Complexity of the Agricultural and Food Production System
Global Markets and Farmers' Markets
While some producers sell their products directly to consumers, others are fully integrated multi-national companies such as Cargill. This company operates in 70 countries providing financial services while producing (to name a few) food and beverages, animal nutritional products, industrial products, food services, agricultural inputs of almost every sort, international marketing and processing, and bio industrial products. Given the complexity of the food chain and the enormous diversity of producers, processors, retail structures, and national economies, it is difficult to estimate how much of the world’s food is produced and controlled by large multi-national corporations; however, according to Greenpeace, it is significant. Greenpeace suggests we should all be aware of the following facts:Oxfam has identified 10 major international corporations that control most of the world’s food, racking up daily profits of $ 1.1 billion (US). It is clear that having large multi-glomerates involved in so many areas of food production has implications for the quality, quantity, availability, and cost of our food. The type of food production we support is linked to the sustainability of our food and the environment.
- "Six corporations – Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF – control 75% of the world pesticides market.
- Factory farms now account for 72% of poultry production, 43% of egg production, and 55% of pork production worldwide.
- Only four corporations – ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus – control more than 75% of the global grain trade. These corporations overwhelmingly push commodity crops like corn and soy on local farmers at the expense of native crops." (Greenpeace, 2016)
In order to have control over the type of food they eat, many consumers today support Farmers’ Markets, Food Co-ops, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, and other direct marketing channels. By supporting these direct marketing networks, consumers know who produces their food and how, they know how fresh it is, and they can support their local economies.
Decreasing Number of Farms, and Migrant Workers
In Canada, the number of farms is decreasing while the size of individual farms is getting larger. Canadian farm families continue to face low economic returns coupled with high input costs; they are impacted by globalization, free trade agreements, neoliberal policies and the failure of Canadian governments to develop systematic food related policies, thus making farmers vulnerable to numerous forces beyond their immediate control. Because of numerous expenses and the uncertainty of farming, more and more farmers are leaving, and it is economically harder to pass on the farm to the next generation. Notice in the figure below that although total farm area is relatively stable, the number of farms is decreasing quite steadily.In 1966, in order to mitigate labour shortages on Canadian farms, the Canadian government established the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) whereby farm labourers from Jamaica, Mexico and other Caribbean countries could come and work on Canadian farms. Workers typically are hired for a maximum of 8 months and then are sent home once their contracts expire. In recent years there have been concerns about the conditions of migrant workers on farms in Canada. An excellent TVO award-winning documentary entitled “Migrant Dreams” directed by Min Sook Leeby follows the story of migrant workers who come to labour in Ontario greenhouses as part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Women in Farming
Most family farms survive through the work of farm women. Women around the world play a key role in agriculture, although they are not often recognized or do not even call themselves “farmers”. Women work off the farm and help to subsidize both the farm and the household. They are contributing more farm work than at any other time in history, and they do most of the household labour which keeps the household functioning. Many believe women are the key to the sustainability and the security of agriculture around the world, and more and more scholarship is now recognizing the important role that women in agriculture play.
Check out the following news articles about the rise of women farmers in Canada and the United Kingdom.
