Volume 6, Number 2
by Clark Wolf, Director, ISU Bioethics
Early this spring, I rented a tiller and used it to dig up a large portion of the lawn on the east side of the house. I made eight good-sized plots for tomatoes, corn, beans, lettuce, squash, spices, and a large patch of sunflowers. Since the time for weeding is still a long way off, our family was ambitious this year: we planned big, feasting on anticipatory thoughts of sweet corn and summer gazpacho. For a family garden, ours is a large one, but it is no more than a summer hobby. Its bounty will provide joy, flavor, labor and sweat, but it will not produce enough food to satisfy our family of two adults, two hungry children, and three insatiable cats. Even if we put up vegetables for the winter months, we will need to rely on others for most of the food we eat during the coming year.
Road-Weary Food
We know some of the people who grow our food. I have met the woman who makes delicious local goat cheese, farmers who grow vegetables for the market, and one who raises grass-fed beef and lamb for local consumption. But these local producers are the rebels, the trend-buckers whose example makes it clear how truly unusual it is for American farmers to make a living growing food for their own community. There is a strong movement in Iowa to reduce the hidden costs of food by buying local products, but during much of the year this is not possible, even in fertile Iowa. Consequently, most of the food we consume is purchased from a store that pays the trucker who carries the produce across the country from the place where it is packed, which may be far from the place where it was grown and harvested. A bite of packaged bread contains ingredients from distant parts of the country, and will come a long way before arriving on the table. The average grocery store item, we are told, has traveled between 1300 and 1600 miles before it arrives on our plate. The full cost of this food includes not only the direct costs of growing, processing, transporting, and sales costs, but also many uncounted environmental costs associated with each of these processes. Take a moment to consider the hidden cost of our food: environmental, monetary and human expenses that are incurred in the steps between the grower and the consumer.
Hidden Costs at Home and Abroad
Like other American farmers, most Iowa corn and soybean farmers never meet those who consume their produce. One important reason for this is that much of the produce grown in Iowa fields is directly consumed by livestock. Much of the harvest from the fields of corn and soybeans I pass on my way to work will likely find its way to a hog confinement facility, where it will be converted into a small amount of meat and a large amount of manure. The meat is processed and sold as ham and pork chops. Most of the nutrient value of the original corn and soy has been spent long before the chop is sizzling on the grill.
Where does the rest of the nutrient value go? Some of it is converted into energy or released in manure. A portion of it is used as fertilizer. Some of the waste products from transportation and processing are released into the environment, where they either decompose or remain. If the rate at which we produce waste exceeds the rate at which it decomposes, then these wastes will remain and build up in the environment. As wastes accumulate, environmental systems become less resilient in their ability to recover from subsequent demands our activities make on them. In the long term, continuation of such a pattern means that we are passing environmental costs of our own activities on to our children and to future generations. So in evaluating our waste disposal activities, we need to know the rate at which we produce waste and the rate of decomposition. If our activities involve progressive accumulation or environmental damage, we need to consider whether we are justified in imposing these costs on our children.
It is not always morally wrong to shift costs to others: if costs or risks are acceptably small and the benefits are large, then the imposition of costs may be morally permissible. But whenever our activities impose risk or costs on others, we need to ask ourselves whether our actions are morally justified. For example, it is important to consider whether there are compensating benefits that justify the imposition of the costs and whether the costs are mutual or voluntarily accepted. If we regard ourselves as having a moral obligation to pass on to future generations environmental and capital resources that are roughly equivalent to those we ourselves inherited from our predecessors, then we need to consider whether our activities are consistent with this obligation.
Yet another set of costs is paid nationally in the subsidies received by producers at several different stages in the process by which we turn corn and beans into food. Some US subsidy programs are remarkably disproportionate. Subsidies paid to cotton growers have sometimes been larger than the total market value of the total yearly US cotton crop. While subsidies for Iowa crops have not been as disproportionate as this, corn subsidies rose as high as 88% of the market value of the total crop in 1987 and have averaged about 27% of total crop value over the past eighteen years. These programs are expensive, and in evaluating their cost, we need to consider what public benefits are promoted by these subsidy programs.
It is clear that agricultural subsidies have important effects on the price of food and land in Iowa and elsewhere. The existing subsidy programs have often been defended as necessary for the preservation of the "family farm." But many economists have argued that these programs have had the effect of exacerbating the trend toward farm consolidation and the loss of family farms in Iowa and elsewhere. In part, this is because our programs provide disproportionate benefits for larger farms, giving them a competitive advantage over small operators. Since subsidies are paid on a per-acre or per-bushel basis, perhaps there is no injustice in a system that provides the greatest benefits to the largest producers, but if the purpose of our subsidy programs is, at least in part, to "save the family farm," then it is important to consider whether they are accomplishing this aim. If farm consolidation represents a loss of family farms, and if the existing subsidy programs do indeed promote consolidation, then these programs are undermining the aim for which they were put in place. In this interest, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has proposed revising the existing system to diminish its regressive effects.
The low food prices generated by agricultural subsidies in the US and elsewhere have other morally significant costs as well. Poor farmers in the developing world cannot compete with the subsidized US agricultural products that flood their countries. Economists have argued that the effect of depressed commodity prices has been to undermine prospects for agricultural self-sufficiency and to increase poverty and hunger in many poor and developing nations. As World Food Prize Winner Per Pinstrup-Andersen recently put it, American farm subsidies have the effect of "exporting poverty" to poor farmers in the developing world. We are faced with a great and ironic paradox; the overwhelming bounty of American agricultural production has had the effect of increasing world hunger instead of alleviating it
Turning the Tide
It's not our farmers’ fault. We can reliably expect that Iowa farmers will diligently respond to economic and social incentives our institutions create. Still, as Iowans we tell ourselves that "Iowa farmers feed the world," and we take pride in doing our part to insure that we are all fed. If we truly aim to feed the world, and if our belief that we are feeding the world is an inspiration that helps us to understand our place in a broader scheme, then it is worthwhile to consider how effectively we are accomplishing that goal. Analysts tell us that our wealth and bounty depend on institutions and policies that are systematically disadvantageous to people in developing countries, contributing to their plight instead of feeding them or helping them to feed themselves. How can we reduce the hidden costs associated with the production and consumption of food? As consumers, we can make an effort to buy what is locally produced and to grow some of our own. The broader impact of changes in one's own consumption patterns may be small, but the rewards make local consumption worthwhile. Producers can work to reduce environmental impact by taking steps to minimize the rate at which waste is released into the environment and by working to pursue sustainable practices for the use of the land.
The challenges associated with national agricultural policy are more complex, and the solutions will be federal, not local. We could begin, as Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has suggested, by re-structuring federal subsidy programs so that their benefits favor smaller farms over large producers. To reduce the unfortunate effects our farm policy has on agriculture in the developing world, we should either reduce the size of existing subsidy programs or use international development aid to compensate the disadvantages for which we, as a nation, are responsible.
Do these solutions sound expensive? We Iowans benefit from agriculture, but we should not passively accept advantages if we enjoy them at the expense of others. Let’s do what we can to live up to the ideal that "Iowa feeds the world." Such ideals are worthwhile, but they don't come for free.
The Bioethics Institute scheduled for June 5-10 in Rapid City, SD has been cancelled due to low enrollment. We hope to make this opportunity available to the ISU faculty again next summer. We regret any inconvenience caused by the cancellation.
Online Courses
Teaching Bioethics
Date: June 14 - July 2, 2004
Cost: Iowa State University graduate credit:
$305
Staff development credit
(Iowa residents only): $20
Instructor: Dr. Kristen Hessler at khessler@iastate.edu.
Registration contact: Lori Miller at lorimill@iastate.edu.
Complete
Information Online
Registration deadline: June 4
This course is designed for any science or social studies teacher interested
in teaching bioethics. Topics include: advantages of incorporating bioethics
in science and social studies courses; appropriate objectives for bioethics
units; a brief study of ethical theory; various approaches to bioethics pedagogy;
how to relate bioethics issues to personal ethical issues familiar to students;
how to help students identify ethical issues; how to address bioethics while
respecting diversity of views in the classroom; and assessment for bioethics
units.
Ethics and Biotechnology
Date: July 6-23, 2004
Cost: Iowa State University graduate credit:
$305
Staff development credit
(Iowa residents only): $20
Instructor: Dr. Kristen Hessler at khessler@iastate.edu.
Registration contact: Lori Miller at lorimill@iastate.edu.
Complete
Information Online
Registration deadline: June 29
Modern biotechnology is as controversial as it is promising. Teaching the associated
ethical issues can help engage students to learn the relevant science concepts
and to learn the skills necessary to contribute to ongoing social dialogue about
science and society. Topics include an overview of ethical controversies about
biotechnology and specific ethical issues in plant, animal, and human biotechnology.
Bioethics in Brief
May/June 2004
Volume 6, Issue 2
Published four times per year
by the ISU Office of Biotechnology
and the Bioethics Program.
To subscribe, call 515-294-7356.
Editor: Camie J. Stockhausen
Bioethics Outreach Coordinator: Kristen Hessler
Bioethics Program Coordinator: Clark Wolf
Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. Vietnam Era Veteran. Any persons having inquiries concerning this may contact the Director of Affirmative Action, 318 Beardshear Hall, 515-294-7612.
| For Everyone | For the Classroom | For Extension | Activities | Contact Us | Search |
| Office of Biotechnology homepage | Search the Office of Biotechnology homepage |
Published by: Office
of Biotechnology, Bioethics Outreach
Ames, Iowa 50011-3260, (515) 294-9818, biotech@iastate.edu
Questions about the site? E-mail biotech@www.biotech.iastate.edu
Copyright © 2003, Iowa State University. All rights reserved.
Last Update 06/03/04
