Excerpt from Growing Out Loud: Journey of a Food Revolutionary
By K. Rashid Nuri
Book Purchase: https://www.thenurigroup.com/book

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, enterprising Americans were granted 160 acres of land to settle and farm in the West and Midwest.  In the same year, the Land Grant Act gave states land to sell, with the money earned going to support agricultural colleges.  This early, full-circle subsidizing of agriculture evolved into the current system of commodity subsidies that keep Big Ag, big, and keep the numbers of family farms dropping each year.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, on the eve of his trip to Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, where he was assassinated.  He said: At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest.  Which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor.  But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm.  Not only that:  they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming.  Not only that: they provided low-interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms.  Not only that: today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies, not to farm.  And, they are the very people telling the Black man that he oughta lift himself by his own bootstraps.  Now this is what we are faced with, and this is the reality.  Now when we come to Washington in this campaign, we are coming to get our check.

Today, Black farmers and poor White farmers still have checks to pick up, from a very big payroll.  USDA subsidies between 1995 and 2014 totaled 322.7 billion dollars.  A handful of Big Ag growers of only five commodities receive the bulk of those subsidies:  corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.  As F. William Engdahl describes in his book, Sowing the Seeds of Destruction, these commodities are used on the world market to control prices and the flow of capital.  More insidiously, they are used to control the economies of developing nations in the name of “international aid.” 

Peanuts, sorghum, and mohair receive much smaller subsidies than the big five commodities, and dairy and sugar producers are supported with other programs.  Producers of meat, fruits and vegetables can generally access only two subsidy programs:  subsidized crop insurance and federal disaster payments.  This structure leaves out almost all small to medium farmers, lending support to a handful of Big Ag companies. It’s interesting to note that eight out of the ten states receiving the largest subsidies are in the Midwest, where much of the lands granted under the Homestead Act are located.

Farming is increasingly concentrated, with many few growers occupying much larger acreage.  The number of farms in the U.S. peaked in 1935, at 6.8 million.  By 2016, there were only 2.1 million farms, occupying the same number of acres.  Large farms “eat up” smaller ones, by having greater access to land, equipment and markets. The small farmers that have weathered the onslaught of commercial farming are finding it difficult to survive.  According to a 2016 USDA report, 59 to 78 percent of small farms, those with gross incomes up to $349,999, were operating in the red in 2015.  On the other hand, farms with incomes of $1-5 million and above were more likely to bring in profits averaging 25%.

The widespread hybridization of agricultural crops and mechanized production are known as the Green Revolution, which was seeded by research that began in the 1930s.  The work of plant geneticists, including Henry A. Wallace and Norman Borlaug, in combination with industrial innovations, set the stage for a technological takeover of farming, food processing and food distribution on a global scale.  Norman Borlaug is credited with being the father of the Green Revolution, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.  Borlaug’s hybrid varieties of wheat, rice and corn, produced large yields, enhanced by their resistance to disease and ability to withstand chemical fertilizers.  Evidence has shown that the quality of the food has suffered, and after a few years, the increase in production tends to fall, and more and more chemical and technological inputs - fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides - are required to maintain the high level of output.

A statistician who was one of the first to apply econometrics to agriculture, Henry A. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture from 1933-1940.  Born to an Iowa farming family, Wallace’s early horticultural training began with his mother teaching him to crossbreed pansies in her garden.  He grew up to design the first successfully marketed variety of hybrid corn.  He continued to develop and market hybrid varieties through his highly profitable Hi-Bred [“Hybrid”] Seed Company.  Wallace’s son eventually sold the company to DuPont for an estimated $10 billion.

Wallace’s story is something of a study in contradictions, and a demonstration of the harsh realities of unintended consequences.  An advocate for farmers, the poor and racial equality, Wallace’s work as Secretary of Agriculture was pivotal in changing lives, and instituting iconic agricultural programs.  He almost single-handedly reversed the devastation that farmers endured during the Great Depression, through policies such as:  paying farmers to let their fields lie fallow, in order to conserve the soil and increase prices for farm output; introducing food stamps and school lunches for the poor; and developing drought- and disease-resistant corn varieties.  Ultimately, however, huge growers became the primary beneficiaries of no-planting and commodity farm subsidies.  Food stamps, while they provide great nutritional benefits to the poor, do not change the status quo of food insecurity that derives from poor people being alienated from food production.  Hybrid seed varieties set the stage for the Frankenfoods that permeate today’s food supply - GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) that wreak havoc on human health, the environment and the livelihoods of small farmers, both here and abroad.

The fatal flaw is the mindset to control nature, rather than to cooperate and communicate with the life principles that support us.  Genetic changes that occur in nature require that new species prove themselves within the context of a complex ecosystem that can balance those changes over time.  Producing genetic varieties in a laboratory, then unleashing them on unsuspecting human and environmental biospheres is simply reckless and irresponsible.  Just as the medical profession invents more drugs to cure the adverse effects of “miracle cures,” commercial agriculture seeks more and more technologies to cover the errors of previous “breakthroughs.”

Meanwhile, the Earth’s environments - forests, meadows, waterways and even deserts - demonstrate the processes of sustainable growth.  System-wide interactions keep all the elements in a perpetual flow that is, generally, maintained for millennia.  Trees drop leaves on the forest floor.  The leaves become food for microorganisms that break down the leaves to become soil.  The microorganisms are food for larger organisms, that move through the system, carrying pollen and nutrients to other inhabitants, and to the water, where other life is fed.  The water cycles through its systems, and rains down to continue the flow of life.

Although agriculture is not a part of the natural environment, it can be made to emulate nature, and fit synergistically within ecosystems.  Smaller agricultural footprints reduce the impact on the environment, promote biodiversity and human contact with other humans in a life-giving context, and help maintain a social balance by requiring more hands-on labor.  The more we move away from the Earth, the more technologies we need to fix our ailments.  For example, more mechanization means less physical labor, so now we need gyms so we can get exercise.  The more time-saving technologies we invent, the less time we have to be human.  We need a bridge back to our humanity.  Food production can be that bridge, utilizing the land right under our feet.