Both my mother an father grew up in large families, 7 kids each, on small farms in Missouri and Oregon. Both of them left their farms to fight in World War II, never to return to the farm. They went to college on the GI Bill after our triumph in the war. America went big in 1943. It built hundreds of big boats, big airplanes and big tanks. That took thousands of factories, huge supply chains and efficient logistics. They were both very proud of what the United States had done and what the country had become since they were kids growing up in the Depression.
By 1962 when I was in high school, we had super highways, super markets and super sonic airplanes. Meanwhile back on the farm, not much had changed. The New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 was providing price supports for small farmers costing a lot of tax money allowing farmers to live off the land, produce enough food to win a war and keep prices low. Government called in the captains of big business, the Committee for Economic Development (CED), to look at the problem. The 1962 “Adaptive Program for Agriculture,” proposed by the CED, resulted in a policy recommendation to solve agricultural “overproduction” by intentionally reducing the number of American farmers through government action, moving people to urban jobs, keeping commodity prices low, and promoting larger machinery to replace labor. It was a “bigger is better” approach that my parents would have believed.
This solution to the perceived problems reminds me of “Manifest Destiny”, the excuse for the decimation of indigenous peoples and their way of life as agriculture moved west. Both solutions frame their intent as facilitating a transition to an inevitable future. Both ignored the beauty, sustainability and healthy ecological diversity of the landscape they were transforming.
These recommendations were soon adapted into the Federal Manpower Development and Training Act and the 1965 Farm Bill. The first helped move young people into cities. The second retained price supports based on previous production whether new crops were planted or not. Note that fruits and vegetables were not supported. Producing corn, soy, wheat and meat gave the United States advantages in foreign markets. A balanced diet was not an objective.
Okanagan Tribal member, Chad Eneas at the En’owkin Centre in Penticton, BC described the commerce introduced by the fur traders as “extractive”. He explained how water that is part of the land where they live is sacred, but in our economy, it becomes just another commodity, trapped behind dams and rationed out to produce electricity. As such it becomes more valuable the further away from the source it can be taken. With the arrival of the trappers, the Salish word for beaver began to mean “money”. They trapped beaver to acquire specific goods such as knives and guns. But as with all of us, money came to mean wealth with no specific intention other than security, power and status. In our system to increase wealth you need to control the source of commodities and their distribution. If you extract commodities from their source, consolidate the supply of goods in warehouses and concentrate their distribution in stores, you control the price and accumulate wealth. Long distances between source, storage, sales and distribution increase value. They also increase the demand for fuel.
Over the 64 years since the CED recommendations, supply lines have become worldwide. Supermarkets have become supercenters. Millionaires have become billionaires. Family farms are endangered and now farmers have the highest suicide rate of any occupation. The average farmer makes 14 cents on every retail food dollar he produces (Pew Research). The average age of American Farmers is 59.5 years old. 73% of farmland is in holdings from 1000 to over 5000 acres in size. Still, there are a lot of small farms, 42% are under 50 acres (USDA). Rural populations such as ours are shrinking over most of the country but ours is growing though not as fast as urban areas.
Urban refugees are coming to rural Washington. The majority will not be farming for a living. In fact, even on family farms the average off-farm income was $82,809 in 2021 while the average income from farming was $210 (USDA). The opportunity to live without grid electricity or city water is increasing because of photovoltaics, electric cars and wireless communications. The ways to make a living on a farm but not from the farm have been increasing since the COVID epidemic.
Overall however, we still rely on the extractive food economy. My parents would not have believed that many rural areas are now considered “food deserts”. Food in our stores travels an average of 14,000 miles. The growing size of farms damages the ecology above ground and destroys the biology below the ground. The distances increase prices and decrease nutrition. (I will write more about the need to see food as medicine in a later article.) Just as we have new ways to build a more independent infrastructure, we also have ways to become more locally self-sufficient. These include farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSAs) where consumers subscribe to food deliveries directly from farmers and local stores such as the Milk House, that stock locally-made products.
There is a growing trend of cottage food industries. We now have at least two bakeries in Northeast Washington specializing in sourdough bread for instance. Surprisingly, entrepreneurial businesses are more resilient in rural areas than cities (PBS). Cottage food is safe. There has never been an outbreak of foodborne illness from food sold under a cottage food law. The money and food exchange stays local and not extractive. The sources are transparent and directly responsive.
Still, there is often bureaucratic pushback through licensing, inspections, caps on total sales and training requirements. Washington State’s Cottage Food Law allows individuals to produce non-potentially hazardous foods in home kitchens for direct sale to consumers, with a $35,000 annual gross sales limit. Permitted items include baked goods, jams, jellies, and dry mixes. A permit from the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) is required, costing $355 for two years, which includes a home kitchen inspection. Meat/poultry/fish (including jerky), canned veggies/salsas, dairy products, raw seed sprouts, and refrigerated bakery items are prohibited. We could do better. Washington is one of the 3 most restrictive states in the country on cottage food laws. For more information contact the Institute for Justice (ij.org) about their food freedom initiative. We can win this fight.