In many of my Farm to Fork columns over the last few years I’ve stressed two big related themes that I believe are essential in order for the U.S. to remain the world’s preeminent food-producing nation and maintain our food security and food sovereignty.
These two related themes are the importance of better-connecting Americans with farmers and farming – where the food they eat comes from – and elevating the importance of farming, food production and food security as a national security issue for our country.
Consumers are disconnected from farming and where their food comes from today for a variety of reasons.
These are the three major reasons why I think this has become the new reality in our country.
First, only about 1 percent (around two million people out of a population of 330 million) of Americans are farmers today. The simple math based on this numerical reality means that the odds most Americans – particularly since 80% of us live in urban and suburban regions, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – even personally know a farmer is pretty low.
Additionally, modern mass food production and the creation of the long supply chain has largely removed farmers from interacting directly with consumers, who are the end-users of what farmers produce. This is one reason why farmers markets and farmers selling what they produce, including finished food products, directly to consumers is so important today as a way to encourage and increase interaction between those who grow our food and eaters.
Lastly, agriculture and food production have become so successful in the U.S. since the end of War II that as consumers we’ve simply come to take farmers, farming and what it takes to produce the bounty of foods available to us today for granted. Great success often leads to “out of sight, out of mind” and even indifference.
Shortages of food products on stores shelves, which in some cases we still see today, during the height of the pandemic in 2020-2021 briefly put some added focus on where our food comes from and how it gets to the grocery store, but it was short-lived. And because most media explanations focused on the “broken” supply chain and how it can and should be fixed, little of the conversation reached back to farming.
Not even the severe ongoing drought in California, the nation’s largest farm state, and elsewhere in farm regions has thus far led to significant discussion by Americans, including our political leaders in Washington and our state capitals, about the importance of working to better connect people with farmers, where our food comes from, and what it takes to produce it.
This leads me to my second related big theme – the need to elevate farming, food production and food security higher up the priority ladder when it comes to America’s national security thinking and policy.
From the 1950s-1970s farming and food production – agriculture in general – was a much higher priority in American national security policy. This in fact was one of the key reasons that led to massive government and private sector investment in creating what today in the U.S. is often called the “modern miracle of American agriculture.”
Major success though often leads to de-prioritization, which is what’s happened to food, farming and the importance of food security when it comes to America’s national security agenda. Butter used to be as important as guns were. That’s no longer the case.
One of our nation’s great achievements is we have food sovereignty – we’re basically able to grow enough food to feed the 330 million people who live in the U.S. We import a lot of food too but unlike many other nations that must do so to feed their people, we do it more for reasons of variety and choice, as well as for international trade reasons, rather than necessity.
Our level of food sovereignty today though is much less than it’s been in the past, due to a number of reasons like there being less farmland to produce crops on and fewer people going into farming.
But farmers grow as much food today on less land than they did decades ago and are able to do so with far less labor than in the past because of technological advances on the farm, so these aren’t major limiting factors. Instead, my argument is that de-prioritizing food sovereignty as a domestic priority and food and farming as a key national security priority are the main reasons for this change.
This relates directly to my other main theme, which is the need to better connect Americans to farmers and where the food we eat comes from.
National security priorities are influenced by the priorities of American citizens. Food and farming are low on the overall priority lists of Americans for the reasons I’ve noted, which means little attention is paid to the fact that our political leaders in Washington no longer feel the need to make agriculture a key element of America’s national security policy. Food security is national security. Farming is the key pillar of creating food security.
I was encouraged last month by hearing some comments from Beth Ford, president and CEO of one of America’s largest diversified agribusiness and food companies, Land O’ Lakes, Inc., at the Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems lecture series at Kansas State University.
In her lecture, Ford stressed the importance of the two big themes I’ve been emphasizing for the last few years in my Farm to Fork column.
She noted that America’s farmers should be celebrated for their crucial role in providing food security, “even if their work is sometimes overlooked.” She believes, like I do, that their work and what they do is overlooked by Americans.
Under Ford’s leadership, Land O’ Lakes, Inc. recently launched a campaign that promotes the future of agriculture as being “rooted in tomorrow.” The campaign emphasizes both of my two big themes as being important.
Land O’ Lakes decided to launch the campaign, Ford said in her talk, because: “We were really thinking about how we can connect farmers and what they do on a daily basis with those who are not familiar with agriculture. And right now, that’s most people because less than 1 percent of the world population is directly involved in agriculture. Folks don’t understand farming, they don’t understand the food supply and they don’t understand the hard work that goes into it every day.”
Ford also likened food security to national security in her lecture, saying she thinks of farmers as the original environmentalists and original entrepreneurs who are constantly reinvesting in their land for all of us, adding: “They need to be loud about that. We want folks to understand that farmers solve big problems.”
In a nutshell, we need to elevate food, farming and farmers in America and to better-connect people with farmers and what it takes to grow the food we eat. This includes making food security a higher priority in America as part of our country’s national security. I agree.
What we need next though is for more agribusiness and food industry CEOs like Ford to agree and get on board, along with our political leaders, from the president and congress on down.
Farmers also need to speak up more about who they are and what they do and to make better efforts to connect with average Americans.
Better-connecting Americans with farmers and what it takes to grow the food we eat and making farming and food security and food sovereignty higher priorities in our country not only will be wins for all of us – it might even help end food inflation and bring the cost of food back down a little – doing it also makes smart economic and national security sense for our nation.
My Job Depends on Ag Magazine columnist and contributing editor Victor Martino is an agrifood industry consultant, entrepreneur and writer. One of his passions and current projects is working with farmers who want to develop their own branded food products. You can contact him at: victormartino415@gmail.com.
