President Joe Biden has called for a review of critical supply chains in light of national security over the next 100 days. The pandemic exposed our vulnerabilities by off-shoring production of key items: pharmaceuticals, surgical masks and gloves, computer chips and electric vehicle batteries, among others. Tax policy helped drive these industries to China and elsewhere, and it can drive them home again.
A key area that deserves consideration in national security: food and agriculture.
The pork industry is controlled by three players: Tyson, domiciled in Arkansas; Smithfield, owned by the Chinese; and JBS, owned by the Brazilians. Last spring, meat prices shot up 50% at the grocery store when the supply chain snapped — workers were ill in legions, a shift from restaurant to grocery demand occurred within weeks, the last of the independents could barely give away sows for slaughter. Immigrant employees were ordered into an unsafe workplace without protection, safety inspection or testing by state and federal authorities. Waterloo, Storm Lake and Sioux Falls were overwhelmed.
Germany, where meatpackers are smaller and production is diversified, did not suffer the same sort of supply chain disruptions. Prices remained stable and there weren’t the same sort of viral outbreaks as there were here because of slower line speeds and better employee spacing.
Four chemical companies control about 70% of the seed market, and one of them, Syngenta, is owned by the Chinese. Crops are designed and patented around chemicals like dicamba, owned by Bayer, and farmers are forced to pay premiums just to protect themselves from the toxic drift of their neighbors. It borders on criminal.
Workers and producers have little or no choice. When the system breaks down, consumers trained for cheap Roundup Ready soy-fed chicken are shocked at the meat counter. Many go hungry, snaking around the block waiting for food at pop-up distribution sites right here in Iowa. In Storm Lake, food pantries regularly were running bare before the pandemic hit — this, in the very heart of protein production for the world. It is astonishing yet few seem astonished. We have more hungry people in Storm Lake than ever before in supposedly the most efficient food system in world history. It is out of whack.
We are plundering natural resources and cooking our planet with a chemical agriculture controlled by four companies. The Gulf of Mexico is dying, which endangers the fishing industry. Drought imperils crop production in the Great Plains, fostered by chemical agriculture and consolidated meat production. These are real and current threats to our nation’s food security. Nothing is more vital than food and water, and both those systems are in stress.
We need computer chips, certainly, and we are all for American-owned battery production subsidized by the government, if that is what it takes to protect our future while recharging Ohio and Michigan.
We also need a diverse food system that is not owned primarily by foreign interests, some of which are our adversaries. Farms consolidate, rural community infrastructure erodes with the soil, markets are fixed on the producer by corporate fiat, and the worker becomes an expendable tool of the chain. The system is failing in the face of climate and pandemic. This is the supply chain most in need of repair.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was approved on a 92-7 vote by the Senate this week. Vilsack says he intends to restart a task force with the Justice Department on anti-trust that was abandoned by the Trump Administration. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D- Minn., promises action on anti-trust that finds support among farm state Republicans. Vilsack also is putting his shoulder behind regional food systems sustained by resilient and diverse farms with access to real and open markets that are federally regulated. We wish them well but fear that the push will be muted as it has been since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.
Food security begins with the land. Iowa became rich from its soil but over the past half century has become poorer by despoiling it. Sustainable agriculture, safe and secure workers, more research into animal disease and well-being, and equitable food distribution should be at the very center of our national conversation. We hope that Secretary Vilsack and President Biden can put it there.
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