Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 25

 

324

University of Toledo Law Review

Vol.26

 

from almost every other environmental protection statute4. This "thinking" has so penetrated the protocol of bureaucratic proceedings and land grant university organization that it has ascended unquestioned to the status of a "natural" law.
    However, a significant number of farming practitioners in the world recognize that chemical farming is not the only way to produce wholesome and abundant crops. These farmers have developed a patchwork of alternative production systems in spote of (and in many cases because of) the current chemically dependent paradigm.
    The hallmarks of these systems are: crop rotation and diversification; cooperation with ecological systems and cycles; focus on net return rather than gross income and yields; and minimization of external inputs, particularly non-renewable resources.

Cheap Food: Expensive for Farmers

Because prices of basic agricultural commodities have been set in an environment of over-production and surplus supplies, most farmers operate under severe economic pressure to eke out a net income5. The "cheap food" policy of the federal government has virtually guaranteed the availability of these "free" agricultural commodities but has not made food "cheap" at the supermarket or at the fast food outlet. The only beneficiaries of the "cheap food" system are the food processors and the commodity brokers, most of which are multi-national megacorporations that push "free trade" agreements to further undermine the economy at the farm level and control farm program legislation. On the other hand, those hurt by the system not only include farmers, because of the over-production, but also the environment, which is required to harbor all the chemical utilized to force growth out of dead soil, and food buyers who usually have no idea how their food is grown, packaged, processed and marketed.
    Huge corporations continually use the projected world population growth as a justification for their monopolistic practices and their collaboration with farm chemical manufacturers. They do so despite the obvious fact that food production should be localized worldwide and is not the limiting factor in population growth6. Poor energy policies in the United States impel agriculture to be the export barterer for "cheap" energy.
   Responding to the present economic and ecologic quagmire, alternative farmers have found a market for "alternatively" produced goods at higher than conventional prices7. This has led to a privately funded array of marketing, certifying, distributing and

4.  See, e.g., Water Pollution Control Act, Pub. L. No. 80-845, 62 Stat. 1155 (1948) (codified at 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1376 (1988)).

5.  See Donald T. Hornstein, Lessons From Federal Pesticide Regulation on the Paradigms and Politics of Environmental Law Reform, 10 YALE J. ON REG. 369, 398 (1993) (explaining the surplus dilemma). See also CHRISTOPHER J. BOSSO, PESTICIDES AND POLITICS 26 (1987) ("[I]f each farmer maximizes production to protect personal income, the inevitable aggregate outcome is a glut. The ensuing surplus pounds down commodity prices.")

6.  These limits are waste-product and/or energy-supply based.

7.  The term "conventional" hereinafter will refer to goods produced using soluble chemical fertilizers and a full shelf of pesticides.

 

[ Home ] [ Up ]

Send mail to macmerrill@aol.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1999 Roseland Organic Farms
Last modified: February 03, 2003