Small Farms, Regional Food Systems: Good for All (except Monsanto, et al.)

This is a long and excellent articulation of the value of local and regional food systems, by the interim managing director of the Regional Farm and Food Project:

May 16, 2005
New York State Assembly Public Hearing Testimony
By Billie Best, Executive Director of the Regional Farm and Food Project

“NEW YORK STATE FOOD AND NUTRITION POLICY”

Thank you for holding this public hearing and for inviting us to speak before you today. My name is Billie Best. I am the Executive Director of the Regional Farm & Food Project. The Regional Farm & Food Project is a member-supported, farmer-focused, non-profit organization founded in 1996 to promote sustainable agriculture and local food systems. Our core constituency of approximately 3400 individuals and organizations includes 1200 member contributors and more than 700 farms.

The Regional Farm & Food Project brings the relationship between sustainable agriculture and a healthy planet to the table of public opinion, raising awareness of the connection between the food system, the environment, culture and community. We produce an annual curriculum of farmer-to-farmer education programs to promote self-reliance, innovation and entrepreneurship, and we educate the public about how their food choices shape their world. The Farm & Food Show is our monthly radio program on WRPI-Troy. The Troy Waterfront Farmers’ Market and the New York State Farmstead & Artisanal Cheesemakers Guild were founded by and are sponsored by the Regional Farm & Food Project.

TODAY I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU ABOUT SOME OF THE CHALLENGES OF SMALL FARM PROFITABILITY, THE REGULATORY BARRIERS TO A HEALTHIER AGRICULTURE ECONOMY, AND DEVELOPING A POLICY OF REGIONALISM AS A FRAMEWORK FOR OUR FOOD SYSTEM.

At the Regional Farm & Food Project, when we talk about sustainable agriculture, we mean the process of staying in sustained balance with nature; replacing and refreshing the natural resources —air, water and soil—consumed in the process of producing food. Unlike conventional industrial agriculture, sustainable agriculture does not externalize the cost of sales by dumping pollution into the environment or treating animals inhumanely. A food policy designed to improve human health would encourage innovations in sustainable agriculture and end subsidies to polluting industrial agriculture.

Our definition of “small farm” is one with annual revenues under $500,000. We believe small farms practicing sustainable agriculture are essential to a diverse, competitive food system where the goals are food security, self-reliance, self-sufficiency and good health. There are two main obstacles to small farm profitability: consumer price perceptions that food should be cheap, and oversized regulatory barriers to small-scale methods and markets.

A FOOD POLICY DESIGNED TO IMPROVE HUMAN HEALTH WOULD EDUCATE CONSUMERS TO UNDERSTAND THE HIDDEN COST OF CHEAP FOOD, AND REALIZE THEY ARE BEING SUCKERED INTO THINKING THEIR FOOD IS CHEAP WHILE TAXES, POLLUTION, ENERGY AND HEALTHCARE COSTS RISE.

We need to teach consumers to look holistically at the price of food. Public policy needs to emphasize the social, environmental and economic benefits of paying a fair price for locally grown products. Consumers need to learn the impact of their food choices on their total quality of life. We need a consumer awareness campaign that teaches the connection between cheap imports and the triple malaise of lost jobs, environmental pollution and social injustice around the world.

A food policy designed to foster rural entrepreneurship and build rural economies would devise a system of food safety regulations that encourage diversity and competition in food processing markets without compromising public safety. Whether it is livestock, dairy or tomatoes, small batch food processing is essential to a vital agriculture and distinctive local cuisine. Yet today, our food processing regulations mandate equipment, facilities and processes which are cost-prohibitive to many small batch producers.

OUR FOOD PROCESSING REGULATIONS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SMALL FARMS IN FAVOR OF LARGE FACTORIES, AS THOUGH LARGE BATCH PRODUCTION WERE INHERENTLY SAFER THAN SMALL BATCH PRODUCTION, WHICH WE KNOW IT IS NOT.

Federal livestock processing regulations in particular favor factory-scale production processes and prohibit or hinder farm-scale production processes—as though factories are cleaner and safer than farms, which they may or may not be. Market access should not depend upon how or where food is processed, only that it is safely processed. Preventing food from crossing state lines because it has not been federally inspected has more to do with bureaucracy than food safety.

Dairy processing regulations discourage the production and sale of raw milk, although humans have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years, raw milk is an increasingly popular health drink, and raw milk sales represent a lucrative market opportunity for some farmers. For the record, factories are not cleaner, safer or more efficient than farms. Factories do not produce higher quality food than farms. And the environment is better served when the by-products of food processing are composted or recycled on the farm rather than trucked to another facility.

Another particularly frustrating livestock processing policy allows uninspected on-farm custom meat processing if the customer first purchases the animal alive, but it is against the law for the farmer to sell the same meat processed under the same circumstances to another customer after the animal is dead. This kind of arbitrary regulation costs rural communities jobs. It restrains trade and discourages farming. Clearly, food safety does not depend upon when the animal was purchased. It depends upon the conditions under which it is processed. In many cases, on farm processing is preferable to factory processing.

It is far more humane to kill an animal in its own pasture than to truck it to a foreign place, and have it handled and killed by strangers. Adrenalin ruins meat. Farmers can make their life’s work raising quality animals only to have the product ruined by poor handling and undue stress in the last few seconds of the animal’s life. Small farmers should have the choice to kill and harvest their animals at home. On-farm processing limits should be set for beef, pork, lamb and goat as they have been for poultry. On-farm livestock processing can be equally as safe or safer than factory processing. It can be more humane, more cost-efficient, less polluting to the environment, and result in a higher quality product. USDA and New York State food policy should be encouraging on-farm processing, training and certifying farmers in on-farm food processing safety, certifying food safety inspectors who specialize in on-farm processes, and cultivating innovation in small batch food processing.

The food safety inspection process constrains the growth of rural economies by arbitrarily limiting production of local food products. Food processing inspection needs to accommodate a wider range of production facilities and processes. Food safety inspectors need to be more mobile and more accessible. Becoming a certified food safety inspector needs to be opened up to include non-government agencies and part-time service providers similar to the National Organic Program’s organic certifiers. And we should eliminate the redundancy in the system that requires small-scale producers already receiving state inspection services to also require federal inspection. As long as states meet minimum regulatory requirements, there should be a policy of reciprocity between state and federal inspection.

IN THIS TIME OF RISING ENERGY COSTS, FINANCIAL MARKET VOLATILITY AND LABOR MARKET UNCERTAINTY, THE MOST COST-EFFICIENT MARKETS FOR NEW YORK STATE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE BUSINESSES ARE THE MARKETS CLOSEST TO HOME.

NEW YORK STATE WOULD BENEFIT GREATLY FROM COLLABORATING WITH OUR NEIGHBORING STATES TO DEVELOP A NORTHEAST REGIONAL FOOD POLICY that focuses on broad import replacement and reducing regulatory barriers to interstate commerce. A frictionless regional market is essential to our regional food security and our regional economic growth.

Today, most of our food items travel an average of 1,500 “food miles” to our dinner table. We produce only about a third of the food we consume, and most of our farms sell their goods into an industrial food system where they are commoditized, packaged, branded and sold in a form unrecognizable as a local product. Most of our food dollar goes to manufacturing, distribution and retail shelf-space, not to the farmer, not to the farmer’s local economy. The price we pay for those layers of business between our farms and our dinner table is reduced economic vitality, loss of cultural identity, an increase in diet-related diseases, and of course, the fuel costs, traffic and pollution that come with global transportation systems.

We need a better return on the investment of our food dollars and our tax dollars. Our region contributes billions of dollars each year to USDA agriculture subsidy programs that do little to support the small and medium-sized farms that anchor the Northeast regional food system. A New York State food policy designed to generate economic growth and reduce taxes would teach consumers to oppose federal agriculture subsidies for commodity crops which amount to a $350 billion giveaway to rich industrial farm operations mainly outside the Northeast. The Northeast region legislative delegation could bring home a much larger piece of the next Farm Bill if we simply demanded our fair share of USDA funding and programs.

The Northeast is the most compact region in the country. We are just a day’s drive access to the densest string of population centers on the continent. REGIONAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY USED TO BE OUR CALLING CARD. BUT TODAY WE DEPEND UPON CALIFORNIA, CHINA AND SOUTH AMERICA TO FEED US. NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURE COULD DOMINATE THE MARKET FOR FOOD IN THE NORTHEAST. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey can’t possibly feed themselves. They are buying plane loads of food and flying them right over New York farms while television commercials tell them that California is the new dairy state.

REDUCING REGULATORY BARRIERS TO INTERSTATE COMMERCE WOULD SPUR REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH, PARTICULARLY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. THIS COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED BY FORMING A PACT WITH OTHER NORTHEAST STATES to standardize food transportation and safety regulations, especially those that impact small producers crossing state lines for farm-direct sales, such as farmers’ markets. Environmental management programs offer a precedent for this type of regional collaboration in that they enjoin government and non-government organizations to inventory regional resources, establish regional thresholds, standardize regulations, and manage regional assets.

The Northeast is geographically isolated and culturally distinct. A policy of regional collaboration would inspire the pride of place we know to be a powerful cultural influence over consumer food choices. A regional food policy would give food producers more confidence to invest in producing products for regional markets. Regional dairy policy would enable dairy farms to regain their independence from monopolistic processors and global pricing. Regional livestock policies would give livestock farmers incentives to grow their herds and diversify their product mix. Growing regional markets for cheese, wine, prepared foods and fiber products would make cottage industries more viable.

MOST IMPORTANTLY A REGIONAL FARM, FOOD AND NUTRITION POLICY WOULD PROVIDE A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO DEVELOPING THE FOOD SYSTEM, RECOGNIZING THAT FARMS DON’T JUST PRODUCE FOOD, THEY PROVIDE JOBS, ECONOMIC GROWTH, OPEN SPACE, ECOLOGICAL SERVICES, SCENIC VIEWS AND COMMUNITY CHARACTER—AND THEY ARE A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF SUSTAINABLE HUMAN HEALTH.