Get Small or Get Out
An old barn photographed in rural Minnesota
“Get small or get out”. What if this was the narrative that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, told a group of farmers at the World Dairy Expo Townhall in 2019? What if the message, rather than “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” was that it is time for American farmers to step off the hamster wheel of producing more corn, more soybeans, more wheat, more whatever commodity crop… and take a look around at who our commodity agriculture system is serving.
I look at the state of American agriculture and see a system that is built on serving large commodity agribusinesses and behemoth processors and consumer product goods companies (CPGs). I see a system that is held up by agriculture subsidies that are primarily designed to support a handful of commodity crops in any given area. I see farmers that are struggling to make ends meet on homesteads their family have farmed for generations. I see rural communities shrinking while yields increase but still don’t produce enough income to make farmer’s enough profit for a living wage.
Many villainize the few large chemical and seed companies that are basically calling the shots in the industry. Yet, I propose that we arrived on today’s path with far more twists and turns than the sole argument that “all big ag is evil.” I don’t believe that these agribusinesses like Bayer (formally Monsanto) or Syngenta had nefarious intentions. At their core their mission was good. When developing these businesses, these companies sought to answer the question, how do you feed a growing population when you have a shrinking population of farmers? And how do you fit this mission into a profitable business model? Many view the development of genetically modified (GM) crops and synthetic pesticides as the most efficient way to farm and feed a growing population. The goals of these companies was to create a business that rewards high yields and maximum efficiency. The problem is, there is a lot more than efficiency in crop production that needs to be considered when designing an agri-food system.
A photo of an old barn in rural Wisconsin
It’s important not to forget that agriculture and food are inextricably linked. Today, our food supply chains are so long that the CPG companies rarely have individual relationships with farmers. But these CPG companies are an important part of the narrative as to why we grow what we grow and we eat what we eat. These companies also rely on economies of scale. It is easier to make food that is tasty, shelf stable and low cost when the primary ingredients are large commodity crops. Corn, soybeans, wheat... it is hard to find food other than whole fruits and vegetables that doesn’t have at least one of these three ingredients. Again, from the start, these companies aimed to please and to feed. Yet now, we face the fact that we have built a food system that is unhealthy and does not equitably deliver the nutrition needed for humans to thrive. Our diet is made up of only a handful of crops even though when we look in the kitchen pantry we think we see a lot of options in the form of different packages and brands. Most of it is just corn, soybeans or wheat masked in different forms and colorful packaging.
I believe that we arrived here without thinking about the unforeseen consequences of our decisions. We didn’t foresee either the impact on the environment or the impact on human health when we built this agri-food system.
So how do we change a system that has been built over decades and now makes up the backbone of American agriculture? Is it possible to change a system that is so heavily influenced by lobbying groups backed by billion dollar corporations? Our whole commodity agriculture system is designed around the model of a few crops, expensive equipment, synthetic inputs and farming at scale. Yes, we have to feed a growing population, but we must explore other more sustainable and regenerative ways to do so.
An image of a converted school bus into a living space on a diversified vegetable farm in Northern California.
Rather than commodity crop farms dependent on a few low-value crops and high inputs, I envision a world where farms are smaller, diversified and designed to serve their local communities. We need to find ways to enable and support small farms, local food hubs and diverse operations to feed our communities. It will take more farmers. It will take more work. But I believe that it is a key part of the answer to a way forward that builds an agriculture system that works for people and the planet.
As I work across both the commodity agriculture space and smaller, diversified operations, I believe in cultivating change across our agri-food system. We need to take this moment to adopt regenerative agriculture practices and have a renewed focus on the ecological systems that drive our ability to grow crops in the first place. We need to look towards communities that have developed alternative methods of agriculture that deposit carbon and focus on soil health rather than deplete it.
Many automatically think about this shift towards smaller scale agriculture as moving back in time, but I don’t see it that way at all. There are ways to use technological developments in positive ways across all scales of agriculture. There are ways to reintegrate learnings from indigenous ways of agriculture that Western Society wrote off long ago. There is a way forward and I propose that we do that by getting smaller rather than bigger and focusing on quality, diverse food crops and more local food economies.