Soil Depletion, Neurotoxins & Mega-Corporate Food Processing In The 20th Century

How We Got Here …

Tracing back through the past 80 years, history reveals a dreadful era of massive soil depletion, toxic fertilizers and pesticides, factory farming, manufactured products that vaguely resemble food, hormone-laced livestock and global food transport by rail, trucks, ships and planes.

The Dust Bowl or the "Dirty Thirties" was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930-1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation or other techniques to prevent erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil on the Great Plains had killed the natural grasses that normally kept the soil in place and trapped moisture, even during periods of drought and high winds.

During the drought of the 1930s, with no natural anchors to keep the soil in place, it dried, turned to dust, and blew away eastward in large dark clouds. At times the clouds blackened the sky reaching all the way to East Coast cities like New York and Washington, D.C. Much of the soil (and nutrients) ended up blowing into the Atlantic Ocean. The Dust Bowl, affecting over 100 million acres, was an ecological and human disaster caused by misuse of land and years of sustained drought. Millions of acres of farmland became useless, and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. NOTE: During this 1930’s only 60% of American families owned a refrigerator.

By the 1940’s crop rotation became a standard practice, and the chemical industry evolved to a level that encouraged massive adoption of fertilizers from coast to coast, boosting crop yields while ignoring the need for trace minerals lost in the previous decades. Crops lacking these vital nutrients fell prey to insects, and pesticides followed closely behind. The chemicals were cheap and yields were abundant.

At the same time, centralized grain & dairy mills, large-scale animal production, and rail/truck transportation all combined with "factory foods" to eventually realize Herbert Hoover’s 1928 presidential campaign slogan: "a chicken in every pot…a car in every garage".

Mass Production - Mass Consumption

Over the span of maybe 50 years the local farmer’s market was replaced by the local supermarket. Food production, processing and distribution became highly centralized to take advantage of the economies of scale made possible by interstate highways, efficient railroads and cheap energy. From 1948 through the end of the 1960s, crude oil prices ranged between $2.50 and $3.00 per barrel. Taking the entire process a giant step further, basic staple foods were (and are) processed, milled and canned for long shelf life.

Everyone is aware of today’s mainstream focus on sustainability. While energy, global warming, windmills and solar energy may be the first thoughts that come to mind, much of our daily food supply is highly centralized and unsustainable. America must transform its relationship to food, production & distribution, and address how food choices affect our health. The mega-corporate paradigm simply cannot address these critical issues.

American farmers number about 2.8 million. That’s about 1.5% of the U.S. workforce. Many of these farmers serve the interests of companies like Archer-Daniels-Midland ($78 billion in revenues), and Cargill, whose revenues ($120 billion), make them America’s largest private corporation!

In the 1930s, 25% of Americans lived on 6 million small farms. By 1997, 157,000 large farms accounted for 72% of farm sales, with only 2% of the U.S. population residing on farms.

Two-thirds of the nation’s farmers get no subsidy payments whatsoever. For the most part they don’t qualify because they grow the ’wrong’ things. If you want to see what the wrong things are, stroll through the produce aisle of your local supermarket. The farmers who produce most of America’s food do so without a check from taxpayers.

Here’s a shocker!

Many of America’s leading natural and organic food producers are now owned by the nation’s top twenty-five food processors. Don’t believe it? Get the facts here: cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic. This way of thinking ignores the long range view of life as sustainable and ongoing from one generation to the next. Have we become so crisis-driven that we’ve lost sight of the obvious implications?