Farm Bureau Donates Food, But Farmers Need Your Help
By: Neil Melançon, This Week in Louisiana Agriculture Co-Producer
Have you ever met anyone who's really into farmer's markets?
You can hardly get them to stop talking about them and there are good reasons for that. One reason is the farm fresh produce that they get. Nothing beats fresh. But it goes deeper than that and it has a lot to do with who farmers are.
There are a lot of images in the media right now of farmers dumping milk and plowing under crops. One of the most common responses to that right now is 'why can't we use those products to feed the poor and/or those suffering from the coronavirus fallout?'
The short answer is we can, but there’s a lot of context that needs to be talked about before we can get there. There are two very important facts you need to know about farming before we can proceed.
Farmers make up less than two percent of population in the U.S. (1)
On average, farmers make 8 cents for every dollar you spend at the grocery store. (2)
To put it simply, those two facts combined means that farmers are further away from population centers and it costs a lot more to bring that food to you. When 92 percent of the cost of food has nothing to do with making it, it becomes clear that it farmers sometimes have no choice but to get rid of it or risk losing everything trying to transport a product they can’t sell.
This is especially true with perishable goods like milk. Dairies have fallen precipitously in the U.S. and in many areas milk has to be trucked in from out of state to meet demand. Dairy cows have to be milked every day or they can get sick and die. As such, the product has to made, and unless someone comes and gets that milk, it goes to waste.
Remember those farmer's market fanatics? The real reason they're so zealous is the relationship they develop with the people who make their food. In short order, you find that farmers are not only generous with their prices, but they're all the time giving their customers extra, calling them when they have something special and generally making their consumer dollar stretch in ways that you just cannot do at a grocery store.
You see it reflected in charities farmers participate in. Each year, Farm Bureau members give food products to the Ronald McDonald Houses and food bank charities. Most recently, they've partnered with the Feeding America charity to get food banks their products as the economic effects of the pandemic are causing a surge in unemployment. They know how important serving those less fortunate than themselves are, even as they themselves go through hard times.
The point is, farmers would love to give this food away or even sell it to you directly for far less than you'd pay for it at the grocery store. They would all go bankrupt in short order, not because of giving it away, but because of the cost in distribution and packaging (many products will still need to go through all the regulatory and processing efforts, even if you're not selling it--an additional cost on top of transportation).
In 2012, the number of farms increased for the first time in 70 years, riding a wave of farm-to-table efforts that have helped people reconnect with where their food originates. (3) Right now, home gardens are becoming all the rage as food insecurity increases. Both of those will be highly educational for anyone attempting them. For one, it's hard to raise a successful crop regardless of the commodity. Two, when success happens, it often comes with overabundance. Anyone who's ever tried to pawn off tomatoes to family and friends from a home garden knows this problem exactly.
If you want to make a difference, I can suggest a couple courses of action. One, organize a community effort to buy directly from farmers. They would love to do this for you and can even help with transportation issues--delivering to one or two places is often not a problem. Two, when you do go to stores, buy local products. It will signal demand is there and increase the amount produced locally, which will drive down costs in the long run.
We should take this problem of food waste seriously. However, with modern society dependent on a delivery chain, it's important to look at what we can do to help farmers, not blame them.
Farm Bureau of Louisiana donates $500,000 to food banks across the state
Sources
(1) 2017 Census of Agriculture, National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS)
(2) Why farmers only get 7.8 cents of every dollar American spend on Food (Washington Post)
(3) After a 70-year drop, small farms make a (small) comeback (The Washington Post)