing.While industrial farming
gradually reduces soil carbon by releasing it into the atmosphere and adding to global warming, smaller-scale and more
ecological practices allow carbon to build up in the soil,
which acts as a carbon sink. Storing carbon in turn can offer
California farmers improved yields, decreased erosion, andimproved water retention.99

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: Lisa M. Hamilton

BOX 6.6: Making it work: The Straus Family Creamery
The Straus family has beenfarming for over 60 years.
The farm was started in1941 by Bill Straus in
Marshall, near Tomales Bay
in West Marin County.
Although the farm has notalways been organic, theStrauses have consistently
been in the vanguard of
local environmentalism.They supported the creation of
Point Reyes National Seashore, and Bill’s wife Ellenhelped found the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, which
has been instrumental in preventing development and suburban sprawl in West Marin.
In 1993, their son Albert transformed the family farm into
the first organic dairy west of the Mississippi. As his sister
Vivien explains, “The farm wasn’t financially viable in thelong run on the path we were taking.We needed to find asolution, and transitioning to organic made sense in that itresonated with our current practices and beliefs as longtime environmentalists.”The Strauses needed to find a way
to set their milk apart from the majority of low-priced
conventional milk on the shelf, and going organic was partof the answer.
The other element that sets Straus milk apart is the factthat their dairy products come from their own small
creamery. Albert founded Straus Creamery in 1994, andthe family has been bottling their own milk ever since, as
well as making butter, cheeses, yogurt, and ice cream.
These two changes have helped save the Strauses from theeconomic squeeze that has destroyed countless small dairy
farms nationwide. People are willing to pay a higher pricefor their top quality milk, and the business has been
increasingly successful.
The 270 Straus cows graze on 660 acres from springthrough fall. In the rainy season, the cows are kept in an

widespread ecological repercussions. Besides contributing toclimate change, the food system’s gluttonous energy consumption disrupts ecosystems and communities through air
and water pollution, in addition to the upstream impacts ofextraction, refining, oil spills, and power generation.Waging
war to secure oil resources also has devastating ecological andhuman costs.

open barn to protect the soil from erosion and to protect
the cows’ health.The dairy grows 50 to 60 percent of thefeed it needs, with the remainder coming from as close tohome as possible.The cow manure is used on the fields
after being processed in a methane digester; the familyplans to use the methane to provide power to their dairy
and new creamery building.To keep the cows healthy,
they are provided with ample space, open air, clean bedding, and low stress; any sick cows are treated with aspirin
or homeopathic remedies, if necessary, rather than antibiotics.
The bulk of Straus’ income come from sales of milk,
which is pasteurized but not homogenized, and bottled inglass containers. Using the old-fashioned bottles—which
are made from recycled glass and reused an average of 7
times—reduces packaging waste, improves the taste of themilk, and sets Straus milk apart from other brands.
Despite getting a premium price for their milk and making value-added products themselves, the Strauses still haveto milk a relatively large number of cows in order to maketheir operation economically viable.The size of their dairy
and creamery is small relative to the state’s conventional
operations, but it is large enough to require high—techmilking machines and other expensive equipment, and alarge acreage for grazing and growing hay. After resisting
plastic packaging for years, the dairy recently began sellingsome of the milk in plastic bottles, citing financial pressures and the need to boost milk sales in order to survive.
Today Straus products are sold in 18 states.
With family dairies going out of business at a rapid rate,
Straus is an inspiring example of how it is possible tocarve out a niche for family farmers that is more economically and ecologically sustainable, even alongside
today’s global food system. If small producers were nolonger forced to compete on an uneven playing field,
farmers even smaller in scale and more local would be
able to survive.

Building transport infrastructure—airports, shipping terminals, railway facilities, roads, and parking lots—often
requires deforestation, wetland draining, and other habitat
destruction. Giant, highly centralized supermarkets require
the expansion of roads and highways and then require consumers to travel longer distances to reach them, adding still
more to the ecological toll.
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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Ecological benefits of localizing
How can the ecological costs of producing and distributing food in California beminimized? There is no shortage of
information on more ecological and sustainable agricultural practices. Small- to
medium-scale, diversified organic agriculture, for example, is clearly less harmful
for the environment than the chemical
dependencies of industrial monocultures(see Boxes 6.6, 8.3, and 9.2 for a few
examples).Yet even many of those who
see the benefits of a more ecologicalagriculture fail to recognize how difficult
it will be to change course if we remaincommitted to a globalized food system
and all it implies.

on, there is little economic advantage to factory farming,allowing livestock and crop production to become integrated, thereby closing resource loops, reducing waste and pollution, and improving animal welfare.
When farmers produce primarily for local markets, they canlet local conditions, rather than supermarket chains or corporate contracts, determine what they grow. Locally-adapted
varieties can replace the uniform hybrids
and genetically engineered varieties thatnow dominate fields, and local foods,
adapted to local resources, microclimates
and tastes, can begin to displace thehomogenized monoculture of corporate
processed food. In California, that could
mean, among other things, growing
drought-resistant crop varieties instead ofirrigating the desert to grow rice forexport.
Photo: Clint Chamberlin

The manufacture of paper, metal, and plastic food packaging
consumes vast amounts of resources and adds to air andwater pollution.Their use, in turn, adds mountains of excessive garbage to the waste stream: about a third of the solid
waste in US landfills is food packaging.53 Each year
Californians generate roughly 22 million tons of packaging,burdening landfills and adding to the pressure to build waste incinerators.54

In Iowa, local food traveled

Once the systemic forces supporting theindustrial system are removed, there are
few technical barriers to converting to suscompared with an estimatedtainable models of food production.
1,550 food miles from global
Despite a political and economic climatethat has been difficult for small farms,
food sources.
exciting work is being carried out, in the
The pressure to continue the use of
US and abroad, to restore ecologicallymethyl bromide in California reveals somefriendly farming systems. For example, the Wild Farmof the political and economic forces that keep the current
Alliance promotes farms that benefit wild nature by providmodel in place. As important as it is to continue demonstrating wildlife corridors and habitat through crop diversificaing the merits of sustainable agriculture, it has become evention, planting of hedgerows, and interspersing fields withmore important to tackle those forces, since they prevent
land returned to forest or wild ecosystems.55
ecological practices from becoming the foundation of ourfood systems.
an average of 45 miles,

Reducing energy use

As we have seen, the global food system systematically leads
agriculture in the direction of larger farms, monocultural
production, and reliance on damaging inputs. A shift towards
the local can help reverse this unsustainable trend.When afarmer’s production is geared to local consumption, there arestrong incentives to diversify: local markets lend themselves
to smaller quantities of many different food products, unlike
the global economy’s demand for large quantities of single
commodities.

Local food systems reduce the distance from farmer to consumer, thereby offering dramatic energy savings and associated ecological benefits. A study in England calculated theCO2 emissions of a traditional Sunday meal made fromimported versus locally-grown ingredients and found thatthe imported meal would produce 650 times more CO2.56 In
Iowa, another study showed that local food traveled an average of 45 miles, compared with an estimated 1,550 foodmiles from global food sources.57

At the same time, diversified farms are less suited to theenergy-intensive equipment needed by large farms andmonocultures.They have much less need for the agrochemicals that monocultures require, which makes organic production more feasible.Wild biodiversity can again thrive within
and on the margins of fields.Without distant markets to rely

Closer to home, a San Francisco farmers’ market calculated
the average number of food miles traveled by its produce,and compared those distances with produce arriving at a
Chicago terminal market (primarily from the continental
United States), where brokers and wholesalers typically purchase produce. Produce from the terminal market traveled

54

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

from 7 to 20 times farther than from the farmers’ market (seeTable 6.1).58
Another study looked at the impact of changing the highly
centralized distribution system for foods grown and consumed in California, which is now hauled from farms to centralized warehouses and distribution centers before being
delivered to retail outlets. Computer modeling revealed that
direct shipment of fruits and vegetables from county of production to county of consumption would reduce fuel consumption by 25 percent.60 Still closer links between producers
and consumers would have an even more dramatic impact.
Local food systems offer other ecological benefits. Local
foods are more often consumed fresh, and therefore need far
less packaging, processing, and refrigeration, which can translate into impressive energy and resource savings.With lower
energy requirements for food production and processing,
local food systems make renewable energy sources like wind,
water, and solar power more practical, as well as alternative
fuels like biodiesel.

TABLE 6.1:

San Francisco farmers’ market vs.
terminal market food miles59
ChicagoSan Francisco(terminal market)(farmers’ market)

Apples1,555 miles

105 miles

Tomatoes

1,369 miles

117 miles

Grapes2,143 miles

151 miles

Beans

766 miles

101 miles

Peaches

1,674 miles

184 miles

Winter squash

781 miles

98 milesGreens889 miles

99 milesLettuce

2,055 miles

102 miles

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 7:

Food Insecurity and Hunger
ven among those who recognize the shortcomings of the global food system, many support itE

because they believe it is the only means of providing enough food for the world’s growing
population. On the surface, this seems logical. Industrial agriculture in the US, for example, isapparently so productive that 1 percent of the population can not only meet much of the country’s
need, but export large quantities elsewhere.What’s more, the global food system’s emphasis on trade
and transport means that people everywhere have access to the entire planet’s food supply, not justwhat their own region can produce.
But on closer examination, the global food system does nobetter at alleviating hunger or providing long-term foodsecurity1 than it does at maintaining the health of people andthe environment. Once food becomes a global commodity
controlled by corporations driven by profit and growth, it
becomes economically “rational” for luxury foods to begrown on the best land in countries of the South, thenshipped thousands of miles and marketed to wealthy areas in
the richest countries.
Globalization leads to profound disparities in both wealth andfood security not only globally, but within regions, including
within industrialized countries. As a result, an estimated 842
million people are undernourished worldwide, 10 million ofthem in the industrialized world, even though enough food is
produced to adequately feed everyone on the planet.2

56

If food security were the product of high-tech agriculture
and access to global markets, then California—a leader onboth counts—would have better food security than almost
any other place in the world.This is not the case.Today, over
5 million Californians are “food insecure,” which means theymust do without such basic needs as utilities and medicalcare in order to put food on the table. For at least 1.25 million of those, it also means going hungry.3
In fact, California ranks near the bottom in the US in providing food security for its residents: only 11 states doworse.4 The two California counties with the worst foodsecurity, Fresno and Tulare, are among the country’s leading
food producers.5 Clearly, something is wrong.This chapter
examines some often-overlooked aspects of food security andtheir relationship to the global food system.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Globalizing hunger
In economies like our own, where food must be purchasedwith cash, poverty is usually the most immediate cause ofhunger. For this reason, state and federal programs aimed at
the poor, such as welfare, food stamps, and school lunch programs, may seem like the most direct solution to the problem of hunger.6

Food deserts
This problem is even worse in the “food deserts” of poor
urban neighborhoods, where there are few shops that stock
anything but heavily processed “junk” foods. Food deserts
result when supermarket chains “redline,” or abandon, innercities in favor of more affluent suburbs and city neighborhoods. Studies show that higher income communities have
two to three times the number ofsupermarkets than do lower-income
areas, and that neighborhoods thatare predominately African-Americanor Latino are also less likely to havesupermarkets than white neighborhoods.8
Photo: Ken Hammond, USDA

But looking at the issue more broadly reveals how the global
economy is worsening the hunger problem. For one, economic globalization continually
removes people from the land and distances them from the sources of theirfood, making them more vulnerable tothe economic vicissitudes that can leadto hunger. Particularly in the countriesof the South, people are being pulledfrom rural villages into urban slums
where they can no longer feed themselves and their families from their own
production.7

cooked meals can easily give way to fast food burgers eatenin the car or frozen TV dinners at home.

As supermarket chains invest in fullamenity, 24-hour, car-accessible
megastores on the edges of town, theeffect is to leave low-income urban
In industrialized countries, those urban- California ranks near the bottom in the US in providing foodresidents—many of whom do notsecurity for its residents, with growing numbers of people
izing forces have been felt far longer,own
a car—food insecure, without
relying on food banks like this one.
leaving few poor people in a positioneasy access to affordable and nutritious
to barter their labor for food or grow afood. Residents of these “less profportion of their own. Instead, their food needs must travel
itable” communities have little choice but to patronize fastthrough many layers of corporate middlemen, each one
food restaurants or convenience and liquor stores, notorious
extracting a profit.
for selling highly processed foods at outrageously marked-up
prices.
Most of the food produced by this system is not really“cheap,” even if one ignores how heavily subsidized it is (seeFor example, the Northern California community of West
Chapter 11).Thus, a 5-ounce bag of Wise™ potato chips
Oakland, with 32,000 residents and a 60 percent unemploytypically sells for $1.49, which means consumers are paying
ment rate, has only one supermarket but 40 liquor and connearly $5 per pound for industrially-produced potatoes andvenience stores, only 3 of which provide foods that are suitoil, salt, and numerous additives; local organic potatoes,
able for making a nutritionally adequate meal.What’s more,meanwhile, typically cost about one-fifth that at a farmers’
the price of food in these stores is 30 to 100 percent higher
market. Similarly, the $3.09 price tag on a 10-ounce box ofthan the price in grocery stores.9 One result of this “foodCheerios™ means that the contents (oats, corn sweetener,
desert” effect is that half of the grocery dollars in Westand chemical additives) also cost almost $5 per pound.
Oakland are spent outside the community, with transportaOrganic oatmeal from a health food store, meanwhile, usually tion expenses and travel time added to the cost people mustruns about 75 cents per pound.
pay for nutritious food.
Most fast foods and convenience foods are similarly expensive, especially considering their dubious nutritional value.Yet
many people have little choice but to purchase these expensive manufactured foods rather than cheaper raw ingredients.
In today’s competitive global economy, virtually everyone
feels pressed for time, but for families on the lower rungs ofthe economic ladder it can take the efforts of two full-timewage-earners simply to put food on the table.With time—
like food—reduced to a scarce commodity, nutritious home-

Heavy consumption of the poor quality foods most readily
available in low-income neighborhoods is in turn exacerbating health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke,certain cancers, high blood pressure, and obesity. A survey of
California children found that nearly one-third were overweight or at-risk for becoming overweight, and that AfricanAmerican, Latino, and Asian children were more likely thanwhite children to suffer from this problem.10

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Some have argued that the solution to these problems is toclose the “grocery gap” by providing incentives, at taxpayer
expense, for supermarket chains to relocate in low-income,inner city areas. But rather than offering further subsidies tohuge corporate chains, other options are available that create
more jobs, retain more money in the local economy, provide
better nutrition, and avoid many of the other problems associated with large supermarkets. A mix of food cooperatives,
farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture (CSA)
schemes, small locally-owned supermarkets, and even morecreative solutions can address the grocery gap in ways that

not only improve nutrition in low-income areas but add tothe economic vitality of the community (see Box 7.1).

Threats to long-term food security: fossil
fuel dependence
While rising hunger statistics are an indication that the global food system is a poor provider of food security today, its
ability to provide an adequate food supply for the future isalso in doubt. In part, this is because the food system is soheavily dependent on fossil fuels, which are not only being
rapidly depleted but are subject to sudden disruption fromBOX 7.1: Reclaiming food deserts: Beyond the supermarket solution
Photo: Alex Jensen

farmers’ markets.The pedestrian traffic created by farmers’markets also provides a boost to other local businesses,
providing additional economic opportunities for lowincome areas.
Independent grocery stores: Independently-owned gro-

The problem of providing affordable, nutritious, accessible
food to low-income communities is a serious one.
Advocacy approaches that aim to bring full-service supermarket chains into low-income communities may be
addressing food access in the short term, but could be
inadvertently undermining long-term food security as
well as the broader local economy. A range of creative
solutions that build community food security and give ameaningful boost to the local economy are already being
explored in California.These include:
Farmers’ markets: The freshest, highest quality food isavailable at farmers’ markets, at prices that are competitive
with those found in large supermarkets. Many farmers’markets are already located in city or town centers andtherefore are usually accessible by public transportation.
The goal could include encouraging the setting up of
markets within or adjacent to low-income neighborhoods,
open daily rather than just one or two days a week.
Thanks to federal Farmers’ Market Nutrition Programs for
Seniors and for Women, Infants, and Children, even thosewith very little income can obtain fresh, local foods at

58

cery stores are also an important part of the solution, particularly if they are locally-owned, centrally-located, anddedicated to offering local, sustainably produced food ataffordable prices. One of the most innovative ventures
doing exactly that is San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery, an
independent, worker-owned and operated business, whosestated purpose is to “provide natural, organic food with afocus on vegetarian and environmentally health-conscious
products at an affordable price.” Additionally, Rainbow
Grocery has a commitment to “buying goods from localorganic farmers, collectives, bakers, dairies and other local
businesses whenever possible.”39 In this way, the grocery is
not only serving its customers, but, unlike large supermarket chains, adding to the economic viability of many otherlocal businesses as well.
Another exciting venture is the People’s Grocery in West
Oakland, the brainchild of three community activists.The
group has begun selling local organic produce and bulk
foods to low-income residents from their solar-powered
community market in a van, thereby bringing healthy
food directly to the community.The support of independent funding helps the group to lower the price of localorganic food, making it more accessible to cash-strapped
residents, and to run a program called “Collards ‘n’Commerce,” in which students from West Oakland highschools study business and personal finance while working
in one of five community gardens, then sell the food they

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

war, terrorism, or the decisions of oil companies and oil-producing nations.
Most people still tend to think of agriculture as a process inwhich plants turn sunlight into food for human consumption. But for global food this is no longer true: as one
researcher has pointed out, “the main energy input intomodern agriculture is not solar energy but industrial energyof different types, most of it derived from fossil fuels.”11
As described in Chapter 6, industrial agricultural needs vast
amounts of fossil fuels to produce synthetic fertilizers andgrow through the Mobile Market. Longer-term plansinclude a full-fledged grocery and street produce stand.40
Direct farmer-consumer links: Initiatives like community

supported agriculture (CSA) and box schemes can workin low-income neighborhoods, just as in more affluent
ones. One creative model is Farm Fresh Choice, whichconnects limited-income communities in south and west
Berkeley with nearby farmers of color. Participating farmers drop off their produce at the Berkeley Farmers’Market, where it is picked up, brought to local childcare
centers and displayed so that families are able to shop
while they are picking up their children.41
Reviving corner stores: Rather than create entirely new
enterprises, this approach retrofits existing structures andspaces, for example some of the abundant liquor or convenience stores currently selling junk food, and uses themto address food security by instead specializing in nutritious, fresh food. A successful example of this approach is
the School Market in Oakland’s Fruitvale district. In
November of 2000, School Market opened its newlytransformed store, moving away from the beer, wine, andsnack foods typical of convenience stores to fresh produce
and dairy products.42
Urban farms and gardens: The rapidly growing urban

garden movement provides a means for people in cities,
especially in low-income areas, to grow a significant portion of their own food. A 1996 survey of 38 cities acrossthe US showed 6,020 reported community gardens,
including school gardens that are part of a citywide program.43 These gardens can produce prodigious amounts offood: according to Michael Ableman, whose own organic
farm in Southern California is now surrounded bypesticides, and to power irrigation pumps and heavy farmequipment.The rest of the global food system is equallydependent on fossil fuels—for processing, packaging, refrigerating, and transporting food and for bringing consumers tocentralized retail markets. Only with artificially cheap oil,among other subsidies, can this system provide food that
seems affordable to the majority. If oil supplies are disrupted,
the entire system can be rapidly and radically affected.
Even if a sudden stop to the flow of oil can be avoided, theglobal food system’s addiction to fossil fuels will eventually
jeopardize food security: as reserves are depleted, oil will

encroaching urbanization, “in the US, urban farms produce 13 times more per acre than their rural counterparts.”44 Urban gardens have a measurable impact on levelsof nutrition. One study concluded that “access to community gardens is an important strategy for improving vegetable consumption, gaining control over the quality andvariety of produce consumed. . . . [and] is related to anincreased frequency of vegetable consumption and adecrease in dairy, sweets and sweet drink consumption.”45
Not only do urban gardens provide people with fresh,
wholesome food, they offer a wide range of other benefits
as well: they beautify neighborhoods and provide fresh air,green space, and opportunities for urban residents to dig
their hands into the soil. For example, the San Francisco
League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) runs 100 neighborhood gardens, including the Alemany Youth Farm, thelargest farm in San Francisco, built and maintained by 50
teenagers on what was once a garbage-filled lot. SLUG’sprogram also includes an “enterprise” component, whichseeks ways to turn community gardening into jobs forneighborhood residents.46
Similarly, urban community farms make use of vacant landfor urban farmers to grow food for direct marketing to
the local community. A coalition of food security advocates called the West Oakland Food Project Collaborative
has as one of its goals a community farm on every block(where land permits) in West Oakland.Two farms are
already up and running, and two more are soon to be
started.They are also working with the Yemen Grocery
Association of West Oakland to market local produce toliquor stores in the area.47

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

become increasingly expensive, and the cost of industrial
food will likely rise as well.The poor, as usual, will be thefirst to go hungry, but sooner or later everyone dependent
on the global food system will be at risk.

Electricity disruptions can have other repercussions for the
food system.The artificial environments in which factoryfarmed animals are housed, for example, require constant
inputs of electricity for heating in winter and cooling insummer and to keep fresh air and water flowing to the closely caged animals. Even the relatively short electricity blackouts in 2001 were “a matter of life or death for birds at
California poultry farms,” according to the California Farm
Bureau.13

The instability of a centralized system
It is not just energy dependency that makes the global foodsystem unstable.The food system is so centralized and the
distances between producer, processor, and consumer so vastthat anything from a truckers’ strike to a disease outbreakhalfway around the world can disrupt our food supply. In
California in 2002, for example, a dockworkers’ lockout
resulted in vast amounts of food rotting at the ports, including 1.3 billion apples, 5 million pounds of onions, and nearly
8,000 tons of frozen meat.14
Centralization brings other risks as well.With large portionsof the global food supply coming from a few relatively small
areas, local problems can rapidly escalate into major impacts
on food security. For instance, it was recently discovered that
farms using irrigation water from the Colorado River were
inadvertently contaminating their crops with perchlorate, the60

Similarly, the huge factory farms that feed animal products
into the global food system are more
vulnerable to disease problems, like theoutbreaks of Exotic Newcastle Disease
that twice led to the slaughter of millions of hens in California.The
appearance of Mad Cow Disease—another product of industrial agriculture—has had similar results (seeChapter 5).
Photo: Clint Chamberlin

The global system is also highly dependent on electricity,much of it produced by burning fossil fuels, and when electric power is disrupted, the impact on global food can besevere. Based as it is on the industrial model, much of the
global food system operates like anassembly line, in which disruptions to any
part can shut down the whole line.This iswhat happened in California’s milk
industry during the electricity blackoutsof 2001. In Tulare, for example, where
Land O’ Lakes operates the largest milk
processing plant in the US, dozens ofrefrigerated tanker trucks normally average six or seven daily roundtrips each todairy farms across the state, hauling in milk 24 hours a day,every day.When the plant shut down during a 16-hour
blackout, the entire fleet of trucks was backed up at the plant,
unable to unload.With no way to get their milk to theprocessor, many farmers had no choice but to dump it.12

main ingredient in rocket fuel, which had been dumped into
the water by an upstream industry.15 The chemical, which
impairs thyroid functioning, was found in concentrations 30
times the limit the EPA currently considers safe. Since 80
percent of the nation’s lettuce is grown in the Colorado
River basin, the whole country’s supply of lettuce was effectively threatened by pollution from a single factory.

Since September 11th, 2001, there has
also been concern that the centralized nature of the global
food system makes it an attractive target for terrorists. In fact,
the federal government’s “Operation Liberty Shield” earmarked millions of dollars to tighten security at the largest
food processing and storage facilities, feedlots, and stockyards,
and to monitor imported foods more closely, largely out offears of bioterrorist attacks.16 But with food coming into the
US from 180 different countries and passing through thehands of countless producers, processors, shipping firms,
inspectors, and cargo handlers, guaranteeing its safety isalmost impossible.
Meanwhile, bioterrorism is not the only way the system isvulnerable to attack.The global food system relies on extensive infrastructures: superhighways, rail lines, shipping terminals, ports, energy installations, gas pipelines, fertilizer andpesticide plants, computerized distribution and tracking systems, irrigation networks, dams, and much more. As a result,
there are literally thousands of points at which the global
food system can be seriously disrupted.

Eroding agricultural diversity
By erasing diversity at every level, the global food system poses
threats to food security that are less dramatic but potentiallymore serious.With farmers here and around the world being
driven from the land, knowledge about local ecosystems anddiverse ways of growing food is being rapidly lost. In theirplace, a single globalized system—based everywhere on thesame seeds, the same agrochemicals, the same farm equipment—is being imposed. As dependence on this one system
grows and local knowledge of food production shrinks, longterm food security is being seriously compromised.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

As part of this process, agricultural diversity itself is being
eroded. Once, farmers planted crops and varieties that were
well-suited to the particular conditions on their farm.
Farmers were careful to save seeds from thriving plants,
ensuring that, year after year, crops became better adapted to
local conditions. In this way, agricultural diversity has
expanded exponentially over the generations, creating thousands upon thousands of unique strains of food crops, eachwith subtly different characteristics, including resistance todiseases, pests, and drought, and suitability to varying microclimates and types and qualities of soil.

How important is the loss of agricultural diversity to foodsecurity? Consider what happened to Ireland in the 1840s.
The food system had become very dependent not only on
one food crop, the potato, but on just one variety, known as
the Lumper.When a blight struck the Lumper it spread rapidly, destroying the entire potato crop almost overnight.
According to author Michael Pollan,

The potato famine was the worst catastrophe to befall Europe
since the Black Death of 1348. Ireland’s population was literally decimated: one in every eight Irishmen—a million people—died of starvation in three years; thousands others went
Since there is never certainty about growing conditions inblind or insane. . . . Contemporary accounts of the potato
any year, farmers also tended to diversify
famine read like visions of Hell . . . 23
Today,
over5
milliontheir farms as much as possible: even if one
Even at the height of the famine, howevcrop or variety failed, others were likely to
Californians are “fooder, corn was still being exported fromthrive. For instance, in the Andes, the center
insecure,”
which
means
they
Ireland to England. In an apt descriptionof origin of the potato, indigenous farmersof the workings of today’s global foodcultivated 3,000 different potato varieties,17
must do without such basic
economy, Pollan writes that “corn was aa vast library that contained potential soluneeds as utilities and medical commodity, determined to follow thetions to unknown future problems. In thesemoney; since the potato eaters had no
localized food systems, systemic pressurescare in order to put food onmoney to pay for corn, it sailed for a
act both to increase agricultural diversity
the table. For at least 1.25
18
country that did.”24
and to protect long-term food security.
million of those, it also
The rules have not changed. In 1984, atConversely, the global system promotes
means
going
hungry.
the height of a famine in Ethiopia,
homogeneity: in the US, more than a miloilseed rape, linseed, and cottonseed werelion acres are planted in potatoes each year,
grown
on
prime
agriculturalland in that country andand almost all of it is devoted to just 6 varieties. In eastern
exported
as
feed
for
European
livestock. Even staples such as
Washington alone, 115,000 acres are dedicated to a single
meat,
fruit,
andvegetables
were
exported, while thousands ofvariety, Russet Burbank, simply because that is the variety
local
peoplestarved
to
death
each
day.25 Similarly, in 2001,
McDonald’s, the largest buyer of potatoes in the world, insists
India exported 65 million tons of food grains to the US,
upon for its French fries.19 As McDonald’s has become globwhich were used here as cattle feed. At the same time, cattle
alized, so has the Russet Burbank.
fodder was being imported from the US as food for millions
In this way, the global system leads to a constant eliminationof starving Indians.26
of diversity. Every major commodity has one or two equivalents of the Russet Burbank—globally marketed varieties
Corporate control and food insecurity
that have crowded thousands of other varieties out of the
The above examples are not anomalies but business as usual
fields. Of the cabbage varieties once grown in the US, 95
in the global food economy. In large measure, they are an
percent are gone. Corn? 91 percent lost. Peas? 94 percent.
inevitable consequence of treating food as a global commodTomatoes? 81 percent. Globally, approximately 75 percent ofity, to be produced at the lowest possible cost then marketed
agricultural diversity has been lost in the last century.20
wherever it will fetch the highest price.When this model is
Unfortunately, California provides no exception to this glob- applied to any product—rubber balls, fountain pens, plastic
buckets—there can be serious environmental, health andal rule. Despite the fact that a great number of different
social costs. But since food is something people everywherecommodities are produced in the state, overall genetic diverrequire every day for their health and very survival, thesity remains low and whole regions are given over to huge
impacts of turning food into a global commodity are greatly
monocultures of a single variety. For example, 95 percent ofmagnified. Corporate control of food not only means food
California’s half-million acres of rice is confined to the21
deserts in inner-city neighborhoods, it means people starving
Sacramento Valley, and roughly half of that is planted in a22
on one side of the world because the food they need—single variety (Calrose M-202).

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

sometimes even the food that they have grown themselves—
can be sold more profitably to people on the other side of
the world.

In the long run, corporate control poses another threat tofood security. Large food corporations have a fundamental
need for homogeneity: they do best when as many people aspossible are consuming identical foods. Long-term foodsecurity, on the other hand, requires diversity: diverse tastes
and food preferences, large numbers of different food crops
grown in different places, and as much diversity within thosefood crops as possible.
Homogeneity is a condition corporations create and defend
with their considerable resources.This is not to suggest that
corporate decision-makers intentionally seek to undermine
people’s food security or exacerbate the problem of hunger.
However, the “rules of the game” that govern corporate
behavior make it all but impossible for them to do otherwise. For example, Seminis, the Mexico-based corporationthat supplies 40 percent of the US seed market, recently
eliminated 2,000 varieties of commercial seed—not to
reduce the diversity of the global food supply but to streamline their operations.27 Monsanto requires that the farmers
who plant their genetically-engineered varieties refrain fromseed-saving—not to promote hunger but to safeguard future
profits.28 These and many similar corporate decisions aren’t

62

Homogenizing consumers
With corporations in control of the global food system, thenumber of staple foods on which people depend worldwide
is being dramatically reduced. From Alabama to Zaire, dietsare being homogenized as the global population comes to depend on the relatively
few grains, legumes, and meats that aretraded globally. In the process, traditional
foods, many of them suited to specificmicroclimates, landscapes, and soils, arebeing abandoned entirely.With them go
cultural traditions, knowledge, and identities, as people everywhere are turned intolargely standardized global consumers.
Photo: Katy Mamen

Today, corporations have assumed control over large segments of the global food supply, including even organic
foods (see Box 3.4).This concentration of corporate powerhas many implications, one of which is a dramatic increase inthreats to food security—a connectionthat has received insufficient attention
from advocates of healthy food systems.
Instead critics of runaway corporate
power are commonly accused of being“anti-capitalist,” “unrealistic,” or “impractical Luddites.” But the fact is that corporations are now in a position to make decisions, based largely on their own bottomlines and need for growth, that affect hundreds of millions of people. Dominated byshort-term thinking that focuses heavily
on today’s stock price and the next quarterly revenue report, corporations are
structurally unsuited to making choices that respect theneeds of future generations, much less the global environment. It is unlikely that many of the toxic agrochemicals or
genetically-engineered seeds commonly used today would beon the market were it not for decisions made in corporateboardrooms.

made with the express goal of eroding food security, but
their effect is precisely that.

To a large extent, dependence on local
foods is eroded by the direct and hidden
subsidies that make distantly produced
goods seem cheaper, as when soy oil
imports flooded into India recently, displacing traditionaloilseeds like mustard, sesame, and linseed almost overnight.29
A range of psychological pressures is also having a deep
impact, particularly in the global South. Idealized media andadvertising images of the urbanized Western world can leadpeople to hunger for a “modern” lifestyle, including such
foods as instant noodles, bottled soft drinks, and white bread.
Though low in nutritional value, these foods are often considered “high class,” and many people are eagerly trading intheir wholesome, traditional foods for them.
Though tastes have already been homogenized to a significant extent in places like California, corporate food advertisers still compete to create loyalties to particular brands.
Children have become the prime target, partly because of
the huge influence they wield over family food and beveragedecisions, a so-called “nag factor” that affects an estimated 72
percent of purchases.30 What’s more, food marketers knowthat if they can influence a two-year-old, they may have acustomer for the next 70 years.Thus the recent Kid Power
Food and Beverage Marketing Conference featured workshops such as “Targeting Soft Drinks to Kids” and “FromSupermarkets to Soccer Fields: Kids’Wants, Moms’
Behaviors.”31 At the 2002 Convenience Food Conference, aworkshop entitled “Adding Fun to Convenience:The Way to
a Child’s Heart,” explained to marketers how to move packaged foods “up the funtinuum” to attract the “increasingly
lucrative” children’s market.32

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Children in the US are not only an attractive market forfood corporations, they are also a captive audience for theiradvertising: American children spend more time watching
television than on any other daily activity except sleeping. Ina year, the typical child will see 10,000 commercials. One
study showed that of 19 commercials per hour, 11 were forfood, exposing children to an average of one food commercial every five minutes.33

In this sense, television advertising is a tool for homogenizing
tastes: the point is to convince millions of people to wantsomething—anything—that can be produced and marketedon a large scale.This is very useful for food corporations,whose efficiencies depend on a high proportion of the public expecting, for example, the kind of French fry that can
only be made from a Russet Burbank potato.
These powerful forces not only erode the diversity that longterm food security requires, they also deepen the plight ofpoor people struggling to provide adequate nutrition for
their families. Heavily advertised foods are among the poorest value for the money, but children are being taught to prefer them—and nag their parents for them—by corporate
marketers.

Local food and food security
The notion of food security has been interpreted in manydifferent ways.The US government believes it involves protecting the global food system from bioterrorism. Manysocial justice advocates emphasize poor people’s access tofood. Others argue that people must not only have adequate
nutritious food, but that food for immigrants in particularshould be culturally appropriate. Still others focus on thefood system’s capacity to provide sufficient food—for richand poor alike—into the foreseeable future.

Photo: Ken Hammond, USDA

Researchers have found that food advertising does have a significant influence on children’s food choices.34 And needless to say,advertisers are not encouraging children toeat fresh, healthy, locally grown foods. Over40 percent of the ads are for candy, softdrinks, chocolate syrup/powder, chips, cakes,
cookies, and pastries. Another 11 percent arefor fast food restaurants.35 According to consumer advocate Peggy Charren, “98 percentof the food advertising is for products children don’t have to eat, nonnutritive things.
Now in fact they are designing foods thatwould never be on the market if it were notfor television and its ability to sell them.”36

Regardless of the definition chosen, it is clear that the global
food system is a poor provider of real food security: it is too
centralized and overly concentrated in the hands of profitdriven corporations; it is highly dependent on fossil fuels andother unsustainable inputs; it rests upon a genetic base that is
far too narrow, and at the same time creates artificial scarcity
by homogenizing people’s tastes and food preferences; and it
systematically pulls farmers off the land,
thereby eliminating the knowledge on
which a diverse and sustainable food supply depends.
The policies and subsidies that promoteeconomic globalization inevitably erode
food security. Small producers and processors are driven out of business, thereby
making local, fresh, and healthy food more
expensive.This puts it out of the reach of
the poorest among us, who have little
recourse but to depend on heavily subsidized, highly processed, distantly produced, and ultimately unhealthy food. But
because the globalized food system is sovulnerable to breakdown in so many
ways, shoppers in even the best-stocked
supermarket in today’s wealthiest neighborhoods may notfind sufficient food tomorrow.
Localization addresses all of these problems. As later chapterswill show, a shift in direction toward more diverse, localized
food systems would create jobs and help alleviate poverty,
while making fresh, healthy food more affordable. It would
take control of food back from corporations and return it tocommunities of local producers and consumers. It would add
stability to food systems everywhere by reducing theirdependence on fossil fuels, reversing the decline in agricultural biodiversity, decentralizing the production of food, andincreasing the number of food producers.
A wide-ranging movement for food security, one with agrowing understanding of the importance of local food, isalready underway in California.37 Furthermore, Californians
have implemented a host of initiatives and structures toimprove food security in the state.38 But since local food systems simply cannot thrive when political and economic supports are fundamentally aligned behind the large and global,
real progress will hinge not only on efforts to renew local
economies but on parallel efforts to resist globalization.

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 8:

The Food System and California’s Rural
Economies
hile California’s commitment to the global food system has been costly for everyone

Wbut a handful of dominant agribusinesses, a few sectors of the public are paying an evenhigher price than everyone else. Farmers and farmworkers have already made great sac-rifices to put California agribusiness at the top of the global economic order, but the economic pressure on them is likely to become even heavier in the future.This is because the “high” cost of laborin the state, especially in comparison with the so-called developing world, is seen as the primary“impediment to competitiveness” for California agriculture.1
Farmworkers

Few among California’s populace are treated as badly by the
global food system as the state’s agricultural workforce.The
California counties most deeply committed to the global
food system are today among the poorest in the state, andeven in the country. Unemployment in the Central Valley ishigh, with rates that hover around 15 percent or more, nearly
triple the state average.2 Those with jobs in the agricultural
sector get wages barely above, and sometimes below, theminimum.Work is so irregular that almost three workers
shared one year-round-equivalent job in 2001.3
An estimated 50 to 90 percent of the agricultural workers
in those counties are undocumented immigrants. According
to reporter John McChesney, these workers are heavily
exploited:
Despite farm labor laws, workers are still subject to sub-minimum wages and dangerous working conditions.Whole towns
are virtual labor camps aptly described as ‘California’s
Appalachia.’The region is home to a multi-generational under-

64

class of low-skilled, poorly educated workers and their families.
But unlike immigrants of the past, these workers show no signof being absorbed into an economic track that will improve theirlives.4
Some of the highest rates of welfare dependency in California
are in these agricultural counties. In 1999, 20 to 30 percent ofCentral Valley residents lived in households with incomes
below the poverty level, and 15 to 20 percent received welfare payments.5 The economic burden on Tulare County,
California’s second largest in agricultural sales, became soheavy that the county began paying welfare recipients roughly $1,600 per family to relocate. As one woman and her family left for Arkansas under the program, she said,“It just seems
like it’ll be a whole lot better there. . . . Anywhere is better
than here.”6 The costs of social services for these people, orfor relocating them, comes out of the pockets of taxpayers,
like so many other economic “externalities” of the global
food system. Meanwhile, the main beneficiaries of migrantlaborers in California are large agribusinesses—a fact that haslong been recognized by small farmers.7

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

The solution is not to try stemming the tide of immigrants,
legal or otherwise, by sealing our borders. A far more just andequitable solution is to reverse the policies that are destroying
livelihoods in rural communities around the world, and thatare thereby creating a flood of impoverished people with few
prospects at home. For this reason, localization is not a solution for California alone but foreconomies worldwide.
Photo: David Bacon

It is often argued that no matter how badly treated or underpaid immigrant workers are, they are better off here than in
Mexico, Guatemala, Laos, or other parts of the global South.
Undeniably, the situation in the rural parts of those countries
is often abysmal. But it is important to acknowledge thatthose conditions are to a large extent products of the same
global system that is so exploitive of
farmworkers and other immigrantlaborers here in California.
As pointed out in Chapter 7, globalization is systematically undermining
the economic vitality of rural communities, creating huge masses of
newly-urbanized people with little
hope of a better life in their homecountry. In fact, many of the immigrants who toil in California’s fields
are farmers pulled from the land in
the “developing” parts of the world by
the global food system. (Ironically,
these workers often tend or harvest
crops that will be marketed in theircountry of origin, thereby displacing
still more small farmers.)

Farmers

Globalization has been cruel tofarmers all over the world; despite
California’s seeming success in the
global food economy, most of thestate’s farmers are undergoing difficulties similar to those experienced
by farmers in the global South. As
the entire food chain has become
Many of the immigrants who toil in
consolidated, competition has dwinCalifornia’s fields are farmers pulled
dled, leaving industrial farmers withfrom the land in the “developing” parts little leverage over the agribusinesses
that supply their off-farm inputs. Atof the world by the global food system. the same time, the agribusinesses thatbuy California’s farm commodities
can easily obtain them from other producers, many of themin countries where costs are far lower, thus setting an everMany of these dispossessed people are willing to risk all
lower ceiling for farmgate prices. Caught between suppliers’
they have for the chance to land a job in the US—any job,monopolies and buyers’ monopsonies, farmers are trapped inincluding those most US citizens would reject because they
what the California Farm Bureau Federation calls a “severe
are too backbreaking, too dangerous, or too poorly paid.
cost-price squeeze.”9That these jobs may offer better prospects than anything in
the countries left behind does not make those jobs any betAs a result, those hooked to global markets typically keepter; it merely underscores how destructive have been the
only a small and shrinking fraction of what consumers pay
economic and psychological impacts of the spread of thefor food. In 1990, American farmers were left with only 9global economy.
cents out of every food dollar spent, with marketers andCalifornia farmworkers at a glance8■

95 percent of farmworkers are born outside the UnitedStates; 91 percent of those are from Mexico, up from 82
percent in 1990.

■

Only 58 percent have legal work status.

■

Four-fifths of farmworkers are men; the average age is
33.

■

Nearly all communicate in Spanish; less than 10 percent
speak or read English fluently.

■

80 percent hold two or more jobs per year.

■

The average farmworker only manages to find work 45
percent of the year.

■

90 percent of farmworkers work in fruit, nut, and vegetable production.

■

The average hourly wage is $5.69.

■

Three-quarters of farmworkers earn less than $10,000 a
year.

■

Fewer than 10 percent receive some form of healthbenefits.

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

input suppliers taking the rest.10 Since then farmers havebeen squeezed even harder: by 2000 the prices they receive
had dropped 7 percent, while their costs had risen 19 percent.11 Marketing, transportation, and storage alone increased
33 percent between 1997 and 2001.12 This is, in large part,why many farmers do not earn back their cost of production
and why so many are being driven into bankruptcy.The
average income on family farms is now negative, with offfarm jobs making up the difference: in effect, these farmers
are paying to supply food to the market.

For the most part, the only farmers linked to the global foodsystem who prosper are those that are very large and highly
capitalized.This is not only because they receive a disproportionate share of government subsidies (see Chapter 11), butalso because they can afford the latest technologies, most ofwhich are geared toward large landholdings and factory-styleoperations. As the earliest adopters of these technologies,
large farms often capture any new profits until enough smaller farms are forced to catch up with the technological treadmill, which raises yields globally and sends prices down fur-

BOX 8.1: Wine in the global economy
Photo: David Bacon

Few agricultural commodities are as strongly associatedwith California as wine, anindustry that brings to mind
idealized images of “the goodlife.” On a more mundane
level, wine is considered avital part of the state’s economy, ranking third among
California’s agricultural
exports.45 But like othercommodities destined for the
global food system, wine is
responsible for a number ofserious problems, some ofwhich are described below:■

66

Volatility of global markets: Wine is the object ofintense speculative investment, leaving the industry susceptible to extreme cycles of boom and bust. For example, demand for California wine grew steadily throughthe 1990s, and growers hoping to cash in on potentiallyenormous profits rapidly expanded their acreage orswitched to wine grapes from other crops. In Lake
County, farmers pulled up pear orchards and replaced
them with grapes. Corporate wineries acquired large
tracts of undeveloped hillsides in Sonoma and Napa
counties, planting them in high-end varietals.46 Wealthy“hobby” vintners landscaped their homes with cabernet
and chardonnay vines, while upscale housing developments were built with vineyards as front lawns.47 In
total, 193,000 acres of wine vineyards were added
between 1991 and 2001, increasing the total acreage by
63 percent.48 “People acted like there was no tomorrow,as if demand would just continue to increase,” claimed

the president of the Allied Grape Growers, a tradeorganization based in Fresno.49
However, global demand did peak, at the same time thatcompetition from Chile, South Africa, and Australia was
growing rapidly. Prices paid to growers dropped in 2001
and 2002 everywhere except North Coast counties.50
Some growers have gone bankrupt, others have soldtheir land to housing developers, and still others havebegun converting their vineyards back to other crops.
According to the California Association of Wine Grape
Growers, 70,000 acres of raisin, wine, and table grapes
were plowed under from mid-2002 to mid-2003 in theCentral Valley alone.51■

Low farmgate prices: In 2002 the retail value of
California’s huge wine production was estimated at $14
billion.52 However, the value of the grapes that went
into those wines was only $1.66 billion,53 meaning thatnearly 90 percent of the public’s wine dollar went tovintners, distributors, and retailers. Prices for Central
Valley grapes were so low in 2002 that growers picketed
a Gallo facility in Fresno, complaining that the $65/ton
the company was offering barely covered the cost of
picking the grapes.54■

Widening the rich-poor gap: At the same time thatCentral Valley grape producers were being offered lessthan their cost of production, growers of high-end varietals in the Napa and Sonoma valleys were raking instunning profits: Napa cabernet sauvignon grapes, forexample, were going for $3,700 per ton.55 In this way,
grape-growing in California is a dramatically segmented
industry, with a relative handful of wealthy individuals
and corporations in control of the best wine-producing
land and the biggest revenues, while the vast majority ofgrowers are finding it difficult to remain solvent.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

ther. As they drop, margins for all farmers become slimmer
and slimmer, and ratcheting up production—“getting big or
getting out”—is seen as the key to survival. For example, thehuge volume of eggs produced by factory farm operations
caused the California farmgate price of eggs to drop by onethird between 1996 and 2000.13 The lower price effectively
made it impossible for small egg producers to turn a profit.

and disease. For example, the monocultural farming of garlicin central California has led to widespread infestations ofwhite rot (sclerotia), in large part brought on by a lack ofcrop rotation.White rot can last more than 40 years in afield, and areas where the disease has been found are being
put out of garlic production altogether. Forced to move toless productive plots, farmers’ incomes have declined.14

The pressure on industrial farmers to produce single commodities in large quantities also encourages them to adopt
practices that increase the susceptibility of their crops to pests

In the end, only a handful of California’s 88,000 farms areprospering within the global economy. Profits are highly concentrated: the largest 1 percent of farms (each earning in excess

Industry consolidation: As in other parts of the food

Canandaigua, based in Rochester, New York, is buying
up more than just California wineries: “We will lookaround the world,” said the CEO of parent corporation
Constellation Brands. “An Australian acquisition, maybe,
or Italian or Spanish.”60■

system, big players are dominant.The nation’s threelargest wine producers, E&J Gallo, Canandaigua, andThe Wine Group, account for more than 60 percent of
the volume of US wine;56 Gallo alone is responsible for55 percent of California’s wine exports.57 These giants
are gobbling up smaller competitors, giving them moreclout with the huge corporations, like Wal-Mart andCostco, that dominate food retailing.The conglomerate
Constellation Brands owns not only Canandaigua (thecountry’s second largest wine producer) but also
Franciscan Estates, Almaden, Cribari, Inglenook, Paul
Masson,Taylor California Cellars, Nathanson Creek,
Dunnewood, and 42 others.58
Distributors are also consolidating, adding to the difficulties of mid-size wineries, which, unlike small “boutique” wineries that sell directly to the tourist trade, relyon distributors to get their products to the public. “In1975 there were 45 wine wholesalers in California.
Today there are three left,” says Carolyn Martini of theLouis M. Martini winery. “The middle category we arein makes it impossible to get distribution worked out.”
This, Martini says, was the main reason her family soldout to Gallo in 2002.59■

Control by global corporations: As consolidation pro-ceeds, it is no longer possible to describe many of thestate’s biggest wineries as “California businesses.” Napabased Beringer, for example, was purchased in 2000 by
Australian brewer Foster’s, which now sells more wine
than beer. British company Allied Domecq owns not
only Clos du Bois in Napa but wineries in New
Zealand, Argentina, and Spain.The world’s largest alcoholic beverage company, British-based Diageo, owns
Sterling Vineyards and Beaulieu, both in Napa. And■

Pesticide use: Over 22.7 million pounds of pesticides

were used on California wine vineyards in 2001. Amongthese were numerous “bad actor” chemicals: the fumigants methyl bromide, metam sodium, and 1,3-dichloropropene; the herbicides norflurazon, paraquat dichloride,simazine, and diuron; the insecticides propargite, carbaryl, carbofuran, fenamiphos, and ziram; and the fungicides mancozeb and myclobutanil.61 Not only do thesechemicals pose a hazard to the environment, they put
vineyard workers at a significant risk of sickness frompesticide use. A UC Berkeley study estimated that of thepesticide illnesses related to commercial agriculture in
California, one-third are linked with grape production.62■

Other environmental costs: Non-organic vineyards areclassic monocultures, on which little lives but the vines.
In the boom years of the 1990s, substantial amounts ofdiverse wildlands were plowed under to make way for
grape vines. Even now, with the boom turned to bust,
Guenoc Winery has proposed an expansion project on
the border between Lake and Napa counties that would
replace 6,480 acres of woodlands and chaparral withvineyards.Wine grapes also put a strain on scarce water
resources. According to one report on Mendocino
County water districts, “vineyard expansion in
Redwood Valley [is] ‘nearly totally’ responsible for a 39
percent increase” in water use, adding another threat to
the region’s fisheries.63

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

of $5 million per year) capture 38 percent of total agricultural
revenue, and the largest 7 percent (each with over $1 million insales) account for 75 percent. Meanwhile the smallest 50 percent capture less than 1 percent of the total.15
For the vast majority of California farmers—particularly
small and medium-sized farms—survival in the face of theincreasing globalization of food is less and less likely (see Box
8.1 for an example of some of the impacts of dependency oncommodity crops). Nonetheless, citizens are often misled into
thinking that farmers are greedy, demanding more support
even though subsidies are already so high.The truth is that
taxpayers are subsidizing large farms at the expense of smaller
farms, the environment, and Californians in general (seeChapter 11).

Rural economies
Since farmers and farmworkers are often the linchpins ofrural economies, it is not surprising that entire counties in
California’s agricultural heartland are so devastated. As theglobal food system ruthlessly eliminates small farms andreplaces agricultural workers with technology, the local businesses that once supplied the needs of farmers and farmworkers are disappearing as well.The expenditures that farmers do make are quickly shunted into the bank accounts of
distant corporations and their shareholders. “In the past,”
observed UC Davis researcher Gail Feenstra,
the predominant system of family businesses would generate‘multiplier effects’ of three or four, meaning for example, thatfarm sales of $100 would lead to additional purchases fromvarious local businesses of another $300, thus greatly enhancing
economic activity in the community. Now, large, non-local corporations employ community members as wage earners, piece rate
workers or contract farmers as cheaply as possible and allocatethe ‘profits’ to a return on management and capital, usually
taking them from the community to be reinvested in the global
food system.16
This is the “leaky bucket” effect, where the wealth created byagriculture flows out of the local community, leaving farm-ers, farmworkers, and small businesses impoverished andwidening the gap between rich and poor.
Although this trend is accelerating as the global food economy spreads, it is not a new phenomenon: in 1937, a sociologist observed that farm income had been dropping steadily,even though equipment manufacturers were enjoying record
profits. He concluded that:
The invention of the machine and . . . [its] exploitation bymonopolistic corporations may be considered as one very
effective means by which a nonagricultural economic groupcuts out for itself a juicy slice of agricultural income. In thissense farm equipment manufacturers and the large oil companies are engaged in the process of agricultural production,
without having to take nearly so many risks as does thefarmer.17
The global food economy and the corporations that dominate it do leave behind some money in rural areas for job
creation, as their supporters are quick to claim. But the jobs
created are mostly low-paying and dead-end: exploitive farmwork for undocumented immigrants, dangerous and underpaid work at meat-packing plants, minimum wage jobs at fast
food restaurants, and cashier and stockroom positions at big
box retailers. Many of these jobs actually represent a net loss
for the community: a study by the National Retail Planning
Forum in England found that each new mega-supermarket
store entering a community resulted in the net drain of 276
jobs from the local community.18 While conditions here in
the US are different, the trends are similar in both countries.

Widening California’s income gap
As small independent businesses are put out of business byhuge, transnational corporations, people are left with fewer
and fewer work opportunities outside the corporate world.
Within that realm, people at the top are paid extremely well,while the vast majority are forced to compete, sometimes
with workers on the other side of the world, for the little
that trickles down. A 2000 study showed that, on average,
CEOs of big US corporations earned 531 times as much as

WIDENING THE GAP: Rather than the promised “rising tide that lifts all boats,” globalization has actually exacerbated inequality and helped create real global poverty. In the US, analyst George Draffan reports that the
top 500 industrial corporations “control over two-thirds of the business resources, employ two-thirds of theindustrial workers, account for 60 percent of the sales, and collect over 70 percent of the profits.”19 Whereas
the world economy grows by 2 to 3 percent per year, transnational corporations grow by 8 to 10 percent.
Today 1 percent of the US population owns 60 percent of the stock and 40 percent of the total wealth.20

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

their hourly employees, a gulf far greater than in any otherindustrialized country.21 This is just one symptom of a richpoor income disparity that has widened in recent years.
Thus, the after-tax income of the poorest fifth of Americanhouseholds remained virtually constant over the last two
decades, while the income of the richest fifth more thandoubled.22 This is a particularly acute problem in California,
where the gap between rich and poor is wider than anywhere else in the country. Even the economic “boom” of the
1990s was a period of declining incomes for the poor in
California, according to the Economic Policy Institute:

between “California” food and “imported” food has lost
most of its meaning.

Similarly, it is also a mistake to think of the corporations that
operate within the state as “California businesses.” In today’s
global economy, free trade treaties have made it easier andeconomically advantageous for businesses to pull up stakes
and relocate wherever they can find lower wage scales, looser
health and safety standards, or less burdensome environmental regulations.This is the well-known “race to the bottom,”in which communities, states, and whole nations sacrifice
their long-term well-being in a costly competition with one
In contrast to most of the nation, the wages of low- and medianother for the favors of footloose corporations. As a result,an-wage workers declined, median family income stagnated, andmany of the corporations benefiting from California’s huge
the unemployment rate increased. At the same time, income
agricultural economy are actually based in other states andinequality in California continued to grow at
sometimes abroad.
By 1990, American
one of the fastest rates in the country, and the
The Central Valley is joining many areas ofstate had one of the largest increases in its poverfarmers were left withthe global South in providing a haven forty rate.23
only 9 cents out ofagribusinesses. In this economically depressed
every food dollar spent, region, corporations are unlikely to face vigAn economy built fororous demands for higher wages, calls forcorporations
with marketers andenvironmental responsibility, or tax payments
Rather than the state as a whole, the primarycommensurate with the benefits received.
input suppliers taking
beneficiary of California’s food system is a
Thus in Tulare, where the county government
the rest.
handful of large agribusiness corporations,is paying its unemployed welfare recipients towhich take a bite out of every plate of global
move away, you’ll find a Land O’Lakes plant, afood eaten in the state. Of the roughly $65 billion spent on
Wal-Mart distribution center, a Frito-Lay plant, a Nestléfood purchases by California’s consumers, restaurants, andPillsbury joint venture, two Kraft Foods plants, and many
institutions in 2000, the lion’s share—some $51 billion—went others. For these corporations, economically depressed Tulare
to marketers and distributors, while $5 billion went to still
County has become as attractive as any Third World country.
other corporations—those that supply the state’s farmers withfertilizers, pesticides, seeds, petroleum products, electricity, andBetting the farmother inputs. After expenses, all California farmers put togethWe have argued that the global food system does not ecoer took home about one-tenth the amount marketers and24
nomically benefit the majority of Californians, but instead
distributors did. Farmworkers took home even less.
favors corporate agribusinesses and a small number of indusAs inequitable as these numbers are, they will likely worsen
trial-scale farmers. But even if the economic benefits ofso long as the global food system is allowed to expand.With
global food were generously spread through the state, there
food being marketed longer distances, a greater share of thewould be little likelihood that such beneficence would last.
money is siphoned into transport, processing, and distribuAlthough California’s geography and climate—and, more
tion. In the last 10 years alone, for example, food marketing
importantly, generous subsidies and a head start in large-scale,costs increased 57 percent.25
export-led agriculture—have propelled it to the top of the
global food system’s ladder, its position there is shaky at best.
In this context it is important to recognize that most of the
California-produced food consumed in the state is actually a
Global free trade is now forcing California producers to
product of the global food system: it is produced in vast
compete with farmers with similar natural advantages andmonocultures, shipped to centralized processing and manusubsidies but far cheaper labor costs. Not only is it unlikely
facturing facilities, and trucked again to centralized distributhat California can continue to supply so much of the world
tors and retail supermarket chains. Along the way it accumuwith its agricultural products, there is no guarantee its growlates hundreds or even thousands of “food miles,” and at each ers will be able to retain the 40 percent of the California
step it is tightly controlled by corporate food agribusinesses.
market for raw farm products that they now enjoy.
By the time it reaches its final destination, the distinction
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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

BOX 8.2: Farmland conversion in California
Photo: Lynn Betts, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Each year, more than
44,000 acres ofCalifornia farmland
are swallowed byurban and industrial
sprawl—roughly 120
acres a day.64 Urban
development often
takes the best farmland and pushes agriculture onto marginal soils, leading toincreased irrigation, fertilizer use, erosion, and pressure on
wild ecosystems. By paving over farmland, sprawl threatens
to permanently destroy the potential for many local foodeconomies in California.
California’s Central Valley is the most threatened farming
region in the country, with the Coastal Valleys andImperial Valley not far behind.65 The Central Valley, which
produces a quarter of the country’s food,66 is losing 15,000
acres of farmland each year to residential and commercial
growth.67 The population in this area is growing faster thanany other region in California and is expected to triple
from 5.4 million to 15.6 million people by the year
2040.68
Agricultural lands in the San Francisco Bay area and otherurban areas of the state have also been hard hit. In the Bay
Area, almost half a million acres of farmland and otheropen space are at risk of being paved over and suburbanized in the next 30 years, increasing the developed area by
66 percent or by more than 16 cities the size of San
Francisco.69
Farmland conversion has many negative ripple effects
throughout California’s rural communities. “Ranchettes”
carve up rural lands and drive up land values far beyond
what farming can support. As farmers are displaced by rising land prices, farm communities lose their economic
base and vitality, and farm supply centers and other businesses leave town.70 Sprouting bedroom communities convert farmland to one-acre lots, placing tremendous pressure on land and resources through new infrastructure forwater, sewage, schools, and roads.
Although population growth is at the core of urban
growth and farmland conversion, it is important to pointout that much of California’s growth is coming at theexpense of rural communities and economies, from Iowa

70

and Nebraska to Latin America and Asia, that are being
decimated by the spreading global economy. Partly
because California seems like such an attractive option forso many of these dispossessed people, the state’s population, now over 35 million, is growing at a rapid pace,adding more than half a million people each year.71 At thisrate, the population is expected to reach 49 million by2025.72
Poor land use planning exacerbates the problem, leading
to sprawl rather than compact or infill development toaccommodate the growing population. In California asaround the world, the development model is intensely
centralizing, with jobs and money heavily concentrated in
metropolitan areas.To reach these urban centers, people
are forced to commute long distances from regions that
may have once supported farms. Much of the population
growth in the Central Valley is made up of people whowork in distant cities.
Protecting California’s remaining agricultural lands calls
for both specific and systemic policy changes. Regional
land protection will require a mixture of effective land use
policy, zoning regulations, urban planning, differential land
tax assessment, land trusts, and conservation easements, aswell as local activism.This is an innovative state and theseeds of many solutions are in place. In fact, California ishome to the nation’s first agricultural land trust, the Marin
Agricultural Land Trust.73
More systemically, a shift in the policies that currently
support economic globalization would halt the destructionof those rural economies and communities that are now
feeding the growth of California’s sprawling cities andsuburbs. Efforts to improve the lives and livelihoods ofimmigrants need not be at the expense of efforts toimprove the lives and livelihoods of people in other partsof the world.
Within California, support for small-scale agriculture for
local markets is critical to preserving California’s farmland:owner-operated farms with dependable, nearby markets
are less vulnerable to the pressures of urban sprawl.74
Keeping these farmers in business not only helps keeprural communities alive, it strengthens the farm belts
around cities that are vital to the stability of local foodeconomies, curtailing sprawl and providing urban residents
with green space and abundant fresh food.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Already, garlic from China has cut deeply into California’s
market, even despite a 400 percent tariff on Chinese garlic
imports imposed in 1993. Production in California—which
previously had nearly the entire US market to itself—has
been cut by one-third.26 Vineyards in Northern California
planted during the 1990s boom are now being ripped out, as
cheaper Chilean producers have made deep inroads into thegrape market, both in the US and abroad. Many of these
Chilean grapes are actually being produced by large
California producers, illustrating once again that agribusinesses, like corporations generally, have no allegiance toplace.
The global food system has served to eliminate farmers
deemed too “inefficient” in comparison with producers
elsewhere. California growers committed to the global foodsystem have few options. They can attempt to increase theiryields by relying on genetic engineering or other risky
technologies, increasing the scale of their operations still
further, or applying even more agrochemicals to the land,or they can lower costs by replacing workers with technology and more ruthlessly exploiting the workers they retain.
Still other farmers may be forced to abandon agriculture
altogether and sell their land to developers (see Box 8.2).
None of these choices is likely to contribute to the wellbeing of the majority. There is, however, an alternative,
which involves making a commitment to diverse production for local markets.

The two towns, Arvin and Dinuba, were chosen because
they were so much alike. Both are in the Upper San Joaquin
Valley—Arvin near the center of Kern County, and Dinuba
roughly 100 miles north in Tulare County.They had similar
population sizes, were about the same distance from small
cities and major urban centers, and were each the economic
and social hub for a surrounding region of farms. Climate,terrain, and soil were nearly identical, and the nearby farmeconomies—equally dependent on inputs of irrigation water,
mechanization, and seasonal farm labor—produced roughly
the same economic output.
The only structural difference between the two towns wasthat Arvin was surrounded by large farms (133 farms averaging almost 500 acres each), while Dinuba was surrounded bymuch smaller farms (722 farms averaging about 57 acreseach).27 The economic consequences of this single difference
were immense. Among Goldschmidt’s findings were these:■

The small-farm community (Dinuba) supported morethan twice as many separate business establishments as thelarge-farm community (Arvin).28■

The volume of retail trade in the small-farm community
was 73 percent greater than in the large-farm community.29■

For every $100 value in agricultural production from surrounding farms, the small-farm community received $171
in retail trade while the large-farm community received
only $103 in retail trade.30■

The small-farm economy supported 20 percent more local
people per dollar volume of agricultural production thanthe large-farm economy.31■

Residents of the small—farm community had a better
average standard of living than those in the community oflarge-scale farms.32■

Businesses in the large-farm community (Arvin) had “alow financial investment in the community, which results
in a generally low interest in the affairs and the welfare of
the community.” Goldschmidt cites one merchant who
admitted: “the businessman in Arvin does not invest in his
enterprise for permanence, but endeavors to make a“killing” and get out.”33

A landmark study
The push toward an increasingly globalized food system is
responsible for a number of interrelated trends: larger scale
farms and more monocropping; decreased reliance on humanknowledge and skill alongside an increased dependency on
agrochemicals, fossil fuels, and high technology; the bankrupting of small farmers and the gutting of rural economies;
a widening separation between producers and consumers;
and a rise in transport and food miles.
The impact of one of these trends—the increasing scale offarms—was meticulously documented in a landmark study
that demonstrated immense differences between two ruralcommunities similar in every regard except the size of surrounding farms. Since a shift to the local would support
smaller farms, this study is worth looking at in some detail.
Walter Goldschmidt, working for the federal Bureau of
Agricultural Economics, studied two farming communities
in California’s Central Valley and described his findings in As
You Sow:Three Studies in the Social Consequences of Agribusiness,
first published in 1947.

Those who resist the dogma that bigger is always better willfind none of these findings surprising.Yet this study so clearly documented the social and economic costs of large-scale
farms, and was potentially so damaging to the corporate
agribusinesses that benefit from their spread, that a coordinated smear campaign was conducted against Goldschmidt
and his colleagues even before the study was concluded.34

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Photo: Doug Gosling

BOX 8.3: Making it work: McGrath family farm
If you drove past theMcGrath farm 20 years ago,
you would have seen a vast
sea of identical lettuce plants.
Driving by today, you will see
a patchwork of diverse crops.
This change is symbolic of
the steps Phil McGrath has taken to survive and prosper,
while other nearby farmers have been swept away.
Phil McGrath is a fifth-generation farmer in VenturaCounty, California’s 10th largest agricultural county byvalue of production.The farm, located just 55 miles northof Los Angeles, has been in the McGrath family since
1871.The McGraths once marketed their produce
through five different co-ops, which distributed the produce via global food channels. Up until the 1980s, Phil
says, it was still possible for an independent family farmer
to make a living from the land.There was still, in those
years, a farm community.
The agricultural landscape of Ventura County has changed
dramatically since then. During the 1980s and ’90s thepressures of corporate agriculture and urban sprawl greatly
intensified. All the co-ops that the McGraths belonged towent under. Many nearby farmers sold their land to developers or big agribusinesses or were replaced by contract
farmers growing monocrops for companies like Dole andTNA.With most farms today focused on distant markets,
Ventura County has become a major shipping point for
agricultural products and has the largest refrigerated fruit
terminal on the West Coast.
The McGrath farm has not been untouched by thesepressures. Once surrounded by other farms, their land has
become increasingly isolated. On one side is an airport, on
another is the freeway, and down the road is an industrial
park. Urban encroachment has significantly raised the costof land. In 1992 the McGraths decided it was more profitable to rent the land than to farm it, and leased most of
their acreage to a large firm.

allowed Phil to diversify, to go organic, and to use direct
marketing to sell his produce. On this small corner of thefarm, he has turned to a way of farming that connects him
more closely to the land and to the people who eat his food.
Despite the overwhelming forces that have crushed so manysurrounding farms, direct marketing has helped Phil to survive financially, take control of his own business, and stop
working for the agribusiness that still rents much of his land.
Phil now markets all of his produce directly to restaurants,
farmers’ markets, and school-to-farm programs and fromhis own farm stand. He plans to start a CSA, and alreadyhas a member waiting list.The transition to organic direct
marketing has made the farm financially viable.
Direct marketing has had a dramatic impact on Phil as well.
He is much happier now that he knows the people who
buy what he grows.They encourage him to keep farming
and tell him how much they love his food.“All farmers
should see the people who eat their produce,” says Phil.
As farms around him continue to fold, Phil is focusing his
efforts on sustaining the future of family farming. Overthe past few years, 3,000 students have come through thefarm on school tours. Phil is also planning a new “farmcenter,” to engage the community more directly with the
farm’s activities.Visitors will be able to pick their own
fruits and vegetables, participate in special events, pick up
their CSA box, and take a farm tour.
The motivations behind Phil McGrath’s activism are part
personal history, part philosophy. Looking at the big picture, he emphasizes the importance of food security
through local food systems, calling the export of local foodand import of foreign food “crazy.” Phil knows that smallscale farming is a constant struggle with no guarantee ofsuccess and has experienced first-hand how large agribusinesses can undermine family farms. But he has also
learned how a return to local marketing can make farming
both economically feasible and more fulfilling for the
farmer. And that is what inspires him to continue.

Despite these changes, the family has kept 30 acres of theirland to farm themselves.The smaller scale of operations

Goldschmidt’s priceless study and its conclusions were suppressed, and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, underwhose auspices the study was conducted, was dissolved.35
72

And for nearly 60 years, the same economic damage inflicted
upon Arvin has been inflicted on people and rural
economies throughout California.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Going local
What might be the economic impacts of a shift to the local
today? The exact effects are difficult to quantify, but as Walter
Goldschmidt’s studies nearly 60 years ago and numerous
studies since have demonstrated, the benefits would be substantial and widespread (see Box 8.3 for one farmer’s story).
Recently, a study commissioned by the state’s Buy
California Marketing Initiative examined the economic
impact of a shift toward local food, looking at how increasing consumer purchases of in-state agricultural products
would affect farm revenues, jobs, and overall economic
activity. The predicted impacts were huge:
For example, a 10% shift in annual purchases, or about $85
dollars per year at the retail level, would generate $848 million
in increased revenues to farms and about $728 million in
spending in California by farms to meet the growth in demand.

These expenditures would recycle themselves to nearly $1.38
billion in communities across the state. Furthermore, it would
generate about 3,478 more jobs in the agricultural industry,and nearly 5,565 jobs in total due to the increased economic
activity.The growth in business activity also would generate$188 million in taxes for local and state governments.36
A more substantial increase of 50 percent over current levelsof local food purchases would add $4.24 billion to farmincome, add $6.91 billion to overall economic activity, create
over 17,000 jobs in agriculture, and more than 10,000 otherjobs in the state. Nearly $1 billion in tax revenue would beavailable for state and local government.37
Though its conclusions are valid, this study made noallowances for more direct links between farmers and consumers. If Californians purchased more of their Californiagrown food direct from farmers, rather than indirectly
through supermarkets, the benefits for farmers and their

BOX 8.4: Making it work:

Steps toward sustainability in the Capay Valley
The Capay Valley in Yolo
County is an agricultural
region anchored by a strong
contingent of small family
farms. In an inspiring move,residents of the valley decided to take proactive steps tohalt the erosion of their agricultural economy and give thecommunity a say in the region’s future. Citizens engaged
in a two-year community visioning process and developed
a concrete Action Plan to achieve their goals.

kitchen, which will help small farms overcome a major
obstacle to producing value-added products.

The Action Plan addresses many of the disadvantages facedby small- and medium-scale family farmers and businesses
and takes innovative steps to remedy the situation. As inmany other regions, farmers in the Capay Valley have few
options for local processing, which puts them at a disadvantage against larger farms which can more easily afford
to ship their raw farm products over long distances to beprocessed.The Capay Valley Action Plan addresses these
problems in a unique and community-oriented way. For
example, to address the lack of a local slaughterhouse,plans are underway to establish a mobile meat-processing
facility that could be shared by local farmers. In addition,
renovations to the local community hall will include theconstruction of a certified organic community processing

The Action Plan also devotes significant attention to lessobvious and longer-term threats to the viability of a strong
local food economy in the Capay Valley. Included in thePlan are strategies to keep farmland affordable, for example
through the active promotion of conservation easements
and facilitation of farm transfer from one generation to
the next.The Plan also makes provisions to improve local
transportation in accordance with community needs anddesires, while maintaining the scenic and pastoral beautyof the Capay Valley.This is understood to be important not
only to the local economy and tourism but to the qualityof life of the valley’s residents. Finally, extensive efforts arebeing made to engage the whole community in implementing the Plan, increasing its chances for success.

To create more demand for locally-produced and processed foods, a local label is being designed and a marketing plan devised. Also on the drawing board is a marketplace/restaurant in Esparto, the valley’s largest town,
which would emphasize local foods.The marketplace will
include a welcoming public space to host community
events. Around the marketplace, the town’s main street will
be improved to attract more activity and vitality.

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A recent survey of California farmers
indicated that selling directly to consumers provided them with up to fourtimes more net profit than marketing
conventionally.40 Farmers’ markets areamong the many direct marketing options that offer producers a better return on their labor and investment. A grape
grower in California who sells his table grapes to the packinghouse can expect $6 for a 19-pound box, well below thecost of production.Yet at the farmers’ market, the same
farmer gets a minimum of $19 per box.41 Of the US farmers
selling at farmers’ markets today, 97 percent say they could
not survive without such direct marketing avenues.42

Plugging the leaky bucket
In local food systems, farmers not only receive more for theirproduction, they spend less on manufactured inputs. Since
farms serving local markets are typically far more diversified
than those serving global markets, the need for agrochemicals
to protect monocrops from pests, disease, and weeds is greatly
reduced, and can be eliminated entirely on organic farms.This
is one reason why gross margins for organic farms average 15
percent higher than for chemical farms.43 Chemical inputs
alone cost California growers more than $1.7 billion in 2000.44
Farms selling locally also tend to be far smaller than global
farms.This, along with their crop diversification, makes them
far less conducive to the use of large equipment and far
more suited to human labor. As a result, much of the money
now going to manufacturers and energy companies could74

instead go to farmers and farmworkers. As the demand forfarm labor increased, one could expect that both the numberof farm jobs and their pay levels would increase.This trend
would be reinforced by the renewed importance of local
knowledge and skills that are central features of local food systems. Farmworkers
would be valued for their understandingof particular farms and local conditions
and would likely be treated accordingly.
Rather than serving as contract labor or
piece workers, laborers would enjoy agreater degree of job security as well,since farmers would have both greater
financial flexibility and the incentive toretain workers even in slow periods.This
would be facilitated by the greater degree of security felt by
farmers themselves, as their fortunes became less tightly
linked to events beyond their control: no longer would theirincomes be decimated by a recession in Asia, for example, ora bumper crop in South America.
Photo: Lisa M. Hamilton

communities would be even greater. For example, corporate
middlemen currently rake in at least 79 percent of the public’s food budget annually.38 If localization reduced the overall proportion of the food dollar going to marketing to 44
percent, the amount going to farmers
could triple.This is not an impossible
goal: in fact, 44 percent is the same proportion of the US food dollar that went
to marketing in 1910.39

Consumers would reap benefits too. Not only would theirfood be fresher and healthier, it would cost less as well, especially if a portion of the subsidies now lavished on global
food were instead shifted to local foods. Even without suchsupport, prices at farmers’ markets are competitive with, andoften lower than, supermarket prices.Two surveys in the UK
found prices at farmers’ markets to be 10 to 18 percent
lower than in supermarkets, with organic meat and poultry
37 percent more expensive at supermarkets, and organic vegetables costing 33 percent more.
With less of the public’s food dollar funneled to distant corporations, entire local economies would be revitalized, as
farmers’ and farmworkers’ incomes were re-spent locally.
With daily farmers’ markets year-round in larger towns, business centers would be enlivened, adding not only to economic activity but to quality of life as well. Ultimately, a shift
toward the local would spread the benefits of California’s
food economy far more evenly, widely, and equitably.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

CHAPTER 9:

Community and Social Cohesion
ne of the cornerstones of healthy community is the understanding that we depend on ourOneighbors and that our neighbors depend on us. In today’s global economy, however,almost all our needs come from anonymous producers via huge corporate middlemen.

The distance separating us is growing, and feelings of mutual dependence are evaporating.

By severing direct economic links between people, globalization is reducing everyone to atomized “producers” or “consumers” with little sense of mutual dependence or responsibility. Purchasing food in the supermarket, for example, canleave us keenly aware of the price of strawberries or the colorof apples, but utterly ignorant about the people who planted,
nurtured, and harvested our food. As writer Art Gish points
out, this ignorance even extends to people we see daily:
There isn’t much community inside a big supermarket.There,
we shop as isolated individuals, each in our own private world.
Gone are the relationships with the soil, the grower, and, for themost part, even the distributor. Do you know the name of the
produce manager in your supermarket? Or anything about hisor her family?1

Sidestepping responsibility
The disappearing sense of community can pose even more
serious problems for workers: in California, large-scale growers have found they can insulate themselves from any realconnection with the farmworkers they depend on, in part byhiring them through labor contractors. According to attorney
Robert Perez, this allows growers to minimize their sense of
responsibility:

If there’s an accident, if someone gets hurt, well, ‘it’s the labor
contractor’s responsibility.’ If there are inhumane conditions,well, ‘I don’t know anything about that, that’s not my job, notmy concern. I hired a labor contractor to deal with that. Go talkto the labor contractor.’2
The increasing scale of the global economy is making thissleight of hand easier and more commonplace.When workers that harvest tomatoes for the Taco Bell chain protested
against their working conditions, a spokesperson for the
Irvine, California-based corporation pointed out that the
pickers actually work for a labor contractor, and that it was
Taco Bell’s policy not to “interfere” in the labor relations ofother companies.3
In a similar fashion, employees of even the most rapacious
corporations often work with a clear conscience, since thelink between corporate activities and the suffering that
results is often obscured by distance and opaque layers of
responsibility. All of these forms of separation—physical,
emotional, and intellectual—are antithetical to the sustenanceof real community, and all are compounded by the structureof the global economy.

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A stake in the future
Another building block of community is the feeling among
members that they have a voice in the decisions that determine the community’s future. Globalization, however, is fundamentally eroding what remains of participatory democracy.
The global economy is driven by speculative finance, not by
the wishes of masses of people, and decision-making authority
is being taken from local and even national hands and placed
under the jurisdiction of unaccountable global institutions likethe World Trade Organization.The result is an undermining of
the sense of participation central to thriving communities.
Corporations today not only dominate theeconomy but the political process as well.
Even in nominally democratic countries likethe US, highly-paid corporate lobbyists andpublic relations professionals, hefty campaign
contributions, and the rapidly spinning“revolving door” between government andindustry ensure that the corporate agenda
and public policy are one and the same (seeBox 9.1).

unlikely that these concerns will be given much more thanlip service as long as for-profit corporations wield so muchinfluence over government policy.

Arvin and Dinuba
The sense of community also dissolves when the economy
appears to serve only a privileged few rather than everyone.
This is, in fact, what is happening in communities worldwide, as the spread of the global economy is accompanied by
growing inequality between rich and poor. As described in
Chapter 8, this problem is growing faster in California thananywhere else in the country.

Sociologist Walter Goldschmidt’s studies in
the Central Valley, discussed in the preceding
economic links between
chapter, described how the increased scale offarms serves to widen the rich-poor gulf,
people, globalization iswith troubling implications for the sense of
reducing everyone tocommunity. Goldschmidt found that the
town of Arvin (characterized by large farms)
atomized ‘producers’ or
had a very uneven distribution of wealth: at‘consumers’ with little
one end of the scale there was a small number of prosperous owners of huge farms; atsense of mutualThis is certainly true in California, where thethe lower end was the majority, including adependence or
corporations that dominate the food chain
large number of impoverished itinerant
wield a great deal of power.Though agriculresponsibility.
farmworkers.The small-farm economy ofture accounts for only 2 percent ofDinuba, on the other hand, supported a
California’s $1.3 trillion gross state product, agribusinessmuch larger number of farmers, whose incomes were onlyinterests have a huge influence in the California legislature.4
moderately higher than those of the workers they hired. 9
As one analyst has pointed out, “No elected official . . .
would dare question those recurrent boasts that agriculture is These economic differences translated into a deep divergencein the social lives of the two communities. Dinuba had highthe state’s leading industry, even though that has not beener scores than Arvin in every indicator of social vitality testtrue since before Pearl Harbor was bombed.”5
ed: it had more civic organizations, more newspapers, more
Agribusiness interests spend considerable amounts of money
public recreation centers and parks, even more schools andattempting to influence government policy. Roughly $1.5
churches than Arvin. Participatory democracy was also
million was funneled to the 2002 reelection campaign of for- stronger in Dinuba, where town decisions were often mademer Governor Gray Davis,6 and California’s dairy industry
through popular vote; in Arvin, county officials imposed
alone has contributed more than $700,000 to various state
most decisions from above, with little input from the public.10
election campaigns over the last six years.7 The California(Residents of Arvin were not unaware of their hometown’s
League of Food Processors (CLFP) is not only a powerfulshortcomings: “Frankly,” said a blunt minister, “this is thelobby in the state’s legislature and regulatory agencies but atworst town I have ever seen.”11)
the federal level as well. CLFP led statewide initiatives
Not surprisingly, commitment to the community differedopposing mandatory plastic package recycling and helped
widely between the two towns as well.The citizens ofpass laws protecting processing facilities from nuisance complaints and exempting them from a state air quality program.8 Dinuba were more involved in the life of the town and far
more committed to its future than the residents of Arvin:
By their nature, corporations are economic constructs conIndeed, even the operators of large-scale farms frequently arecerned almost exclusively with profit and growth. Even if weabsentees. . . .Their interest in the social life of the community
want our governments to carefully protect the environmentis hardly greater than that of the laborer whose tenure is transiand human health, to uplift the poor and needy, to respecttory. . . . Attitudes such as these are not conducive to stability
individual liberty and the rights of other cultures, it is76

By severing direct

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

BOX 9.1: The political and social influence of Big Ag
Skip Spitzer, Pesticide Action Network North America

Concentration in agriculture has allowed the biggest
agribusinesses to define and control much of the food system.While Big Ag’s economic power alone is alarming,the extraordinary wealth amassed by agribusiness also
affords far-reaching political and social influence.
Politics, law, and policy
Big Ag supports political candidates and office holders to,in the words of one agrochemical trade association,“upgrade the Congress” and “improve access toMembers.”23 For example, when the EPA flagged molinate, a widely used rice herbicide, as a reproductive toxicant, neurotoxicant, and possible carcinogen in a draft risk
assessment, the agrochemical industry called on California
Congressman Richard Pombo. Pombo then requested that
the EPA modify the assessment, with the goal of avoiding
a listing of the chemical under California’s Safe Drinking
Water and Toxic Enforcement Act (Proposition 65).

Big Ag also:■

hires high-level employees from the public agencies that
regulate it (providing insider know-how and friendly
connections through which rules can be bent and loopholes exploited);■

uses trade associations, “hired guns,” and in-house specialists to lobby government decision-makers;■

distorts the voter initiative process through financial
support for or against citizen measures.24

Agribusiness even influences policy by drafting laws. For
example, in 2000 Representative Pombo introduced aHouse bill on pesticide regulation that was a nearly wordfor-word duplicate of a 1999 draft written by an industry
consulting firm.25
Even where corporations do not actively exert influence,
holders of high office themselves frequently have investment and other ties to large corporations that predisposethem to industry-friendly positions. For example, US
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman (formerly Secretaryof the California Department of Food and Agriculture) wasa Director of the biotech company Calgene (now owned
by Monsanto) and served on the International Policy
Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded
by Cargill, Nestlé, Kraft, and Archer Daniels Midland.26

The media and public relations
Big Ag influences reporting on food and farming issues by
providing press releases and “expert” sources, lobbying
reporters, and threatening legal action. Its internal PR
departments, PR firms, and “informational” organizations
poll public opinion, develop strategy, promote messages,
and even conduct surveillance.

For example, according to a leaked memo published by
the Environmental Working Group in November 2003, a
California-based lobbyist for the American ChemistryCouncil prepared a $120,000 industry plan to thwart
efforts to include the Precautionary Principle in California
policy.27 Tactics included public criticism of the Principle,
an “information clearinghouse,” and intelligence gathering
to obtain information about the Principle’s supporters.28
Science, research, and education
Agribusiness also funds research institutes and policy thinktanks as a means of influencing public opinion and policy.
For example, the American Council on Science and Health,a think tank receiving as much as 76 percent of its funding
from large corporations29 such as Dow Chemical, DuPont,
and Monsanto,30 promotes the idea that concerns about pesticides like DDT and Alar are “unfounded health scares.”31

Big Ag also works to influence public attitudes toward theindustry by taking advantage of declining educational
funding, particularly in elementary and secondary schools.
According to the industry newsletter Youth Markets Alert,companies “want to get them started young.”32 Agribusinessprovides schools with educational materials, training,
advice, teachers, presentations, exhibits, contests, andawards. For example, the industry-organized Biotechnology
Institute,33 whose mission is “to engage, excite and educate
as many people as possible, particularly young people, aboutbiotechnology,”34 reaches high school students through its
popular Your World magazine.The Institute also trainsteachers at its annual leadership conference.
In its broadest sense, the impact of Big Ag on the food system includes not only its goods, services, and economic
activities, but also the industry’s social and political influenceat the local, state, national, and international levels.A comprehensive transition to a sustainable, socially just, and democratic food system must address all of these dimensions.

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and the rich kind of rural community life which is properly
associated with the traditional family farm.12

What is happening to American agriculture is a great tragedy for our nation,
on many fronts. I am . . . astonished at
the rapidity of change since World War
II.The degree to which big businessdominates our food production anddetermines decisions on chemicals used
is terrible. Even worse is the destructionof a whole class of people whose broadcapabilities, industry and independenceof action and spirit was a vital model for our culture.This is an
irreplaceable human resource and its demise is going almost
unnoticed.13
Moreover, Goldschmidt’s findings have been confirmed bymany other studies over the years.14 In 1983, for instance,
researchers found that as farm size and absentee ownership
rise, social conditions in rural communities worsen, including
family incomes, poverty levels, education levels, and socialand economic equality.They concluded that:
Communities that are surrounded by farms that are larger thancan be operated by a family unit have a bi-modal income distribution, with a few wealthy elites, a majority of poor laborers,
and virtually no middle class.The absence of a middle class at
the community level has a serious negative effect on both thequality and quantity of social and commercial service, public
education, local governments, etc.15
More recently, a 2002 study of three Midwestern states confirmed the relevance of the Goldschmidt hypothesis to thecurrent relationship between the structure of agriculture andlocal socioeconomic conditions.The study concluded by saying: “this analysis has shown that areas with industrial agriculture possess poorer socioeconomic conditions, and if one
expands this definition to include animal slaughter and meat
processing the effect becomes even stronger.”16
Unfortunately, the dominant food system in California today
does not give rise to vibrant rural communities like Dinuba
but to communities as economically stratified and sociallystunted as Arvin.

78

Paralleling the trend toward fewer and larger farms, the global food system is giving us fewer and larger markets. Like
Wal-Mart and other big-box stores, huge supermarkets are
typically located outside town centers, drawing business awayfrom downtowns and undermining their vitality. In fact,
supermarket chains commonly workwith urban planners to redesign
towns around their stores, draining
downtown cores and funneling traffic
to the urban fringe.Tax dollars often
pay for the highways and access roads
needed to bring customers to thesemega-markets.
Photo: Ken Hammond, USDA

These links between the conditions fostered by the global
food system and the declining quality of community life are
not mere artifacts of the mid-1940s, when Goldschmidt’s
study was conducted. A keen observer of these trends for six
decades, Goldschmidt observed in
2002 that:Independent stores vs. mega-supermarkets

Car-dependent stores also eliminate
pedestrian scale, a feature of downtown cores that leads to more personal, community-building encounters between people.What’s more, mega markets eliminate
jobs, destroying an estimated three positions for every two
they create.17 As business and jobs are drawn out of town
centers across the US, most have become run-down districts
featuring boarded-up storefronts, thrift stores and other marginal businesses, and very little vitality.

Changing course
Since the global food economy is having a deleterious
impact on social cohesion and community life, it follows thata shift in direction, toward smaller-scale farms and more
direct links between producers and consumers, would benefit
our communities.This conclusion is supported by studies of
the impact of laws that limit the size of farms or prevent corporations from owning them. One such study showed that:
Anti-corporate farming laws, such as Nebraska’s Initiative 300,
lead to fewer families in poverty, lower unemployment, andhigher percentages of farmers receiving cash gains from farming.
The research also indicated that, while low levels of agriculturalindustrialization tend to benefit rural communities, these samecommunities suffer when industrialization and consolidation
begin to dominate a county’s farm structure.18
Along with these economic impacts, the study confirmedthat states which place controls on corporate farming are
more likely to score well in various measures of community
well-being.
In California, however, the powerful agribusiness lobby has
managed to prevent the adoption of similar policies to protect rural communities. A shift toward local food systems

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: Katy Mamen

BOX 9.2: Making it work: Farming with live power
Operating on a small scale also makes it possible for LivePower Farm to market their produce exclusively through acommunity supported agriculture (CSA) scheme, furthering their commitment to community and education. Morethan 150 households in Mendocino County and the San
Francisco Bay area share the harvest and receive a weekly
supply of fresh vegetables in their CSA basket. “We needto create opportunities for people to build relationships
with farmers,” says Steve. “A CSA opens the gate to thatwider than standard marketing approaches. It has thepotential to humanize economic processes.”

For Steve and Gloria Decater, founders of Live Power
Community Farm, using “live power” means farming at ascale that serves both the local environment and community. Located near Covelo in Mendocino County, the 40acre farm grows a diverse array of organic and biodynamic
crops by substituting the live power of draft horses andhumans for fossil fuel energy.
“Draft horses are beautiful and quiet,” says Steve. “It’s apleasure to work with them. Of course, they’re also slower,
which affects the scale—they help keep the farm on asolar base rather than a fossil energy base. If we do look to
expand production, we look to muscle power.”
Live Power’s small scale has many ecological advantages.
Farming with horses instead of fossil fuel machinery
reduces the impact on the land, saves energy, and lowers
CO2 emissions. It also produces a beneficial by-product:
manure from the farm’s draft horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and pigs provides a rich fertilizer for the vegetable
crops, building a healthy soil and reducing the need foroff-farm inputs.
“With horses, the farm environment is more inviting tohuman involvement and community. The farm becomesa learning opportunity for other people,” notes Steve. In
fact, education is an important part of Live Power’s mission: “to create a completely self-sufficient agriculturalcommunity where humans learn to feed the soil asmuch as the soil feeds them.” The farm offers an apprenticeship program and hosts a variety of workshops, fielddays, and educational visits for school children. In total,
education provides a significant 25 percent of the farm’s
income.

How does Live Power make it in today’s tough times forsmall farms? As Gloria explains, community is the key:
“By keeping the farm rooted in community, we are fedby the community in a multitude of ways.” In otherwords, farming at a small scale keeps the local community and ecology well nourished, which in turn keeps thefarm in business.
The Live Power community even helped the Decaters
buy the farm, through a new arrangement called “sharedequity ownership.” Donations from the CSA communityand small foundations made it possible for a non-profit
to purchase part of the land’s value through conservation
easements, ensuring that the land will remain in organic
production and active farming. The resale value is controlled so that the next farmers will also be able to pay
for the land from its farming income. “We see farmland
as a community resource,” says Steve. “It needs an individual steward, but we recognize the community’s stakein healthy land.”
Their vision for the future? A world with many small
farms. “If you see how many families go in and out of
supermarkets and realize that 150 households could provide for the operation of a small farm, and those farms
would not be in competition with each other—that could
support a lot of farms,” says Steve. “The ones buying foodhold the key. It’s a tremendous role that people have andpower they can exercise.”In this time when so many are separated from their foodsource, he adds, it’s vital that we reestablish a connection.
“People want to know where their food comes from, andpeople want to have an impact on agriculture, and thatcan only happen through community agriculture.”79

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

would help reduce the scale of farms systemically, even without passage of specific laws restricting farm size.
By creating more direct links between producers and consumers, a shift to local food systems can help revitalize deteriorating communities in both cities and rural areas (see Box 9.2).
Farmers’ markets, for example, encourage face-to-face interactions between consumers and the people who grow their food,fostering a deeper understanding of mutual interconnectedness
and responsibility. In addition, farmers’ markets typically createa festive environment in the heart of the community, enlivening rural and urban communities alike, and supporting othersmall businesses as well.The 20-year-old farmers’ market in San
Luis Obispo, for instance, is widely credited with revitalizing
the town center. Shopping at a farmers’ market can be one of
the most joyful highlights of the week, especially for children.

Photo: Nate Grundman

BOX 9.3: Making it work: Not your average grocery store
Shopping at a farmers
market is a great way to
get to know your local
farmer, cheesemaker,
baker, or fishmonger, andis an essential part of any
sustainable food system.
But there’s still a place forthe neighborhood grocery store.
Food retail giants continue to merge, consolidate andcrush their weaker competitors and they have all but
wiped out the mom-and-pop corner grocery. But a smattering of small, locally owned food retailers are prospering
while providing a vital service to their communities andfood systems.
The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op offers one inspiring model for the future of food retail in California. A
consumer-owned cooperative since 1973, the Co-op has
the region’s largest selection of local, organic, seasonal produce from small family farmers—most from within a 100mile radius. A few years ago, the Co-op decided to offer
only organic produce, since customers were buying almost
exclusively organic rather than conventional fare.The Coop also provides sustainably-raised meat and seafood fromlocal producers; other foods like cheese, bread, and winefrom local purveyors; and bulk foods to reduce packaging.
Buying directly from about 45 farms, the Co-op helps
keep small local farms afloat, offering them another local
market and a way to cut out several layers of middlemen.
“We don’t fight the farmer over price,” explains generalmanager Paul Cultrera.“We ask,‘what price do you needto stay in business, and to stay sustainable?’ It’s a balancing
act—if we cheat the farmer to give the customer more,then we won’t keep the farmer in business and we all lose.”80

Building a partnership with the farmer, rather than a competitive or antagonistic relationship, is central to the Coop’s way of doing business, and as they see it, an importantpart of creating a viable, sustainable food system. It alsomeans a lot more work. “It would be a lot simpler,” says
Cultrera, “if the produce manager could just place one
phone call, to one wholesaler, with one invoice, and have
one truck deliver the produce. It’s very labor intensive todeal directly with many different farmers, and it takes atremendous amount of work to identify the good ones
and build relationships with them.”
Ultimately, this hard work pays off for the customers,
too—through fresh, high-quality food, and a sense of connection to the people who grew it.The Co-op labels all
produce with information about the farmer, displays amap of the farms, and highlights local growers in its foodtastings and cooking classes. As part of the Co-op’s commitment to public education, its Community Learning
Center offers hands-on classes, workshops, and lectures todiscuss and encourage action around important food,health, and environmental issues. As Cultrera puts it, “We
don’t need certified farmers, we need certified customers.”
The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op is owned and run
by the people who use it, and has grown to more than
8,000 members. Because the members are the owners, profit isn’t siphoned off by outside interests, and economic benefits are kept within the community. And because the store
is locally and cooperatively owned, people feel a loyalty andsense of ownership and involvement that ensures its success.
The cooperative structure encourages active member participation in making decisions and setting policies, and perhaps
most importantly, helps cultivate stronger relationships within the community.“People know that we’re not about making profit, but we’re here to provide a service to the community,” says Cultrera.“There’s a sense of trust and integrity.
We’re here because the community wants us here.”RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Community supported agriculture (CSA) can support evencloser connections between community members and local
farms: not only do CSA programs let farmers and their customers meet face to face, many also encourage participation
in workdays, tours, and social events on the farm. Both CSAs
and farmers’ markets remind shoppers and farmers of theirmutual economic link, reinforcing the interdependent bondsthat are the mark of healthy communities. Finally, independent retailers can have an important role to play not only insupporting small, local farms, but also raising consumerawareness (see Box 9.3).

Reconnecting to the natural world
There is a growing body of evidence that people have a fundamental need for a connection to nature, which has been
largely severed in the modern world. Local food systems canhelp reestablish that link, with benefits forboth individuals and society as a whole.

The work begins in a greenhouse with small plants that need
constant nurturing. Each person cares for particular plants andlearns, by watching them grow, the true nature of this life: growth,
renewal, and perseverance. Somewhere during the time spent quietly working the earth, something happens and somethingchanges.Witnessing the cycle of growth and renewal allows theprisoners to see their own potential for growth and change.20
Following their release, many of the former inmates continue
to improve their communities and their own lives through

The Garden Project has relevance not just to prison populations but to urbanized people everywhere, most of whom arealso fundamentally disconnected from natural processes.
Global food, for example, is so heavily processed and layered
in so much brightly colored plastic and cardboard that it iseasy to believe, as many children do, that food comes notfrom farms and nature but from the supermarket itself.The
growing dependence on strawberries in winter, apples inspring, and other distantly-produced, out-of-season foods
adds to the illusion that neither we nor the foods we eat
have any connection with nature’s rhythms and cycles. Direct
links between farmers and consumers, on the other hand,
give us a clear sense of what grows locally and when, as wellas the impacts of local conditions on eachyear’s harvest.
Photo: Tyler/Center for Ecoliteracy

A number of initiatives to help prisoners,
juvenile offenders, at-risk teenagers, and eventorture victims are based on the beneficial,even therapeutic power of growing food: aclose relationship with nature in combination
with productive, nurturing, and practical work
appears to be a highly effective form of therapy. For example, Catherine Sneed, founder anddirector of The Garden Project in San
Francisco, established gardens for prison
inmates on 12 acres outside the county jail, as
well as other gardens in the impoverishedneighborhoods from which many of the inmates come. One
result of the project has been more than a 50 percent decline
in recidivism rates among prisoners who worked in the gardens.19 For those engaged in the Project, Sneed says:

their involvement with the Project, planting trees and clearing debris from vacant lots, for instance, and growing foodthat they donate to the homeless.

Our children are particularly vulnerable. Not
only do they live in a world largely devoid ofreal community and connection to nature,they are heavily manipulated by mass marketers and advertisers, who teach them to feel
insecure about their weight, their complexion, the sheen of their hair, and other aspectsof their identity. Perhaps this is why suicide is
now the third leading cause of teenage deathin America21 and why even very young children are being given drugs to counter
depression. Between 1995 and 1999 alone, prescriptions foranti-depression drugs rose 151 percent for children in the 7
to 12 age group, and 580 percent for children 6 andunder.22
The damage we are doing to our children suggests that oursociety and economy are moving in the wrong direction.
The solution is not better drugs, better childcare centers, or
better television programming. It involves instead a fundamental shift toward smaller, more human-scale communities,
with decision-making in the hands of real people rather than
distant unaccountable corporations and institutions, many ofthem with far less interest in our welfare than our potential
to add to their economic growth.The solution also involves
closer, more intimate contact with the natural world and its
processes, reminding us that we, too, are part of its web.

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CHAPTER 10:

The Global Impacts of California’s Food
Systemalifornia may have blazed the trail, but today every region in the world is being drawn intoC

an industrialized, centralized, and globalized food system. Local food systems across the US
and many parts of the world are being dismantled, locally-produced foods are disappearing,and small- and medium-sized producers and marketers are being driven out of business. In many
parts of the world, California agribusinesses are exacerbating this downward spiral, as food exports
from the state hasten the demise of local food systems thousands of miles away.
This is not to say that California is uniquely responsible.
Globalization is forcing policymakers everywhere to look to
distant markets to save their struggling economies. Aroundthe world, in fact, one hears the same refrain: “our farmers
cannot survive without better access to global markets.”
Looked at from a global perspective, this “solution” simply
cannot help the vast majority. Because of the scale of production demanded by the global food system, it is a lessthan-zero-sum game in which any farmer’s success comes atthe expense of taxpayers, consumers, and smaller farmers,
both at home and in distant parts of the world.
The primary winners in this system are not farmers, farmworkers, small businesses, or the public, but huge corporate
buyers and marketers, which are able to pick and choose thecheapest producers from among those that survive, furthering
their narrow economic interests at the expense of people andnature. As the following examples show, the benefits accruing
to California-based agribusinesses can come at a very highcost for communities and their economies in other regions.
82

Case study: Iowa
One doesn’t have to look far to see the impact of California’s
huge food exports. Across the US, local food systems havebeen devastated by a flood of imported food, much of it
coming from the Golden State.
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa
State University has examined many of these impacts. Oneof their studies, Food, Fuel, and Freeways, documents thedecline in agricultural diversity in Iowa.1 In 1920, there
were 34 products grown on a significant scale2 on Iowa
farms. These included grains (corn, oats, wheat, barley);fruits (apples, pears, cherries, plums, grapes, peaches, apricots, strawberries, raspberries, watermelon, currants); livestock (horses, cattle, chickens, hogs, mules, sheep, turkeys);and a wide range of vegetables (including potatoes, tomatoes, and cabbage). Thus, Iowa’s local food system was able
to supply a large portion of the state’s needs from within its
own borders.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMYWith 33 million acres of farmland, Iowa is still considered amajor farm state. But the farms that remain have become
highly specialized, and by 1997 the number of foods produced on Iowa’s farms had shrunk dramatically: more than
two-thirds had been eliminated from the list, including all
the fruits and vegetables produced in 1920.With most of
those fruits and many of the vegetables now coming from
California instead of local farms, agriculture in Iowa has
shifted to supplying a few commodities to the global foodsystem, rather than a diverse range of products
to local people.
Not surprisingly, the destruction of Iowa’s
largely local food system has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in food miles.
Today, the total distance traveled by the ingredients in an Iowan’s typical meal is more than
12,500 miles, with most of those ingredientscoming from California.This is more than 10times the distance traveled by the same ingredients if sourced locally.3

since the treaty was implemented in 1994, the Mexican agricultural population has declined from 39 percent of the population to just 23 percent in 2000. Luis Tellez, who participatedin NAFTA negotiations as subsecretary of agriculture under
Mexican President Salinas, expressed the problem without a
trace of irony when he said:“It’s not that NAFTA failed, it’s
just that reality didn’t turn out the way we planned it.”7

The “reality” that confronts Mexican and Californian farmers
today involves stiff competition with eachother as trade barriers have come down.
With corporate buyers free to purchase fromthe cheapest producer anywhere, farmers in“It’s not that NAFTA
both countries are being forced to bringfailed, it’s just thatcosts down. In the process, farms on bothsides of the border are becoming larger,
reality didn’t turn out
more monocultural, input-dependent, andthe way we planned it.” capital-intensive, while smaller farms arebeing eliminated.
Luis Tellez, Mexican
Subsecretary of

For example, Mexico’s largest export market
for tomatoes prior to NAFTA was the US,
Agriculture
In Iowa—just as within California itself—a
but now the balance has reversed: today,
shift toward the local could greatly reduce fosMexico has become one of the top export
sil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. For
markets for US tomatoes, primarily fromevery 10 percent of global food Iowans
California.8 This has proven very difficult forsmall tomato growers in Mexico, and many have been driven
replace with food from an Iowa-based regional food system,
into bankruptcy.
up to 346,000 gallons of fuel would be saved and up to 7.9
million pounds of CO2 emissions eliminated annually.4
Nonetheless, some of the largest tomato growers in Mexico
have prospered.To see why this is, one need look no farther
Case study: Mexico
than the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, where almost all
A look at California’s food trade with its nearest internationlarge-scale tomato production occurs. Sinaloa is the mostal neighbor, Mexico, shows how agricultural trade canheavily subsidized agricultural state in Mexico, but thosethreaten small farmers and local production at both ends ofsubsidies do not help small farmers: 80 percent of agriculturthe transaction.
al subsidies in Sinaloa go to the US-based multinational
agribusiness Cargill.9
Mexico and California are among each other’s major markets
for fruit and vegetables.Trade liberalization, particularly
Another factor working against small farmers is that compethrough the North American Free Trade Agreement
tition with big growers both at home and in California(NAFTA), was supposed to benefit Mexican producers, espe- forces them continually to increase their use of expensive
cially fruit and vegetable growers, by increasing their accessagrochemicals, seeds, and fertilizers, for which they have neito Canadian and US markets.That has not been the case.
ther the capital nor the ability to secure loans. According to a
Food trade between the US and Mexico has certainly gone
US Agency for International Development (USAID) report:up, doubling in both directions since the introduction ofUnder free trade, the large companies that use top-of-the-line
NAFTA, but only the largest producers are benefiting fromtechnology and have committed to international standards ofincreased exports while the smallest are being harmed by
5
quality and safety have not only survived but thrived. However,increased imports. In 2000, Mexico imported $392 million
worth of California food products, including dairy, cotton,
the vast majority of these companies, in Mexico, are subsidiaries
fresh and processed vegetables, fruits, and nuts.6
of international corporations such as Coca Cola, Nestlé, Kraft
and many others.10
Rather than helping Mexican producers, NAFTA has exacerbated the decline of Mexico’s rural economies: for example,

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Case study: Japan

This staggering growth was not theresult of a sudden craving for
California tomatoes on the part ofJapanese consumers, but was instead
related to the growth of American
fast-food companies in Japan.13 Like
the Russet Burbank potato (seeChapter 7), imported tomatoes meet the particular needs ofcorporate fast food outlets, while local varieties do not.
According to a US government source:
While Japanese tomatoes tend to be softer, sweeter, and pinker . . .
the US varieties are particularly suited for the sandwiches andsalads served by the fast-food service industry.14
This “victory” in the global arena for California’s industrial
tomato growers may be short-lived, however. Dole Fruit
Company, a multinational food conglomerate nominallybased in California, is developing a vertically integrated fruitand vegetable production, processing, and retailing system inJapan which will compete directly with imported products
from California, Dole’s supposed home state.Though thissystem is being portrayed in Japan as a way to create jobs andmodernize the farming sector, its implications not only
include the elimination of Japan’s small farms but greaterpressure on California’s.

Case study: Afghanistan
Television news footage of a barren Afghanistan makes it
seem a place not only devastated by war but hardly capableof sustaining human life in the best of times.This is far fromthe reality: prior to the recent decades of war and drought,
Afghanistan produced 86 percent of its own food, a far higher percentage than California today.15
Prominent in the agricultural richness of traditional
Afghanistan are almonds, of which more than 60 different
varieties are indigenous to the country. Almonds are also
84

Today, however, 95 percent of the almonds in India comenot from Afghanistan but from California. Part of the reason,of course, is that years of conflict and drought have cut
deeply into Afghanistan’s production.
But another reason is that the US
government is subsidizing the promotion of California almonds in
India as part of a $2.5 million
Market Access Program (MAP)
grant.17
Photo: Lisa M. Hamilton

Events in Japan reveal how California’s food exports not only
erode local production for local needs elsewhere but eliminate diverse varieties from the fields. As recently as 1995,
Japan was 85 percent self-sufficient in vegetables.11 However,trade liberalization during the 1990s led to increased imports
of fresh vegetables into Japan, especially tomatoes. In 1999,
Japan lifted all remaining restrictions
on US tomatoes, and imports from
California grew from less than
$25,000 in 1999 to more than $3.9
million in 2000—an increase of 155
times in just one year.12

among Afghanistan’s most important cash crops, second only
to opium poppy production in return per acre. Until recently, much of the almond crop was exported to its nearby
neighbor, India.16

As a result, the US finds itself working at cross-purposes: one hand isgiving grants through USAID andvarious non-governmental organizations to wean Afghani farmers fromgrowing poppies—much of which
ends up as heroin on America’s city streets and rural backroads—while the other hand is subsidizing California growers to invade Afghanistan’s traditional market for almonds, theexport crop that best competes with poppies.
So far, promotion of California exports has been the more
successful effort. India is now the US almond industry’s second largest market, and exports of almonds to India reacheda record level of $70.5 million in 2000, up 76 percent from1999. Meanwhile, Afghani farmers, who produced an estimated 3,400 metric tons of opium in 2002, were expected to
produce an even larger amount in 2003.18
Needless to say, all of this represents a losing proposition, notonly for Afghanistan, but for the vast majority of theAmerican public, which pays for the subsidies and grants thatboth hands of the government are offering, as well as thecrime and health costs of a growing heroin problem.The
global population is paying another part of the cost: every
pound of almonds India imports from California has traveledroughly 5,000 more miles than an equal amount imported
from Afghanistan.This translates into wasted fossil fuel andneedless greenhouse gas emissions.

Local food, globally
Just as localization would benefit the vast majority ofCalifornians, it offers the best prospects for people all over
the world—producers and consumers, urban and rural,
North and South. In fact, to be just, equitable, and sustainable, more localized food systems for California must go
hand in hand with localization elsewhere.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

There are many who believe that, for the global South inout how vulnerable import-dependent countries are toparticular, increased access to markets in the North is theblackmail by the countries that supply them with food:only route out of poverty.There is a fundamental flaw in this“those who control the world’s staple foods don’t needargument, however. If the countries of the South are to
weapons.”20 This point has not been lost on countries that
already exert a great deal of control over the global foodincrease their food exports to the North, they will be comsupply. Former US Attorney General
peting not only with producers in the North,Ramsey Clark argues that:
but increasingly with each other. In order to
The global economy
match the lowest global price for food comCentral to [US] foreign policy has been themodities, they will be forced to continuallyrequires nations toactive attempt to deprive governments and“modernize” their agriculture or lose out tospecialize their foodpeoples of the independence that comes fromproducers from other countries. Just as inself-sufficiency in the production of food. I’ve
production to the
California and the rest of the North, modernbelieved for many years that a country thatization means consolidating farms into larger,
handful of commodities
can’t produce food for its own people canmore monocultural units with a far greater
never really be free. . . . Egypt is a great
they
can
producemostdependency on inputs and technology than on
exampleof this. It’s the second-largest U.S.human labor, knowledge, and skill. Ultimately,cheaply. This means, inaid
recipientin the world, after Israel. Can
this means whittling down the number of peoyou
imaginewhat sanctions would do toeffect,that
every
nationple living on the land.
Cairo? You’ve got 12 million people living
must abandon the goal
there, 10 million of them in real poverty.
In 2003, 58 percent of the population in theof food sovereignty —The city would be bedlam in ninety days.
global South still lived in rural, land-based
There would be rebellion in the streets.21
communities.19 To modernize agriculture in
the ability to feed its
those countries means reducing the agriculIn much of the world there is already apeople from its own
tural workforce—now roughly 1.27 billion
great deal of bedlam, in the form of ethnic
people—to levels closer to the 1 percent
land — since only
violence and even terrorism.This conflict isfound in the US. Even reducing the propordiversified
production
compounded by the growing gap between
tion involved in agriculture down to 10 perrich and poor, as well as a rising sense ofcent means throwing nearly 800 million peocan meet that goal.
powerlessness as human-scale communities
ple out of work. Those millions will haveare dismantled and cultural and individual
nowhere to go but urban slums, where the food they need
identityareundermined.
Pulling people off the land so thatwill come not from their own production but from shops
agriculture
canbe“modernized”
for the sake of global tradeselling, for the most part, global food. The only real benefioffersnosolutiontothese
problems,
and in fact is likely tociaries of this shift are the corporations that dominate thatworsenthem.
food system.
The economic arguments that focus on GDP and the additional dollars flowing to the South in exchange for theiragricultural commodities fail to acknowledge that those dollars will concentrate in very few hands, leaving the overwhelming majority of the population worse off, not better.

Food sovereignty
A further problem with encouraging the South to engage inmore food trade is that the nature of the global economy
requires nations to specialize their food production in thehandful of commodities they can produce most cheaply.This
means, in effect, that every nation must abandon the goal offood sovereignty—the ability to feed its people from its own
land—since only diversified production can meet that goal.
Losing food sovereignty can have grave repercussions in thegeo-political arena. Indian journalist Devinder Sharma points

For much of the world, achieving a greater degree of foodself-reliance is far more important than producing morecommodities for export. Pursuing the latter course has
meant borrowing billions of dollars from the World Bankand other lenders to build a trade-based transport and energy infrastructure, and then selling off agricultural production and natural resources to pay back the loans—as well as
to pay for food.
Embracing local food systems would not only enable countries of the South to avoid unnecessary indebtedness, itwould help them reverse the gutting of rural economies,
lessen unemployment and conflict, enjoy greater food security, and have a cleaner environment. If the goal is to feed
people and eliminate poverty rather than elevate econometric measures like GDP, localization offers the best prospects
by far.

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CHAPTER 11:

Propping Up the Global Food Systemt is often argued that globalization is the product of natural, evolutionary forces, putting itIbeyond people’s ability to halt or redirect.What this view ignores, however, is the guiding handof governments, aided by powerful corporations, in shaping today’s global economy.

This chapter shows how the globalization of food, far frombeing an inevitable trend, stems from a wide range of government policies.These include subsidies for industrial foodproduction and long distance transport that artificially lower
the price of supposedly “cheap” global food; the trade treatiesthat open up every economy to penetration by transnational
corporations; and regulatory regimes that systematically favorlarge operators at the expense of smaller ones. Since these all
represent decisions made in our names by our governments—often using our tax dollars—they are no more “evolutionary” or irreversible than last year’s campaign promises.

“Free trade” treaties
Perhaps the policy realm with the most far-reaching impacts
is that of international trade. Much more is involved, however, than just trade in goods, since everything from services
and investments to intellectual property rights now comesunder the umbrella of these agreements.
Free trade treaties are promoted as a cure-all for every conventional economic ailment that might beset a country: inadequate rates of growth, insufficient competitiveness, too muchpoverty, too little productivity, and so on. Almost completely
neglected are the “side-effects” of this cure, from despoiled
environments and loss of biodiversity, to joblessness, ruined
rural communities, the erosion of cultural identity, and risingrates of conflict and violence. Also ignored is the loss of sovereignty, as nations sign away their right to protect citizens
and the environment from predatory corporations.
86

Ironically, free trade policies undermine the economies of
not only local and regional communities but even of thenation-states that so zealously promote them.The mobility ofcapital today means that the comparative advantage onceenjoyed by states or regions has been usurped by transnational corporations, which are in the best position to take“unfair advantage” of free trade and the many hidden subsidies implicit in a publicly-financed industrial infrastructure.
Free trade has also furthered the concentration of politicaland economic power in huge transnational corporations.
Today, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has become
one of the most powerful institutions in the world, able tocoerce sovereign nations, regions, and communities into
overturning laws determined to be “barriers to trade.” Forexample, European citizens prefer their beef to come fromcows untreated with growth hormones but the WTO considers their wishes to be at odds with “sound science,” andordered Europe to accept hormone-treated beef from the
US or suffer stiff economic sanctions.The desire of the vast
majority of Europe’s citizenry to avoid GE foods is likely tomeet a similar fate.
Opposition to the WTO has surfaced from thousands ofgrassroots groups around the world, dealing sharp blows to
the attempt to forge an Agreement on Agriculture within
the WTO, in part by giving moral support to Southernnations that resist the formulas set out for them by theindustrialized countries.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

But the free trade mania is not easily stopped: the UnitedStates trade representative, Robert B. Zoellick, recently warned
that “as WTO members ponder the future, the US will not
wait: we will move towards free trade with can-do countries.”1
Thus, the US has pushed for a multilateral agreement with thecountries of the Americas (the Free Trade Area of theAmericas), negotiated bilateral trade agreements with Chileand Singapore, and is working on agreements with regions
such as Australia, Morocco, and southern Africa. Along with
global trade agreements within the WTO, these bilateral andregional free trade agreements are paving the way for an evermore globalized food system (see Figure 11.1).

largest, wealthiest farms and the global food economy’s dominant agribusinesses.

California agriculture is considered a prime beneficiary oflowered trade barriers: California now exports cherries toAustralia, table grapes to South Korea, rice to Japan, andalmonds to India.3 But the scale of production needed to participate in the global food economy precludes the vast majority of small farmers. Like the entire global food system,“freetrade” agreements systematically support the largest producers,
marketers, and distributors, to the detriment of everyone else.

■

Subsidies
Without subsidies, the global food that fills supermarket
shelves in California would be far more expensive—andmuch of it would not be there at all.Yet most people arelargely ignorant of the many ways their own tax dollars aredoled out to support the global food system. Some may beaware of “farm subsidies,” but generally believe that these
support struggling, small family farms.The reality is far different: the overwhelming majority of subsidies support the

FIGURE 11.1:

Number of regional trade
agreements (RTAs) worldwide2

The question is not whether or not subsidies in the abstract
are good or bad.We should more appropriately be asking
what it is that is being subsidized.Today, huge subsidies support the further globalization of food, while almost no support is given to smaller scale, more ecological, sustainable,
and localized food systems.
Taxpayer support for the global food system comes in acomplex variety of forms:
Direct payments to farmers (e.g. commodity programs,

conservation programs, “disaster” relief)■

Indirect subsidies (e.g. price supports, export assistance,
import barriers, tax breaks, input assistance, marketing
campaigns)■

Systemic subsidies (e.g. research and development funding,energy and transport infrastructure investments, social services for poorly paid farm laborers and food service workers)

In the belief that the future of agriculture depends on trade,the overwhelming thrust of all these subsidies has been to
facilitate the growth of exports, a disastrous policy for local,
diversified food systems. For example, the biggest direct farmsubsidies support large growers of a relatively small number ofglobal commodities—corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton,
milk, beef, and a few others—giving farmers a strong incentive to produce those products (see Appendix 3). One result is
to shrink the overall diversity of the food supply: commodity
subsidies are available for cow’s milk but not goat’s milk; forcorn, wheat, and barley, but not millet, quinoa, or amaranth.
Another effect is to subsidize exports. In 2001, for example,
the US exported 53 percent of its wheat crop, 42 percent of
its rice, 35 percent of its soybeans, 46 percent of its sorghum,
and 45 percent of its cotton.4 Producers of these crops areamong the most heavily subsidized in the nation. In
Montana, where 90 percent of the principal monocrop,
wheat, is exported, direct government support made up 100
percent of overall farm income in 2000.5 According to the
WTO, total US export subsidies averaged $6.3 billion peryear between 1995 and 2000.6
Overall, the US spent more than $114 billion on direct payments to farmers—for commodities, disaster relief,7 and conservation programs—between 1995 and 2002.8 Since almost
all of these subsidies are based on acreage or amount of production, the largest farms grab most of the subsidies. In 2002,
for example, the largest 10 percent of recipients received 71
percent of USDA subsidies.987

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Photo: Stephen Johnson

Importantly, it is not just US or state-level subsidies thatmake global food seem cheap: since globalization is giving
corporate marketers access to products from anywhere in theworld, subsidies in other countries can lower the price offood in California. As described in Chapter 10, almost all
Mexican tomato production is based in the northern state ofSinaloa, Mexico’s biggest recipient of agricultural subsidies.10
This means that when Californians purchase “cheap” wintertomatoes from south of the border, part of the real price was
effectively paid for by Mexican citizens.
Globalization is forcing farmers to compete with farmers inever more distant regions and countries, which means thatsubsidies to export producers almost anywhere lower the
global ceiling for farmgate prices. Not only is this a death
knell for many small farms, it artificially lowers the price of
global food at the checkout counter, thereby undermining
local—which means unsubsidized—agriculture worldwide.

Direct payments to California agriculture
Although California is the nation’s number one farm state, it
ranked 11th in receipts of federal farm aid for the period 1995
to 2002, with California farmers receiving only 3.5 percent of
total direct payments.11 Nonetheless, the amount received during that period, more than $4 billion, was substantial.
In California as in the nation as a whole, the biggest farms
reaped the lion’s share of these subsidies: the top 1 percent of88

California recipients received 24 percent of the total from1995 to 2002, with an average payment of $2.3 million perrecipient over that period.12 Since 91 percent of California
farms received no direct USDA payments at all, this meansthat less than 0.1 percent of California farms received nearly
one-quarter of direct federal subsidies.
The biggest California beneficiaries of commodity payments
are rice growers, who received more than $1.5 billion
between 1995 and 2002. Cotton growers were the second
biggest recipients, receiving $1.25 billion in the same period.
Wheat ($308 million), dairy ($168 million), and corn ($149
million) rounded out California’s top five.13 In all, the state’s
growers received almost $3.5 billion in commodity subsidies
between 1995 and 2002 and another $500 million in otherdirect payments.
The 2002 Farm Bill

Despite a verbal commitment by US leaders to cut back subsidies, the federal Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of2002 (“Farm Bill”) increases agriculture spending by 78 percent—or $83 billion spread over 10 years—while increasingby two-thirds the subsidies for commodity program crops.14
Like previous Farm Bills, the 2002 legislation subsidizes
agribusiness at the expense of small farms, the public, and theenvironment.15 It provides a flood of taxpayer support thatwill go to the nation’s biggest growers of wheat, rice, corn,

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

cotton, and soybeans and the biggest operators of livestock
factory farms, while offering virtually nothing to small,diversified family farms. Large food manufacturers indirectly
benefit from these subsidies, which significantly reduce theprice they pay for food ingredients.
The law provides $245 million annually for eight programsin California over the next six years.16 As usual, California’s
dairy, cotton, and rice growers receive the most assistance.17
Though fruit, tree-nut, and vegetable crops are not among
the commodities that typically receive direct payments,
California fruit and vegetable farmers have been asking forfederal subsidies, citing competition from China for garlicand apples and Canada for tomatoes, for example.18 Rewards
for California apple growers included
almost $9 million in 2001–2002 throughthe Apple Market Loss Assistance Program
to compensate for “unfair trade practices”
and damage from disease,19 while nearly$500,000 was awarded to California andFlorida tomato growers in 2001 to boost
export markets.20

MarketingSome of these indirect subsidies are devoted to export promotion.The US Market Access Program (MAP) devotes
between $150 and $225 million each year promoting US
products in foreign markets. California typically receives
around 40 percent of MAP funding, which subsidizes morethan 100 California companies through international consumer promotions, market research, technical assistance, andtrade servicing.24 From 1986 to 1993 alone, $1.25 billion was
spent promoting brand-name products like Sunkist oranges,
Miller Beer, Campbell’s Soup, McDonald’s hamburgers, andM&M Mars candies, as well as California agribusinesses like
Sunsweet prunes, Sun-Maid raisins, Blue Diamond almonds,
Gallo wines, and Dole fruits.25

Marketing support comes from state taxpayers as well. In 2002, California
launched its “Buy California” initiative,
which distributes $79 million in state andfederal grants to promote California agricultural products, both at home and inother states and nations.26 Part of the initiative is designed to promote agriculturalThough it is appealing to the public, thecommodities internationally and2002 Farm Bill’s $12.9 billion for conserstrengthen California’s trade position.27
An aqueduct in the Central Valley.
vation spending is deceptive: much of that
Then-Governor Gray Davis launched themoney merely subsidizes huge livestock factory farms by
programsaying,“It’stime to remind the world that we havepaying for solutions to their massive manure storage problems.The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) the best farms and ranches and produce, the best products on
has thus been transformed from a program that helps farmers God’s green earth.”The implication, of course, is that people
worldwide should be “reminded” that imported food fromprotect drinking water into a multi-billion-dollar giveaway
to a few industrial livestock companies, including California’s California is better than anything they might produce locally.
biggest dairy operators.21

Indirect subsidies
The billions of dollars in direct payments, most of it handed
over to large, monocultural farms, are just one way our tax
dollars support global food. Here are some others:
Export subsidies

With export growth considered critical to the future ofAmerican agriculture, substantial funding is provided to promote US products overseas. Sometimes these subsidies dwarf
the value of the products being promoted. From 1997 to
2000, for example, US taxpayers spent $7.4 billion on export
subsidy programs for milk products, while US dairy exports
were only worth half that amount over the same period.22
Similarly, US taxpayers spent $7.7 billion on export subsidy
programs for corn in 2000, yet US corn exports were only
worth $4.5 billion that year.23

Input assistance

Input assistance for California agriculture includes water subsidies, farm credit, crop insurance, pest and disease control,
emergency feed, and grazing fees. Irrigation subsidies makeup about half of the total spent on input assistance, roughly$236 million each year.28 Alfalfa, which consumes almost 25
percent of California’s irrigation water, receives the largest
water subsidy, worth $70 million annually.29 Most of the alfalfa is fed to the state’s dairy cows, effectively adding to themany other subsidies supporting that industry (see Box 6.2
for more on water subsidies).
Rice growers and other agricultural interests in the
Sacramento River Valley also depend on water subsidies.
They have recently been offered renewed 40-year water contracts by the federal government, for more than 2 million
acre-feet of below-cost water from the Central Valley
Project. Many of these farms are huge agribusinesses withmillions of dollars in annual revenues.30

89

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

It is worth noting that the 1902 legislation allocating federal
funds to irrigation projects in California intended that access to
the water should be reserved for farms of 160 acres or less.This
rule aimed at supporting small farms was eventually circumvented. One reason Walter Goldschmidt’s studies in the 1940s
were so controversial is that they provided a powerful argument
for legislators wanting to retain and enforce
the 160-acre limit. In the end, agribusinessinterests prevailed, and today even the largest
farms have access to subsidized water.

Infrastructure subsidies
A huge but usually ignored form of government support for the global food economy—and for globalization generally—takes
the form of public investments in the infrastructure upon which global trade depends.
Long-distance highways

Since the global food system fundamentally depends on longdistance transport, there is a great need to constantly expand
and modernize the transport infrastructure. In the “developing” world, building the infrastructure to support trade is thesource of much of the massive debt weighing down Southern
populations. But even in California, where it could be argued
that the transport infrastructure is “over-developed,” additional investments in public funds are being devoted to it, ultimately for the benefit of the large businesses that dominate
the global economy.The USDA puts it this way:
Political boundaries no longer constrain the conduct of goodbusiness, and this includes agribusiness. Better, faster, more reliable communications and transportation systems facilitate businesses’ abilities to produce, source, and sell in the locations thatgive them best advantage, even if that means operating in multiple locations around the world.31
International trade is the most rapidly expanding componentof freight transport in Southern California.32 The Southern
California Association of Governments estimates that freighttransportation demand is expected to grow by 80 percent
between 1995 and 2020, due largely to increased trade. 33
Chapter 1 described the role of California’s first subsidized
long-distance transport infrastructure, the transcontinental
railroad, in enabling the state’s export-based growers to reachlucrative markets in the east.This, however, was just the
beginning. Long-distance highways, airports, deep water
ports, and additional rail links have all been built, largely at
public expense, to facilitate the increasing flow of goods andpeople required by an ever more globalized economy.

90

One of the most important of these is the Interstate Highway
System. Initiated by an act of Congress in 1956 (and championed by Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson, also Presidentof General Motors), the 41,000-mile Interstate Highway
System was described at the time as “the greatest public
works program in the history of the world.”34 Today, virtually
all of the half-million truckloads of agricultural products leaving California eachyear travel on these Interstate highways.
Like the federal government, California
has made heavy investments in highways,
with an equally clear bias toward theneeds of the global economy. In 1999, forexample, the state spent $7.5 billion on
roads and highways;35 state spending perlane-mile on local roads averaged about
one-ninth of the amount spent on longdistance highways, despite the fact that almost half of thestate’s local roads and streets are in serious need of repair.36
Air transport

Taxpayers have funded huge investments in the air transport
infrastructure as well.The 2004 budget for the Federal
Aviation Agency, whose duties include air traffic control,
safety inspections, and airport improvement, is $14 billion,
including $3.4 billion to build additional runways andimprove existing facilities.37
Like investments in long-distance highways, subsidies for
air transport disproportionately favor global rather thanlocal trade. Business jets alone use about 20 percent of thecapability of the nation’s air traffic control systems and wellover half of the FAA’s control tower services.38 Since the1980s, some $35 billion has been spent just to modernize
the air traffic control system, with additional billions still
to be spent.39
With trade liberalization, air cargo shipments are expanding
at a rapid pace—so fast, in fact, that most of the shipping
capacity of California’s airports has already been used up.
Subsidized expansion of California’s air freight capacity isalready underway. A $9 billion growth plan for Los Angeles’
LAX—the third-busiest air cargo facility in the world—has
been proposed by Los Angeles mayor James K. Hahn.40 Plans
have also been floated to build additional air cargo facilities
in San Francisco, San Diego, and Orange County.41
Other public subsidies support air transport.Though airports
are not technically publicly owned, they pay no federal orstate corporation taxes and are exempt from local property
taxes; they receive federal grants for capital improvements

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

and can borrow at subsidized rates.42 And while the gasoline
a local farmer uses to get to the farmers’ market is taxed, jet
fuel is not.

Research and development

Publicly funded agricultural research represents one of thebest-hidden subsidies to agribusinesses in the global foodeconomy. Much of this research takes place at land grant colPorts
leges, institutions that were formed specifically to strengthen
Most ports are considered self-supporting departments of theand serve small farms and rural life. In fact, they have done
cities in which they are located, paid for not by taxes, but by
just the opposite. Most of the meaningful research and teachfees for shipping services. Nonetheless, huge public
ing in the land grant system has been devoted
The corporations
subsidies are involved in their operation. For one,to technological innovations, primarily
the prime waterfront real estate on which they aremachinery and chemical inputs, and now
that dominate thelocated is usually made available to them free of
biotechnology.Thirty years ago, Jim
global economy cancharge by local governments.The public also covHightower and Susan DeMarco pointed out
ers other expenses. For instance, the federal govwhom this research really helps:
invade markets
ernment is paying for more than half the $252
everywhere with
It is the largest-scale growers, the farmmillion cost of dredging to allow for bigger cargo43
machinery and chemical input companies
distantly produced
ships in the Port of Oakland. Agribusinessand the processors who are the primary
imports and exports already account for 40 percent
and seemingly
44
beneficiaries. Machinery companies such asof the port’s business.
‘cheap’ goods, while John Deere, International Harvester,
The public also pays for the rail and road links
Massey-Ferguson, Allis-Chalmer and J.I.
the real economic
that make container shipping so cheap for theCase almost continually engage in cooperacorporations that rely on them. Larry Keller,
tive research efforts at land grant colleges.
and environmental
Executive Director for the Port of Los Angeles,
These corporations contribute money andcosts are passed on
acknowledges that he expects a publicly fundedsome of their own research personnel totothepublic.
freeway expansion to meet the port’s needs:
help land grant scientists develop machinery. In return, they are able to incorporate
Our next challenge is clearly the 710 Freeway.The projection
technological advances in their own products. In someis that in two years traffic will slow to 17 miles per hour, andcases they actually receive exclusive licenses to manufacthat is unacceptable. So we’re working at both the state andture and sell the products of tax-paid research.47
federal levels to mitigate this congestion.45
One of the clearest examples of this is the mechanical tomaIn many cases, a small portion of the public—usually theto harvester, developed in 1959 by researchers at University
poor—pays an additional cost for these transport infrastrucof California, Davis, and the tough-skinned “square” tomatotures:
designed to go with it. By slashing the need for farmworkers
nearly in half, the machine reduced the cost of harvesting
The Port Authority of the city of Los Angeles is proposing totomatoes by $5–7 per ton, but the $50,000 price tag meantconstruct a 20-foot high wall—what some are calling a newthat only the largest farms could use it profitably.Thousands
Berlin Wall.This enormous structure would go across the streetof small tomato farms in California were driven out of busifrom the Dana Strand Housing Project, one of California’s
ness, with the number of tomato farms declining from 4,000
most impoverished neighborhoods, cutting off views of the waterin the early 1960s to about 600 in 1973.48
and clean air carried by sea breezes.The three-quarter mile wall
is being built because the Los Angeles Port Authority wants toThough the majority of university research is paid for by the
expand its multi-million dollar operation by creating a new sixfederal government, industry is increasingly finding it costlane diesel truck-way to speed up cargo leaving from the port.46
effective to fund research at universities, rather than in-house.
The corporations that dominate the global economy reap
immense benefits from these trade-based transport infrastructures. Along with fossil fuels and other forms of centralizedenergy, these subsidized infrastructures enable corporations toinvade markets everywhere with distantly produced andseemingly “cheap” goods, while the real economic and environmental costs are passed on to the public.

Overall, industry’s share of academic research funding
amounts to about 7 percent per year, while the federal government covers 60 percent.49
More than any other industry, agribusiness is taking advantage of university researchers: at UC Davis, for example,
industry’s share of research funding reached 15 percent in
1999.This is not a recent trend, since California has long91

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

been a leader in establishing university-industry research collaborations. Examples of this include several biotech agribusinesses: Novartis, which formed a $25 million researchalliance with UC Berkeley’s plant and microbial biology
department; Ceres, Inc., which supported biotech research at
UCLA; and Calgene, a company formed by UC Davis faculty, which created the first whole biotech food, the Calgene
Flavr Savr tomato.50

taxes.Their lobbying efforts recently succeeded in gaining
the largest tax cuts for agriculture in 30 years.The 2001
Agricultural Tax Equity Package is valued at more than$500 million over 10 years. California farmers and ranchers will realize millions in exemption from state sales anduse taxes on propane, diesel fuel, and farm equipment.52
This exemption thus favors California’s most industrialized, energy-intensive farms.

Even though these and other agribusinesses pay for a portion ■ The global food system also depends on underpaid farmworkers and food service workers, most ofof the research undertaken at the universities,
whom get few, if any, benefits.When these
their motives are not philanthropic. Research
The global food system workers get sick, injured, or pregnant, foragreements usually give them priority in comexample, it is the public that picks up themercializing the results. In the end, these corgreatly benefits frommedical tab.
porations are taking advantage of taxpayerthe regulatory regime
funded institutions to promote a particular
Regulations
that supposedly
form of agriculture, one in which they areamong the dominant players. Meanwhile, evenoversees it. Not only do Another way in which governments indias Novartis and Ceres are pumping millions ofrectly support the global food system at theregulations soothe
dollars into biotech research, the budgets for
expense of smaller, more localized systems issmall-scale sustainable agriculture research prothrough health, safety, and environmental
public anxieties overgrams are being cut to the bone.
(HSE) regulations. Although big businessissues like food safety,
complains loudly about government red
tape, many regulations would be unneeded
they also provide a
Other subsidies
were it not for the scale at which large proThe effects of the globalization of food are sogovernment-sanctioned
ducersnow operate. A study by the US
systemic that many of its subsidized costs areceiling for corporate
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
not obvious. Here are just a few:
for instance, points out that outbreaks of
responsibility.
food-borne disease are more likely today■ With increased international trade in food, it
because of the trend toward fewer, bigger
is becoming more difficult—and more
food production facilities and longer distance distribution.53
important—to control pests and diseases that may accompany imported food. In 1999, the USDA Animal Plant
But rather than reducing the scale of our food systems, theHealth and Inspection Service spent two-thirds of its $652
usual response to food safety problems is to call for “technomillion budget on exotic pests and diseases.The California
fixes” too expensive for small producers to implement. In the
Department of Food and Agriculture has an annual budget US, for example, the recent discovery of E. coli bacteria inof about $40 million for exotic plant pest programs andsome industrially produced fruit juices is likely to result in
about $4 million for animal pests.51
regulations requiring all juices to be pasteurized.The high■■

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Foodand Drug Administration (FDA), and other huge bureaucracies charged with safeguarding our food and the environment actually represent public subsidies to the global
food system.These bureaucracies—some of them “captured” by the very industries they are supposed to regulate—could be scaled back dramatically if food systems
were smaller in scale, and did not depend so utterly on
toxic agrochemicals, food additives, genetic engineering,hormone- and antibiotic-dosed livestock, and assemblyline slaughterhouses and food processing plants.
Like other big industries in the global economy, agribusiness interests work hard to avoid paying their fair share of92

cost of industrial pasteurizers would put hundreds of small
producers out of business—even those for whom E. coli contamination is highly unlikely.54
Many long-time organic farmers argue that the new federal
standards for certified organic production are having a similareffect. For example, meeting USDA organic certification
requires an onerous amount of new paperwork, demanding
more time than some farmers can spare. And the new rules
stipulate that if an organic farm earns less than $5,000 per
year it cannot be certified, and its produce cannot be used inprocessed foods labelled organic.55 As a result, farmers who
have long been producing certified organic food are now
finding their certification threatened.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Small farms can be selectively harmed by other regulations as ened members of two families and killed a 5-year old boy inwell. In 2003, the United Farm Workers sponsored California 2000, a lawsuit against the corporation was dismissed by thebill SB 534 to ban the use of short-handled hoes andcourt: as long as federal meat-inspection rules were followed,
handweeding, based on findings by California Occupational
the company was shielded from claims of negligence.56
Safety and Health Administration (CAL-OSHA) that stoopGlobal trade in food also undermines the effectiveness ofing increases farmworker back injuries.The proposed legislamany HSE regulations. Inspection requiretion, which did not pass the State Assembly,
ments for foods produced abroad are often
would have posed great difficulties for organmuch weaker than for domestically-produced
If
globalfood
is
ic farmers, who don’t use toxic chemicals
foods. Since US laws banning hazardous growand who typically rely on some degree ofcheaper than local
ing and processing procedures do not apply tohandweeding to control weeds.This type of
food,
it
is
largely
food grown elsewhere, imported food may
blanket regulation also supports mechanizacontain residues of illegal pesticides or othertion over hand labor, particularly in harvestbecause of hiddencontaminants.With increasing amounts of fooding crops like lettuce.
subsidies and ignored
coming from other countries, it is becoming
impossible to adequately inspect it: the USDA,
While it is important to improve workingsocial andfor example, only inspects about one percent
conditions for farmworkers, it is interesting
environmental costs. Inof imported meat. Perhaps more alarming,that even though pesticides poison great
numbers of California farmworkers eachthe end, all of these are “meat blending” rules allow meats from as
many as five different countries to be comyear, no OSHA ban on their use has been
paid for by the same
bined.57
forthcoming.The complex set of HSE regulations that actually serve large corporate“consumers” whointerests is a difficult subject, particularly for“Cheap food” isn’t cheap
supposedly benefit
those wanting high HSE standards.Yet we
The argument most often heard in support offrom lower prices.
must question the type and appropriatenessthe global food system is that it provides conof the specific regulations being passed.
sumers with “cheap food.” Like many economic
Protecting farmworker health and promoting small-scale, susarguments, this one is based on the flawed assumption thattainable farming should be mutually attainable goals.
people’s welfare can be reduced to their purchasing capacity.
But even on purely economic grounds, the notion of “cheap
As for protecting consumers and the environment, strict regfood” doesn’t hold water. If global food is cheaper than local
ulatory oversight is clearly needed for the global food sysfood, it is largely because of hidden subsidies and ignoredtem, which depends on dangerous agricultural chemicals,social and environmental costs. In the end, all of these are paid
antibiotics, growth hormones, genetically modified organfor by the same “consumers” who supposedly benefit from
isms, and the transport of perishable food from continent tolower prices.
continent. Unfortunately, corporate lobbyists and the“revolving door” between industry and the government
assure that HSE regulations do little to impede the expansionof the global food industry. In the US, for example, regulatory agencies like the FDA and the EPA have effectively
turned a blind eye as biotech foods spread rapidly throughAmerica’s food system, even though biotech foods havenever been proven safe for human consumption or for theenvironment.
As things stand now, the global food system greatly benefits
from the regulatory regime that supposedly oversees it. Not
only do regulations soothe public anxieties over issues likefood safety, they also provide a government-sanctioned ceiling for corporate responsibility. For example, when beef produced by IBP, Inc., the largest meat-packer in the US, sick-Looking beyond the prices posted in the supermarket, global
food is actually very expensive, though many of its costs are
hidden from view. As British researcher Jules Pretty points
out, “you actually pay three times for your food: once overthe counter; twice through your taxes, which are used largely
to support [industrial] farming; and thrice to clean up themess caused by this method.”58
Redirecting these subsidies and supports from global to local
is essential for creating a foundation for sustainable food systems.The following chapter outlines priority areas and steps
toward achieving a favorable policy context for local foodeconomies.

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 12:

Moving Forward: Strengthening the Local
Food Movements we have seen, California’s dependence on the global food system has been a net loss forA

the state. It has eroded the state’s environment, undermined the health of its residents, eliminated small farms and locally-owned businesses, and sapped the vitality of California’s com-munities. It provides neither food security today for millions of the state’s poorest residents, nor can it
offer food security tomorrow for even the richest.The food system’s main claim to “success”—billions of dollars in agricultural production and trade—actually benefits only a handful of wealthy
farmers and huge corporate agribusinesses, many of them outside the state. A shift toward local foodsystems is a solution-multiplier that would address all of these issues simultaneously.
Can local food systems
thrive in the global economy?

businesses.The net effect of these policies is to make global
food artificially cheap, and local food relatively expensive.

So far, the local food movement in California has focused
primarily on building up the various parts of working local
food systems—farmers’ markets, CSAs, urban gardens, farmto-school programs, and so on. However, relatively little
effort has gone toward alerting the public to the ways inwhich economic globalization limits the success of those initiatives or keeps them from being more widely adopted. In
the long run, local food systems will only be marginally successful if government support remains heavily tilted in favorof trade and long-distance transport, if the real costs of global
food are masked by subsidies and externalities, and if the regulatory environment continues to punish smaller farms andAs a result, the availability of local foods in California has
been somewhat limited.While successful local food systems
must supply a significant proportion of peoples’ dailyneeds—including grains, meat, fish, dairy products andfibers—the local products available so far have consisted
mainly of vegetables and fruits. For the state’s local food systems to provide the bulk of peoples’ needs, the biases in public policy that make local production seem “uneconomic”
need to be reversed. Only by addressing these broader issues
can the movement become strong enough to effect real andlasting change.

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

To see how important these broad policy considerations areto the local food movement, consider what would happen
if a California community decided to meet its food needs
locally before looking to imports from elsewhere. As things
stand today many reasonable steps—levying a tax on excessive food miles, for instance, or favoring local businesses
over global corporations—would be considered infringements on the rights of corporations, inappropriate restrictions in interstate trade, or violations of international tradetreaties, and would be struck down. For this reason, work
toward renewing our local food systems must go hand inhand with resisting and reversing the policies that favor the
globalization of the economy.

economies of scale but because of political choices about
what is taxed, what is subsidized, and what is regulated.
Ultimately, the local food movement must make it clearthat the vast majority is better served by strengthening local
economies than by subsidizing exports, and that real foodsecurity comes from diverse and diversified local farms, notfrom armed guards at the gates of feedlots and processing
plants.

Changing international policy

Most environmental problems—including climate change,
the depletion of the ozone layer and the risks of geneticallymodified seeds—respect no borders, and global agreements
None of this is meant to disparage hands-on efforts toto address them are urgently needed. But the majority of
rebuild local food systems. In the end, resistinternational treaties have not aimed atance and renewal strategies complement andsolving environmental problems, but atstrengthen each other. The broad perspective
People across the country deregulating trade and investment, thereby
that explains how local food systems arefundamentally undermining efforts to protect
are demonstrating a real
being undermined can help identify thethe environment. Not only do virtually all
obstacles to renewal. Hands-on initiatives todesire for something“free trade” treaties entail a lowering of
renew our local food systems, in turn, notenvironmental standards, they serve tobetter — for stronger
only create much of the infrastructure for a
spread a highly unsustainable consumer culcommunity, for more
more localized economy, they provide inspiture to every corner of the planet.
ration and real world examples of the benesustainable patterns offits of a shift in direction.
With a better-informed public and a criticalliving, and for healthiermass of activists, policymakers can be
Education as activism
impelled to halt further deregulation, parfood systems.
ticularly in the area of agriculture.
More localized food systems are a real option
Opposing the corporate bent of current
for California, as they are for every othertrade
treaties—bilateraland regional agreements as well as
region worldwide. But with agribusiness lobbyists and camthe global treaties enforced by the WTO—is particularly
paign contributions heavily influencing government policy,
important, both to stem the increasing monopolization of
the prospects for a fundamental shift to the local will befood economies and to create a policy environment that
dim unless the public puts tremendous pressure on policymakers. That pressure will inevitably grow if people are bet- doesn’t discriminate against local food.
ter informed about what is really happening to food andfarming.
Although a wide range of agricultural and ecological literacy initiatives are underway in California, more work needs
to be done to promote economic literacy—thereby making
the global system comprehensible to the public in plain
language. Most people are unaware of the connection
between taxpayer-funded superhighways and the growth ofcompanies like Wal-Mart; between farm subsidies, junkfood and increased obesity; between trade deregulation andthe destruction of farmers’ livelihoods in California,
Mexico, or China. Most people don’t realize that identicalproducts are simultaneously imported into and exportedout of almost any given region, or that global trade in foodmainly benefits giant agribusinesses. Most are unlikely toknow that “cheap” industrial food is not cheap because ofWith so many powerful forces from the corporate worldaligned against such a shift, the adoption of alternative trade
rules might need to be implemented piecemeal through theformation of blocs of countries, ideally bridging theNorth/South divide. Such blocs could promote a more balanced trade agenda focused on import substitution—trading
only where trade makes sense—and a move toward more
decentralized control.The position of the United States, themost influential player in the international policy arena,closely reflects the interests of major corporations. Raisingawareness and encouraging action among US citizens istherefore urgent if federal policymakers are to stand up forthe interests of the majority.
Pressure on national governments to renegotiate existing
trade agreements can come not only from activists and the95

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

general public, but from state and local governments as well.
staples to compete. Shifting those subsidies would dramatically
In fact, this is already beginning to happen as trade treaties
increase the range of available and affordable local foods.
create “crises of jurisdiction” among different levels of govIndirect farm supports: Redirecting some of the other supernment. In order to regain a measure of local control, many
ports
currently devoted to large export-oriented farms is also
municipalities and states are starting to rally in opposition toimportant.
For instance, the state’s “Buy California” campaign
trade liberalization. California is the first state in the US toisnowlargely
aimed at promoting the state’s food products
institute a formal legislative committee—the Senate Selectoverseas, rather than building support forCommittee on International Trade Policy andstronger regional food economies at home.
State Legislation—to look at the limits
For the state’s local food Funding for direct marketing was available in
imposed by international trade agreements on
the early stages of the campaign, but thosesystems to provide thethe state’s decision-making power.The
funds have now been eliminated.
Committee will attempt “to integrate global
bulk of peoples’ needs,
Reinstituting that funding would give a
trade policies with California’s agenda forboost to local food.
thebiasesinpublicpromoting local economic development,
decent wages and working conditions, civilrights, clean air, environmental protection andrestoration and democratic process.”1

policy that make local

Transportation policy: As described in

Chapter 11, transportation spending is heavily focused on the demands of international“uneconomic” need to
trade. Additional spending on freeways andAdvocates of local food can strengthen theports will only serve to further degrade local
bereversed.
Only
bymovement against the “free trade” agenda byeconomies in California and elsewhere.
forming closer alliances with groups working
addressing these
Instead, steps could be taken to level theto reverse corporate globalization (seeplaying field for producers and processors
broader
issuescantheAppendix 5 for many of these organizational
marketing locally. For instance, California
resources). Already, a number of grassroots
movement become
could tax the transportation of goods in thealliances are formulating methods to regulate
strongenoughtoeffectstate to account for environmental “externalinternational trade in ways that reflect theities,” thereby favoring shorter hauls.
needs of the majority. Recently, for example,
real and lasting change.
Reducing the quantity of public funds dedithe International Commission on the Futurecated to massive transportation infrastructureof Food and Agriculture met in San Rossore,
projects,
placingsome of it in a fund for facilitating the
Italy, to draft a manifesto.This document outlines a modeltransportof
goods
locally, would go a long way toward supfor international agricultural policy and an alternative platporting
local
economies.
form for trade rules, and will be disseminated among nationproduction seemal trade delegations (see Appendix 4 for their seven goals of
trade rules).

Changing national, state,
and municipal policy
Shifts are needed not only in international trade agreements,
but in national and local policies as well. Changing farm policy alone will be insufficient, since so many other policies
and regulations affect the food system. Policy areas of urgent
priority for regenerating local food economies include:
Farm subsidies: As we saw in Chapter 11, direct farm pay-ments are heavily skewed in favor of large-scale agribusinesses.
Eliminating the heavy bias toward agribusiness and redirecting
public funds toward smaller-scale, diversified family farms
would be immensely beneficial. Although California is not aprime recipient of direct payments, a shift in of subsidies
would still enhance the viability of the state’s local food producers. For example, federal subsidies for industrial corn andwheat production make it all but impossible for local grain
96

Research and development: Massive R&D subsidies areavailable for technology-intensive industrial agriculture andfor “techno-fixes,” like irradiation, to address problems inherent in a globalized food system. Meanwhile, sustainable agriculture receives only a pittance, and research into technologies appropriate for regional scale producers and local
processors receives even less. Reversing this bias needs to bea priority for the local food movement.
Energy and fossil fuels: Highly-subsidized oil underpins theglobal food economy, from agrochemicals to long-distancetransport to food processing. Supporting decentralized,
renewable energy in California and encouraging less energyintensive production would not only reduce our dependence
on foreign oil, but increase food security and the availabilityof jobs in the food system. Incorporating the many environmental and military costs into the price of fossil fuels would
eliminate some of the hidden subsidies for global industrial
food, making it clear that local food is actually cheaper.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Other externalities: The price of food in the global food

Regulations: Health, safety and environ-mental regulations are perhaps the mostcommonly overlooked public support
for big agribusiness at the expense ofsmaller-scale operations (see Chapter
11).This problem can be addressed witha “tiered” regulatory system, in which
restrictions on global-scale producers,
processors and marketers would be
implemented by national bodies (withstrong safeguards against the “revolving
door” between regulatory agencies and Big Business), whilesmaller-scale enterprises marketing locally would be subject
to locally-determined rules enforced by local bodies. Such asystem would allow restrictions on the increasingly deregulated global food system to be tightened, and enable local
businesses to be regulated in ways that reflect local conditions and needs. In both cases, enforcement costs would be
reduced, and accountability increased.
Antitrust laws: While antitrust laws were never designed todeal effectively with mobile transnational corporations, tradeliberalization has weakened even the laws already on thebooks. At the moment, the Federal Trade Commission focuses
almost entirely on the activities of national competitors, largely
ignoring and thereby facilitating the concentration of transnational corporate control.What’s more, the only basis for limiting corporate size concerns the impact on consumers—usually defined in terms of the prices they pay for goods and services. It is time to recognize that as corporate power grows
through global mobility, there are detrimental effects on the
democratic process, the flow of information, and other matters of vital concern to citizens worldwide.2
Tax reform: Ending discrimination against small and medium

scale businesses would help local economies flourish. As it is,a wide range of tax credits are available for the energy-intensive technologies used by large-scale producers, while smaller, more labor-intensive businesses are burdened with heavy

payroll taxes. Ecological tax reform—which puts the burdenof taxation on activities that destroy natural resources—
would be a boon to local food systems.
Precautionary principle and the burden of proof: The prePhoto: Alex Jensen

system does not account for a range of other externalities,
such as pollution and illness from the use of agrochemicals.
A rethinking of economic accounting is long overdue: asthings stand now we add the cost of war, cancer treatments
and car accidents to GDP and countourselves richer, just as we do when weclear-cut a forest. In the absence ofsuch a fundamental overhaul, however,a shift to local food would both reduce
externalities, and make those thatremain more difficult to hide.

cautionary principle should be the basis
for government decisions regarding newtechnologies, including agrochemicals,
genetically-engineered seeds, food irradiation, and many others. Instead of demanding that opponents of such technologies
prove that they are hazardous, the corporations that want to use and market themshould be required to prove they are safefor the public and the environment.

Many of the ideas on this list have yet to
be explored in detail in California, andfew options for re-orienting policy insupport of local food economies havebeen fully investigated. But it is promising
to see citizen groups already teaming up
with local governments to consider waysthat public policy can support the local
food economy. For example, Pasadena,
Los Angeles, Berkeley and other California cities are beginning to address food policy in their general plans and in theirland use planning, as are some rural regions such as the
Capay Valley (see Box 8.4).These efforts hold the promise ofcreative and strategic approaches to system-wide change.
Meanwhile, voters in Mendocino County, California bypassed their elected representatives by approving a ballot initiative calling for a ban on the “propagation, cultivation, raising and growing of genetically modified organisms.”The
March, 2004 vote made Mendocino the first county in the
US to prohibit the production of GE foods.3

Dispelling the myths about local foodSince one of the most important prerequisites for effective
change is an educated public, it is important to counter common misperceptions about the local food movement.The
following list includes many of the commonly-heard arguments against a shift to the local:
Only large, industrial farms can feed the world.

Many people believe that industrial farming has vastly
increased agricultural productivity, and that there are simply
too many people on the planet to go back to more sociallyand ecologically sensitive forms of agriculture. But the superior productivity of industrial agriculture is a myth. Studies

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INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

carried out all over the world show that small-scale, diversified farms are anywhere from 200 to 1,000 percent moreproductive per acre than larger farms. In the US, for example, smaller farms produce more than ten times as muchvalue per acre as large farms. Similar relationships are foundin every country for which data are available.4

meantime, a range of creative initiatives are already underwaythat make fresh local food available and affordable in lowerincome communities (see Box 7.1).
Local food is simply too inconvenient to supply people’s everyday needs.
Photo: Lisa M. Hamilton

There is plenty of room for local
There are several reasons why thefood to become more accessible andproductivity of smaller farms hasconvenient. Clearly, local food would
been consistently underestimated.
be a much more feasible option for
One is that government agricultural
the majority if it were available daily
agencies tend to emphasize laborrather than limited to a once-a-weekefficiency over land efficiency. Since
farmers’ market or box scheme. Herelocal food systems rely much more
we have a lot to learn from regions
heavily on labor-intensive rather
like
Europe, where permanent covthan capital-intensive methods,eredmarkets still supply much of thesmall-farm productivity per unit
needs
of towns and cities on a dailylabor is of course much lower thanbasis. Paris for example has 73 freshhighly mechanized farms. But if thefood markets, 13 of which are covmost productive use of land is the
San Francisco's Veritable Vegetable is the nation’s oldest distributor of certified organic produce.
ered. Parisians spend about 20 pergoal—which it should be, since thecent of their total food budget atworld’s population must be fed on the planet’s limited
local
markets,
and85
percentof people walk to purchaseamount of arable land—then small farms are vastly more effi6
food.
cient.They are especially desirable where unemployment ishigh, since the majority of people “freed” by agricultural
This kind of system has never existed in the US, but somemechanization are generally not free at all, but are merely
locations in California are taking steps in this direction. For
unemployed.
example, efforts are being made to turn San Francisco’s Ferry
Plaza Farmers’ Market—which currently operates four days
Another point of confusion is between yields and total output. The term “yield” generally refers to the amount of pro- per week in a covered arcade—into a permanent, daily farmers’ market that gives priority to local small-scale food produce per unit of land for any given crop, while “total outducers.
put” refers to the combined output of all products from thefarm. A typical industrial farm that specializes in one or
two products will generate higher yields of those products
than small, diversified farms. But comparing only the yields
for both types of farm is misleading, since it ignores mostof the useful products a diversified farm produces, including
its own fertilizer. For example, a study of small farms inWest Bengal, India, found that rice fields contained 124
species of economic importance to the farmers.5 Because
official agricultural accounting would consider only theoutput of rice from these farms, all the other products are
statistically invisible.

A shift to more localized food systems would eliminate existing jobs with distributors and retailers.

Although direct marketing is a particularly important avenue
for establishing local food systems, small-scale processors andindependent shops are vital elements in a healthy local foodeconomy. Mainstreaming local food systems will requirebuilding up local processing businesses, as well as connections
between local producers, processors and independent stores.
These relationships and businesses would flourish if economic structures were shifted to support local food, and far morejobs would be created than lost.

Local food is only for the wealthy.

For local food systems to succeed, they must make local foodaffordable for the vast majority. In some places local food islimited to a small niche market that primarily supplies gourmet items for upscale restaurants or wealthy tourists.This willremain a problem until there is a fundamental shift in how
our tax dollars are spent, and until regulations that eliminate
small producers from the market are changed. But in the98

Successful small businesses serving local markets will
inevitably expand into, or sell out to, bigger chains.

As long as public policies systematically favor larger-scalebusinesses over smaller ones, there will be a tendency forbusinesses that start out serving local markets to expand ifthey are successful—until eventually they are either bought
up by a large corporation or become one themselves. ThisRIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

is not always the first choice of business owners, many ofwhom report feeling that in order to survive they areforced to become larger—and that when they do theirwork becomes less pleasant and rewarding, and more competitive and stressful.
Nonetheless, there are many examples of entrepreneurs who
have bucked the trend—from farms that give up the commodity market in favor of direct marketing to successful
retailers that refuse to exchange their balanced lifestyle andclose customer connections for the economic rewards ofexpansion. Rebuilding local food systems cannot succeed
without the support of communities that understand theimportance of small, local businesses, and an educated public
can help small businesses with integrity thrive, even in
today’s economic and political climate.There is also a place
for forums to raise awareness among business-owners about
the policy pressures luring them towards larger scale, and toquestion the assumption that a bigger “bottom line” translates into a better quality of life.

Photo: Tyler/Center for Ecoliteracy

BOX 12.1: Making it work: The Edible Schoolyard
In 1994, chef Alice Waters
and Neil Smith, then-principal of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Middle School in Berkeley,
California, collaborated withteachers and community
members to create thevisionary Edible Schoolyard,
a non-profit cooking andgardening program thatwould transform an asphaltcovered lot adjacent to theschool into “an organic garden and landscape which iswholly integrated into the school’s curriculum and lunch
program,” according to the project’s mission statement.
Work on the garden began in 1995, and two years later
the school’s abandoned cafeteria was refurbished into akitchen classroom.
Today, the program is integrated into the middle school’s
daily life. Garden classes teach the principles of ecology
and the origins of food. According to science teacher
Yvette McCullough, “With both a kitchen and a garden,
we are reminded of the reality that we are sustained byplant growth, not supermarket food wrapped in plastic.
Kids see where food really comes from.”12
The next stage of the Edible Schoolyard program will be
the construction of an ecologically-designed cafeteria,
where students will prepare their own lunches using local,
organic produce and create menus that reflect the ethnic
diversity of the student body (36 percent AfricanAmerican and 18 percent Latino).13

The Edible Schoolyard has become an inspiration forschool garden projects across California and the US. By
2000, 12 out of Berkeley’s 17 public schools had school
gardens. In 1999, the Berkeley Unified School District
voted to purchase organic food whenever possible for allof its schools’ cafeterias. In Los Angeles County, analliance of science teachers and parents has succeeded instarting gardens in 200 of the county’s 915 schools.14 In
1995, California State Superintendent of Public
Instruction Delaine Eastin began the “Garden in Every
School” initiative, which has made grants to about 835
schools. All told, it is estimated that about 3,000 schools
in the state have school garden projects.15
Integrating food literacy into the educational system—
especially here in the US where understanding of foodorigins is so limited—is critical to fostering a citizenry
which can both comprehend the destructiveness of the
globalized food economy, and work to change it.
According to Alice Waters:
Gardening, cooking, serving and eating—these are truly
basic things, but the lessons they could teach are drowned
out by the clamor of the media and the insidious temptations of consumerism. Kids today are bombarded with a
pop culture which teaches redemption through buying
things. School gardens, on the other hand, turn pop culture upside-down.They teach redemption through a deep
appreciation for the real, the authentic, and the lasting—for the things that money can’t buy—the very things thatmatter most of all if we are going to lead sane, healthy, andsustainable lives. Kids who learn environmental and nutritional lessons through school gardening—and school
cooking and eating—learn how to lead ethical lives.16

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Supporting local food systems entails “protectionism.”

Although localizing one region’s foodeconomy necessarily involves favoring its
producers over others, the localization
movement is not about protecting one
nation’s farmers and small businesses atthe expense of others—it’s about collaborating to build strong local economies
everywhere. For this reason, the vision
underlying the local food movement
needs to be international, in particularreflecting the needs of both the Northand South. In this respect, the local foodmovement is one of many “people’s
movements” around the world that havemobilized to protect livelihoods and theenvironment from the abuses of TNCs.

For the state’s local foodsystems to provide the bulk ofpeoples’ needs, the biases in

Photo: Bill Tarpenning, USDA

Protectionism, a concept derided by proponents of trade liberalization, involves the erection of political and economic
barriers to trade, generally with the aimof defending a country’s own industries
from foreign competition.The debate
around protectionism usually pits nation
against nation, but today a far more powerful form of protectionism exists, which
involves wealthy corporations and banks
protecting their interests against a multitude of smaller players.

movement has gained broad public support, supermarket
chains are already adopting the language of the movement—
calling some of their supermarkets “local” stores, for example.
Those stores do carry a small percentage of locally-sourced
products for which food miles are
reduced (though in some cases the “local
food” in supermarkets is shipped long
distances to be processed and packaged
before returning to the point-of-sale).
Ultimately, however, large supermarket
chains are structurally incompatible withlocal food systems. As large corporations
whose shares trade on major stock
exchanges, they are generally governedby profit pressures from remote investors
that cannot possible have an interest in,or even know, the needs of specific local
communities. Furthermore, where largescale middlemen exert control over the
food system, farmers still face manipulative contracts and still receive a too-small
fraction of the food dollar.The involvement of large corporations in the local
food movement would inevitably add tothe pressure for superficial changes, rather
than the more fundamental structuralchanges that are needed.

public policy that make local

Here in California, corporate interests are
adopting the local food concept in other
The nations of the South needways, such as through corporate farmneed to be reversed. Only by
Northern markets to pull themselves
box schemes. Rather than serving as aout of poverty.
addressing these broader issues
direct link to consumers that allows the
In the global South, a focus on exporting
can the movement become
farmer to take home most of the food
food to the North requires an economic
dollar, companies running box programs
strong enough to effect realtransformation that throws hundreds offrequently source their produce frommillions of people off the land and pulls
and lasting change.
overseas, with customers often believing
them into urban slums from which they
the produce is local. A similar phenomehave little hope of ever escaping. It also means those countries non is occurring in open-air markets. In many regions, farmmust devote their best agricultural land to growing food,ers’ markets allow vendors to sell global food purchased atfibers, or even flowers for us. Rather than further impoverish- wholesale outlets. In California, certified farmers’ markets proing the South, producing more ourselves would allow thehibit this practice.
South to keep more of its resources, labor and production foritself. A shift towards smaller-scale and more localized produc- As long as the producer is nearby, the food produced
tion would benefit both North and South, while facilitating
is “local.”meaningful work and fuller employment everywhere.
Many Californian communities are located near large-scaleindustrial farms. People interested in local food might wonThe local food movement would be stronger if it colder whether to consider the battery-chicken facility downlaborated with corporate retailers.
the road a “local” farm, but the answer is obvious when one
As the local food movement grows it risks being co-opted
sees how industrial-scale production and centralized distribuby corporate interests. In England, where the local foodtion are structurally linked within the global food system. In
production seem “uneconomic”

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RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Photo: Doug Goslingmany cases none of the food produced by such farms feeds
Making a transition to local food systems would leadpeople locally, but is instead destined for national or global
to chaos.
markets. Any food that does return to the community is like- Moving from global to local is clearly not an overnight
ly to have traveled great distances for processing and packagprocess.Transitioning from one to the other will likely
ing, piling up food miles along the way. On balance, industri- involve a progression in stages, with food coming from closer
al farms represent economic and ecologicaland closer to home as the local food econodrains from local communities: while creating
my grows and matures.This would allow
just a handful of jobs, virtually all other
Since California
time for regions that are now trade-dependinputs come from outside the community;
ent to increase production for home conagriculture is the model
profits, and even the food itself, are headed
sumption while decreasing production forelsewhere.
that so many otherexport.Time would be needed, as well, toincrease the number of farmers on the land,
regions emulate, shifts
Encouraging people to “buy local” is theand to renew the location-specific knowltoward the local here
only way forward.
edge on which sustainable local food production depends.
could reverberate“Buy Local” initiatives are a central part ofbuilding local food systems. However, unlessthroughout the rest of
But it is important to emphasize again how
the policies and regulations that make many
disruptive the global food system is. Even
the world, helping to
aspects of local food systems unfeasible—even
now, a large proportion of the South’s rural
illegal—local food economies will struggle tochange policies that are
population is being pulled from the land.
provide more than a small niche for a few
Farms in the North are being eliminated as
equally
disastrous
farmers and marketers. Even the meteoric
well, as are small producers and retailers.We
growth of farmers’ markets in California
everywhere.
already face serious health and environmental
would have been impossible without changproblems from the use of agrochemicals, anding laws that subjected farmers to onerous
may soon confront even more dangerous
grading and packing regulations. Meanwhile many other regcrises
iffood
irradiationand the use of genetically modified
ulations, along with massive subsidies for global industrial
seeds
spread.The
mostdisruptive
trend we face—global clifood, threaten to keep local food systems from reaching theirmate change—will likely lead to famine and mass migration
full potential. For local food economies to become a viable
on an unprecedented scale, and it too is being dramaticallyalternative to the global food economy, the pressure thatexacerbated by large-scale industrial farming and the global
comes from consumer buying power must go hand in handfood system’s needless transport of food. A shift to local foodwith broad-based activism to challenge the premises of thesystems would undoubtedly cause some short-term inconglobal economy, and to shift the government policies thatvenience, but it would simultaneously reduce the far more
support it.
serious problems caused by the global system.

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Taking action

Citizens and communities:■

purchase local food from small-scale sustainable producers
wherever possible;■

join a CSA or box scheme—or help start one;■ask local vendors and restaurants for local foods;■

boycott big food corporations and supermarkets;■

organize a consumer cooperative to purchase local food
wholesale or direct from producers;■

start a farmers’ market;

team up with nearby farms to share distribution and marketing costs;■

start an edible schoolyard project (see Box 12.1);■

publish a list of local growers;■

start up or join value-added initiatives, such as community
food processing facilities;■

start a local labeling initiative;■

pressure policymakers for regulatory changes;■

save seed and share it with other farmers;■■

establish a conservation easement on farmland;encourage local government to direct resources toward
public spaces and markets;■

join forces with farmers’ coalitions such as Via Campesina(for more details see Appendix 5).

■

join or start a food policy council to effect change locally;■

write letters to local, state and national leaders expressing
your commitment to strong local economies;■

write articles or op-eds on local food;■phone radio call-in shows;■

encourage your local government to make institutional
buying of local food part of public policy;

Since everyone participates in the food system in one way or
another, there are steps we can all take to support the growthof local food systems in California. Here are a few examples:
Farmers:■■■

diversify production and switch to direct marketing or
local distribution;
educate consumers, policymakers, and other farmers about
the benefits of marketing locally;

Processors, distributors, and marketers:■

obtain raw foods from sustainable local producers;■

market locally;■link up with others in cooperatives.

Independent retailers:■

support or join anti-globalization groups;■

seek local sources for food;■organize a teach-in;■

stock bulk food to reduce packaging;■start a study group;■

educate customers (see for example Box 9.3).

■

host a local food supper and discussion group.

Restaurants:■

educate customers (e.g. through menus and wall displays);■obtain raw foods from local, sustainable farmers;■

seek out processors and distributors that source from local
farmers.

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Ripe for change
Although fundamentally changing the global food system is adaunting task, there is good reason to be hopeful. People
across the country are demonstrating a real desire for something better—for stronger community, for more sustainable
patterns of living, and for healthier food systems. A nationwide survey, for example, showed that 81 percent of people
are willing to pay more for food grown sustainably, and 77
percent felt that government policy should favor family
farms over corporate farms.7 This helps explain why sales oforganic food increased more than six-fold during the 1990s
alone, and continue to rise rapidly.8 Farmers’ markets are
multiplying as well: the US total increased by 79 percent
between 1994 and 2002, and the number of growers who
sell at them more than tripled.9 California is a leader in thistrend: the number of certified farmers’ markets in the state
has doubled in the last five years, while direct farm sales rose
84 percent overall from 1992 to 1997—a faster rate than in
any other state.10
Since cross-border coalitions will be needed to force governments to renegotiate trade treaties, it is important to note that
dissatisfaction with the global food system is an international
phenomenon: the Slow Food movement, for example, now
has chapters in 48 countries, with membership totaling
77,000.11 These movements in support of the small and local
have grown from the grassroots, even as governments havebeen pouring tax dollars into the global system and cateringto the demands of giant corporations.Their spread reflects thehard work and perseverance of increasing numbers of people
who are beginning to reject the consumer culture in favor of
more sustainable and community-building alternatives.
Since California agriculture is the model that so many otherregions emulate, positive change here is of immense significance. Shifts toward the local in California could reverberate
throughout the rest of the world, helping to change policies
that are equally disastrous everywhere. But there is a great
deal of work ahead. Local food systems have not been amajor part of California’s economy since the breakdown ofindigenous life that began 350 years ago.While other parts of
the world, mostly in the global South, can focus on retaining
or rebuilding their local food systems, California has little tofall back on. But these difficulties are accompanied by newopportunities and still-unexplored possibilities.

What would be accomplished if California shifted support
toward more localized food economies instead of the global
industrial food system? A shift toward the local would:■

lead to more diversified farms, and more genetic diversity
within the crops grown;■

reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers and pesticides usedin California;■

lessen the amount of water used in agriculture;■encourage farming techniques that support wildlife;■

give small farms and farmworkers a bigger share of every
food dollar;■

reverse the trend toward ever more concentrated control ofCalifornia’s food system;■

provide Californians with healthier, fresher food at more
affordable prices;■

revitalize the state’s rural economies and communities;■

reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions from food transport;■

lessen the need for storage, packaging, refrigeration, artificial
additives, and high-tech preservative methods.

These and other benefits of localization are not pipe dreams.
On a small scale, grassroots steps toward the local in California
and elsewhere have already proven to be effective “solutionmultipliers.”With policy support at the local, state, and national
level, these initiatives can thrive and spread, and lasting solutions to the problems of California’s current food system will
finally be within reach.
While thousands of people are already engaged in active
opposition to the global food system, thousands of others—
from farmers to food retailers, from restaurateurs to school
educators and urban gardeners—are exploring the pieces ofan alternative, human-scale food systems. Putting all thosepieces together will be one of the most exciting projects of
the new century.

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APPENDICESAPPENDIX 1: The top three food retailers in California: Profiles
SAFEWAY:
Number of stores in California: 541
California market share: 23.6 percent
California supermarket names: Safeway,Von’s, Pavilion, Pak ‘n Save
Headquarters: Pleasanton, California
Annual US Sales, 2002: $34.3 billion
National chains: Dominick’s (Chicago area), Genuardi’s (Philadelphia area), Randall’s and Tom Thumb(Texas), Carr’s (Alaska)
International: Safeway owns a 49 percent share in Casa Ley, a Mexican food and general merchandise
retailer, and has a significant presence in Canada with 215 stores.
Other information: In 2001, Safeway also operated 41 processing/manufacturing facilities (bakeries, vegetable processing plants, milk plants, etc.).
KROGER:
Number of stores in California: 504
California market share:1 16.8 percent
California supermarket names: Ralph’s, Cala/Bell, Food 4 Less, Foods Co.
Headquarters: Cincinnati, Ohio
Annual US Sales, 2002: $50.1 billion
NATIONAL CHAINS:Supermarkets: Kroger, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fry’s, Quality Food Centers (QFC), Jay
C, Cala Foods/Bell Markets, Kessel Food Markets, Pay Less, Baker’s, Gerbes, HilanderMulti-department stores: Fred Meyer, Fry’s Marketplace
Big box warehouse stores: (average size: 53,000 square feet) Food 4 Less, Foods Co.
Jewelry Stores: Fred Meyer, Littman, Barclay
Convenience stores: Turkey Hill, Kwik Shop, Loaf ‘n Jug, Quik Stop,Tom Thumb
Other information: Kroger holds the first or second position in 41 of its 48 major markets, and has
increased its share in 27 of them.2
ALBERTSONS:
Number of stores in California: 483
California market share: 16.5 percent
California supermarket names: Albertsons
Headquarters: Boise, Idaho
Annual US Sales, 2002: $37.9 billion
NATIONAL CHAINS:Supermarkets: Albertsons, Acme Markets (Pennsylvania), Jewel Food Stores (Illinois), Super Saver, Max
Foods, Grocery Warehouse
Drug stores: Savon, Osco Drug
Other information: Albertsons is currently pursuing fuel centers as a key growth strategy and has approximately 270 gas stations (PG super50) nationwide.
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APPENDIX 2: Organic industry structure, February 2004

February 2004
M&MMars#10

OdwallaOctober 2001
$181 M

Nature’s Farm
Organic

Seeds of Change

Coca-Cola#9

1997

ConAgra
#8

Tyson
#6

June 2001

Nile SpiceMillina’s Finest
Earth’s Best

Pepsi
#4

Fruitti di Bosca

Heinz
#24

Walnut Acres

Mountain Sun
October 2001

December 1998

September 1999
From Heinz

Garden of Eatin’

June 2003

Farm Foods
White Wave/Silk

HorizonApril 1999

The Organic
Cow of Vermont

May 2002$189 M

September 1999
$100 M
19.5% Equity

ShariAnn’s

Dean
#20

May 1999

July 1998
13% Equity,
January 2004
100% Equity$216 M

October 1997
$23.5 M

DeBoles

September 2003

Health Valley
March 2000
$390 M

Breadshop

Westsoy

April 1999
$80 M

December 2002

Celestial Seasonings

CasbahLittle Bear
Imagine/Rice DreamSoy Dream

Muir Glen
March 1998

November 1999
Morningstar Farms/ $307 M

Natural Touch

Phil Howard, Ph.D.
Center for Agroecology andSustainable Food Systems
University of California, Santa Cruz

Cascadian Farm

Kellogg#22

June 2000

Unilever#3

Ben & Jerry’s Organic**currently test marketing

April 2000
$326 M

Back to Nature

Arrowhead Mills
Hain

Sunrise Organic
Kashi

Danone#13

April 1998
$80 M

Westbrae
Bearitos

Stonyfield Farms
October 2001
40% Equity,
January 2004
80% Equity(all non-employee
stock)

Heinz Organic

Tostitos Organic

Alta Dena

Lightlife
July 2000

Campbell’s
Soup Co.

December
1999#30

GeneralMills#18

Campbell’s Organic
Gold Medal Organic

PhilipMorris/Kraft#2
February 2000

Boca Foods

Food processors*
Organic brand introductions
Organic brands, partial equity
Organic brands, fully owned*Rank in global food sales according to FoodEngineering, 10/27/2003.

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APPENDIX 3: USDA subsidy payments to California
USDA subsidies to California,
1995–20023

Biggest USDA subsidy programs,
1995–20026
Rank Program

Subsidy total,
1995–2002$237,655,740

1

Corn

$34,552,627,460

1996$293,740,619

2

Wheat

$17,247,966,489

1997$216,998,417

3Conservation Reserve Program$13,018,173,430

1998$355,602,963

4

Soybeans$10,967,530,537

1999$665,887,679

5Cotton$10,663,566,847

2000$724,312,839

6

Rice

$7,795,799,116

2001$867,632,686

7

Sorghum$3,193,985,171

2002$652,065,444

8

Livestock$2,256,567,708

1995–2002$4,013,896,387

9

Dairy Program$2,018,407,457

10

Barley$1,411,386,147

11

Peanuts$1,265,735,609

12

EQIP

$542,457,791

13

Tobacco$479,469,789

14

Sunflowers$377,346,688

15

Sugar

$299,778,377

16

Oats

$183,445,543

17

Apples$169,437,769

18

Wool

$156,192,611

19

Canola$151,361,010

20

Sheep meat

$55,827,008

Year

Subsidy amount

1995

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Concentration of subsidy payments in California, 20024
Percentof recipients

Percentof payments

Numberof recipients

Total payments
2002

Payment
per recipient

Top 1%

21%

198$133,911,280$676,320

Top 5%

44%

990$287,412,759$290,316

Top 10%

60%

1,980

$388,295,485$196,109

Top 15%

70%

2,971

$457,278,973$153,914

Top 20%

78%

3,961

$507,213,926$128,052

Remaining 80% of recipients

22%

15,846$144,851,518$9,141Top California recipients of USDA subsidy payments, 1995–20025
Rank

Recipient

Location

Total USDA subsidies 1995-2002

1

Farmers Rice Coop

Sacramento, CA$107,987,264

2

J.G. Boswell Co.

Corcoran, CA$10,854,199

3

Dublin Farms

Corcoran, CA$9,336,652

4

R. Gorrill Ranch Enterprises

Durham, CA$7,708,783

5

Wolfsen Land & Cattle Co.

Los Banos, CA$7,667,942

6

Starrh & Starrh Cotton Growers

Shafter, CA$6,424,904

7

Hansen Ranches A Pts

Corcoran, CA$6,407,745

8

C.J. Ritchie Farms

Visalia, CA$6,242,9009Buttonwillow Land And Cattle Co.

Buttonwillow, CA$6,071,239

10

Westfarmers

Visalia, CA$5,879,879

11

Sjv Enterprises

Nicolaus, CA$5,247,821

12

E. Franklin Larrabee & Associates

Butte City, CA$5,105,623

13

Canal Farms

Maxwell, CA$5,092,880

14

Bowles Farming Company, Inc.

Los Banos, CA$4,750,949

15Boeger Land Company

Gridley, CA$4,551,733

16

Gilkey Five

Corcoran, CA$4,414,746

17Resource GroupRichvale, CA$4,121,822

18River Garden Farms Company

Knights Landing, CA$4,034,634

19

Sid, Brent & Leo La Grand

Williams, CA$4,024,488

20

Chrisman Farms

Williams, CA$4,021,332

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APPENDIX 4: Trade rules to achieve the aims of the International Commission
on the Future of Food and Agriculture
Excerpted from: Manifesto on the Future of Food, by the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture7

This section provides specific principles and suggestions for changes in the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) sothat they are consistent with the goals of the Commission. Current trade rules of the WTO have forced the continuous lowering of tariffs and other barriers that formerly protected the domestic economies of member nations.These more open borders have resulted in social and economic conditions that are detrimental to the majority, but to the benefit of large corporations.To achieve the aims of the Commission we advocate that these WTO rules must be replaced by new trade rules, toachieve the following goals:
1. Permit Tariffs and Import Quotas That Favour
Subsidiarity

Most international trade rules now favour export production
and the global corporations that dominate it. New rules mustagain permit the use of trade tariffs and import quotas toregulate imports of food that can be produced locally.They
must emphasise support for local production, local selfreliance, and real food security.This means applying the principle of subsidiarity: whenever production can be achieved
by local farmers, using local resources for local consumption,
all rules and benefits should favour that option, thus shortening the distance between production and consumption.This
is not to suggest that there should be no trade at all in foodproducts but only that trade should be confined to whatevercommodities cannot be supplied at the local level, rather
than export trade being the primary driver of production
and distribution.
2. Reverse the Present Rules on Intellectual Property
and Patenting

The World Trade Organisation attempts to impose the US
model of intellectual property rights protection on all countries of the world.This model strongly favours the rights ofglobal corporations to claim patents on medicinal plants,
agricultural seeds, and other aspects of biodiversity, even incases where the biological material has been under cultivation and development by indigenous people or community
farmers for millennia. Most of these communities have traditionally viewed such plants and seeds as part of the community commons, not subject to ownership and fee structures
imposed by outside corporations.These WTO rules on intellectual property should be abandoned to permit reassertionof rules that favour the needs of local and domestic communities and the protection of innovation and knowledge
developed over the centuries, as well as to deal with publichealth crises.

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3. Localise Food Regulations and Standards

With the false excuse of providing food safety, many international rules, such as the WTO’s Agreement on the
Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS)
and the Codex Alimentarius, have enforced a kind of industrial processing of foods that works directly against local andartisanal food producers, whilst favouring the global food
giants. Among other things, the rules require irradiation ofcertain products, pasteurisation, and standardised shrinkwrapping of local cheese products. Such rules increase enormously the costs for small producers and also negatively
affect taste and quality. In fact, the greatest threats to foodsafety and public health do not come from small food producers, but from large industrial farms and distributors.Their
practices have accelerated the incidences of salmonella, E. coli
infection and other bacteria in foods, as well as Mad Cow
and Foot and Mouth Disease. Such homogenised industrialized global standards have the primary goal of benefiting
global corporate producers.We favor rules and food production standards that are localised with every nation permitted
to set high standards for food safety.
4. Allow Farmer Marketing- Supply Management
BoardsCurrently disallowed by the WTO and NAFTA, these priceand supply regulations let farmers negotiate collective prices
with domestic and foreign buyers to help ensure that theyreceive a fair price for their commodities. Less than two
years after NAFTA went into effect, Mexican domestic cornprices fell by 48% as a flood of cheap US corn exports
entered the country. Stable prices for Mexico’s domestic
corn growers, as well as stable supply, could have beenachieved by the government price regulation agencies thatwere dismantled by NAFTA.Without these, thousands offarmers have been forced to sell their lands.Trade rules mustallow the reinstatement of such agencies.

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5. Eliminate Direct Export Subsidies and Payments for
Corporations

Although the WTO has eliminated direct payment programmes for most small farmers, they continue to allow
export subsidies to agribusinesses. For example, the US
Overseas Private Investment Corporation funded by US taxpayers, provides vital insurance to US companies investingoverseas. Even loans from the IMF to Third World countries
have been channeled into export subsidies for US agribusiness. Such subsidies help multinational corporations dominate smaller local businesses both domestically and abroad.
All export subsidy policies should be eliminated. But programmes that permit and encourage low interest loans tosmall farmers, creation of domestic seed banks, and emergency food supply systems should be allowed.
6. Recognise and Eliminate the Adverse Effects of
WTO Market Access Rules

Heavily subsidised Northern exports to poor countries havedestroyed rural communities and self-sufficient livelihoods
throughout the South. Many people now working, forexample, for poverty wages at Nike and other global corporate subcontractors are refugees from previously self-sufficient farming regions.This entire model of export-oriented
production is destructive to basic self- sufficient traditionalfarming.The dominant theory that exports from the Southto North can be a major route for development ignores theinevitability of adverse competition between poor exporting
countries for these rich markets, and the hijacking of national priorities in the interest of cheaper exports. Also damaging
to poor countries are the adverse working and environmental conditions demanded by the mobile corporations that
dominate the global food export trade.To reverse this trend
countries must have new international trade rules that allow
them to re-introduce constraints and controls on theirimports and exports.

7. Promote Redistributive Land Reform

Although predominantly a domestic decision, for the abovechanges in trade rules to really benefit the majority in aregion, the redistribution of land to landless and land-poor
rural families is a priority.This has been shown to be aneffective way to improve rural welfare at different times inJapan, South Korea,Taiwan and China. Research also showsthat small farmers are more productive and more efficient,and contribute more to broad-based regional development
than do the larger corporate farmers. Given secure tenure,small farmers can also be much better stewards of natural
resources, protecting long-term productivity of their soils andconserving functional biodiversity.Truly redistributive land
reform has worked where it has been fully supported bygovernment policies.These include debt free government
grants of land, full rights of title and use of land for women,
the reallocation of only good quality land, and easy access to
predominantly local markets.The power of rural elites mustbe broken and reforms must apply to the majority of therural poor, so they have sufficient strength in numbers to bepolitically effective.There must be a highly supportive policy
framework, reasonable credit terms and good infrastructure
for sound local environment technologies.

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APPENDIX 5: Resources
This list of organizations and resources is intended as a starting point to help Californians access additional information and ongoing
initiatives. It is by no means exhaustive. Please feel free to contact ISEC for additional resources and information on more locally
based initiatives in your area.
Organizations working in California
California Food and Justice Coalition
P.O. Box 209
Venice, CA 90294(310) 822-5410
www.foodsecurity.org/california/index.html
CFJC is a statewide coalition and partner of the national Community
Food Security Coalition, working with community-based efforts in
California to create a just and sustainable food supply.
California Food Policy Advocates
116 New Montgomery St., Suite 633
San Francisco, CA 94105(415) 777-4422
www.cfpa.net
CFPA is a statewide public policy and advocacy organization working to
improve the health and well-being of low-income Californians by increasing their access to nutritious and affordable food.
Californians for GE-Free Agriculture

UC Santa Cruz
1156 High St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95064(831) 459-3240
http://zzyx.ucsc.edu/casfs/index.html
CASFS is a research, education, and public service program at UC Santa
Cruz, dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice inthe food and agriculture system.
Center for Ecoliteracy
2528 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
www.ecoliteracy.org
The Center for Ecoliteracy is a public foundation supporting educationalorganizations and school communities in their work to foster the profoundunderstanding and direct experience of food systems, watersheds, and thenatural world.The Center also publishes a range of resources on ecoliteracy
and school gardens.
Community Alliance with Family Farmers

15290 Coleman Valley Rd.
Occidental, CA 95465(707) 874-0316
www.calgefree.org

36355 Russell Blvd., Davis, California
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 363, Davis, CA 95617(530) 756-8518
www.caff.org

The Californians for GE-Free Agriculture coalition brings together
farmer-based organizations with consumer and environmental groups tostop new genetically engineered (GE) crop plantings in California.

CAFF is working to build a movement of rural and urban people who
foster family-scale agriculture that cares for the land, sustains local
economies, and promotes social justice.They have a wide range of programs
related to improving farmer-consumer links and local food systems.

Californians for Pesticide Reform
49 Powell St.
San Francisco, CA 94102(415) 981-3939
www.pesticidereform.org
CPR is a coalition of over 150 public interest groups dedicated to protecting human health and the environment from pesticide use.
California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
P.O. Box 1599
Santa Cruz, CA 95061(831) 457-2815
www.calsawg.org
CalSAWG is a network of farm, environmental, consumer, farmworker,
and other groups working to promote a sustainable and socially just foodsystem, and providing a forum for collaborative action, policy advocacy, andinformation exchange.

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Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

Ecological Farming Association
406 Main St., Suite 313
Watsonville, CA 95076(831) 763-2111
www.eco-farm.org
EFA is a non-profit educational organization that promotes ecologicallysound agriculture.Their special events, such as the “Eco-Farm” conference,bring people together from all over the world to share ideas and experiences in producing healthful food from a healthy earth.
International Society for Ecology and Culture
PO Box 9475
Berkeley, CA 94709(510) 548-4915
www.isec.org.uk
ISEC is an activist think-tank promoting local alternatives to the global
consumer culture. ISEC’s ‘education for action’ work is renowned for its
incisive analysis of North-South issues, and for strategic solutions to theplanet’s most vexing social, environmental, and economic problems. Since
the 1980s, ISEC has played a leading role in raising awareness about theurgent need to shift toward more diversified and localized food systems.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
15290 Coleman Valley Rd.
Occidental, CA 95465(707) 874-1557
www.oaec.org
OAEC is an educational center and biodiversity-focused farm whose programs combine research, demonstration, education, and organizing to develop collaborative, community-based strategies for positive social change andeffective environmental stewardship.

National and International Organizations
Center for Food Safety
660 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Suite 302
Washington, DC 20003(202) 547-9359
www.centerforfoodsafety.org
CFS works to protect human health and the environment by curbing theproliferation of harmful food production technologies and by promoting
sustainable agriculture alternatives.

Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America
49 Powell St., Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94102(415) 981-1771
www.panna.org
PANNA works to replace pesticide use with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. As one of five PAN Regional Centers worldwide,
PANNA links local and international consumer, labor, health, environment, and agriculture groups into an international citizens’ action network.This network challenges the global proliferation of pesticides, defends
basic rights to health and environmental quality, and works to insure thetransition to a just and viable society.
The Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity
Environments
265 29th Street
Oakland, CA 94611(510) 444-7738
www.eatbettermovemore.org
The Strategic Alliance is a coalition of nutrition and physical activity
advocates in California.The Strategic Alliance is shifting the debate on
nutrition and physical activity away from a primary focus on personal
responsibility and individual choice to one that examines corporate andgovernment practices and the role of the environment in shaping eating
and activity behaviors.
UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program
University of California
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616(530) 752-7556
www.sarep.ucdavis.edu
UC SAREP is a statewide program within UC Agriculture and Natural
Resources working to help California farmers and ranchers develop sustainable production and marketing systems; and to support California’s
rural and urban communities in understanding the concept and value ofsustainable agriculture and participating in sustainable food and agricultural systems.
Wild Farm Alliance
406 Main St., Ste. 213
Watsonville, CA 95076(831) 761-8408
www.wildfarmalliance.org

Corporate Agribusiness Research Project
P.O. Box 2201
Everett, WA 98203-0201(425) 258-5345
www.electricarrow.com/CARP
CARP was established to monitor corporate agribusiness from a public
interest perspective through awareness, education, and action while at thesame time advocating the importance of building alternative, democraticallycontrolled food systems.Through fact-based strategic research and the publication of The Agribusiness Examiner, a weekly e-mail newsletter, and The
Agbiz Tiller, a periodic online news feature service, CARP seeks to servefamily farmers, farmworkers, and consumers in their struggles for economic
and social justice.
ETC Group (Action Group on Erosion, Technology andConcentration)
478 River Avenue, Suite 200
Winnipeg, MB R 3L 0C8 Canada(204) 453-5259
www.etcgroup.org
Formerly RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International), ETC
group works for the conservation of cultural and ecological diversity and theadvancement of human rights, by supporting socially responsible technologies and addressing international governance and corporate power.
Food First (Institute for Food and Development Policy)398 60th Street
Oakland, CA 94618 USA(510) 654-4400
www.foodfirst.org
Food First is a people’s think tank and education-for-action center whose
work highlights root causes and solutions to hunger and poverty aroundthe world, with a commitment to establishing food as a fundamental
human right.
FoodRoutes Network
PO Box 443
Millheim, PA 16854(814) 349-6000
www.foodroutes.org
FoodRoutes provides communications tools, technical support, networking,and information resources to organizations nationwide that are working torebuild local, community-based food systems.

The Wild Farm Alliance promotes agriculture that helps protect andrestore wild ecosystems, by integrating community-based, ecologically managed farms and ranches into landscapes that accommodate native species
and ecological processes.

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Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Third World Network

2105 First Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55404(612) 870-0453
www.iatp.org

121-S, Jalan Utama, 10450
Penang, Malaysia+60 (4) 2266728/2266159
www.twnside.org.sg

IATP promotes resilient family farms, rural communities, and ecosystems
around the world through research and education, science and technology,
and advocacy.

TWN is an independent network of organizations and individuals
involved in issues relating to development, the Third World, and NorthSouth issues, including trade agreements, global economics, security, humanrights, and development.

International Forum on Globalization
1009 General Kennedy Avenue #2
San Francisco, CA 94129(415) 561-7650
www.ifg.org
The IFG seeks to expose the effects of economic globalization and toreverse the globalization process by encouraging ideas and activities which
revitalize local economies and communities, and ensure long-term ecologicalstability.

Via Campesina
Apdo. Postal 3628MDC
Tegucigalpa, Honduras+504-2394679
www.viacampesina.org
Via Campesina is an international movement which coordinates peasantorganizations of small and mid-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural
women, and indigenous communities from around the world.

National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
P.O. Box 396
Pine Bush, NY 12566(845) 744-8448
www.sustainableagriculture.net

Resources from the International Society for Ecology
and Culture

NCSA is a nationwide coalition of farmers, environmentalists, and consumer advocates focusing on federal policies, land grant university priorities,
and marketing systems.

For more information about these and other ISEC resources,
visit www.isec.org.uk

Organic Consumers Association
6101 Cliff Estate Rd
Little Marais, MN 55614(218) 226-4164
www.organicconsumers.org
The OCA is a public interest organization working to build a healthy,safe, and sustainable system of food production and consumption.
Permaculture Institute of Northern California
P.O. Box 341
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956(415) 663-9090
www.permacultureinstitute.com
PINC is an educational organization providing courses and workshopsthat enable people to develop the skills necessary to live a more sustainable
life on the planet. Permaculture is an increasingly popular way to integrate
more holistic approaches to sustainable food systems and beyond.
California also has numerous regional permaculture guilds.
Research Foundation for Science, Technology andEcology/NAVDANYA
A-60 Hauz Khas
New Delhi-110016, India+91 (11) 26968077
www.vshiva.net
RFSTE works on biodiversity conservation and the protection of people’s
livelihoods and the environment from centralized systems of monoculture
in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries.

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Local Food Program
ISEC’s Local Food Program works to increase public awareness about thehidden costs of global food and the multiple benefits of local food, in orderto stimulate community action and political change toward a more sustainable food system.
Local Food Toolkit
An education-for-action package designed to raise awareness about theneed to strengthen local food economies, that includes a slideshow, poster
series, books, and resource guides.
Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to
Global Agribusinessby Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield, and Steven
Gorelick (Kumarian Press, 2002)
If the many social, environmental, and economic crises facing the planet are
to be reversed, a good place to start is to rebuild local food economies.This
book shows how local food is a powerful solution-multiplier internationally, with benefits for farmers and consumers, urban and rural, the economy
and the environment.
Roots of Change Program
A community-based study, discussion, and action program, with a curriculum revealing the root causes of today’s social, economic, and environmental crises, along with systemic solutions.

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Additional Resources
Local Harvest
www.localharvest.org
Local Harvest maintains a nationwide directory of small farms, farmers’markets, and other local food sources, helping people find local sources ofsustainably grown food, and encouraging them to establish direct contact
with family farms in their local area.
The Vivid Picture project
www.vividpicture.net
This project, coordinated by Ecotrust (www.ecotrust.org), is designed togenerate a blueprint for a sustainable food system in California. It includes
the creation of a comprehensive vision for a sustainable food system for
California that addresses multiple aspects of the system; the developmentof a change agenda that identifies policies, economic plans, and/or communication programs that can shift the entire system or entire components ofthe system; and the creation of impact analysis tools to help assess theimpact of the sample change agendas. Organizations and individuals areinvited to submit input to the project atwww.vividpicture.net/contribute.html
California countywide food systems studies conducted by
UC SAREP
www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/cdpp/foodsystems/
countystudies.htm
These studies provide an overall snapshot of the food system in three
California counties: Alameda, Placer, and Stanislaus.Through data collection and interviews with food system stakeholders, the studies analyzeeach county’s food system, identify the most significant trends, and describe
the food system from three angles: agricultural production, distribution, andconsumption.
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Mealby Eric Schlosser (Harper Collins, 2002)
Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
Andrew Kimbrell, Ed. (Island Press, 2002)
www.fatalharvest.org
The Penguin Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, andWhyby Erik Millstone and Tim Lang (Penguin, 2003)
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition
and Healthby Marion Nestle (UC Press, 2002)
Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies for Security inan Unstable Worldby Richard Douthwaite (Green Books, 1996)

113

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

ENDNOTESINTRODUCTION
1.

Legislative Analyst’s Office (2002, December). Cal facts: Economy. Retrieved January 6,
2004, from www.lao.ca.gov/2002/cal_facts/econ.html

2.

National Farmers Union (2002). Farmers’ markets: A business survey. Retrieved February
4, 2004, from http://www.nfu.org.uk/stellentdev/groups/press/documents/policypositions/farmers’markets-a_ia3f5dd304-6.hcsp

3.

Organic Trade Association (2001). Questions and answers about organic. Retrieved January
14, 2004, from www.ota.com/organic/faq.html

4.

Nakanishi, Nao (2003, October 22). Chinese farmers cash in on demand for organic food.
Environmental News Network. Retrieved January 14, 2004, fromwww.enn.com/news/2003-10-22/s_9661.asp

CHAPTER ONE
From Indigenous to Industrial:
A Brief History of California Food Production
1.

Kocher, Susie (n.d.). A cultural history of California forests. UC Cooperative Extension,
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Retrieved May 22, 2003, fromhttp://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/departments/espm/extension/CULTURAL.HTM

2.

Margolin, Malcolm (1993). The Way We Lived: California Indian Reminiscences, Stories andSongs. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 4.

3.

Margolin, Malcolm (1978). The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey
Bay Area. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books.

4.

Ibid., 100.

5.

Ibid., 101.

6.

Jean de la Perouse. Cited in Margolin (1978), op. cit., 162.

7.

Hornbeck, D. (1984, November). The past in California’s landscape. California’s Mission
Studies Association. Retrieved May 18, 2003, from http://www.ca-missions.org/hornbeck.html

8.

In the 1940s, for instance, the typical meal of California farm families included 72 percent store-bought foods, compared with 43 percent in North Dakota and Kansas, 38
percent in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and just 25 percent in Georgia and Mississippi.
Goldschmidt,Walter R. (1947). As You Sow:Three Studies in the Social Consequences ofAgribusiness. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., 31.

9.

McWilliams, Carey (1971). Factories in the Field:The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in
California. Santa Barbara, CA: Peregrine Publishers, 26-27.

10. Goldschmidt,Walter R. (1947). As You Sow:Three Studies in the Social Consequences ofAgribusiness. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., 22.
11. Hornbeck, op. cit.
12. McWilliams, op. cit., 20.
13. Gates, P.W. (1936, July).The Homestead Law in an incongruous land system, American
Historical Review. Cited in Goldschmidt, op. cit.
14. McWilliams, op. cit.
15. U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.). Census Data for the Year 1860 [Database]. University ofVirginia Library. Retrieved June 16, 2003, from http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgilocal/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=860

20. Calculated using data from: a) Historical Census Populations of Counties, Places,Towns, andCities in California, 1850-1990 [On-line data file], prepared by the California Digital
Library, Oakland, CA, 2001. Generated by Gorelick, Steven, using Counting
California: http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org:80; b) Wendell Cox Consultancy (2001).
US population from 1790: Cities achieving population 300,000 or more. Retrieved June 2,
2003, from http://www.demographia.com/db-uscity1790.htm
21. Calculated using data from: a) Wendell Cox Consultancy, op. cit.; b) Demographic
Research Unit (n.d.). California Statistical Abstract 1999,Table B-1: Population of
California and the United States, 1940-1998. Retrieved June 2, 2003, fromhttp://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/pdfdata/csa00/B1
22. Encyclopedia of American History (1961). New York: Harper & Row, 280.
23. McWilliams, op. cit., 20.
24. For a good overview of the history of farmworkers in California, see McWilliams, op.
cit.
25. Goldschmidt, op. cit., 16.
26. Almost 200,000 Chinese were contracted to work on California farms beginning in
the 1860s, but by 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, which prevented
Chinese workers from coming to the US in order to maintain “good order.” Japaneseimmigrants were also welcomed by large farms in need of workers, but were later targeted by anti-immigrant laws such as the 1913 and 1920 California Alien Land Laws,
which ensured that non-citizens could not own land. The series of Bracero programs
between 1942 and 1964, which allowed “guest workers” from Mexico onto large
industrialized farms in California and Texas, was sparked by labor shortages during
World War II.These programs were similarly characterized by an ambivalent attitude
toward immigrant labor.
27. Friedland,William H. (1980).Technology in agriculture: Labor and the rate of accumulation. In Buttel, Fred, and Howard Newby (Eds.). (1980). The Rural Sociology of theAdvanced Societies (chap. 7). Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co.
28. U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.). Census Data for the Year 1910 [Database]. University ofVirginia Library. Retrieved June 16, 2003, from http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgilocal/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=910
29. Olmstead, Alan L., and Paul W. Rhode (1997). An overview of the history of
California agriculture. In Siebert, Jerome B. (Ed.). California Agriculture: Issues andChallenges (pp. 1-28). Giannini Foundation, Division of Agricultural and Natural
Resources. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
30. Ibid.
31. See for example: a) Olmstead and Rhode, op. cit.; b) Alston and Zilberman (1997).
Science and technology in California agriculture. In Siebert, Jerome B. (Ed). California
Agriculture: Issues and Challenges (pp. 101-124). Giannini Foundation, Division ofAgricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
32. Olmstead and Rhode, op. cit.
33. Beaton, J. (2002, 9 May). Fertilizer use . . . A historical perspective. In Efficient Fertilizer
Use Manual. Retrieved July 15, 2003, from http://www.back-tobasics.net/efu/pdfs/history.pdf
34. Stimmann, M.W. (1983). Pesticide use and regulation. In A Guidebook to California
Agriculture (pp. 272-279), Berkeley: UC Press, 273.
35. Department of Water Resources (1999, Fall). 150 years of California’s water history. News
Online. Retrieved April 1, 2004, fromhttp://www.news.water.ca.gov/1999.fall/150yr.html
36. Stene, Eric E. (n.d.). The Central Valley Project: Introduction. US Bureau of Reclamation.
Retrieved June 18, 2003, from www.usbr.gov/history/cvpintro.htm

16. U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.). Census Data for the Year 1870 [Database]. University ofVirginia Library. Retrieved June 16, 2003, from http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgilocal/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=870

37. Olmstead and Rhode, op. cit.

17. McWilliams, op. cit., 21.

39. Ibid.

18. Krebs, A.V. (2003, July 8). Personal communication.

40. Schlosser, Eric (2002). Fast Food Nation:The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New
York: Harper Collins, 3.

19. McWilliams, op. cit., 22-24.

114

38. Ibid., 12.

41. Ibid., 19-20.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

1.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

Globalizing Califronia Agriculture

Consolidating the Food Supply Chain

Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 21. However, it should be noted that this rate is significantly slower than thenational average of 50%.This is in large part because of the already-large farm size in
California before 1950.

2.

National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) (1999). 1997 Census of Agriculture:
California State and County Data. Volume 1, Geographic Area Series, Part 5. UnitedStates Department of Agriculture. (Publication No. AC97-A-5).

3.

Economic Research Service (2003). Farm income and costs: Farm business income. USDA.
Retrieved July 11, 2003, fromhttp://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FarmIncome/Gallery/netcashincome.htm

4.

NASS, op. cit.

5.

Ibid.

6.

United Poultry Concerns (n.d.). Intensive poultry production: Fouling the environment.
Retrieved August 2, 2003, from http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html

7.

California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) (2002). California Agricultural
Resource Directory 2002. Sacramento, CA: CDFA, 105. Also, note that while the average
number of dairy cows per farm was 731 in 1997, the average dairy herd size (all cattle)
was 904. See: NASS, op. cit.,Table 29.

8.

Data source: NASS, op. cit.

9.

Ibid.

10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.

1.

Friedland,William (2003, July 14). University of California, Santa Cruz. Personal communication.

2.

Byron, J. (2002, September 18). California cattle industry at the crossroads. University ofCalifornia Agriculture and Natural Resources. Retrieved June 10 , 2003, fromhttp://news.ucanr.org/newsstorymain.cfm?story=45

3.

For an overview of consolidation in the food system, see Heffernan,William, Mary
Hendrickson, and Robert Gronski (1999). Consolidation in the Food and Agriculture
System. Report to the National Farmers Union; and Hendrickson, Mary,William D.
Heffernan, Philip H. Howard, and Judith B. Heffernan (2001). Consolidation in Food
Retailing and Dairy: Implications for Farmers and Consumers in a Global Food System.
Report to the National Farmers Union. Department of Rural Sociology, University ofMissouri.

4.

Sexton, Richard J. (2002, September/October). Market consolidation poses challenges
for food industry. California Agriculture, 56(5), 146. Retrieved June 11, 2003, fromhttp://CaliforniaAgriculture.ucop.edu/0205SO/editover.html

5.

Del Monte Fresh Produce Company (n.d.). Company overview-Business overview.
Retrieved June 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.freshdelmonte.com/content.cfm?pageID=58

6.

For a good overview of recent consolidation trends, see ETC Group (2003).
Oligopoly, Inc: Concentration in corporate power: 2003. ETC Communiqué no.82.
Retrieved January 14, 2004, from:http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/Comm82OligopNovDec03.pdf

7.

U.S. Census Bureau (1999 August). 1997 California Economic Census. Retrieved August
6, 2003, from http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97r44-ca.pdf

8.

Adjusted for population, the top 3 retailers control 57 percent of all food sales in thestate. Note that the market area for Northern California from which this statistic isderived includes parts of Nevada, and also excludes the northernmost 5 counties in
California (totalling 0.4% of the state’s population). Source data from Trade
Dimensions (2001). Progressive Grocer/Supermarket Business 2002 Marketing Guidebook.
Wilton, CT:Trade Dimensions.

9.

Hendrickson, Mary,William D. Heffernan, Philip H. Howard, and Judith B. Heffernan(2001). Consolidation in Food Retailing and Dairy: Implications for Farmers and Consumers
in a Global Food System. Report to the National Farmers Union. Department of Rural
Sociology, University of Missouri, 6.

12. California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), op. cit., 102.
13. CDFA, op. cit.
14. Plan underway to build West’s largest cow town. (2003, May 12). The Bakersfield
Californian.
15. NASS, op. cit.
16. In addition, the influence of corporate agribusiness on production extends far beyond
direct ownership-many agribusinesses directly contract with farmers to produce agiven commodity directly for them.
17. NASS, op. cit.
18. Kuminoff et al., op. cit., 25.
19. NASS, op. cit.

10. Ibid., 4.
11. Turcsik, Richard (2001, April).Vise grip: Consolidation will continue to squeeze thesupermarket industry. Progressive Grocer Annual Report, 22-23.

20. Ibid.

12. See for example: Johnston,Warren E., and Harold O. Carter (2000). Structural adjustment, resources, global economy to challenge California agriculture. California
Agriculture, 54(4), 16-21.

21. Economic Research Service (n.d.). California Statistical Abstract 2002,Table G12: Farm
Income and Expenses, California 1992 to 2000. USDA. Retrieved August 28, 2003,
from http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/pdfdata/csa02/G12

13. Kaufman et al. (2000, August). Understanding the Dynamics of Produce Markets:
Consumption and Consolidation Grow. Agriculture Information Bulletin (No. AIB758).
USDA Economic Research Service.

22. NASS, op. cit.

14. Hendrickson et al. (2001), op. cit., 12.

23. CDFA, op. cit.

15. Calvin, Linda, and Roberta Cook (2001). U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Marketing:Emerging Trade Practices,Trends and Issues. USDA, Economic Research Service, p. vii.

24. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (2002, September 11).
The 2001 HHS Poverty Guidelines. US Department of Health and Human Services.
Retrieved July 17, 2003, from http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/01poverty.htm
25. Southwest Regional Office (n.d.). California commercial landings. National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service. Retrieved October
14, 2003, from http://swr.ucsd.edu/fmd/bill/landings.htm
26. Leet,W., C. Dewees, and C. Haugen (Eds.) (1992). California’s Living Marine Resources
and their Utilization. California Sea Grant. (Extension Publication no. UCSGEP-92-12).
Prepared for the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Marine FisheriesService, Southwest Region.
27. For a brief overview of these impacts, see:World Resources Institute (1998).
Environmental Impacts of Aquaculture. In World Resources 1998-99: Environmental
Change and Human Health. Retrieved July 9, 2003, fromhttp://population.wri.org/pubs_content_text.cfm?ContentID=1389
28. Data source: Pacific Coast Fisheries Information Network (PacFIN) (2003). CDFG all
species report, Commercial landed catch: Metric-tons, revenue, and price-per-pound, 1989-2000[Data file]. Retrieved July 20, 2003, from http://www.psmfc.org/pacfin/data/indexr308.html
29. Pacific Fishery Management Council (2003). Information sheet: Coastal pelagic species.
Retrieved July 20, 2003, from http://www.pcouncil.org/facts/cps.pdf
30. Sustainable Fisheries Division (n.d.). Fisheries trade. Southwest Regional Office,National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service.
Retrieved July 14, 2003, from http://swr.ucsd.edu/fmd/sustaina.htm
31. For instance, in Sacramento, CA in June 2003, the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) teamed up with the US Department of Agriculture to host aninternational Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science andTechnology, in hopes of convincing ministers from 180 countries that American- andCalifornia-style biotechnology and precision agriculture are the way forward.

16. Kaufman et al., op. cit.
17. Calvin et al., op. cit., p. vi.
18. Kaufman et al., op. cit., 14.
19. Sexton, op. cit.; Harris, J. Michael (2002). Food manufacturing. In The U.S. Food
Marketing System, 2002. USDA, Economic Research Service. Retrieved August 12,
2003, from http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer811/aer811c.pdf
20. Meat Industry Internet News Service (2001, November 28). Tyson profits up on chicken,
IBP purchase. Retrieved October 15, 2003, fromhttp://www.spcnetwork.com/mii/2001/011128.htm
21. Fulmer, Melinda (2002, August 19). Dole and Fresh Express: Major corporate lettuce
growers. Los Angeles Times, C1. Republished in Agribusiness Examiner no.184.
Retrieved August 30, 2003, fromhttp://www.electricarrow.com/CARP/agbiz/184.htm
22. The four companies are Del Monte Foods, California Fruit and Tomato Kitchens, J.R.
Wood, and Pacific Coast Producers. California League of Food Processors (n.d.). Peachpage. Retrieved June 17, 2003, from http://www.clfp.com/peach/peachpage.htm
23. Garoyan, Leon (1983). Marketing. In A Guidebook to California Agriculture (pp. 285299). Berkeley: UC Press.
24. Andersen, Matt A., Steven C. Blank,Tiffany LaMendola, and Richard J. Sexton (2002).
California’s cattle and beef industry at the crossroads. California Agriculture, 56(5), 152156.
25. Bryant, D. (2003, 12 May). California shippers link for global marketing. Western Farm
Press. Retrieved June 28, 2003, from http://westernfarmpress.com/ar/farming_california_shippers_link/
26. While this strategy of getting bigger has allowed some cooperatives to function in the
global economy, they typically retain an inferior position of power in their relationshipwith retailers, and therefore are often unsuccessful in getting a fair deal for their farmers.

115

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

27. Harvey, Chuck (2000). 6 California firms form Fresh Kist. Retrieved May 21, 2003,
from http://www.farmcreditusa.com/farmcreditwest/notebook/L3/freshkist.htm
28. Quoted in Flint, J. (1998, 28 June). Agricultural industry giants moving towards genetic monopolism. Telepolis Magazin der Netzcultur. Retrieved June 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.ix.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2385/1.html
29. Organization for Competitive Markets (2004) Retrieved February 26, 2004, fromhttp://www.competitivemarkets.com/main.html
30. Between 1983 and 2000, food prices have risen 68 percent, while the overall inflation
rate increased 72 percent. Consumer price indices can be retrieved from:http://data.bls.gov/labjava/outside.jsp?survey=cu
31. University of Nebraska-Lincoln agricultural economist, Azzeddine Azzam, found that
consolidation in the food processing industry led to higher consumer prices in most
sectors. His study of 33 food industry sectors showed that rising concentration boosted
market power for 28 of the 33 industries, and increased food prices in 24 of the sectors. Azzam, Azzeddine M. (2002, February 4).The effect of concentration in the foodprocessing industry on food prices. CAFIO Research Brief. Retrieved May 25, 2003,
from http://cafio.unl.edu/outreach/researchbriefs/RB1.pdf
32. Devera, Michelle (2002, February). Food processing finds stability. Retrieved April 22,
2003, from http://www.recordnet.com/daily/specials/outlook/outlook021702/5outlook021702.php

Adoption of Certified Systems. Agriculture Information Bulletin (No. AIB780). USDA
Economic Research Service. Retrieved January 22, 2004, fromhttp://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib780/
52. Ibid.
53. Greene, Catherine, and Amy Kremen (2003, April). U.S. Organic Farming in 20002001: Adoption of Certified Systems. Agriculture Information Bulletin (No. AIB780).
USDA Economic Research Service. Retrieved January 22, 2004, fromhttp://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib780/
54. Altieri, Miguel, and Clara Nicholls (2003). Agroecology: Rescuing organic agriculture from a
specialized industrial model of production and distribution. Draft manuscript.
55. Pollan, Michael (2001, May 13). Behind the organic-industrial complex. New YorkTimes Magazine. Available: http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Organic-IndustrialComplex.htm
56. Ibid.
57. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 76.

Box 3.1: Profile in horizontal integration: Sysco

58. Greene, Catherine (1992, May). Steady success in organic produce. Agricultural Outlook.
USDA Economic Research Service (Publication No. AO-185). In Greene andKremen, op. cit.

33. Sysco Corporation (2002). 10-K Filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Retrieved February 10, 2004, from http://buck.com/arDir/10k/SYY_02.htm

59. California Certified Organic Farmers (2004). Organic Directory 2004. Santa Cruz, CA:
CCOF, 37.

34. Foodservice.com (2003, September 18). Food service giant Sysco to break ground on
Oxnard, Calif., facility. Retrieved January 16, 2004, fromhttp://www.foodservice.com/news_homepage_expandtitle_fromhome.cfm?passid=7489

60. Altieri and Nicholls, op. cit.

35. Ibid.; Murphy, Kate (2003, April 27). A deft (some say heavy) hand in the kitchen. New
York Times, 4.; Brown, Erika (2000, January 10). Food distribution. Forbes Magazine,
165(1).

CHAPTER FOUR
Expanding Transport and Trade1.

SeedQuest (2002, June 20). Heinz ketchup goes organic. SeedQuest News Release.
Retrieved September 16, 2003, from http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2002/june/4574.htm

2.

Office of Freight Management and Operations (2002, April). Freight transportation
profile: California. Freight News. US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway
Administration (Publication FHWA-OP-02-043). Retrieved June 10, 2003, fromhttp://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/state_profiles/California/California.html

3.

Ibid.

4.

Hagen, J.W., D. Minami, B. Mason, and W. Dunton (1999). California’s produce trucking
industry: characteristics and important issues. Center for Agricultural Business, California
Agricultural Technology Institute, California State University, Fresno.

5.

6.4% to Texas, 4.8% to Illinois, 3.3% to North Carolina, and 3% to New York.
Canning, Patrick and S.Webster (2002). The Geography of Food Distribution in the UnitedStates. Presentation to the Southern Regional Science Association. USDA, Economic
Research Service, Food and Rural Economy Division, Food Markets Branch.

6.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the US Census Bureau (2000, May). Commodity
flow survey 1997 [Data file]. Available from the US Department of Transportation (CDEC97-CFS).

7.

The LA airport is now the leading port in California and the 7th most important port
nationally. In the US as a whole, air freight has increased 20-fold in the last 35 years(National Transportation Statistics 1996, 2002). Furthermore, the 1997 Commodity Flow
Survey reported that freight transportation by air within the US increased 50 percent
between 1993 and 1997.

8.

Based on figures for CO emissions per ton-km for each type of transportation: 0.25
kg per ton-km for road; 0.05 kg for rail; 0.04 kg for ship; and 1.45 kg for air. Pretty, J.,et al. The real cost of the British food basket, Centre for Environment and Society,Department of Biological Sciences, Department of Economics, University of Essex,
Colchester, UK, forthcoming.

9.

Data are from 1998. Data source: US Department of Transportation and the Federal
Highway Administration (2002). FAF State to State Commodity Flow Database [Datafile]. Retrieved June 9, 2003, fromhttp://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/adfrmwrk/faf_state2state.htm

36. Sysco Corporation, op. cit.
Box 3.2: Profile in vertical integration: ConAgra
37. ConAgra Foods (2003). 2003 Annual Report (p.29). Retrieved October 22, 2003, fromhttp://www.conagrafoods.com/documents/
at_a_glance.pdf
38. ConAgra Foods, Inc. (2003). Retrieved October 21, 2003, from http://www.conagrafoods.com/index.jsp
39. ConAgra Foods (2003). ConAgra foods agricultural products company. Retrieved October22, 2003, from http://www.conagrafoods.com/inside/inside_co_agri.jsp
40. Food processing’s top 100 companies for 2003 (2003). Food Processing Magazine.
Retrieved December 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.foodprocessing.com/fp/Resources/top_100.html
41. ConAgra Foods (2003). 2003 Annual Report (p.29). Retrieved October 22, 2003, fromhttp://www.conagrafoods.com/documents/at_a_glance.pdf
Box 3.3:Wal-Mart
42. In addition to the United States, these include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China,
Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom.
43. Hendrickson et al. (2001), op. cit., 5.
44. McCaffery, Richard (2000, March 7).Wal-Mart rumbles in the supermarket jungle.
Fool on the Hill. Retrieved January 15, 2003, fromhttp://www.fool.com/news/2000/foth000307.htm
45. Mander, Kai, and Alex Boston (1996).Wal-Mart: Global retailer. In Mander, Jerry and
Edward Goldsmith (Eds.) (1996). The Case Against the Global Economy (pp. 335-343),
San Francisco: Sierra Club, 337.
46. Porter, Sam, and Paul Raistrick (1998, January). The Impact of Out-of-Centre Food
Superstores on Local Retail Employment.The National Retail Planning Forum.
47. Greenhouse, Steven (2003, October 19).Wal-Mart driving workers and supermarkets
crazy. The New York Times Section 4, p. 3; Zibel, Alan (2003, December 21). Groceryindustry’s labor woes are rooted in Wal-Mart’s expansion. The Oakland Tribune. Businesssection, p. 1.
48. Veiga, Alex (2003, December 16). Unions want boycott for grocery clerks. Associated Press.
Retrieved December 17, 2003, fromhttp://biz.yahoo.com/ap/031216/california_strike_2.html
49. Kleefman, Sandy (2003, 24 June).Wal-Mart hopes to overturn Contra Costa County
ordinance:Wal-Mart collects ink for county referendum. Contra Costa Times. Retrieved
June 26, 2003, from http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2003/Wal-Mart-OverturnOrdinance24jun03.htm
Box 3.4: Industrial organics
50. Felsenfeld, Peter (2004, March 5). Cities vow to oppose Wal-Mart. Contra Costa Times.
Retrieved March 18, 2004, fromhttp://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/counties/contra_costa_county/8112646.htm
51. Lee, Mike (2003, April 18).True to its roots: Organic food industry wins fight on U.S.
standards. Sacramento Bee. Retrieved January 19, 2004, from http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/wewin041903.cfm. For more information see Greene,
Catherine, and Amy Kremen (2003, April). U.S. Organic Farming in 2000-2001:

116

2

10. Market News Branch (2002). Fresh fruit and vegetable shipments by commodities, states, andmonths. USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service, Fruit and Vegetable Programs.
Retrieved August 5, 2003, from http://www.ams.usda.gov/fv/mncs/shipsumm02.pdf
11. Office of Freight Management and Operations, op. cit.
12. Secondary traffic is defined as freight flows to and from distribution centers or
through intermodal facilities. No commodities are assigned to this intermediate step inthe transportation process.
13. Agricultural Export Program (2002). General information. California Department ofFood and Agriculture. Retrieved October 15, 2003, fromhttp://www.calagexports.com/general_information.asp
14. Legislative Analyst’s Office (2002, December). Cal facts: Economy. Retrieved January 6,
2004, from www.lao.ca.gov/2002/cal_facts/econ.html
15. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 85.
16. California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) (2002). California Agricultural
Resource Directory 2002. Sacramento, CA: CDFA, 132.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

17. Carter, Colin A. (1997). International trade and Pacific Rim issues. In Siebert, Jerome
B. (Ed.) (1997). California Agriculture: Issues and Challenges (pp. 231-248). Giannini
Foundation, Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: Universityof California.

42. Wimberley, Ronald C., et al. (2003, February 26). Food from our changing world:The globalization of food and how Americans feel about it. Retrieved June 30, 2003, fromhttp://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/global-food/foodglobal.html
43. Brunke and Sumner, op. cit.

18. These include dry beans, dates, figs, olives, prunes, apricots, raisins, almonds, pistachios,
walnuts, artichokes, and garlic.

44. CDFA, op. cit.

19. While South Korea,Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand are among the top
export destinations, this is due to significant cotton exports for the textile industry.
China is also a major recipient of cotton from California.

45. Imports by commodity by month for individual commodities are obtained from:Market News Branch (2002). Fresh fruit and vegetable shipments by commodities, states, andmonths. USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service, Fruit and Vegetable Programs.
Retrieved August 5, 2003, from http://www.ams.usda.gov/fv/mncs/shipsumm02.pdf

20. Note that figures for trade with Canada and Mexico in particular are slightly skewed
as they do not account for transshipments-the movement of products to these countries but destined to be re-exported to other countries. For example, while foodaccounts for only a small portion (5%) of transshipments via Canada, it is noteworthy
that imports via Canada increased 210% and exports via Canada increased 62% from1990 to 2000.
Source: Maritime Administration (2002, June).U.S. Exports and Imports Transshipped via
Canada and Mexico, 2000. US Department of Transportation, Office of Statistical andEconomic Analysis. Retrieved May 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.marad.dot.gov/marad_statistics/PDF/canada_mexico_transship2000.pdf
21. Data from: CDFA, op. cit.
22. Economic Research Service (n.d.). Selected canned tomatoes: US import value from selected
countries and the world, 1995-2002. USDA. Retrieved June 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/tomatoes/tomatopdf/PrTomImpCntry.pdf
23. Federal Highway Administration Operations Unit (2001, October 26). California Freight flow maps. US Department of Transportation. Retrieved June 29, 2003, fromhttp://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/state_maps/california.htm
24. Sparshott, Jeffrey (2003, September 9). Seeds of discontent. The Washington Times.
Retrieved September 11, 2003, from http://washingtontimes.com/business/20030909092459-3515r.htm

Harvest seasons from: CDFA, op. cit.
46. It is noteworthy that the San Francisco and Los Angeles terminal produce markets
report that a large portion of imports of cucumbers from Mexico occur during
cucumber season here.
47. Conversely, the states that today receive the most food from California are not northern states as would be expected if California’s climate were its biggest advantage, butwarm climate states:Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona.
Box 4.1: Lack of access in the information age
48. International Forum on Globalization (2002). Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A
Better World is Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 218.
49. Free Press and Free Press Action Fund (n.d.). 10 things big media doesn’t want you toknow. Retrieved August 12, 2003, from http://www.mediareform.net/media/tenthings.php
50. Barbara Maxwell (2003, April 17). Head of Supply Reports Division, Fruit and Vegetable
Market News, USDA. Personal communication.
Box 4.2:Trade liberalization hurts California commodity farmers
51. Farm Crisis Task Force (2001, April). Crisis on the farm. California Farm Bureau
Federation. Retrieved March 2, 2004, fromhttp://www.cfbf.com/pdf/fcrisis_report_3.pdf

25. Office of Freight Management (2002). FAF state to state commodity flow database [Datafile]. US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration Operations
Unit. Retrieved June through September, 2003, fromhttp://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/adfrmwrk/faf_state2state.htm. Flow figures for
California were calculated by extracting all California-specific data from the tables
contained within the database.

52. Rominger, Robyn (2003, February 26). Peach growers removing trees due to oversupply. Ag Alert. California Farm Bureau Federation. Available:
http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/2003/02_26_03_b_aa.aspx

26. Ibid. It is unclear whether or not this figure is adjusted for raw farm product imported
to California to be processed and then re-exported. Anecdotal evidence suggests thequantity of such products is relatively low.

55. Rominger, op. cit.

27. Imports rose from $21,919 million worth in 1992 to $38,214 million worth in 2002.
International Trade Commission (2003). Interactive tariff and trade dataweb. (Version
2.6.0) [Data file]. Retrieved September 25, 2003, from http://dataweb.usitc.gov/
28. Jerardo, Alberto (2002, July).The import share of US consumed food continues to rise.
Electronic Outlook Report from the Economic Research Service. (USDA Publication No.
FAU-66-01). Retrieved April 23, 2003, fromhttp://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/fau/july02/fau6601/fau6601.pdf
29. Adapted from Jerardo, op. cit.
30. Olive oil is more than 100% because some of the olive oil that was imported to the
US was re-exported.The extent to which such transshipments contribute to general
trade figures requires more research.
31. Dillabo, Lisa M. (2001, January 29). Farm Bureau comments on the US-Chile Free Trade
Agreement. California Farm Bureau Federation. Retrieved May, 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.cfbf.com/issues/policy/chile012901.htm
32. All data extracted from: International Trade Commission (2003). Interactive tariff andtrade dataweb. (Version 2.6.0) [Data file]. Available: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/

53. Ibid.
54. Estrada, Richard T. (2001, March 11). Ag under siege. Modesto Bee, D1.
56. Johnson, Bob (n.d.). Missing the boat. Field Talk. Retrieved August 29, 2003, fromwww.rinconpublishing.com/white_papers/exports.html
57. Agricultural Issues Center (2000, October 12). California agricultural export values, 19951999. University of California, Davis. Retrieved August 11, 2003, fromhttp://aic.ucdavis.edu/pub/95-99-export-data.html
58. Agricultural Issues Center (n.d.). California agricultural commodity export,values and rankings 2000-2002. University of California, Davis. Retrieved August 11, 2003, fromhttp://aic.ucdavis.edu/pub/Table%201.pdf
59. Estrada, Richard T. (2002, March 30). On top in ag: State strives to keep its crown valley, plays big role in boosting success of California farming. Modesto Bee, 13.
60. O’Connell, Jock. (2001, July). Globalization and the perils of farming in California’s Central
Valley. Retrieved August 29, 2003, from http://jockoconnell.tripod.com/CVag.html
61. Keith,Tamara. (2002, October 31). California raisins. All Things Considered [Radio program]. National Public Radio, 8:00 PM EST. Available: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=31-Oct-2002
62. Estrada (2001), op. cit.

33. Horticultural and Tropical Products Division (2001, June). The U.S. almond industry:
Situation and outlook. Foreign Agricultural Service. Retrieved June 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.fas.usda.gov/htp/horticulture/Tree%20Nuts/almonds.pdf

63. Pollock, Dennis (2002, October 27). Going to market with packinghouse prices
falling, more Valley growers are taking their produce on the road and meeting theirbuyers face to face. The Fresno Bee, C1.

34. All data extracted from: International Trade Commission, op. cit.

64. Brunke and Sumner, op. cit.

35. Daly, Herman (1993, November).The perils of free trade. Scientific American, 51.
36. International Trade Commission, op. cit. And: Brunke, Henrich, and Daniel A. Sumner(2002, November). Assessing the role of NAFTA in California agriculture: A review of trends
and economic relationships. University of California, Agricultural Issues Center. Retrieved
December 11, 2003, from http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research1/NAFTA_full.pdf
37. Data source: USDA Economic Research Service (2002). Retrieved March 20, 2003,
from http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fatus/otherfatusdata.htm

CHAPTER FIVE
Health and the Food System
1.

Brown, Paul et al. (2001, February 20). Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: Background, evolution, and current concerns. National Center for
Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved September 9, 2003, fromwww.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no1/brown.htm; Food Safety and Inspection Service(2003, August). Meat and poultry labeling terms. USDA. Retrieved September 12, 2003,
from www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/lablterm.htm

2.

Animal Health Branch (2003). Exotic Newcastle documents. California Department ofFood and Agriculture. Retrieved September 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/ah/END_TEST/END_Docs.htm

3.

Cited in Romero, Simon (2003, May 16).Virus takes a toll on Texas poultry businessDisease’s easy spread leads to costly embargoes by importing nations. The New YorkTimes, C1.

4.

Mellon, M., C. Benbrook, and K. Lutz Benbrook (2001). Hogging It: Estimates ofAntimicrobial Abuse in Livestock. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.
Retrieved May 21, 2003, from http://www.ucsusa.org/index.html

38. See for example: Jerardo, op. cit.
39. Garlic imports from China climbed from 3 million pounds in 2000, to 54 million
pounds-one-third of total US consumption-in 2002. Chilean producers are competingwith California exports of grapes, apples, pears, plums, raisins, and peaches. Since 1990,
the value of avocado imports from Chile has more than doubled, fresh apples andapple juice concentrate imports have quadrupled, and strawberry imports have goneup ninefold. Imports of American-type cheese more than tripled from 2000 levels in
direct response to reduced trade barriers. See: National Milk Producers Federation(2002). Import Watch. 3rd Quarter. Retrieved June 3, 2003, fromhttp://nmpf.org/files/ImportWatch_-_3rd_Quarter.pdf; and Dillabo, op. cit.
40. See for example: Jerardo, op. cit.
41. See for example: Dillabo, op. cit.

117

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

5.

Greider,William (2003, August 5).Victory at McDonald’s. The Nation. Retrieved
February 10, 2003, from http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16551

6.

Tauxe, Robert V. (1997, October-December). Centers for Disease Control andPrevention. Emerging Foodborne Diseases: An Evolving Public Health Challenge.
Emerging Infectious Diseases, 3(4).

7.

California Department of Health Services (2004). Foodborne disease outbreaks and relatedcases, by all etiologic agent and status (confirmed, suspected and unknown), California, 19892003 [Data file]. Obtained through personal communication with Shu Sebesta,
Division of Communicable Disease Control, Infectious Diseases Branch, Surveillance& Statistics Section.

8.

Manning, Anita (2002, October 13) Listeria fear prompts largest U.S. meat recall. USA
Today. Retrieved January 17, 2004, fromhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-10-13-wampler-recall_x.htm

9.

Ibid.

10. Miyoga, David (2002, December 31). ConAgra stymied us, California says. The Denver
Post, 1-A.
11. Fox, Nichols (1997). Spoiled. New York: Basic Books.
12. Burros, Marian (2003, November 23). Food-borne illness from produce on the rise.
Retrieved November 24, 2003, from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/national/23FOOD.html?ex=1070708176&ei=1&en=2c10409578e4c525
13. Food and Drug Administration (2001, July 3). 1997 Food Code. U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. Retrieved June 3, 2003, fromhttp://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fc-toc.html
14. For more information on food additives, see the list compiled by Center for Sciencein the Public Interest, at http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm
15. For links to several scientific studies on these, and other, plastics, see Colborn,Theo,
Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers (n.d.). Our stolen future. Available:
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org
16. See for example: a) Ibid.; b) Food and Drug Administration, op. cit.; c) Physicians forSocial Responsibility (2001). Environmental Endocrine Disruptors. Available:
http://www.envirohealthaction.org/upload_files/enddisprimer.pdf
17. Hunt, P.A., et al. (2003). Bisphenol A exposure causes meiotic aneuploidy in thefemale mouse. Current Biology, 13, 546-553. For a lay description analysis on the implications for human health, see Our stolen future: BPA linked to chromosome error that causes
birth defects. Available:
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/bisphenola/2003/20030401huntetal.htm
18. See for example: a) Pesticide Action Network (n.d.). PAN Pesticides Database. Available:
http://docs.pesticideinfo.org/Index.html; b) Environmental Defense (2003). Scorecard:
About the chemicals. Available: http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/; c) Dyro,
Francis M. (2003, March 14). Organophosphates. eMedicine.com. Available:
http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic286.htm; d) National Research Council(1993). Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children.Washington DC: National Academy
Press; e) Schettler,Ted, Jill Stein, Fay Reich, and Maria Valenti (2000, May). In harm’s
way:Toxic threats to child development. Greater Boston Physicians for Social
Responsibility. Available: http://psr.igc.org/ihwrept/ihwcomplete.pdf
19. Wiles, Richard, Kert Davies, and Christopher Campbell (1998, January). Overexposed:
Organophosphate insecticides in children’s food. Environmental Working Group. Retrieved
June 4, 2003, from http://www.ewg.org/reports/ops/ops.html

http://www.dhs.cahwnet.gov/hisp/chs/OHIR/vssdata/1999_Data/99Ch5Excel/511-1999Pre.xls
29. Schubert and Harper, op. cit.
30. Kegley, Susan, Anne Katten, and Marion Moses (2003). Secondhand pesticides: Airborne
pesticide drift in California. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network and Californians for
Pesticide Reform.
31. Natural Resources Defense Council (2001, June 7). Alfalfa:The thirstiest crop. Retrieved
July 18, 2003, from http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/fcawater.asp
32. Pease,William S., et al. (1995). Pesticide contamination of groundwater in California.
CPS Brief, 7(8). A publication of the California Policy Seminar. And: Environmental
Working Group (1999, November 19). Tap water in Central Valley tainted with banned
pesticide. Retrieved February 9, 2004, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/reports/dbcp/dbcp.html. For more on the impacts of DBCP inother countries, see Levy, Barry S., Jeffrey L. Levin, and Daniel Thau Teitelbaum(1999). DBCP-induced sterility and reduced fertility among men in developing countries: A case study of the export of a known hazard. Symposium, International Journal of
Occupational Environmental Health, 5(2).
33. Physicians for Social Responsibility (2001). Endocrine disruption. Retrieved July 10,
2003, from http://www.envirohealthaction.org/toxics/health_effects/endocrine And:
Pesticide Action Network UK (2002, June). Atrazine. Pesticides News, 56, 20-21.
Retrieved February 10, 2004, from http://www.panuk.org/pestnews/Actives/atrazine.htm
34. Wilson, D. (1997, July 3). Fear in the fields: How hazardous wastes become fertilizer,
part 1. The Seattle Times. Retrieved May 5, 2003, fromhttp://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Environ/fearinthefields1.htm
35. The UK Medical Research Council studied 28 raw and 44 cooked vegetables, 17
fruits, and 10 types of meat, poultry and game. Between 1940 and 1991, vegetables had
lost up to 75% of nutrients, meats 50% of minerals, and fruit 66% of minerals.
Research based on USDA handbooks showed that US produce suffered a similar
trend. For a good overview of the declining nutrient levels in our foods, see: Hidden
agenda (2003, May 22). The Ecologist, 33(5), 50-53.
36. Environmental Working Group and CALPIRG (1998). Factory farming:Toxic waste andfertilizer in California, 1990-1995. Retrieved November 6, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/reports/factoryfarming/download.html.
37. Kaplan, Jonathan, Zev Ross, and Bill Walker (1999). As you sow:Toxic waste in California
home and farm fertilizers. Environmental Working Group and CALPIRG. Retrieved July11, 2003, from http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/reports/asyousow/fertilizer.pdf
38. Arnold, Steven F. (1996, June 7). Synergistic activation of estrogen receptor with combinations of environmental chemicals. Science, 272, 1489-1492. Cited in: Dangers ofchemical combinations (1996, 13 June). Rachel’s Environment and Health News, no.498.
39. Modern Environmental Protection, Part 4 (2000, September 7). Rachel’s Environmentand Health News, no.707.
40. United States General Accounting Office (2002, May). Report to Congressional
Requesters (Publication No. GAO-02-566). Retrieved August 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02566.pdf
41. For accessible summaries, see: a) Union of Concerned Scientists (2002, October 30).
Backgrounder on risks of genetic engineering. Available:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/biotechnology/page.cfm?pageID=346b) Pesticide Action Network (2001, October). Genetically engineered crops and foods:
PANNA online presentation. Available: http://www.panna.org/resources/geTutorial.html

20. Commercial baby food such as apple juice, apple sauce, pears, and peaches contained
unsafe levels of OP residues. Residues were also found in apples, peaches, popcorn,grapes, corn chips, pears, cornbread, raisins, tomatoes, oatmeal, nectarines, green beans,lettuce, peas, strawberries, baked beans, plums, kiwi, celery, grapefruit, green peppers,
carrots, and oranges (Wiles et al., op. cit.). See also: Groth, Edward, Charles Benbrook,
and Karen Lutz (1999, February). Do you know what you’re eating? An analysis of U.S.
government data on pesticide residues in foods. Consumer’s Union. Retrieved June 9, 2003,
from http://www.consumersunion.org/food/do_you_know2.htm

42. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2000). Investigations of human health effects
associated with potential exposure to genetically modified corn, Executive Summary. Retrieved
July 30, 2003, from http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehhe/Cry9cReport/executivesummary.htm

21. Hitchcox, L. (1996). Long Life Now (p. 59). Berkeley, CA: Celestial Hearts. Cited in
Lyman, H. (1998). Mad Cowboy (p. 21). New York, NY: Schribner.

44. Ewen, Stanley W.B., and Arpad Pusztai (1999, October 16). Effect of diets containing
genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine.
The Lancet, 354, 9187.

22. Postel, S. (1988). Controlling Toxic Chemicals. State of the World. New York:W.W.
Norton.
23. Reeves, Margaret, Anne Katten and Martha Guzmán (2002). Fields of Poison 2002:
California Farmworkers and Pesticides. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network andCalifornians for Pesticide Reform.
24. Environmental Working Group (2003). PCBs in farmed salmon: Factory methods, unnatural
results. Retrieved July 7, 2003, from http://www.ewg.org/reports/farmedPCBs/es.php.
See also: Grace Factory Farm Project (2003). Industrial fish farming: Facts and data.
Available: http://www.factoryfarm.org/topics/fish/facts/
25. For more information, see David Suzuki Foundation (n.d.). Drugs used in the salmon
farming industry. Available:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Oceans/Fish_Farming/Salmon/Drugs.asp
26. National Environmental Trust (2002). Toxic Beginnings: Cancer Risks to Children From
California’s Air Pollution. Available: http://environet.policy.net/
27. Schubert, Sandra, and Anne Harper (2003). Agriculture’s contribution to air pollution in
California. California Clean Air Campaign. Retrieved June 26, 2003, fromhttp://www.calcleanair.org/documents/AG%20talking%20points%20%20REVISED.pdf
28. California Department of Health Services (1999). Major causes of death and death rates by
race/ethnicity.Table 5-11. Center for Health Statistics: Retrieved August 15, 2003, from118

43. Druker, S. (2001). Why concerns about health risks of genetically engineered food are scientifically justified. Alliance for Bio-Integrity. Retrieved August 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.biointegrity.org/health-risks/health-risks-ge-foods.htm

45. For more information, see: Union of Concerned Scientists (2002, December 10).
Pharm and industrial crops:The next wave of agricultural biotechnology. Available:
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/biotechnology/page.cfm?pageID=103
3
46. The British Medical Association has even called for a permanent moratorium on GE
foods. See: British Medical Association (1999, May). The Impact of Genetic Modification
on Agriculture, Food and Health. BMJ Books.
47. Organic Consumers Association (2001, February). What’s wrong with food irradiation.
Retrieved August 6, 2003, from http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/irradfact.cfm
48. Public Citizen (n.d.). Irradiation by any other name. Critical Mass Energy Project.
Retrieved August 6, 2001, from http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
49. Ibid.
50. Epstein, Samuel (2002). Opinion: Food irradiation threatens public health, national
security. Environmental News Service. Retrieved August 6, 2003, fromhttp://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-08e.html
51. Public Citizen (2001, September). Fact sheet:Test market states. Retrieved August 6,
2001, fromhttp://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/articles.cfm?ID=5496

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

52. USDA Office of Communications (2000). Agriculture Factbook 2000 (p. 6). Retrieved
July 30, 2003, from http://www.usda.gov/news/pubs/fbook00/contents.htm
53. National Center for Health Statistics (2002). 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey (NHANES). Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved August 11,
2003, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/obese/obse99.htm
54. Public Health Institute, California Department of Health Services, and the Centers for
Disease Control (2000). Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance Survey System. Retrieved
August 11, 2003, from http://www.phi.org/
55. American Obesity Association (2002). Obesity in the US. Retrieved August 11, 2003,
from http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/obesity_US.shtml
56. Cancer Surveillance Section, Survey Research Group. (2000, June). Points of Interest.
California Department of Health Services and the Public Health Institute. Retrieved
August 11, 2003, from http://www.surveyresearchgroup.com/UserFiles/SRG2.pdf
57. Ibid.
58. Langley, Alison (2003, July 20). It’s a fat world, after all. The New York Times. Businesssection. Retrieved August 7, 2003, from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/business/yourmoney/20FATT.html?pagewanted=1&ei=1&en=9b8cf4f32b1133c0&ex=1059703123
59. For example, see: http://www.consumerfreedom.com
60. Samuels, Sarah. (2000, February). California high school fast food survey: Findings and recommendations. Public Health Institute. Retrieved August 8, 2003, fromhttp://www.phi.org/pdf-library/fastfoodsurvey2000.pdf
61. Public Health Institute (2002, April 4). School soda report sheds light on soft drink companies’ marketing practices to cash-strapped schools [Press release]. Retrieved August 7, 2003,
from http://www.phi.org/publications/Sodastudypressrelease.pdf
62. Pollan, Michael (2003, October 12).The (Agri)Cultural contradictions of obesity. New
York Times Magazine, 21-22.
63. Ibid.
64. Schiffman, Susan F., Elizabeth A. Sattely-Miller, Mark S. Suggs, and Brevick G. Graham(1998). Mood changes experienced by persons living near commercial swine operations. In Thu, Kendall M., and E. Paul Durrenberger (Eds.) (1998). Pigs, Profits, andRural Communities (pp. 84-102). Albany: State University of New York Press.
65. Environmental Research Foundation (1999, April 29). Pesticides and aggression.
Rachel’s Environment and Health Weekly, no. 648.
66. See for example:Worthington,Virginia (2001). Nutritional quality of organic versus
conventional fruits, vegetables and grains. Journal of Alternative and Complementary
Medicine, 7(2), 161-173.
67. Reganold J.P., L.F. Elliot, and Y.L. Unger (1987). Long-term effects of organic andconventional farming on soil erosion. Nature, 330, 370-372.
68. Antioxidant levels in sustainably grown corn were 58.5 percent higher than in conventionally grown corn. Organically and sustainably grown marionberries had approximately 50 percent more antioxidants than conventionally grown berries. Sustainably
and organically grown strawberries showed about 19 percent more antioxidants thanconventionally grown strawberries. See: Asami, Danny K.,Yun-Jeong Hong, Diane M.
Barrett, and Alyson E. Mitchell (2003). Comparison of the total phenolic and ascorbic acidcontent of freeze-dried and air-dried marionberry, strawberry, and corn grown using conventional,organic, and sustainable agricultural practices. American Chemical Society, ACS
Publications. Retrieved August 19, 2003, from http://pubs.acs.org/cgibin/sample.cgi/jafcau/2003/51/i05/html/jf020635c.html
69. Studies by the USDA, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, and theConsumers’ Union have shown that organically grown foods had roughly 2/3 less pesticide residue than conventionally grown counterparts.The California Department of
Pesticide Regulation data showed that 31% of conventional food had residues. Moredetails on these and other studies are available from:http://www.organicconnection.net/nutritional.html

Health and Human Services. Retrieved March 1, 2004, fromhttp://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00993.html
Box 5.2: Farmworkers’ health77. Mobed, K., E. B. Gold, and M. B. Schenker (1992). Occupational health problems
among migrant and seasonal farm workers. Western Journal of Medicine, 157(3), 367-373.
Retrieved June 13, 2003, fromhttp://agcenter.ucdavis.edu/pubs/reform.pl/ag/agrefs/18/HP.htm
78. CIRS (1998). Rural California Report. Newsletter of the California Institute for Rural
Studies, 9(4).
79. Reeves et al. (2002), op. cit.
80. Bugarin, Alicia, and Elias Lopez (1998). Farmworkers in California-Report. California
Research Bureau, California State Library, 26.
81. Schettler,Ted, Jill Stein, Fay Reich, and Maria Valenti (2000, May). In harm’s way:Toxic
threats to child development. Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Available: http://psr.igc.org/ihwrept/ihwcomplete.pdf. See also: a) Wiles et al., op. cit.;
and b) Cox, Caroline (1995). Glyphosate, Part 2: Human exposure and ecologicaleffects. Journal of Pesticide Reform, 15(4), 1.
82. Reeves et al. (2002), op. cit., 9.
83. Ibid.
84. Dailey, C.Y., E.R. Ryder, J. Barnett, and W.N. Dockrey (Eds.) (1995, September).
Losing Ground:The Condition of Farmworkers in America. National Advisory Council on
Migrant Health. Austin,TX: National Migrant Resource Program.
Box 5.3: Food irradiation
85. Public Citizen (n.d.).The health problems of irradiated foods:What the researchshows. Food Irradiation Fact Sheet. Retrieved October 30, 2003, from http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACF245.pdf
86. For more information about the potentially damaging health and other effects of foodirradiation, see: Ibid., and: Public Citizen (n.d.).The top 10 problems with irradiatedfood. Food Irradiation Fact Sheet. Available:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Top10.pdf For other food irradiation resources see
Public Citizen’s website: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/ Seealso: Organic Consumers Association, op. cit.
Box 5.4: Making it work: From farm to school
87. DiMassa, Cara Mia (2003, October 29). Sale of junk food at school banned: L.A.
Unified campuses will be required to offer more healthful treats for students. Los
Angeles Times, B1.
88. Community Alliance with Family Farmers (n.d.). Programs: Farm-to-School. Retrieved
October 17, 2003, from http://www.caff.org/programs/farm2school.shtml
89. Brillinger, Renata, Jeri Ohmart, and Gail Feenstra (2002, Fall).Yolo County farm toschool project evaluation. Second Year Annual Report, 2001/02. UC SAREP Annual
Report to USDA.
90. USDA (2002, May). Availability of fresh produce in nutrition assistance programs. USDA
Food and Nutrition Service, Special Nutrition Programs (Report No. CN-02-FV).
91. Community Food Security Coalition (2004). Farm to cafeteria legislative fact sheet.
Retrieved January 29, 2004, from http://www.foodsecurity.org/policy.html

CHAPTER SIX
The Ecology of California’s Food System
1.

Kegley, S., S. Orme, and L. Neumeister (2000). Hooked on Poison: Pesticide Use in
California 1991-1998. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network North America. Cited
in: Funders Agriculture Working Group (FAWG) (2001, March). Roots of Change:
Agriculture, Ecology and Health in California, 1. Available:
http://www.fawg.org/roots.html

2.

Kegley, Susan (2001, August). California pesticide use update. Global Pesticide
Campaigner, 11(2). Retrieved August 6, 2003, fromwww.panna.org/resources/gpc/gpc_200108.11.2.05.dv.html

3.

The US has 431 million acres of cropland; California has 10.8 million acres of cropland, or 2.5 percent of the US total. Data source: National Agricultural Statistics
Service (1999, May).Table 4:Total cropland: 1997 and 1992. In 1997 Census of
Agriculture, Ranking of States and Counties,Volume 2, Subject Series, Part 2. Retrieved
August 4, 2003, from http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/rankings/ac97s3r.pdf

4.

Smith, Carl (2001). Pesticide exports from U.S. ports, 1997-2000. International Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Health, 7(4), 266-274.

5.

United States General Accounting Office (1998, April 30). Food safety: Federal efforts toensure the safety of imported foods are inconsistent and unreliable (Publication No.
GAO/RCED-98-103). Retrieved August 28, 2003, from http://www.gao.gov/

6.

Anderson, Arne (1997, October). Our growers. Living Tree Community Foods.
Retrieved September 5, 2003, fromhttp://www.livingtreecommunity.com/growers.asp

7.

For a more detailed analysis of the impacts of pesticides on California’s wildlife, see:
Kegley, S., L. Neumeister, and T. Martin (1999). Disrupting the Balance: Ecological Impacts
of Pesticides in California. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network North America andCalifornians for Pesticide Reform. For a list of endocrine disrupting pesticides andtheir impacts on wildlife and humans, complete with scientific references, see:Box 5.1: Contamination and the industrial food system
70. Mason, Jim (1995 September/October). Fowling the waters. E:The Environmental
Magazine, p. 33. And: Fox, Nichols (1997, January 30). Safe food? Not yet. New YorkTimes, A21. Cited in: Lyman, H. (1998). Mad Cowboy (p. 21). New York, NY:
Schribner, 37-38.
71. Is our fish fit to eat? (1992, February). Consumer Reports, pp. 104, 112. Cited in: Lyman,
op. cit., 39-40.
72. California Department of Health Services (2002, June 14). State health director
announces that antibiotic found in recalled milk is penicillin. CDHS Health Warning.
Retrieved July 17, 2003, fromhttp://www.applications.dhs.ca.gov/pressreleases/store/PressReleases/02-34.html
73. California Department of Health Services (2002, December 20). State health director
warns consumers about certain recalled Sobe Tea and Sobe Energy Drinks that may
cause serious illness. CDHS Health Warning. Retrieved July 17, 2003, fromhttp://www.applications.dhs.ca.gov/pressreleases/store/PressReleases/02-72.html
74. California Department of Health Services (2002, May 15). State health director warns
consumers not to eat Susie brand cantaloupe imported from Mexico. CDHS HealthWarning. Retrieved July 17, 2003, from http://www.applications.dhs.ca.gov/pressreleases/store/PressReleases/02-27.html
75. Brody, Jane E. (2001, January 30). A world of food choices, and a world of infectiousorganisms. New York Times, F1.
76. US Food and Drug Administration (2003, December 9). FDA update on recent Hepatitis
A outbreaks associated with green onions from Mexico [FDA statement]. Department of

119

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Colborn,Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers (1996). Our Stolen
Future. Available: http://www.ourstolenfuture.org

33. Environmental Water Caucus (2000). California Water Decisions 2000.

8.

Hayes,Tyrone B. et al. (2002). Hermaphroditic, demasculinized frogs after exposure to
the herbicide atrazine at low ecologically relevant doses. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 99, 5476-5480.

34. For more on the role of native pollinators in agriculture, see: Kremen, C., S.W.
Adelman, R. Bugg, and R.Thorp (2002), Pollination services as a common asset:The
role of native bees in crop pollination. In Brown, P. (Ed.), Sustainable Agriculture andCommon Assets: Stewardship Success Stories, Oakland, CA: Redefining Progress.

9.

Orme, S., and S. Kegley (2003). PAN Pesticides Database [Data file]. San Francisco, CA:
Pesticide Action Network, North America. Retrieved August 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Use.jsp

35. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1997). State of theWorld’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: FAO.

10. Kegley et al. (1999), op. cit.

36. Mooney, Pat (1999).The ETC century: Erosion, technological transformation and corporate concentration in the 21st century. Development Dialogue, 1-2.

11. Pesticides threaten birds and fish in California (1999, June 4). Pesticide Action Network
Updates Service (PANUPS). Retrieved August 28, 2003, fromhttp://www.pmac.net/bird_fish_CA.html

37. Tilman, David, Kenneth G. Cassman, Pamela A. Matson, Rosamond Naylor, andStephen Polasky (2002). Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices.
Nature, 418, 671-677.

12. Orme and Kegley, op. cit.

38. Tuxill, J. (2000).The biodiversity that people made. World Watch, 13(3), 24-35.

13. Bay Institute of San Francisco (2003). Ecological Scorecard: San Francisco Bay Index, 2003
Executive Summary. Retrieved February 12, 2004, fromhttp://www.bay.org/Scorecard/Executive_Summary.pdf

39. Benbrook, Charles M. (2003, November). Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide
use in the United States:The first eight years. Idaho: Northwest Science andEnvironmental Policy Center.

14. Pollan, Michael (2001). The Botany of Desire. New York: Random House, 225.

40. See for example: ETC Group (2003).Terminator technology-Five years later.
Communiqué, no. 79. For more information, visit http://www.etcgroup.org/

15. California Department of Conservation (1979). California Soils: An Assessment, Draft
Report, pp. I-8 and I-9. U.S. topsoil is estimated to be eroding 17 times faster than it
can be regenerated. See Berger, A. R. and W. J. Iams (1996). Geoindicators: Assessing
Rapid Environmental Changes in Earth Systems. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema. Excerpted by
the International Union of Geological Sciences in Geoindicators:Tools for Assessing Rapid
Environmental Changes. Retrieved October 23, 2003, fromhttp://www.gcrio.org/geo/title.html

41. Pauli, Bill (2003, June 11). Message to Congress: Methyl bromide use is important for
consumers, too. Ag Alert. California Farm Bureau Federation. Retrieved September
21, 2003, from http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/2003/06_11_03_op-ed.aspx
42. It is worth noting that the most direct trade-related use of methyl bromide-for quarantine purposes during export and import-is specifically exempted from the Montreal
Protocol.

16. Funders Agriculture Working Group (FAWG) (2001). Roots of Change: Agriculture,
Ecology and Health in California, 9. Available: http://www.fawg.org/roots.html

43. Pauli, op.cit.

17. California Department of Food and Agriculture (1999). Fertilizing tonnage report,
January-June 1999. Sacramento: CDFA Agricultural Commodities and Regulatory
Services, Division of Inspection Services. Cited in: FAWG, op. cit., 1.

44. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2002, June 6). Metam sodium as an alternative tomethyl bromide for fruit and vegetable production. Retrieved September 22, 2003, fromhttp://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/mbr/casestudies/volume1/metams.html

18. Kaplan, Jonathan, Zev Ross, and Bill Walker (1999). As you sow:Toxic waste in California
home and farm fertilizers. Environmental Working Group and CALPIRG. Retrieved July11, 2003, from http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/reports/asyousow/fertilizer.pdf

45. Economic Research Service (n.d.) Table G12: Farm Income and Expenses, California
1992 to 2000 [Data file]. California Statistical Abstract 2002. USDA. Retrieved August28, 2003, from http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/pdfdata/csa02/G12

19. Conway, G. R., and J. Pretty (1991). Unwelcome Harvest: Agriculture and Pollution.
London: Earthscan.

46. Estimates of the proportion of food system energy used by the farm sector include
10% globally [Tansey, G., and T.Worsley (1995). The Food System. London: Earthscan];
18%, average of various US estimates [Hendrickson, J. (1997). Energy use in the U.S.
food system: A summary of existing research and analysis. Sustainable Farming 7(4),Quebec: REAP-Canada]; and 20% for the US [Heller, M., and G. Keoleian (2000).
Life-cycle based sustainability indicators for assessment of the U.S. food system. Ann Arbor:
Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan (Report No. CSS00-04)]. For
an on-farm energy breakdown, Heller and Keoleian estimate 40% for fertilizers andpesticides, 25% for diesel fuel, and 35% for other uses like irrigation.The proportion of
post-farm energy use would likely be even greater if defined to include other foodrelated industries and components of the food system, such as food marketing,biotechnology development, and the manufacturing of equipment like farm machinery or transport trailers.

20. Cone, Marla (1998, April 28). State dairy farms try to clean up their act. Los Angeles
Times, A1.
21. California National Resources Inventory (NRI) (2000, December). State of California,
Cultivated and non-cultivated cropland. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service(NRCS). Retrieved September 4, 2003, from ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CA/technical/NRI/C&NC82-97werr.pdf
22. Letey, J. (2000). Soil salinity poses challenges for sustainable agriculture and wildlife.
California Agriculture, 54(2), 42-8.
23. National Agricultural Statistics Service (1999).Table 8: Land in farms, harvested cropland, and irrigated land, by size of farm. 1997 Census of Agriculture: California State andCounty Data. Volume 1, Geographic Area Series, Part 5. United States Department ofAgriculture. (Publication No. AC97-A-5).
24. One study reports that 70 percent of the world’s marine fish are fully fished or overfished, and half of the marine fish in US waters are overfished. See: Natural Resources
Defense Council (1997, February). Hook, line, and sinking:The crisis in marine fisheries.
Retrieved July 14, 2003, from http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/fish/rhooksum.asp
Another study reports a 90 percent decline in large predatory fish in the world’s
oceans since a half century ago, the first analysis to show dramatic declines of entire
communities across widely varying ecosystems. See: Myers, Ransom A., and Boris
Worm (2003, May 15). Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities.
Nature, 423, 280-283.
25. Pauly, D.,V. Christensen, J. Dalsgaard, R. Froese, and F.Torres (1998). Fishing down
marine food webs. Science, 279, 860-863.
26. Leet,W., C. Dewees, and C. Haugen (Eds.) (1992). California’s Living Marine Resources
and their Utilization. California Sea Grant (Extension Publication no. UCSGEP-92-12).
Prepared for the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Marine FisheriesService, Southwest Region.
27. Southwest Regional Office (n.d.). California commercial landings. National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service. Retrieved October
14, 2003, from http://swr.ucsd.edu/fmd/bill/landings.htm
28. California Department of Fish and Game, Marine Region (2003). Groundfish disaster
relief program. Retrieved December 1, 2003, from http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/groundfish_drp/
29. Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water Network (1998, December).
America’s animal factories: How states fail to prevent pollution from livestock waste. Retrieved
August 14, 2003, from http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/factor/stcal.asp
30. Environmental Water Caucus (2000). California Water Decisions 2000.
31. Korneck, D. and H. Sukopp (1988). Rote Liste der in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
ausgestorbenen und gefährdeten Farn- und Blütenpflanzen und ihre Auswertung fürden Arten- und Biotopschutz. Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN) (Hrsg.),
Schriftenreihe Vegetationskunde 19, Bonn-Bad Godesberg.
32. Reeves, M., K. Schafer, K. Hallward, and A. Katten (1999). Fields of Poison: California
Farmworkers and Pesticides. San Francisco: Pesticide Action Network North America andCalifornians for Pesticide Reform. Cited in: FAWG (2001), op. cit., 13.

120

47. Pimentel, D., and M. Pimentel (1996). Food, Energy and Society. University Press ofColorado.
48. See: a) Heller and Keoleian (2000), op. cit. [10%]; b) Hendrickson, J. (1997), op. cit.
[9%, average of various estimates]; and c) Schueller, Gretel (2001). Eat local. Discover,22(5), [17%].
49. Günther, Folke (2001, August 20) Ruralisation: integrating settlements and agriculture
to provide sustainability. Proceedings from the NJF seminar in Copenhagen. Urban
areas-rural areas and recycling-the organic way forward? Retrieved October 9, 2003, fromhttp://etnhum.etn.lu.se/~fg/lectures/Ruralisation.html
50. Estimates include 7.3:1 [Heller and Keoleian (2000), op. cit.]; 10:1 [Pimentel andPimentel (1996), op. cit.]; 10:1 [Hall, C. A. S., C. J. Cleveland, and R. Kaufmann(1986). Energy and Resource Quality. New York:Wiley Interscience]; and 10-15:1[Gussow, Joan Dye (1994). Chicken Little,Tomato Sauce & Agriculture:Who Will Produce
Tomorrow’s Food? New York:The Bootstrap Press].
51. Halweil, Brian (2002). Home Grown:The Case for Local Food in a Global Market.
Worldwatch Paper No. 163.Washington D.C.:Worldwatch Institute.
52. See: a) Ibid.; b) Pirog, R.,T.Van Pelt, K. Enshayan, and E. Cook (2001). Food, Fuel, andFreeways: An Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Useage, and Greenhouse Gas
Emissions, Ames, Iowa: Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State
University; c) Hora, Matthew, and Judy Tick (2001). From Farm to Table: Making theConnection in the Mid-Atlantic Food System.Washington D.C.: Capital Area Food Bank;d) Agricultural Marketing Service (1998). Federal State Market News, Baltimore Fruit andVegetable Report. USDA; and e) Hendrickson, J. (1997), op. cit.
53. Excludes yard waste. See: Pimentel, D. (1990). Environmental and social implications ofwaste in U.S. agriculture and food sectors. Journal of Agricultural Ethics, 3(1).
54. California Integrated Waste Management Board (n.d.). Packaging waste reduction.
Retrieved October 7, 2003, from http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Packaging/
55. See the Wild Farm Alliance website at http://wildfarmalliance.org/ See also: Imhoff,
Daniel (2003). Farming With the Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches, San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
56. Jones, Andy (2001). Eating Oil: Food Supply in a Changing Climate. London: Sustain. In
Deumling, Diana, Mathis Wackernagel, and Chad Monfreda (2003). Eating up theearth: How sustainable food systems shrink our Ecological Footprint. Agriculture
Footprint Brief. Oakland, CA: Redefining Progress, 8.
57. Pirog et al. (2001), op. cit. In Deumling et al., op. cit., 8.

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

58. Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) (2003). Food
miles: How far does your food travel to get to your plate? Fresh News. In Deumling etal., op. cit., 8.
59. CUESA, op. cit.
60. Auburn, Jill Shore (1985). Decentralizing the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables in
California: Implications for energy use and local marketing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis.
Box 6.1: Sterilizing the Sacramento River
61. Becker, S., and S. Clark (n.d.). Case studies of transportation accidents involving hazardous materials. Retrieved September 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.eng.ua.edu/~rpitt/Class/EffectsandFates/Module9/Module9.htm
62. Orme and Kegley, op. cit.
Box 6.2: California’s water crisis
63. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 40.
64. Sumner, Daniel A., and David S. Hart (1997). Government policy and California agriculture. In Siebert, Jerome B. (Ed.). California Agriculture: Issues and Challenges. Giannini
Foundation, Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: Universityof California.

Box 6.4: Genetic engineering looming in California
94. Jewell,Topsy, and David Buffin (2001, May). Health and environmental impacts of glufosinate ammonium. Pesticide Action Network UK.
Box 6.5: Climate change
95. Deumling et al., op. cit., 5.
96. Shrybman, Steven (2000, November). Trade, agriculture, and climate change: How agricultural trade policies fuel climate change. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Retrieved
November 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.agobservatory.org/library/uploadedfiles/Trade_Ag_and_Climate_Change.
doc
97. Field, Christopher, et al. (1999). Confronting Climate Change in California: Ecological
Impacts on the Golden State. Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Societyof America. Available: http://www.ucsusa.org/documents/calclimate.pdf
98. Ibid.
99. For more information, see: Brown, P. (2002), Agriculture and climate change: How
California farmers can be a part of the solution to climate change by protecting theearth’s atmosphere. In Brown, P. (Ed.), Sustainable Agriculture and Common Assets:
Stewardship Success Stories, Oakland, CA: Redefining Progress.

CHAPTER SEVEN

65. California National Resources Inventory, op. cit.

Food Insecurity and Hunger

66. Gleick, Peter H., Penn Loh, Santos V. Gomez, and Jason Morrison (1995). California
Water 2020: A Sustainable Vision. Pacific Institute for Studies in Development,
Environment, and Security.

1.

Food security is the access of individuals and communities to fresh, healthy staple
foods from relatively close to home at an affordable cost.

67. Ibid.

2.

Food and Agriculture Organization (2003, November 25). FAO reports a setback in the
war against hunger. Retrieved December 9, 2003, from www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/24779-en.html

3.

Sullivan, Ashley F., and Eunyoung Choi. (2002, August). Hunger and food insecurity in thefifty states: 1998-2000.Table 3. Food Security Institute. Available: http://www.centeronhunger.org/pdf/statedata98-00.pdf

4.

Ibid.,Table 1.

5.

Harrison, Gail G., Charles A. DiSogra, George Manalo-LeClair, Jennifer Aguayo, andWei Yen (2002, November 3). Over 2.2 million low-income California adults are food insecure. Exhibit 2. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Retrieved July 10, 2003,
from http://www.cfpa.net/CHIS_hungerbrief11.05.PDF

6.

See for example: California Food Policy Advocates, http://www.cfpa.net/

7.

For more on this trend, see: Norberg-Hodge, Helena,Todd Merrifield, and Steven
Gorelick (2002). Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global
Agribusiness. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.

8.

Shaffer, Amanda (2002, May 28). The persistence of L.A.’s grocery gap:The need for a new
food policy and approach to market development. Center for Food and Justice, Urban andEnvironmental Policy Institute, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved July
14, 2003, fromhttp://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/cfj/resources/Supermarket%20Report%20November%202002.pdf

79. Evans, M. (1996). Pouring It On: Nitrate Contamination of Drinking Water.Washington,
DC: Environmental Working Group. Cited in: FAWG, op. cit., 10.

9.

The Peoples’ Grocery (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2004, from http://peoplesgrocery.org/main.html

80. Cone, op. cit.

10. Mascarenhas, Michelle (2002). Issue Brief: Obesity, diet-related disease, food access, and community-based solutions. Center for Food and Justice, Urban and Environmental Policy
Institute, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA. Retrieved July 15, 2003, fromhttp://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/cfj/resources/Issue%20Brief.htm

68. Pimentel, David, et al. (1997).Water resources: Agriculture, the environment, and society. Bioscience, 47(2).
69. Kuminoff et al., op. cit.
70. Barlow, Maude, and Tony Clarke (2002). Blue Gold:The Battle against Corporate Theft of
the World’s Water. London: Earthscan.
71. Planert, Michael, and John S.Williams (1995). Hydrologic Investigations Atlas 730-B,
Ground Water Atlas of the United States, Segment 1, California Nevada. U.S.
Geological Survey.
72. Krebs, A.V. (2002, December 17). California’s Westlands Water District: Another chapter in a chronic scandal? The Agribusiness Examiner, No. 209.
73. Waterkeepers Northern California (n.d.). Agriculture is the leading but least regulated
source of pollution [Fact sheet]. Clean Farms, Clean Water Campaign.
74. Kegley et al. (2000), op. cit., 10.
75. FAWG, op. cit.
76. Kegley et al. (2000), op. cit., 10.
77. FAWG, op. cit.
78. Waterkeepers Northern California, op. cit.

81. Natural Resources Defense Council (2001, June 7). Alfalfa:The thirstiest crop. Retrieved
July 14, 2003, from http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/fcawater.asp
82. State Water Resources Control Board (1996, August). 1996 California 303(d) and
TMDL Priority List, in the 305(b) Report on Water Quality. In Natural Resources
Defense Council and Clean Water Network (1998, December). America’s animal factories: How states fail to prevent pollution from livestock waste. Retrieved July 14, 2003, fromhttp://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/factor/stcal.asp

11. Günther, Folke (2001, August 20) Ruralisation: integrating settlements and agriculture
to provide sustainability. Proceedings from the NJF seminar in Copenhagen. Urban
areas-rural areas and recycling-the organic way forward? Retrieved October 9, 2003, fromhttp://etnhum.etn.lu.se/~fg/lectures/Ruralisation.html

83. Tulare County Resource Management Agency (2003). Draft Environmental Impact
Report for the Harmony Farms Dairy. SCH #2001041034; PSP 97-090.Table 5-1: San
Joaquin Valley Dairy Industry Projections, November 2002.

12. Nieves, Evelyn (2001, January 21). Dark days send chill through Dairyville. New YorkTimes, A20.

84. Pimentel et al. (1997), op. cit.

14. Baca, Kim (2002, October 5). Farm products languish on docks and ships as West
Coast port shutdown continues. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 5, 2003,
from http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/10/05/national1545EDT0570.DTL

85. Water Education Foundation (1991). Water Inputs in California Food Production. In:
California Farm Water Coalition (1999). The Water Fact Book: California Agriculture and
Its Use of Water. Sacramento, CA: CFWC, 12.
86. Natural Resources Defense Council (2001), op. cit.
87. Ibid.
88. Sumner and Hart (1997), op. cit., 257.
89. Kuminoff et al., op. cit., 99.
90. Natural Resources Defense Council (2001), op. cit.
91. LeVeen, Phillip E., and Laura B. King (1985, August). Turning Off the Tap on Federal
Water Subsidies, Volume I,The Central Valley Project:The $3.5 Billion Giveaway. San
Francisco: Natural Resources Defense Council and California Rural Legal AssistanceFoundation.
92. Natural Resources Defense Council (2001), op. cit.
93. Ibid.

13. California Farm Bureau (2001, April 18). Food and Farm News.

15. For further details, see: Environmental Working Group (2003). High levels of toxic rocket
fuel found in lettuce. Available: http://www.ewg.org/reports/rocketlettuce
16. US Department of Homeland Security (2003). Press Kit-Operation Liberty Shield.
Retrieved February 2, 2004, fromhttp://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0115.xml
17. Heywood,V. H. (Ed.) (1995). Global Biodiversity Assessment. United Nations
Environment Programme. Cambridge University Press, 595.
18. For a good overview of the relationship between agricultural biodiversity and foodsecurity, see: a) Shand, Hope (1997, December). Human Nature: Agricultural Biodiversity
and Farm-Based Food Security. Prepared by RAFI for the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations; and b) Fowler, Cary, and Pat Mooney (1990).
Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity.Tucson, AZ: University of
Arizona Press.
19. Raeburn, Paul (1995). The Last Harvest:The Genetic Gamble That Threatens To Destroy121

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

American Agriculture. New York: Simon & Schuster, 146-7.

CHAPTER EIGHT

20. From an FAO study, based on 150 country reports. Food and Agriculture Organisation(1996). State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources. Rome: FAO.

The Food System and California’s Rural Economies
1.

Kroll, Cynthia A., and Josh Kirschenbaum (1998). The Integration of Trade Into California
Industry: Case Studies of the Computer Cluster and the Food Processing Industry. Fisher
Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics (Working Paper No. 98-260). Berkeley,
CA: Institute of Business and Economic Research at the University of California at
Berkeley.

2.

UC Davis (1999, October). Rural Migration News, 5(4). Retrieved July 11, 2003, fromhttp://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more_entireissue.php?idate=1999_10&number=4

3.

Khan, M. Akhtar, Phil Hardiman, and Philip Martin (2003, May 8). Putting it All
Together: California’s Farm Workers: Employment and Earnings in 1991, 1996, and 2001.
UC Davis. Retrieved June 25, 2003, fromhttp://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/more/php?id=8_0_2_0

26. Mills, Stephen (2003, November 13). International activist warns about food security.
Times-Argus (Barre-Montpelier,Vermont)4.

27. Rural Advancement Foundation International (2000, July 17). Earmarked for extinction? Seminis eliminates 2,000 varieties. Geno-types. Retrieved November 1, 2003,
from http://www.etcgroup.org/search2.asp?srch=seminis

Gonzales, Richard (2002, November 14). Farm labor and illegal migration [Radio program recording]. NPR News. Retrieved June 27, 2003, from http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/nov/central_valley/5.

28. See for example: Rural Advancement Foundation International (1998, March 30).
Terminator technology targets farmers: New genetic technology aims to prevent farmers from saving seed. Communiqué.

UC Davis (1999, October). California:Welfare and farm jobs. Rural Migration News,
5(4). Retrieved June 19, 2003, fromhttp://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=398_0_2_0

6.

Nieves, Evelyn (2001, June 18). A fertile farm region pays its jobless to quit California.
New York Times, A1.

29. Shiva,Vandana (1998). Mustard or Soya? The Future of India’s Edible Oil Culture. New
Delhi: Navdanya.

7.

Mitchell, Don (1996). The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

30. Children, Health and Advertising (2000). Issue Briefs. Studio City, CA: Mediascope Press.

8.

Rosenberg, Howard R., Anne Steirman, Susan M. Gabbard, and Richard Mines(1998). Who works on California farms? Demographic and employment findings from the
National Agricultural Workers Survey (ANR Publication 21583). Oakland, CA: Universityof California Publications.

9.

Farm Crisis Task Force (2001, April). Crisis on the farm. California Farm Bureau
Federation, p. 2. Available: http://www.cfbf.com/pdf/fcrisis_report_1.pdf

21. California Rice Commission (2003). California rice: Nature’s gift. Retrieved July 30,
2003, from http://www.calrice.org/carice/natures_gift.html
22. California Rice Commission (2002). California rice acreage by variety, 2001. Retrieved
July 30, 2003, from http://www.calrice.org/report/page_6.html
23. Pollan, Michael (2001). The Botany of Desire (p. 230). New York: Random House.
24. Ibid.
25. Rifkin, Jeremy (2002, May 17).The world’s problems on a plate: Meat production ismaking the rich ill and the poor hungry. The Guardian. Retrieved February 10, 2004,
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,737480,00.html

31. Stop commercial exploitation of children (2002, Summer). SCEC News: Summer 2002.
Retrieved November 2, 2003, fromhttp://www.commercialexploitation.com/newsletter/summer2002.htm
32. Innovations in Convenience Foods: Developing and Marketing Food and Beverage Products for
the On-the-Go Consumer (2002, November 13-15). [Conference program]. Sheraton
Hotel, Chicago, IL.
33. Prevention Institute for the Center for Health Improvement (n.d.). Nutrition policy profiles: Restricting television advertising to children. Retrieved August 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.preventioninstitute.org/CHI_food_advertising.html
34. Hastings, Gerard, et al. (2003, September 22). Review of research on the effects of food promotion to children: Final report. Prepared for the Food Standards Agency. Strathclyde
University. Available: http://www.marketing.strath.ac.uk/csm/projects/diet.htm
35. Prevention Institute for the Center for Health Improvement, op. cit.
36. Children, Health and Advertising, op. cit.
37. See for example: California Food and Justice Coalition (n.d.). Food & justice: Policy initiatives for community food security in California. Available:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/california/CA_Policy_Platform.pdf
38. See for example: Community Food Security Coalition (2002). Weaving the Food Web:
Community Food Security in California.
Box 7.1: Reclaiming food deserts: Beyond the supermarket solution
39. Rainbow Grocery Coop (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2003, from http://www.rainbowgrocery.org
40. Reang, Putsata (2003, August 9). Movable feast of organic food drives into Oakland.
Contra Costa Times. Retrieved August 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/6495361.htm
41. Bliss Duffy, Sheila, Jenny Kurzwell, and Maggie Masch (2000, Spring). Food security:
building food security in California communities. California Certified Organic Farmers
Quarterly Newsletter.
42. Bolen, Ed, and Kenneth Hecht (2003, January). Neighborhood groceries: New access tohealthy food in low-income communities. California Food Policy Advocates. Retrieved
August 27, 2003, from http://www.cfpa.net/grocery.pdf

10. Smith, Stewart (1992, October 21). Farming Activities and Family Farms: Getting theConcepts Right. Presented to US Congress symposium: Agricultural Industrialization
and Family Farms.
11. Blank, Steven (2000). Is this California agriculture’s last century? California Agriculture,
54(4), 23-25.
12. California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) (2002). California Agricultural
Resource Directory 2002. Sacramento, CA: CDFA.
13. California Agricultural Statistics Service (2003). California Agricultural Statistics, 19932002.Table G-18, Average annual prices received by farmers of livestock, poultry, andrelated products. California Department of Food and Agriculture. Available:
http://www.nass.usda.gov/ca/bul/agstat/indexcas.htm
14. Voss, Ronald E. (2004, March 3). Extension Vegetable Specialist, University ofCalifornia at Davis. Personal communication.
15. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 24.
16. Feenstra, Gail (2000, Summer). [Review of Heffernan,William, Mary Hendrickson,
and Robert Gronski (1999). Consolidation in the Food and Agriculture System. Denver:
National Farmers Union.] SAREP Newsletter, 12(2). Retrieved December 17, 2003,
from http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/newsltr/v12n2/sa-7.htm
17. Hamilton, C.H. Cited in Goldschmidt,Walter R. (1947). As You Sow:Three Studies in
the Social Consequences of Agribusiness. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., p. 43.
18. Porter, Sam, and Paul Raistrick (1998, January). The Impact of Out-of-Centre Food
Superstores on Local Retail Employment.The National Retail Planning Forum, London,
UK. Available: http://www.nrpf.org/publications.htm
19. Draffan, George (n.d.). Facts and statistics about corporations. Retrieved May 5, 2003, fromhttp://www.endgame.org/primer-facts.html

43. Monroe-Santos, Suzanne (1998, June). National community gardening survey: 1996.
American Community Gardening Association. Retrieved November 24, 2003, fromhttp://www.communitygarden.org/pubs/Monograph1.pdf

20. Hawken, Paul (1993). The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York:
Harper Business. Cited in Draffan, George (n.d.) Facts on the concentration of wealth.
Retrieved May 5, 2003, from http://www.endgame.org/primer-wealth.html

44. Ableman, Michael (2000, Fall). Urban Agriculture:The Quiet Revolution. Earth Island
Journal, vol. 15, no. 3. Retrieved January 19, 2004, fromhttp://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/fall2000/fe_fall2000quietrev.html

21. Outside the US, the multiple ranges from Brazil’s 57 to Japan’s 10. In other words, thegulf in the US is more than 53 times what it is in Japan. Morgenson, Gretchen (2004,
January 25). Explaining (or not) why the boss is paid so much. New York Times, Section
3, p. 1

45. Feenstra, Gail (1995, Summer). [Review of: Blair, Dorothy, Carol C. Giesecke, andSandra Sherman (1991). A dietary, social and economic evaluation of the Philadelphia
urban gardening project. Journal of Nutrition Education, 23(4), 161-7.]. SAREP
Newsletter, 7(3). Retrieved February 7, 2004, fromwww.sarep.ucdavis.edu.newsltr/v7n3;sa-10.htm
46. Garr, Robin (n.d.). Groups that Change Communities: San Francisco League of Urban
Gardeners (SLUG). Retrieved February 7, 2004, from www.grassroots.org/usa/slug.shtml
47. Harvey, Dana (2004, January 31).West Oakland Food Project. Personal communication.

122

22. Bernstein, Jared, and Larry Mishel (2003, September 3). New evidence of extraordinary growth in income inequality. Economic Snapshots. Economic Policy Institute.
Retrieved September 10, 2003, from http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_09032003
23. Economic Policy Institute (2003). California at a Glance. Retrieved September 10,
2003, from http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/datazone_states_usmap_ca
24. Based on: a) 2000 US per capita food expenditures at home and away (California
Farm Bureau Federation, Food Expenditures by Families and Individuals as a Share of
Disposable Income. Retrieved March 18, 2004, fromhttp://www.cfbf.com/programs/yfr/food_exp.aspx); b) 2000 US and California populations (Census 2000 PHC-T-2, Ranking Tables for States: 1990 and 2000, Table 1.
States Ranked by Population, 2000. Retrieved March 19, 2004, from http://www.census.gov/census2000/states/us.html); c) 2000 food and drink costs as a proportion of
CA food industry sales (California Restaurant Association, 2004 Fast Facts. Retrieved

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

January 12, 2004, from http://www.calrest.org/newsinfo/fastfacts.asp); d) 2000 farmincome and expenses (Counting California, Farm Income and Expenses, California, 19922000,Table G-12. Retrieved January 20, 2004, fromhttp://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/pdfdata/csa02/G12); and e) estimated proportionof food dollar going to marketers (Smith, Stewart (1992, October 21). Farming Activities
and Family Farms: Getting the Concepts Right. Presented to US Congress symposium:
Agricultural Industrialization and Family Farms).
25. USDA Office of Communications (2003, March). USDA Agriculture Fact Book 20012002. p. 21. Retrieved February 19, 2003, fromhttp://www.usda.gov/factbook/2002factbook.pdf
26. China’s 800 million farmers assaulting numerous U.S. ag industries with imports.
Manufacturing News. Cited in Krebs, A.V. (2003, July 11). The Agribusiness Examiner,
Issue no.267.
27. Goldschmidt,Walter R. (1947). As You Sow:Three Studies in the Social Consequences ofAgribusiness. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., 309.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5912273.htm
58. Heien and Martin, op. cit.
59. McCarthy,Terry (2002, October 28).Who really owns that winery? Time Magazine.
Retrieved December 11, 2003, from http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1101021028-366335-3,00.html
60. Ibid.
61. Orme, S., and S. Kegley (2003). Pesticide use on wine grapes in 2001. PAN Pesticide
Database [Data file]. San Francisco, CA: Pesticide Action Network, North America.
Available: http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Use.jsp
62. Robinson, James C., and Pease,William S. (1993, July). Preventing pesticide-related illness
in California agriculture. California Policy Seminar, University of California, Berkeley,
CA. Retrieved December 4, 2003, from http://www.ucop.edu/cprc/agpest.html
63. Dye, Alexa (Fall 2003). Muddied waters. Terrain, 14(3), 18.

28. Ibid., 381.

Box 8.2: Farmland conversion in California

29. Ibid., 383.

64. An average of 44,460 acres of cropland and pasture were converted per year between
1992 and 1997: 38,540 acres of cropland, 5,920 acres of pasture, and 55,120 acres ofrange. California National Resources Inventory (NRI) (2000, December). State ofCalifornia, Conversion of California rural resource lands to developed lands. USDA, Natural
Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Retrieved August 14, 2003, from ftp://ftpfc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CA/technical/NRI/conversion92-97.pdf

30. Ibid., 382.
31. Ibid., 283.
32. Ibid., 283.
33. Ibid., 389-390.
34. Ibid., 458-457.
35. Ibid., 473-478.
36. Tootelian, Dennis H. (2003). The economic impact of shifts in consumer purchasing patterns
to more California grown agricultural commodities. Available from the Buy California
Initiative, California Department of Food and Agriculture.

65. American Farmland Trust (2003). Farming on the Edge: Sprawling Development Threatens
America’s Best Farmland. Retrieved August 19, 2003, fromhttp://www.farmland.org/farmingontheedge/index.htm
66. Great Valley Center (1998, October). Agricultural Land Conservation in the Great Central
Valley. Retrieved October 20, 2003, fromhttp://66.42.64.231/publications/agpubs/ag_land_conservation.pdf

38. Smith, Stewart (1992, October 21). Farming activities and family farms: getting theconcepts right. Presented to US Congress symposium, Agricultural Industrialization andFamily Farms.

67. American Farmland Trust (1995, October). Alternatives for future urban growth inCalifornia’s Central Valley:The bottom line for agriculture and taxpayers. Summary Report.
Cited in: Zivin, Joshua, David Zilberman, and Jerome B. Siebert (1997). Agriculture at
the urban fringe: A competition for scarce resources. In Siebert, Jerome B. (Ed.).
California Agriculture: Issues and Challenges. Giannini Foundation. Division ofAgricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: University of California.

39. Ibid.

68. Great Valley Center, op. cit.

40. Kambara, Kenneth M., and Crispin L. Shelley (2002, January 31). The California
Agricultural Direct Marketing Study. California Institute of Rural Studies. Davis,
California.

69. Greenbelt Alliance (2000). At Risk:The Bay Area’s Greenbelt. Retrieved October 16,
2003, from http://www.greenbelt.org/downloads/resources/report_atrisksummary.pdf

37. Ibid.

41. Pollock, Dennis (2002, October 27). Going to market with packinghouse prices
falling, more Valley growers are taking their produce on the road and meeting theirbuyers face to face. The Fresno Bee, C1.
42. Farmers markets (2003, June). The Ecologist, 33(5), 54.
43. Cobb, D., R. Feber, A. Hopkins, and L. Stockdale (1998). Organic farming study. Global
Environmental Change Programme, Briefing 17. Falmer, England: University of
Sussex.
44. Economic Research Service (n.d.).Table G12: Farm Income and Expenses, California
1992 to 2000 [Data file]. California Statistical Abstract 2002. USDA. Retrieved August28, 2003, from http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org/pdfdata/csa02/G12
Box 8.1:Wine in the global economy
45. CDFA, op. cit., 134.
46. Sonoma County Economic Development Board (2003). Wine Industry 2002: Local
Economic Report Series, 1(10). Retrieved December 5, 2003, from http://www.sonomacounty.org/edb/pdf/WineIndustry2002.pdf

70. Ibid.
71. In 2002, California’s population was 34,292,871, and increased by 611,362 people
from 2001 to 2002. U.S. Census Bureau (2003, September 2). California,Table 1:
General demographic characteristics. American community survey change profile, 20012002. Retrieved December 2, 2003, fromhttp://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Profiles/Chg/2002/0102/Tabular/040/0
4000US061.htm
72. U.S. Census Bureau (1996, October 17). Projections of the total population of states: 1995
to 2025. Retrieved December 2, 2003, from http://www.census.gov/population/projections/state/stpjpop.txt
73. Hodge, Betsy, and Christina Soto (2000). Saving the working landscape. American
Farmland. Retrieved February 3, 2004, fromhttp://www.farmland.org/magazine/fall00/savingtheland2.htm
74. Ecotrust (2003). A tale of two tomatoes. Section Z, Issue no. 3.

CHAPTER NINE

47. Murphy, Dean (2003, May 25). California grape rush of 90’s withers as prices collapse.
New York Times, A1.

Community and Social Cohesion
1.

Gish, Art (1998). Food we can live with. In The Plain Reader, 83. New York: Ballantine
Books.

2.

Gonzales, Richard (2002, November 14). Farm labor and illegal migration. NPR News.
[Radio program recording]. Available: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/nov/central_valley/

50. Heien, Dale, and Philip Martin (2003, July-September). California’s wine industry
enters new era. California Agriculture, 57(3), 72. Available:
http://calag.ucop.edu/0303JAS/pdfs/wine.pdf

3.

Campbell, Duncan (2003, March 17).Taco’s tomato pickers on slave wages. Guardian
Unlimited. Retrieved July 7, 2003, fromhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,915618,00.html

51. Murphy, op. cit.

4.

O’Connell, Jock (2003, January). Down on the farm. California Journal. Retrieved June
6, 2003, from http://jockoconnell.tripod.com/CalJournal0103.html

5.

Ibid.

6.

Sanchez, Rene (2002, September 23). Farmworker pact stirs Calif. conflict-Governorcaught between union, growers. Washington Post. Retrieved June 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53171-2002Sep22.html

7.

Diringer, Elliot (1997, July 7). In Central Valley, defiant dairies foul the waters. San
Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved June 29, 2003, from http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1997/07/07/MN62833.DTL

8.

California League of Food Processors (n.d). A few of our most recent accomplishments.
Retrieved June 29, 2003, from http://www.clfp.com/main%20pages/ourrecord.htm

9.

Goldschmidt,Walter R. (1947). As You Sow:Three Studies in the Social Consequences ofAgribusiness. Montclair, N.J.: Allanheld, Osmun and Co., 284-5.

48. Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (2002, August). Commodity profile with anemphasis on international trade:Wine grapes. Agricultural Issues Center, University ofCalifornia. Retrieved December 8, 2003, from http://www.agmrc.org/fruits/info/ccpwinegrapes.pdf
49. Murphy, op. cit.

52. Wine Institute (2003, March 25). 2002 California wine sales volume up three percent:Economic slowdown, oversupply and foreign competition contribute to divergent profitability
results [News release]. Retrieved December 3, 2003, fromhttp://www.wineinstitute.org/communications/statistics/Sales_02.htm
53. California Agricultural Statistics Service (2003, March 10). Grape crush final report, 2002
crop. Retrieved December 4, 2003, fromhttp://www.nass.usda.gov/ca/bul/crush/Final/2002/200203gcbnarr.htm
54. Heien and Martin, op. cit.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. News in brief from the San Joaquin Valley (2003, May 21). The Mercury News.
Retrieved December 9, 2003, from

10. Ibid., 283-4.

123

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

11. Ibid., 374.

3.

Pirog et al., op. cit.Table 5: Distances traveled for three locally grown meals compared
to distance if same food items were supplied through conventional channels, 28-29.

4.

Ibid, 18.

5.

Brunke, Henrich, and Daniel A. Sumner (2002, November). Assessing the Role of
NAFTA in California Agriculture: A Review of Trends and Economic Relationships.
Agricultural Issues Center, UC Davis and California Farm Bureau Federation.
Available: http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research1/NAFTA_full.pdf

6.

Ibid.

7.

Carlsen, Laura (2003, March). The Mexican farmers’ movement: Exposing the myths of free
trade. Americas Program Policy Report. Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource
Center. Available: http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/0302farm.html

8.

California produces 93% of all processing tomatoes for the US. CDFA, op. cit.

9.

Carlsen, op. cit.

12. Ibid., 284-5.
13. Goldschmidt,Walter (2002, October). Personal communication.
14. See for example: Lyson,T., R.Torres, and R.Welsh (2001). Scale of agricultural production, civic engagement and community welfare. Social Forces, 80, 311-27; and Thu,
Kendall M., and E. Paul Durrenberger (Eds.) (1998). Pigs, Profits and Rural Communities.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
15. MacCannell, Dean (1983). Agribusiness and the Small Community. Background paper toTechnology, Public Policy and the Changing Structure of American Agriculture, Officeof Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress,Washington, DC.
16. Peters, David J. (2002, July). Revisiting the Goldschmidt Hypothesis:The Effect of Economic
Structure on Socioeconomic Conditions in the Rural Midwest. Missouri Economic Researchand Information Center.
17. Mander, Kai, and Alex Boston (1996).Wal-Mart: Global retailer. In Mander, Jerry, and
Edward Goldsmith (Eds.) (1996). The Case Against the Global Economy (pp. 335-343),
San Francisco: Sierra Club.
18. Welsh, R., and T. Lyson (2001, August). Anti-corporate farming laws, the ‘Goldschmidt
Hypothesis’ and rural community welfare. Presented at the annual meeting of the Rural
Sociological Society. Albuquerque, NM. Available:
http://www.i300.org/what’s_new.htm
19. Hidden Villa (2001). Catherine Sneed. Retrieved August 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.hiddenvilla.org/Assets/seasonal/CatherineSneed.htm
20. Sneed, Catherine (2001). Seeds of Change. Yes! Magazine. Retrieved August 27, 2003,
from http://www.futurenet.org/15prisons/sneed.htm
21. National Center for Health Statistics, unpublished work tables prepared by the
Mortality Statistics Branch, Division of Vital Statistics, 1995 and 1996. Retrieved
September 5, 2003, from http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/97trends/hc1-2c.htm Also see
Wright, Robert (1995, August 28).The evolution of despair. Time Magazine.
22. Diller, Lawrence H. (2000, March 9). Kids on drugs. Salon.com Retrieved September 5,
2003, from http://dir.salon.com/health/feature/2000/03/09/kid_drugs/
index.html?sid=671502
Box 9.1:The political and social influence of Big Ag
23. Lowrey,W.C. (1980, September 8). Report to the board. Chemical Manufacturers
Association Government Relations Committee, CMA 072737. Available from theEnvironmental Working Group Chemical Industry Archive: http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/search/pdfs/cia/19800908_00000030.pdf

10. Weinstein, Herbert, and Rebecca Lopez-Garcia (n.d.). Getting ready for the WTO in
2004: Or how Egypt can benefit from the experiences of the Mexican food and beverage industry with NAFTA. USAID (Project No.263-0264). Available: http://www.aleb.org/alebhtm/tech_pubs/GETTINGREADY_6_FOR2004-EDITS-A.pdf
11. The Japanese market for vegetables (1998, October). Focus Japan. Retrieved August 18,
2003, from http://www.dec.ctu.edu.vn/ebooks/jetro/98_01_2.html
12. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2001, October). Trade and agriculture:What’s atstake for California. Retrieved June 19, 2003, from http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/WTO/states/ca.html
13. Washington, Donald (2003, February 25). California tomato growers go the extra mile forJapan. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Retrieved June 19, 2003, fromhttp://www.fas.usda.gov/info/agexporter/1998/December%201998/californ.html
14. Woolsey, Michael D., and Kenzo Ito (1998, March). Bringing U.S. tomatoes to theJapanese market. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Retrieved August 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.fas.usda.gov/info/agexporter/1998/March%201998/bringing.html
15. Even today, Afghanistan produces 59 percent of its own food, a higher percentage thanCalifornia. Brown, Patrick (2003). Agriculture in Afghanistan: Restoring alternatives topoppy. International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
Retrieved July 30, 2003, from http://www.icarda.cgiar.org/Afghanistan/Poppy.htm
16. Ibid.
17. Blue Diamond Growers (2002). How Your PAC Dollars Work for You and Your Coop.
Retrieved August 1, 2003, fromhttp://www.bluediamond.com/growers/govt/voice.cfm

24. For example, in 1986 Monsanto spent $50,000 to try to defeat California’s anti-toxics
initiative, Proposition 65.

18. Brown, Patrick, op. cit.

25. Lardner, George Jr., and Joby Warrick (2000, May 13). Pesticide coalition tries to blunt
regulation. Washington Post. Available: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/051300-01.htm

19. UN report says world urban population of 3 billion today expected to reach 5 billion by 2030
(2004, March 24). United Nations press release POP/899. Retrieved March 24, 2004,
from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/pop899.doc.htm

26. Center for Responsive Politics (n.d.). The Bush administration: Ann M.Veneman,
Agriculture Secretary. Retrieved May 20, 2003, fromhttp://www.opensecrets.org/bush/cabinet/cabinet.veneman.asp

20. Mills, Stephen (2003, November 13). International activist warns about food security.
Times-Argus (Barre-Montpelier,Vermont). Retrieved January 6, 2004, fromhttp://timesargus.com/Archive/Articles/Article/74488

27. The Precautionary Principle asserts that policy should act to safeguard public healthand the environment even in the absence of scientific certainty of harm.

21. Jensen, Derrick (2001, August). Neighborhood bully: Ramsey Clark on American militarism. The Sun. Available: http://www.thesunmagazine.org/bully.html

28. Polley, Mary Beth (2003, December 1). ACC, EWG square off over precautionary
principle. Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News, 32(6). Available: http://www.ptcnonline.com
29. Stauber, John, and Sheldon Rampton (1998, September).The junkyard dogs of science.
PR Watch, 5(4). Available: http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q4/dogs.html See
also: Rampton, Sheldon, and John Stauber (2000). Trust Us,We’re Experts: How Industry
Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future. Putnam Publishing Group.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Propping Up the Global Food System
1.

Rohter, Larry (2003, November 2). New global trade lineup: Haves, have-nots, havesomes. New York Times, D3.

30. Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (1997, July). Show me the science! Corporate polluters and the ‘junk science’ strategy. Environmental Working Group.
Available: http://www.ewg.org/pub/home/CLEAR/By_Clear/ShowMe.html

2.

Hale,Tom (2003, July). Number of Regional Trade agreements, 1948-2002 [Graph]. Global
Policy Forum. Retrieved August 27, 2003, from http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/charts/rta.htm

31. Lieberman, Adam, and Simona C. Kwon (1998, June). Facts versus Fears. American
Council on Science and Health. Available:
http://www.acsh.org/publications/reports/factsfears.html

3.

Foreign Agricultural Service (2003, October 8). California leads nation in ag exports.
Retrieved June 10, 2003, fromhttp://ffas.usda.gov/info/agexporter/1996/californ.html

32. Manning, Steven (1999, September 27). Students for sale. Nation. Available:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19990927&s=manning4.

33. The Biotechnology Institute represents a coalition of biotech interests, including the
Monsanto Fund and the Council for Biotechnology Information (itself representing
Bayer CropScience, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Biotechnology, Monsanto,
Pioneer Hi-Bred, and Syngenta, among others).

Environmental Working Group (EWG) (2003). Frequently asked questions. EWG Farm
Subsidy Database. Retrieved June 24, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/help/faq.php

5.

Egan,Timothy (2000, December 24). Failing farmers learn to profit from federal aid.
New York Times, A1.

6.

Economic Research Service (n.d.). Total export subsidies by commodity category, 19952000 [Data file]. USDA. Available:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/db/Wto/ExportSubsidy_database/7.

In 2001, California received a grant for $64 million from the Specialty Crop Block
Grant program, part of the federal Emergency Agricultural Assistance Act, which delivers grants to each state based on the annual value of its specialty crop production[State of California (2002, February 12). Governor Davis unveils $79 million “BuyCalifornia” campaign. Retrieved September 16, 2003, fromhttp://www.california.org.hk/pressreleases/pressrelease_feb_12_02.html]. Rather thandirectly supporting disaster-struck farmers, this money has paid for such projects as astudy of peach-and-pear fruit cups in school lunches ($100,000), and the “California
Heartland” television program ($275,000) [Doyle, Michael (2003, January 31). Federal
farm assistance to the rescue again. Washington Dateline].

8.

Environmental Working Group (2003). EWG Farm Subsidy Database [Data file].

34. Biotechnology Institute (n.d.). About us. Retrieved September 22, 2001, fromhttp://www.biotechinstitute.org/about.html

CHAPTER TEN
The Global Impacts of California’s Food System
1.

Pirog, Rich,Timothy Van Pelt, Kamyar Enshayan, and Ellen Cook (2001, June). Food,
Fuel, and Freeways: An Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Useage, andGreenhouse Gas Emissions. Ames, Iowa: Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture,
Iowa State University.

2.

The study measured products produced commercially on at least 1 percent of Iowa
farms.

124

RIPE FOR CHANGE: RETHINKING CALIFORNIA’S FOOD ECONOMY

Available: http://www.ewg.org/farm/home.php
9.

United States Department of Agriculture (2001). USDA Agricultural Income andFinancial Outlook.Washington DC: USDA.

10. Carlsen, Laura (2003, March). The Mexican farmers’ movement: Exposing the myths of free
trade. Americas Program Policy Report. Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource
Center. Available: http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/
0302farm.html
11. Environmental Working Group (2003). Total USDA subsidies by state, 1995-2002 [Datafile]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved August 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=06000&progcode=total&page=states
12. Environmental Working Group (2003) Total USDA subsidies in California [Data file].
EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved August 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=06000&progcode=total&page=conc

B. (1991). The Work of Nations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 61-2.
35. Gottlieb, Robert, Andy Fisher, and Nancy Jakowitsch (2002, October). Transportationand food:The importance of access. Center for Food and Justice, Urban and Environmental
Policy Institute. Retrieved November 5, 2003, fromhttp://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/cfj/resources/TransportationAndFood.htm
36. Surface Transportation Policy Project (n.d.). Trends in California’s street and highway
spending. Retrieved November 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.transact.org/ca/road_repair2.htm
37. Lowe, Paul (2003, March). FAA plan digs deeper into trust fund. Aviation International
News Online. Retrieved October 14, 2003, fromhttp://www.ainonline.com/issues/03_03/03-03_faabudgetpg12.html
38. Kraft, Stephanie (1997, June 26).Tax the jet set. Springfield Advocate, 7.

13. Environmental Working Group (2003). Top programs in California, 1995-2002 [Datafile]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved August 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=00000

39. US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (2003, October 28).
Modernization of air traffic control programs to be focus of Congressional hearing; Cost overruns& delays have plagued FAA’s effort [Press release]. Retrieved October 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.house.gov/transportation/press/press2003/release164.html

14. Environmental Media Services (2002, May 17). Farm bill fast facts. Retrieved July 18,
2003, from http://www.ems.org/farm_bill/facts.html

40. California Rebuild America Coalition (2003, September 3). Design work on LAX
expansion to proceed. California Infrastructure Brief, 4(63). Retrieved October 8, 2003,
from http://www.imakenews.com/calrac/e_article000180771.cfm

15. For a good critique of the 2002 Farm Bill, see: Mittal, Anuradha (2002). Giving away
the farm:The 2002 Farm Bill. Food First Backgrounder, 8(3). Available:
http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2002/s02v8n3.html
16. Chacon, Robert (2003, January 20). Farmers hope to milk bill. The Business Press.
Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, University of Missouri.
17. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., Daniel A. Sumner, and George Goldman (2000). The Measure of
California Agriculture 2000. Davis, CA: University of California Agricultural Issues
Center, 98-99. California rice, wheat, and cotton growers received average annual payments of $78.8 million, $21.4 million, and $78.9 million, respectively, from 1993
through 1995 (Farm programs overhauled (1996, March/April). Science briefs.
California Agriculture, Available:
http://CaliforniaAgriculture.ucop.edu/9602MA/briefs.html) California’s dairy farmers
did not receive direct payments, but received substantial program benefits throughimport restriction, marketing regulations, and price supports.
18. UC Davis (2002, July). Farm subsidies: US, EU. Rural Migration News, 8(3). Retrieved
August 1, 2003, from http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=608_0_5_0
19. Environmental Working Group (2003). Apple subsidies in California [Data file]. EWG
Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved August 12, 2003, fromhttp://ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=06000&progcode=apple&page
20. California Tomato Commission (n.d.). California’s fresh tomato industry receives
export funds [Press release]. Retrieved May 29, 2003, fromhttp://www.tomato.org/news/p061501.html
21. Environmental Media Services, op. cit.
22. Export subsidy data from: Economic Research Service (n.d.)., op. cit. Export value
data from: Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) (2003, September). US trade exports-FAS
commodity aggregations [Data file]. Retrieved October 8, 2003, fromhttp://www.fas.usda.gov/ustrade/USTExFAS.asp?Q1
23. Export value data from: FAS (2003, September), op. cit. Export subsidy data from:
Environmental Working Group (2003). Corn subsidies in the United States [Data file].
EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved August 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
24. Foreign Agricultural Service (2003, October 8), op. cit.

41. O’Connell, Jock (2000, May 14). California industry’s growing reliance on ‘fly bynight’ operators. The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved October 8, 2003, at http://jockoconnell.tripod.com/aircargo.html
42. Viewpoint: US lags in letting airports go private (1996, September 23). Aviation Week
& Space Technology, p. 66.
43. Port of Oakland (2003). Government Affairs: Legislative Regulatory Issues:WRDA:Water
Resources Development Act. Retrieved October 6, 2003, from http://www.portofoakland.com/portnyou/legi_07.asp
44. Bryce, H. Simon, Jose Duenas, and Marilyn Sandifur (2002, Summer). Port of
Oakland-Seaport. Economic Development Journal. See also: California League of Food
Processors (2003, August 1). Take 5. Retrieved October 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.clfp.com/
45. Hearrean: Port’s next challenge is 710 freeway (2001, February). Metro Investment
Report,VIII(9). Retrieved October 13, 2003, fromhttp://www.ablinc.net/mir/archive/feb2001a.html
46. Eichwald, Agustin (2002). “Don’t fence us in!” say Wilmington residents. Community for a
Better Environment. Retrieved October 8, 2003, fromhttp://www.cbecal.org/alerts/community/cWil2001
47. Hightower, Jim, and Susan DeMarco (1975).The Land Grant College Complex. In
Peter Barnes (Ed.) (1975). The People’s Land: A Reader on Land Reform in the UnitedStates. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.
48. Winner, Langdon (1986). The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: University of Chicago,
26.
49. Lacy,William B. (2000). Commercialization of university research brings benefits, raises
issues and concerns. California Agriculture, 54(4), 72-79.
50. Ibid.
51. Kuminoff et al., op. cit., 92.
52. California Farm Bureau Federation (2001, August 7). Ag tax package delivers equity[News release]. Retrieved August 26, 2003, at http://www.cfbf.com/release/2001/pr080701.htm

25. Carter, Colin A. (1997). International trade and Pacific Rim issues. In Siebert, Jerome
B. (Ed.). California Agriculture: Issues and Challenges (pp. 231-248). Giannini Foundation,
Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia, 246.

53. Report: Mass production promotes food poisoning (1997, December 10). Burlington
Free Press, 1.

26. State of California (2002, February 12). Governor Davis unveils $79 million “BuyCalifornia” campaign. Retrieved September 16, 2003, fromhttp://www.california.org.hk/pressreleases/pressrelease_feb_12_02.html See also:
CDFA (n.d.). Buy California initiative,
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/mkt/mkt/BuyCalif_intro.htm

55. See for example: Altieri, Miguel, and Clara Nicholls (2003). Agroecology: Rescuing organic
agriculture from a specialized industrial model of production and distribution. Draft manuscript.

27. CDFA (n.d.). Buy California initiative. Retrieved September 16, 2003, fromhttp://www.cdfa.ca.gov/mkt/mkt/BuyCalif_mkt.htm
28. Sumner, Daniel A., and David S. Hart (1997). Government policy and California agriculture. In Siebert, Jerome B. (Ed.). California Agriculture: Issues and Challenges. Giannini
Foundation, Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA: Universityof California.

54. Hall, Ross Hume (2000, June).The other cider the farm gate. The Ecologist, 30(4), 31.

56. Krebs, A.V. (2000, June 6). Packinghouse workers charge IBP with “processing” live
cattle. The Agribusiness Examiner, No. 77.
57. Walley, J. Zane (2002, July 16). Is world trade poisoning America’s food? Retrieved August
18, 2003, from http://www.paragonfoundation.org/is_world_trade_poisoning_america.htm
58. Pretty, J., et al. (2000). An assessment of the total external costs of UK agriculture.
Agricultural Systems 65(2), 113-136.

29. Kuminoff et al., op. cit., 99.
30. Wall, Michael (2002, December 8).Taxpayers get soaked under federal water plan. Los
Angeles Times.
31. Chambliss, Mary (2002, February 21). Remarks made as Acting Administrator of the
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, at the Outlook Forum, Crystal City,VA.
Retrieved August 27, 2003, from www.usda.gov/agency/oce/waob/oc2002/speeches/chambliss.doc
32. Office of Freight Management and Operations (n.d.). Southern California regional freightstudy. US Deparment of Transportation. Retrieved August 27, 2003, fromhttp://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/final_with_BL_comments_mjfrev_8.htm

CHAPTER TWELVE
Moving Forward: Strengthening the Local Food Movement
1.

California State Senate Select Committee on International Trade Policy and State
Legislation (n.d.). Retrieved August 12, 2003, at
http://www.sen.ca.gov/ftp/SEN/COMMITTEE/SELECT/INTER_TRADE/_home/2.

See for example Turcsik, Richard (2001).Vise grip: Consolidation will continue tosqueeze the supermarket industry. Progressive Grocer Annual Report (pp. 22-23).

3.

Kupfer, David (2004, March 2) Report from the Grassroots: the Mendocino Victory. Organic
Consumers Association. Retrieved March 19, 2004, from http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/mendocino031104.cfm

4.

See: a) Rosset, Peter (1999, September).The multiple functions and benefits of small

33. Ibid.
34. Federal Highway Administration (1996, June). FHWA By Day. pp. v, 57; Reich, Robert125

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

farm agriculture in the context of global trade negotiations. Policy Brief No. 4.
Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and Development Policy; b) Berry, R. Albert, andWilliam R. Cline (1979). Agrarian Structure and Productivity in Developing Countries.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; and c) Feder, Gershon (1985).The relationship between farm size and farm productivity. Journal of Development Economics, 18,297-313.
5.

Howard-Borjas, P. (1992, May 30). Women, environment and sustainable development. FAO
issues paper for internal discussion, 7.

6.

Malkin, Joel (1996, February 16). New directions in European markets. Report on Four
Panels at the International Public Market Conference. Retrieved October 10, 2003, fromhttp://www.openair.org/conf/malkin.html#new

15. Action for Healthy Kids (n.d.).What’s working programs: A garden in every school.
Retrieved March 29, 2004, fromhttp://www.actionforhealthykids.org/AFHK/whatsworking/profile.php?programid=17
16. Waters, Alice (1999). A world of possibilities. In Center for Ecoliteracy (1999). The
Edible Schoolyard (pp. 11-17). Berkeley, CA: Learning in the Real World.

APPENDICES

1.

Approximate market share is calculated based on retail shares in Northern andSouthern California, scaled to respective populations, and includes Reno and Las
Vegas, Nevada and does not include the Northern California counties of Humboldt,
Del Norte, Siskyou, and Modoc, which have a combined population of 209,350.

2.

Progressive Grocer (2003). The 2003 Super 50:Wal-Mart’s the 1. Retrieved November
19, 2003, fromhttp://www.progressivegrocer.com/progressivegrocer/images/pdf/top50.pdf

3.

Environmental Working Group (2003). USDA Subsidies for Farms in California [Datafile]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved March 29, 2004, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/concentrationtable.php?yr=2002&fips=06000
http://www.ewg.org/farm/regionsummary.php?fips=06000

10. Kambara, Kenneth M., and Crispin L. Shelley. (2002). The California Agricultural Direct
Marketing Study. Davis, CA: California Institute for Rural Studies. Retrieved December
5, 2003, from http://www.cirsinc.org/CAgriculturalDirectMarketingStudy.pdf.

4.

Environmental Working Group (2003). Concentration of Payments for Farms in California[Data file]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved March 29, 2004, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/concentrationtable.php?yr=2002&fips=06000

11. For more information, see: http://www.slowfood.com

5.

Environmental Working Group (2003). Total USDA Subsidies in California, 1995-2002[Data file]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved November 12, 2003, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=06000&progcode=totalhttp://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/archive_rmn/jul_2002-19rmn.html

13. Crane, Elizabeth (2003, July).The incredible, edible schoolyard. District Administration.
Retrieved March 29, 2004, fromhttp://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=434

6.

Environmental Working Group (2004). Top Programs in the United States, 1995-2002[Data file]. EWG Farm Subsidy Database. Retrieved March 29, 2004, fromhttp://www.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=00000&progcode=total

14. Green, Emily (2000, June). Learning off the land. Waitrose Food Illustrated. Retrieved
March 29, 2004, from http://www.waitrose.com/food_drink/wfi/foodissues/children/0006060.asp

7.

The International Commission On The Future Of Food And Agriculture (2003, July15). Manifesto on the future of food. Available:
http://www.slowfood.com/eng/sf_cose/campagne/manifesto%20inglese.pdf

7.

Wimberley, Ronald C., et al. (2003, February 26). Food from our changing world:The globalization of food and how Americans feel about it. Retrieved June 30, 2003, fromhttp://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/global-food/foodglobal.html

8.

USDA (2003, July 31). US organic information-standards, An overview of the organic food sector in the US. Retrieved October 31, 2003, fromhttp://www.usembassy.org.uk/fas/us_organic_fact.htm

9.

Pollock, Dennis (2002, October 27). Going to market with packinghouse prices
falling, more Valley growers are taking their produce on the road and meeting theirbuyers face to face. The Fresno Bee, C1.

12. McCullough,Yvette (1999). Developing ecoliteracy. In Center for Ecoliteracy (1999).
The Edible Schoolyard (pp. 62-3). Berkeley, CA: Learning in the Real World.

126

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