Excuse Me Flo, Where’d This Big Mac Come From

7 Pages 1799 Words

“Excuse Me Flo, Where’d This Big Mac Come From?”


“Family farmers care about the land they farm. We need to keep as many farmers on their land as possible-for their sake and ours.” This quote comes from John Melloncamp who is the director of the Farm Aid organization. After growing up in a small country town I came to realize the hardships that family farmers have to endure. My grandfather farms cattle and pigs and I have witnessed the travesties that corporate America has caused them. In the following I will explain how the family farming dynamic has changed over recent years, how David C. Korten’s view on societal change applies to farming, and finally how one organization is trying to remedy this problem.
Over the past few years several circumstances have come together to greatly increase the pressures on farming in general and small, independent farms in particular. In 1996 Congress passed the Freedom To Farm Act, which re-wrote farm policy and laid down a foundation and schedule for eliminating most farm subsidies and price supports. This legislation in combination with a number of severe weather events and the partial collapse of the global economy has led to an increase in the number of farmers facing either bankruptcy or the abandonment of their farms. In many cases, such as my grandfathers, these are farms that have been in the family for generations. The communities of which these farmers and farms have been a part have seen their lives undergo major change. Over these same years the primary action of Congress to meet these needs has been the appropriation of emergency aid funds. While this may be very helpful in the short run, this method has done nothing to change the evil systemic dealings in national policy.
While the retail price of food over the years has generally remained stable, relative both to inflation and expenditure as a percentage of family income, the grower’s share of profits from ...