One Size Fits None by Stephanie Anderson

Author:Stephanie Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: TEC003070 Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / Sustainable Agriculture, SOC055000 Social Science / Agriculture & Food
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska

Evidence of corporate control over land-grant colleges goes on and on.13 The situation is not beyond repair, though. Land-grant colleges still rely on public funding and are therefore subject to public control. Food & Water Watch (a Washington-based NGO focusing on government and corporate accountability related to food and water) recommends specific actions that would help rid the land-grant colleges of corporate influence: (1) the farm bill should prioritize and fund research that benefits the public interest, (2) land-grant universities should be more transparent about their funding sources, (3) the universities should not allow the lure of profits to determine their research agendas, and (4) academic journals should enforce rigorous conflict-of-interest standards. The colleges themselves also need to enforce conflict-of-interest rules. Professors, board members, presidents—anyone who has the power to influence research and classroom curriculum—should not also work for agribusiness companies.14

All this is possible—a radical change in how America supports its farmers through subsidies, a retooling of the CES, a major redirection of the land-grant universities—but the biggest hurdle will be opposing the Big Ag lobbies in Congress. As Kevin says about the behavior of Big Ag, “Once you get on top of your business, you start rolling boulders down the hill so nobody else can climb up.” Companies at the top, like DuPont, Monsanto, and Con-Agra, have been rolling boulders at organic farmers for decades in the form of antiorganic media campaigns, and food companies like Coca-Cola and General Mills do this by fighting GM labeling and tougher organic standards.

Even the terminology—organic versus conventional—is part of a boulder-rolling attempt. “Conventional” means socially accepted, usual or established, and based on consent. In a way, this is an accurate word to describe industrial farming: it has become socially accepted and quite established. But “conventional” carries the connotation of normalcy and correctness, and that is exactly why agribusiness disguised industrial agriculture with that particular name. It sounds good to people who don’t understand what conventional agriculture actually means. “Conventional” sounds right, like the way things are supposed to be. The norm. In reality, conventional agriculture is a massive departure from farming as we have known it for some ten thousand years. There is nothing normal or long-standing about it.

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