Why Is It Corn And Soybeans In The U.S. And Dairy And Beef In New Zealand?
Thoughts on what shapes our global agri-food system
One of the questions that I have been spending a lot of time exploring is trying to understand how and why our agri-food system has developed into what it is today. I want to know how our global system has become the behemoth that it is, but also what makes individual nations’ systems function in unique ways. Asking these questions and doing some poking around at the answer has left my head spinning with the complexity of how many factors contribute to how we got to where we are today.
Dairy and beef make up a large portion of New Zealand’s agriculture sector.
The answer is far more complex than just the fact that crops are grown where the climate and soil conditions are ideal for a certain type of agriculture. The answer as to why one country has a focus on cereal grains and another focuses on beef or dairy can be one of dozens of factors that contribute to the development of our agri-food system. Environmental conditions may be the obvious answer to what crops are viable to grow where, but that alone doesn’t account for the myriad of other factors that play equal, if not larger, roles in dictating how a nation’s agricultural land is used.
While it would be impossible to list out all of the factors, a couple of the answers that I have recently recognized, or have only recently realized the extent that they play in shaping agriculture systems, include corporate and political influence, as well as global economics. Below I dive a little deeper into what I mean by these points and how they shape the agricultural landscape and the food that we all eat.
Corporate and political influence:
Political and corporate power play a fundamental role in shaping what food is grown and where. Diving into aspects of farm policy in New Zealand has encouraged me to turn around and more closely examine the U.S.’s farm policy. I’m realizing more and more that the makeup of our agriculture system is a product of longstanding corporate and political decisions. Asking farmers to stray from the norm is asking them to step away from the system that has been built for them. This system provides the only safety net that farmers can get in the U.S. with the programs that are laid out in the farm bill. The system is largely built around only a handful of commodity crops. For example, the vast majority of crop insurance payouts go to corn, soybeans, rice, cotton and wheat. It is also important to note that much of these crops go to feed, fuel and fiber rather than human food. You can track the $391 billion in farm subsidies that have been paid out from commodity, crop insurance and disaster programs and conservation payments between 1995 and 2019+ on the Environmental Working Group (EWG) site.
An aerial shot of farmland over the corn-belt in the U.S..
The system that has been built up is a grain-fed beef and pork system and a reliance on ethanol for fuel. The corporate and political vision for the system play a large part in explaining why farmers grow the crops that they do. These decisions are outside of the power of farmers or consumers, yet we have all become dependent on them to keep our farm economy running. I wonder what our agriculture system would look like in the U.S. if the crops that farmers grew were more closely linked to soil types, climatic conditions and consumer demand.
Global Economics:
As soon as our food system became global and nations started reaching economies of scale and specializing in certain agricultural goods, our agriculture system changed forever. One of my experiences that helped me more clearly see this point is learning about the export industry in New Zealand and the fact that the majority of New Zealand’s agricultural products are exported. You can buy New Zealand milk cheaper on certain supermarket shelves OUTSIDE of New Zealand than you can buy it inside the country. Most of New Zealand’s products made from beef, sheep and dairy are exported, with the Asian and U.S. markets taking a large percentage of the product. Export markets are significant in determining what crops are grown because nations typically will focus efforts within certain industries in the agricultural sector that helps them reach economies of scale and contribute to their GDP. I see the benefits in specialization and scale of certain crops in different regions; however, the lack of crop diversity exposes a nation’s food supply and agricultural sector. Only one small part of the commodity food supply chain has to break to have wide reaching impacts on our food supply.
Before my travels I would have answered that we grow the crops that we do primarily because of climatic conditions and consumer demand. But as I have learned more about how agriculture is influenced by the history of a nation and how the corporate world has shaped our ag-economy, I would now give a very different answer.
For right or for wrong, our agricultural system is inherently tied up with complicated international political relationships, the global economy, and the history of many nations. We can all have our own opinions on these issues, but ultimately we cannot untie our agriculture system from politics and the global economy. So, knowing that there are dozens of social, political, environmental and economic factors that contribute to the makeup of our current agri-food system, it is important to remember the complexity of our agri-food system when brainstorming solutions. Such a complex system means that when one cog in the wheel changes, there are many impacts across agriculture and food supply chain.
For those of you that are reading this that are agri-food innovators or even just those of you that are consumers (aka all of us), I encourage you to think about the bigger agriculture and food system the next time you participate in an “agricultural act,” whether that be designing the next plant-based protein, or just cooking up your morning meal.
Interesting additional reading :