The Transcontinental Lettuce

Extreme Measures

• Nations will often go to extreme measures to move food into the global marketplace

• For example: Since 1992, the US Army Corps of Engineers has been developing plans to expand the network of locks and dams on the Mississippi River (which transports about 35,000 tons of soy beans per day)

Expanding the Locks and Dams

• Would require hauling in over a million tons of concrete to lengthen locks and bolster dams to make the river narrower (keeps the soybean barges moving)

• The most ambitious plan could reduce the cost of shipping soybeans by 4 to 8 cents per bushel

Increased barge traffic• Would kick up sediment, blocking sunlight to

aquatic plants (decline in plant diversity)

• Cause loss of native plants which would harm fish, mollusk and bird populations (possible extinction)

In South America

• Around the same time as the plan for the Mississippi was announced, the governments of Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay. Uruguay and Argentina announced plans to straighten rivers, build locks and a major port (water highway)

• The Paraguay-Paraná flows right through Brazilian soybean land (second highest producer of soybeans behind the US)

• The Paraguay Parana feeds wetlands, which would be disrupted and destroyed by increased barge traffic (similar issues to those in the Mississippi)

• Herbicide intensive soybean monocultures are already replacing grasslands– farming the area erodes 100 million tons of soil

per year

Lobbyists

• Lobbyists for both projects claim that they would improve competitiveness, grab world market share, rescue farmers from financial crisis, help feed the hungry and save the environment

Reality• In reality, Brazilian and US farmers are pitted

against each other to see who can maximize production-ignoring long term effects

• Increased flow of soybeans means flooded market and depressed prices

• As farmers ship more, they receive less money per ton and cannot compete with large corporate farms who can produce even larger volumes and make up the difference

• Lobbyist don’t represent farmers- they represent corporate shipping and trading firms who want prices to fall because they can buy them from the farmer for less

• Three of the largest firms are Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge -the top soybean processors and traders along both rivers

• The more the US and Brazil compete to have the lowest prices, the higher the profit margin for the three companies

• Other large companies control the market for seeds, pesticides and fertilizers

• Projects like those mentioned would be paid for with public works funds but would ultimately serve private corporate interests

“Efficient” Business • Both plans are promoted as being the most

efficient way to do business• Efficient only if you ignore long-term impacts • Efficiency of shipping food worldwide is new-

traditionally food was obtained from local sources

• Imported food was a luxury enjoyed only by the rich, not available to the common people

Food Trade

• Non local foods play a larger role than ever before, available to many more people

• $442 billon worth of food was shipped around the world in 2002

• 898 million tons of food- up from 200 million tons in 1961

How far does your food travel?

• Fruits and vegetables in the US travel an average of 2,500-4,000 km from farm to market (up 20% in the last 20 years)

• Food in the UK travels 50% farther than it did 20 years ago-imports arriving by plane more than tripled-trucks moving food account for 40% of road freight

• These increases are caused by -the movement of people into urban centers (moving away from the source of food) -reduction in the number of centers of food production-advances in food technology allow longer storage

Food Storage

• Storing food has been important throughout history- canning, freezing, changes in plant biology, chemicals (ethylene), edible packaging (U.S. army created a sandwich that stays fresh for 3+ years!)

Food Transport

• Prices to ship food are being reduced -70% less to ship by sea, 50% less to ship by air than it did 20 years ago

• Requires HUGE amounts of fuel • A lettuce grown in California and shipped to

Washington DC requires 36 times as much fossil fuel to ship than it provides in food energy

• Extra energy is expended when products must be shipped in the climate controlled environment

• Food transportation is among the biggest and fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Britain

• Greenhouse gases are creating an unstable climate (changing rain and weather patterns) that farmers need for their crops

Food Swap

• Nations often import food that they produce domestically (comparable quantities)

• Why?-Subsidized transportation, centralized buying, trade agreements and food import quotas

Food Waste

• Increased transport of food requires more packaging to make shipping viable

• This creates waste!- food scraps and packaging account for as much as a one-third of all material in North American landfills

-food scraps could be put to use on farms, but the natural chain of waste has been broken

Long Distance Food

Normalizes "exotic foods” for manyHowever!

-motivated by greed -quality of food suffers-encourages wasteful practices-eliminates local growers and food systems- harms the environment and wastes fossil fuels