Currently browsing posts about: Food-system

The USDA announced the latest data on the US agricultural system in a press release.  It summarizes the highlights:

• Number of farms: 1.9 million (down 7% from 2017)
• Average size: 463 acres (up 5%)
• Total farmland: 880 million acres of farmland (down 2%), accounting for 39% of all U.S. land.
• Revenues: $543 billion (up from $389 billion)
• Net cash income (less expenses): $152 billion.
• Average farm income: $79,790. A total of 43% of farms had positive net cash farm
• Percent farms with net income: 43%
• Farms selling direct to consumers: 116,617 with sales of $3.3 billion (up 16%)
• Farms with sales of $ 1 million or more: 105,384 (6% of all farms); they sell three-fourths of all agricultural products.
• Farms with sales of $50,000 or less: 1.4 million (74% of farms); they sell 2%.
• Percent of farmland used for oilseeds or grains: 32%
• Percent of farmland used for beef cattle: 40%
• Average age of farmers: 58.1 (up 0.6 years)
• Average age of beginning farmers: 47.1

The 2022 census information is so complicated to access that the USDA provides a video on the main site to explain how to use it.   This helps—a lot.

The site for the full report is here.   For the full report itself, go here.

Highlights are here.

Most of the data refer to industrial crops like corn and soybeans: feed for animals, fuel for automobiles.

If you want to know about food for people , you can looik at Table 36. Vegetables, Potatoes, and Melons Harvested for Sale: 2022 and 2017

All of this is in miserable-to-read tables.  Fortunately, The Guardian to the rescue: ‘America is a factory farming nation’: key takeaways from US agriculture census.

It provides illuminting charts based on the data.  For example:

What more to say?  Only that our agricultural system needs a major refocusing on smaller, diverse, regenerative farms producing food, as well as those producing animal feed.  We should not be growing food crops to produce automobile fuel.

Here’s my third Who Knew post of the week, this one an at-a-glance explanation of what’s wrong with the US food system, courtesy of FarmDocDaily.

In 1980 or so, corn and soybeans comprised about 20% each of total crop acreage.  Now it’s 30% each.

To bring this point home:

Recall that more than 40% of US corn is used to feed animals and another more than 40% is used to make ethanol.

Monoculture, anyone?  Lack of biodiversity?  Greenhouse gas emissions?  A focus on feed and fuel, not food?

Time to rethink the food system!

Last week, the USDA announced its new Framework for Shoring Up the Food Supply Chain and Transforming the Food System to Be Fairer, More Competitive, More Resilient.

The Framework document is long and hard to read.  Here’s a summary:

Framework goals:

• Building a more resilient food supply chain that provides more and better market options for consumers and producers while reducing carbon pollution
• Creating a fairer food system that combats market dominance and helps producers and consumers gain more power in the marketplace by creating new, more and better local market options
• Making nutritious food more accessible and affordable for consumers
• Emphasizing equity

Framework actions: where the money goes:

Food production

• $300 million for an Organic Transition Initiative
• $75 million for urban agriculture

Food processing

• $100 million for the Food Supply Chain Loan Guarantee Program
• $375 million to expand independent meat and poultry processing
• 25 million for Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity Technical Assistance
• $275 million for credit access for processors
•  $100 million to support processing worker training and safety
• $200 million for Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops
• $600 million to support food supply chain infrastructure

Food distribution and aggregation

• $400 million for regional food business centers
• $60 million to leverage commodity purchases through Farm-to-School
• $90 million to prevent and reduce food loss and waste

Food markets & Consumers

• $155 million for food access in underserved communities (Healthy Food Financing Initiative)
• $50 million for the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program
• $40 million for the GusNIP [Gus Schumacher] Produce Prescriptions Program.
• $25 million for SNAP technology improvements
• $100 million to create a Healthy Food Incentive Fund for schools

Civil Eats has an interview with Secretary Vilsack about all this.  Its point:

While it’s billed as a “transformation,” the framework does not change the foundational structures or practices of the American food system. It does, however, emphasize regionalism, support for organic and urban farming, and nutrition in new ways. That’s a significant shift for the agency, which has historically prioritized efficiency over all else.

The White House was also at work last week.  It released an Action Plan on Global Water Security.

Summary: FACT SHEET: Vice President Harris Announces Action Plan on Global Water Security and Highlights the Administration’s Work to Build Drought Resilience.

Strategies (Pillars):

• Pillar 1: Advancing U.S. leadership in the global effort to achieve universal and equitable access to sustainable, climate-resilient, safe, and effectively managed WASH services without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Pillar 2: Promoting sustainable management and protection of water resources and associated ecosystems to support economic growth, build resilience, mitigate the risk of instability or conflict, and increase cooperation.
• Pillar 3: Ensuring that multilateral action mobilizes cooperation and promotes water security.

Will any of this do real good?  Specific initiatives will benefit from the increased funding.

Transforming the food system?  Not quite yet.

The American Journal of Public Health has just published an editorial I did with Nick Freudenberg, who directs the Urban Food Policy Institute at the CUNY School of Public Health.

“A Call for a National Agenda for a Healthy, Equitable, and Sustainable Food System” [it’s open access and you can read it at that link]

Here’s the abstract:

In less than a month, US voters will choose their next president and Congress, creating the opportunity for food, farm, and social justice activists to shape a new federal food agenda. Whether Democrats sweep the election or Republicans retain the Senate or White House, the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the deepening economic crisis, and the continuing disruptions from climate change demand rethinking how federal food policies can contribute to improved human and planetary health. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print August 27, 2020: e1–e3. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.305926)

Our goals:

1. Reduce hunger and food insecurity
2. Dismantle systemic racism in the food system
3. Make healthy affordable food available to all Americans
4. Reduce burden of diet-related diseases
5. Support agricultural practices that reduce carbon emissions and other forms of pollution
6. Protect food workers
7. Promote food democracy