Producing our Food comes with a cost to the environment

[cakadu]

I am curious to know what people think about this statement. How much of a cost should there be to the environment? When will we know that the costs are outweighing the benefits and when that happens, how will be be able to turn back?

[ValueChainFX]

cakadu I am sure that you have already formed an answer yourself on this issue, it always has been one of those naughty issues to speak out loud about. However, so right you are, that there are several interesting projects happening that are looking at environmental impacts and how to improve and profit from changes.

It is also an area that I believe we can not only make work in Canada, but make work very very well. Controlling environmental impact is not an inexpensive goal! However, if indeed a person could increase the profit made in the same environment or space then is the project worth it? Well I guess we shall just have to see if the estimates in costs and the estimates in returns are correct!

Good topic for discussion cakadu!

[cowman]

Cakadu: We won't be able to turn back. The cost/price squeeze won't allow it. There will always be a small niche market for organic products but that's all it will be. Just try growing a crop without fertilizer or sprays! In Europe they use a lot more of both than we do!
In the past I used hormone implants in my calves. I knew that something was wrong when I had little heifers coming around at 350 lbs.! The little steers all looked like small body builders! Did they weigh more? You bet! I quit using them because I knew something was really wrong(and got sick of having little heifers bred)!! And this was the very mild Syno-vex C. But what did I really accomplish? As soon as they hit the feedlot they get an implant(a lot hotter one) and put on some medicated feed. Someone else gets the benifits of using hormones on my calves. But that's okay because our government(and the big chemical companys!) say it's safe! They also tell us chemical sprays are safe...how come so many farmers are dying from cancer then? Maybe it's just the clean air and open spaces!
But we can't go back...we need that extra production to pay for all the overpriced machinery, land, taxes,fuel etc. That's just how it is.

[ianben]

Everything we do is just one big experiment.
There is really no fixed environment we have had ice ages and hotter times in the earths history, so the experts tell us.
How much effect do we have? We could even be making things better. Who really knows?

I don't believe we are clever enuogh yet to say what impact our human actions will have.

There is definatly no going back though.
BSE in our country proves that. DDT another mistake. Genetic modifcation? Time will tell a huge global experiment.

I feel on balance though the benifits of new inovations outweigh the harm.

Sometimes it is easy to blame something new, chemicals harming farmers, when lifestyle and diet have changed at the same time. The farmer of today has a very different way of life from 50yrs ago.
I believe this may have more to do with the illness we suffer from.
Perhaps selling ones car and tractors might be better for ones health than eating organic.
Don't see it becoming an option even if I could prove it!!!
I for one am glad I live in the age of vaccines and penicillin.
Just how good were the old days when we died from small-pox and polio.

Regards Ian

[nakodo]

BORLAUG CLAIMS ENVIRONMENTAL "EXTREMISM" COULD DESTROY FOOD
SYSTEM
Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his
leadership in defeating famine in Asia, the Middle East, and
Latin America, fears that environmental "extremism" is
threatening the scientific advances of the "Green Revolution" and
preventing their use in Africa, according to The Des Moines
Register (March 9, 1997). The Green Revolution combined plant-
breeding advances with efficient use of fertilizer, pesticides,
and irrigation water. Borlaug now contends that influential
environmentalists have persuaded international lending
institutions and foundations that the use of fertilizers and
pesticides threatens to damage the environment, according to The
Register. He also said that "environmental nonsense" could lead
to a collapse of food production in the industrialized world.
However, "the Green Revolution was not great for everybody," said
James Parr, a retired USDA soil scientist, in an accompanying
article. While the Green Revolution features high-yielding
varieties of wheat and rice, Africans are much better able to
produce traditional "dry land cereals -- sorghum, millets, some
legumes," he said.

[cowman]

ianben: Mostly I agree with you. I sure as hell don't want to be harnessing up a bunch of nags every morning even though it would probably be good for me! I think the trick is to do everything in moderation. Do we have to grow so much that we destroy the earth? Why? So we can get a lower price. We produce so much that it's not worth anything. But I know how it is...I'm caught up in the same old game as you.

[pandiana]

The world is such a big place its hard to deal with this issues globally. But if I consider just my own micro-environment, I find it easier to extrapolate to global issues.

I have several woodlots on my property. Environmentally I know these are critical to sustaining my own microenvironment. They help feed the springs that my cattle depend on pasture. They help hold the soil and protect us from the wind. Its hard to put a price on these things. We don't see the benefits at the bank.
These measures also benefit my immediate neighbors by moderating winds and increase air quality. But once again, no cheque. The same with my riparian areas. They benefit me and my neighbors downstream. But no cheque. Only the cost of fencing and the loss of potential pasture.

As farmers find it more and more difficult to meet the rising costs of doing business, how can they afford to maintain their focus on sustainable agricultural practices when many don't know if they can pay their next years feed or seed bills or whether they will even be farming in the future. Economics has forced many of my neighbors to cut all their timber to generate cash to upgrade machinery, or even pay feed bills. Every inch of land is farmed intensively to produce maximum profit for short term, not because they don't see the downside, but they can't afford to.

[nakodo]

I agree there needs to be some return for this "social" cost that impacts on the economic realities. The riparian protection programs are trying to help offset costs for producers who want to help out, we need to do a better job of telling the consumer what we are doing.

Have producers thought about how they can assist Growing Alberta and other organizations like this that tell the story to consumers? Do we need to work more closely with these outreach programs? Consumers tell advertising agencies they do not want to see actors and read glossy stories, they want to see real farmers telling real stories, warts and all so to speak.

As the Deputy Premier and Minister of Ag for Ab said in her speech last night. "I explain to my fellow urban caucus members, take a walk in the country, smell the air, see the crops, look at the green spaces and remember the farmer and his family live here, not for a 20 minute walk or an hour bike ride, but for 365 days a year. Who better to understand and protect the environment that they and their children are exposed to EVERY day.

This is the kind of message we need to get out to consumers. Then they will start to value the products grown locally, branded as responsibly produced etc. etc.

[cowman]

As it stands right now there is no benefit to leaving "natural areas"? Trees and brush have no economic value. If you knock them down then the land has some potential to produce some income.
Having said that, personally I like having some brush around. I like watching the deer, birds, moose etc. They were here long before my great-grandfather bought this place and they will have a place here as long as I own this place. I know there are some sort of programs around where you can get paid some sort of pittance for maintaining "natural areas and riparian areas". Of course you have to jump through the hoops and let someone else decide what goes on. I take care of my springs and lands because they take care of me! I don't need some "expert" telling me how to manage something that my family has managed quite well for 100 yrs. thank you very much!

[pandiana]

I think most farmers want to be good 'stewards'. But, what if your 20 year old tractors was packing it in, you marketed your calves just as the bottom dropped out, you paid a fortune for feed to carry you over winter and then a logger pulled in and offered you $15-20K to cut your woodlots?

[cowman]

That's a tough question! I'm not sure but I suspect, if I was in that kind of bind I'd probably go for it. I guess lots of people have had to face this sort of thing and we shouldn't fault them for making a tough decision. As long as there is no real public support(read that as money) for natural areas then we each have to do what is our own best interests.

[cakadu]

These are very good points that the two of you are bringing up. We can try to preserve the environment, but should the cost of that be borne primarily by one group i.e. producers, or those who own the majority of the land? If we are preserving it for all, then shouldn't all of us have a hand in paying the costs of the preservation?

[ianben]

Higher prices for our products is the best way to solve this problem while the familly farm still exists.
The people who live there will look after their environment if the have funds to do so.Higher prices are the best way to get the money from everyone to the farmer.
It is easier to say no to the logger with $in your pocket.
Trying to produce more for less is what harms the environment.
Give us an option to this solution before the multi-nationals take over or the environment will really suffer.
We all know what makes those guys tick. $$$$$.

Regards Ian

[pandiana]

Ianben
Yes, higher food prices are the only solution to this problem.
Government programs, subsidies, controls are at best short term solutions and merely muddy the waters, complicating and already complex problem.

The most common argument agains high food prices is that the it might trigger inflation and widen the gap between high and low wage earners. I would think that money diverted from farm programs to increases in minimum wages might eliviate this problem.

On the other hand, how to you ensure that a rise in food prices will not merely be skimmed off by shareholders of the transnationals?...or at any stop down the production chain? How can we get the money to the primary producers? They have no bargaining power except possibly by stopping production altogether.
Any ideas?
Regards

[nakodo]

It has been shown we have in front of us much higher food prices available to us and we do not chose to capture them.

Recent studies have identified 7 % of food shoppers as shopping in the luxury category. These 7 % buy 25 % of the food sold (in dollar values).

What does luxury purchasing mean, it means 7 % of the people do not use the price as their first priority in making a purchase and will often NOT buy the cheapest product for a number of reasons.

They buy for health reasons, for taste, to bring back feelings of their youth (retrofoods), food safety, gourmet taste, image etc.

Most of these so called luxury products are not grown or produced in Canada because we do not want to change our production practices set over the last 50 years. Change is seen as too hard, too complicated, or would mean we would have to cooperate with other producers, or partner with a processor and other forms of change deplored by the "rugged individualists" we are in Agriculture.

Many of our producers say we have a cheap food policy, I have not yet seen a policy paper on this subject. What I see is a market that is telling us our current products are not worth as much as we want them to be. The consumer is seeking something else and will pay for it, offering someone a cheaper carrot when they want a carrot cake is not the way to please these cash rich consumers.

If we want to raise the prices of generic no name commodities across the board this will force the consumer to pay more for things produced in Canada or to shop elsewhere.

Consumers will buy from outside of the country at cheaper prices in a minute unless we close the borders to incoming produce.

With 3 % of the vote concentrated in Agriculture and 100 % of the vote being consumers in a push and shoving match over access to US goods and other countries goods we will lose.

Closing the border to food is not a realistic option, can we instead shift the way we think and seek to satisfy the wants of the luxury shopper seeking a quality product and benefit from the fact they are willing to pay more for those products?