{"id":3154,"date":"2010-11-04T11:01:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T15:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2010-11-04T11:44:13","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T15:44:13","slug":"the-fight-for-hearts-and-stomachs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/04\/the-fight-for-hearts-and-stomachs\/","title":{"rendered":"The fight for hearts and stomachs"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a deep fissure on the farm.<\/p>\n

On one side: the lion’s share of agriculture that participates in the industries, production, and distribution systems that fill supermarkets’ produce, dairy, and meat sections. This includes most of the North Country’s dairy farmers who sell their milk through a coop into the milkstream.<\/p>\n

On the other side: mostly small fruit, vegetable, meat, and dairy farmers who are fighting for a more regional food economy.\u00a0 These are the farmers market and CSA farmers who are filling the locavore demand and putting “local” options in groceries and on restaurants’ menus.<\/p>\n

Each side is fighting for the hearts, minds, and stomachs of the American consumer.<\/p>\n

Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma<\/em> and the film Food Inc<\/em> raised many Americans’ awareness of how large-scale agriculture works.<\/a> He’s pointed out<\/a> how subsidies can skew our food systems, how feedlots can make our meat unsafe, how a few corporations can control the genetic backbone of many crops.<\/p>\n

Many farmers and agriculture experts are frustrated by<\/a> Pollan’s characterizations.\u00a0 They believe he’s painting with too broad a brush and giving the American farmer – already under siege financially – a bad name.\u00a0 The dramatic expansion of industrial agriculture since the 1960s has fueled an unprecedented level of food production.\u00a0 And they believe the industry is losing the battle for American public opinion.<\/p>\n

According to a survey commissioned by the chemical company BASF U.S. Crop Operations<\/a>, “nearly 23 percent of consumers believe stewardship practices are worse today than they were ten years ago, compared to just seven percent of farmers”.<\/p>\n

Recently, the agriculture industry has been working aggressively to tell its own story.\u00a0 The St. Louis Agribusiness Club hosted a meeting of industry leaders last month to strategize on this very issue.<\/p>\n

BASF has produced a very compelling youtube video making the case for U.S. agriculture feeding the world.\u00a0 You can watch it below.<\/p>\n

As debate over the 2012 Farm Bill ramps up, a key thing to watch will be how this division between industry and “locavore farming” (for lack of a better term) evolves.\u00a0 People on both sides are lamenting the division.\u00a0 It’ll be interesting to see if it’s possible for the groups to come together to speak for agriculture in its totality.<\/p>\n

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