I went to the Occupy Wall Street march last week, as part of the NYC food justice delegation. We carried baskets of farmers’ market vegetables and signs reading “Stop Gambling on Hunger” and “Food Not Bonds.” Food justice advocates came out from around the city—urban farmers, gardeners, youth, professors, union members, and community organizers. The vegetables attracted a lot of attention. Food so often attracts a lot of attention—the New York Times is just one of the outlets to focus in recent days on the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park. What was more surprising were all of the puzzled looks we got from the bloggers, photographers, and other marchers who wanted to talk to us. “What’s the connection here with food?” we were asked many times.

The connection of the protests with food, of course, runs from the local to the global, the specific to the ephemeral. Food justice advocates are connecting with Occupy sites all around the country to donate fresh, healthy, local food or to help find kitchen space. On a broader philosophical level, as Mark Bittman writes in the Times, “Whether we’re talking about food, politics, healthcare, housing, the environment, or banking, the big question remains the same: How do we bring about fundamental change?”  But there are also clear and specific reasons that all of us working for a just and fair food system, as the food movement should make the connection between our work and Occupy Wall Street explicit and strong.

In the U.S. today, the richest one percent hold 40 percent of the wealth, while almost one in five Americans is on food stamps.  Rampant Wall Street speculation on commodities is driving up food costs, small farmers are being driven off their land, and agribusiness holds monopoly control of our seeds and stores. In this climate, the struggle against massive wealth disparities, unregulated financial institutions, and excessive corporate power is our struggle as well. Two points in the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City address the food system. While barely scratching the surface of the potential connections, the protesters have provided an important opening for the food movement. Will we seize it?

Speculation Drives up Food Costs

At the most obvious level, as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy recently wrote, “Wall Street deregulation has not only made the stock market extremely volatile, it has increased prices and price volatility in agricultural markets.” That is, the relationship between government and Wall Street firms has turned food into commodity like any other, subject to the whims of the market. For decades, only people directly involved in agriculture (e.g., farmers) could freely participate in trade of futures of agricultural commodities (e.g., corn, soy, wheat). Outside speculators were allowed into these markets but with strictly enforced limits to how much they could buy. Futures trading served a practical purpose, giving farmers a guaranteed price for future harvests, and prices stayed relatively stable and reasonable for both buyers and sellers.

But in 2000, a wave of industry-backed deregulation raised and then removed these limits on speculation, which opened commodity markets to a flood of new players—these later included funds controlled by some of the biggest Wall Street firms looking for new investment opportunities after the housing bubble burst. Flooded with new investments unconnected to any direct stake in crop prices, in 2008, the commodity markets exploded, driving up grain prices worldwide. The grain price spikes were catastrophic for millions of people worldwide. Farmers, who sometimes benefit from high grain prices, mostly were no better off, because similarly skyrocketing energy prices also drove up prices of agricultural inputs.

In 2008 and 2009, the UN estimated that an additional 130 million people were driven into hunger by the food price bubble. Spontaneous food riots broke out in dozens of countries where chronic hunger is a reality. Today’s Wall Street protests are not unconnected to those; the effects of food and energy speculation continue in 2011. A study in June by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Robert Pollin estimates that U.S. gasoline prices are $0.83 higher per gallon due to Wall Street speculation. The CEO of ExxonMobil said he estimates prices are $1.20 to $1.40 higher per gallon. And food commodity prices are as high, or higher, than they were in 2008—while 46 million Americans are now living below the poverty line, struggling with basic expenses like food.

A New Colonialism

Wall Street firms aren’t just gambling on food prices, they have begun speculating on land as well. Alerted to the potential market in agriculture, investors are buying up huge parcels of farmland all over the world, displacing the occupants, and converting subsistence production to cash crops—or, worse, simply leaving the land fallow and waiting for its value to increase. According to international NGO GRAIN, which first reported on this trend in 2008, more than 50 million hectares of land has been transferred from farmers to corporations since 2009. “Land grabs” have affected tens of thousands of people around the world who have been driven off their land–often violently–with little or no compensation, given no say in the process, and left with no recourse. For most of them, land is their livelihood; without it, the future is bleak.

Land grabs are perpetrated by governments, private sector corporations, pension funds, and university endowments–as well as by banks and international finance groups. Some of these deals have a stated agenda of food security in the buyer country–at the expense of food security of those moved off the land–but many others are purely business deals, seeking to profit off of land on which millions of people are merely trying to feed themselves.

Too Big to Feed Us

Meanwhile, U.S. agribusiness is getting bigger and bigger, and, like the financial sector, is subject to less and less government regulation or oversight. When the top four companies in any industry control over 50 percent of the market, that industry is at risk of being controlled by a monopoly. Right now, the top four companies control 85 percent of the nation’s beef, 70 percent of pork, and 60 percent of the nation’s poultry. Monsanto holds patents on 80 percent of corn seed.

On the grocery store side, Walmart didn’t even sell groceries twenty years ago, but it now controls nearly 30 percent of the US retail grocery market–and over 50 percent in many regional markets. A marketplace dominated by just a few players is subject to abuse of all kinds. Grain farmers, for example, are suffering: With often only one seller of inputs and one buyer for their crops (which is frequently the same company), they are forced to accept both prices, even if it means they don’t break even. Ultimately, many U.S. family farmers, like those in developing countries, are being driven off their land, because they can’t afford to stay in business.

All along the food chain, people are squeezed by powerful corporations: Walmart demands low prices from its suppliers, so the suppliers cut wages for workers in the factories and fields; most food stores rely on a single national buyer, so it is almost impossible for small producers to get products onto the shelves; supermarket chains buy out the competition and then close the only store in a low-income neighborhood.

The level of consolidation all along the food chain has reached such an extreme degree that last year the Department of Justice and the USDA conducted an investigation into antitrust issues in agriculture and food. During a year of workshops, the Departments heard expert testimony and thousands of personal stories about farm foreclosures, bankruptcy, workers’ rights abuses, unfair contracts, poor access to healthy food, and corporate propaganda; much of it demonstrating that antitrust laws are not protecting citizens from powerful corporations. The investigation concluded in December; the Departments issued a joint letter in July stating that they are continuing to study the issue. After a year of investigation, testimony, and almost a quarter of a million petition signatures requesting immediate action, the promise of nothing more than further study makes it seem as though the voices of big business have been louder than those of the people.

Many food justice advocates are well aware that to truly create a healthy and just food system, we must also address issues larger than food.  At a town hall meeting in Iowa the night before the first DOJ/USDA hearing, a family farmer from near Des Moines wanted to talk not about his farm, but about power. “Industry cannot turn one wheel unless people make those machines work,” he said. “We have the power here, and we need to understand what that power means.”

To change the food system, we need systemic change in financial institutions, regulation, corporate influence; we need a shift in power. For a movement that has long been waiting for its moment, uniting in common cause with Occupy Wall Street may be the way to finally build enough power to create the change we need.

Photo: Amy Schneider

Thanks to Dave Kane, Christina Schiavoni, and Maria Aguiar for invaluable assistance.

As it stands today, 75 percent of the population are obese or overweight and many are chronically ill with diet-related diseases. They are also largely dependent on an increasingly unhealthful and contaminated food supply that is heavily controlled by corporate interests. It’s obvious that this is our moment to drive a very important point home: Upending corporate control of the food supply is a fundamental change that must occur if the “99 percent” are to be healthy participants in a true democracy.

This could be a catalyzing moment for the food movement with a real chance for average Americans to see and hear the connection between corporate control of the food supply and our nation’s health crisis. Indeed, the declaration of Occupy Wall Street (available on its Facebook page), addresses issues the food movement has been working on for years. The declaration states, “They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.”

Author and activist Naomi Klein has been an outspoken advocate and participant in Occupy Wall Street. When asked how it connects to the food movement she said, “The protest is about the corporate takeover of democracy of our lives in every way. The food movement is inherently anti-corporate and it is inherently about rebuilding a real economy.” She continued, “The food movement is where a lot of the leadership is. Occupy Wall Street is not just about banking legislation. The food movement is paving the way for what needs to happen in manufacturing and I think it’s all connected.”

Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University agrees. “Of course Occupy Wall Street connects to the food movement,” she said. “If we had a healthier financial system, we might be able to fund better food assistance, universal school meals, a rational and effective food safety system, and production agriculture that promotes sustainability and affordable food that is healthier for people and the planet. The food movement needs to be there and its voices heard.”

While powerful players like Goldman Sachs and Fannie Mae were on the lips of nearly every American after the 2008 financial crisis, the names of industrial agriculture corporations remain largely unknown. But consider how much power they wield. Take Monsanto as an example. When Monsanto began selling its genetically modified Roundup Ready soybeans in 1996 only two percent of soybeans in the U.S. contained their patented gene. By 2008, over 90 percent of soybeans in the U.S. contained Monsanto’s gene. This is especially alarming given that soybeans account for the largest source of protein feed and the second largest source of vegetable oil in the world. According to the USDA, in 2008-09, the farm value of soybean production was $29.6 billion, the second highest among U.S. produced crops—and soy is ubiquitous in processed foods. It ends up in the meat, milk, eggs, and farmed fish many Americans consume (as a result of it being in animal feed) as well as thousands upon thousands of packaged foods usually in the form of soy protein isolate, soy isoflavones, textured vegetable protein, and soy oils. Soy accounts for a fifth of the calories in the American diet.

Monsanto has also produced genetically modified seeds for corn, canola, and cotton with many more products being developed including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa. (To see how ferociously Monsanto protects its patented seeds watch the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc.) As for corn, the highest valued U.S. produced crop, 93 percent of it is genetically engineered. Physicist and internationally renowned activist Dr. Vandana Shiva points out that the notion that genetically engineered food will improve the food supply and improve nutrition is a myth. “These are illusions that are being marketed in order for people to hand over the power to decide what to eat to a handful of corporations,” she said in an interview on her Web site.

Another corporation with broad reach and control over the foods we eat is Cargill, which rivals Monsanto in its control of the food supply. It is the largest privately held corporation in the nation, owning Cargill Pork and Cargill Beef, the second largest beef producer in North America. According to Anna Lappe’s book Diet for a Hot Planet, Cargill also owns dozens of subsidiary businesses, is one of the largest commercial cattle feeders in the U.S., the world’s biggest processor, marketer, and distributor of grains, oilseeds, and other agricultural commodities, and controls 80 percent of the European market for soybean crushing with a similar share for animal feed manufacturing.

If you eat any processed or packaged food, or anything from a typical restaurant or café, you can guarantee that Monsanto or Cargill played a role in those foods somewhere along the line. As Dr. Shiva points out in much of her work, these companies contribute to the toxification of our food supply. It’s not only the lack of nutritional value in many of these highly processed foods, but also the actual toxins that are added to genetically engineered foods. Bees, butterflies, cattle and other animals have been dying as a result of these crops, so how are they affecting humans? (You can listen to Dr. Shiva discuss this here).

If America’s health crisis is any indication, corporate control of the food supply is taking the ultimate toll. American children born in 2000 are the first generation not expected to outlive their parents as one in three is likely to develop diabetes in their lifetime, with those rates even higher for black and Latino children. The corporate monopolies over the food supply and the government’s role in facilitating corporate control translates into control over the health of the American population.

Occupy Wall Street illustrates a basic tenet of democracy; we must participate for it to function properly. We must also participate in our food system to develop local food economies that function with our interests in mind. Our first steps must be learning and teaching others about where our food comes from and how to access healthy food. We must also boycott companies like Monsanto and Cargill whose sole interest is profit, not our health or protecting the environment.

Writer, activist, and academic Raj Patel said that while Wall Street is certainly behind many problems with the food system, there is an even deeper connection between the two. “At its best, the food movement is about learning to see the politics in our everyday lives and then to take a stand against injustice,” he said. “That’s what Occupy Wall Street is doing—creating a space to learn, demand, exchange and organize.”

Occupy Wall Street understands that the corporations—whose driving force is profit not the health of the people, the country, or the environment—cannot be allowed to control our political systems. Similarly, when corporations control the food supply we are left with an unsafe and unregulated food supply with virtually no oversight and a population in the midst of a dire health crisis as a result of corporate greed and carelessness.

Food and politics often come together in peculiar ways.  It’s not that their coming together at all is unusual – far from it.  Civilization and politics are both a direct result of agriculture.  But these days food’s impact on political discourse can lead to some odd sights, such as free pizza being delivered to protesters in Madison, paid for by sympathetic activists in Egypt.

In a story first broken by Meredith Shiner at Politico, Madison landmark Ian’s Pizza got a call from a person in Egypt ordering pizza for the protesters in the capitol building around the corner.  Ian’s put out a tweet about it, and since then according to the article the little pizza place has delivered over 300 pies and given away over 1000 slices thanks to the support of people in 48 countries (last count) and all 50 states.  So shines a good deed in a weary world.

All this was begun by a single concerned Egyptian, who had just played a part in toppling a decades-old regime via protests that centered on–among other things–food prices.  Similar complaints led to similar results in Tunisia, and are now boiling over in Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya.  Here in the US the protests are about labor rights, but they too are beginning to spread, notably to Indiana where a (now former) Assistant AG called for the use of deadly force against the protesters.  There have been similar protests–though admittedly not as big yet–here in my home state of Iowa and in other states.

Not that the protests in Madison and elsewhere are about food supplies, but in so much as the Governor there is chipping away at the collective bargaining rights of the state workers, so he is doing it to all unions, and thus all workers.  Those who oppose the unions do not see this.  Witness the tea party counter-protester in Madison last Saturday who told the press he hadn’t been there earlier in the week because “unlike the union people” he couldn’t just blow off work and had to wait until the weekend–a weekend he has thanks to the very union he had just come to counter-protest.

Labor rights have a direct connection to food supplies and always have.  From farm workers to slaughterhouses to transportation to building those trucks and tractors, America’s thirst for cheap food has come at the expense of those who provide it and the enrichment of a relative handful of wealthy executives.  Farm employment in my part of the country has dwindled as farms have enlarged, and even those farms that do require large amounts of human resources are getting those hands from often underpayed, undocumented workers.

There have been a few success stories (witness the Coalition of Immokalee Workers), but for the most part our drive to lower the percent of our GDP spent on food, even while we triple the percent spent on health care,* has given us a nation where one in three children born after 2000 will develop diabetes.  One in two among minorities.  Cheap calories make unhealthy people.  There has to be a better way.

Ian’s Pizza may have inadvertently taken a small step towards that better way.  Granted they are indeed capitalizing on this circumstance, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.  And granted, pizza cannot often be construed as a healthful food (though sometimes it can).  But rather than constantly putting our national efforts into making food cheap enough for all our poor to be able to eat, why not expend at least a little of our efforts in making it possible for people to have the financial strength to buy good food?  Unions help make that possible.

They are no panacea, of course, but when you put your feet up or go out to your garden or out for pizza this weekend, thank the unions.  The employer-based health care system that the tea party fought so hard to protect?  Unions began that.  Social Security and Medicare?  Unions again.  Child labor laws?  Unions.  It’s not so hard to believe maybe unions would have a role to play in making our food system Good, Clean, and Fair.

* In 1960 the percent of US GDP spent on food was 17.5 %, and on healthcare it was 5.2%.  By 2008, those numbers had almost precisely reversed: food was 9.6% and healthcare 16.2%

Photo: Vince_Lamb viz Flickr

Farmers in India grow more than 4,000 varieties of eggplant, making it one of South Asia’s most important staple vegetables. According to the BBC, Indian farmers produce more eggplant than anywhere in the world.

Late last year, the government-controlled Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) approved the commercial cultivation of a genetically modified variety of eggplant, called Bt brinjal, that was engineered to be resistant to some of the pests that plague eggplant crops. Bt brinjal would have been the first ever GM crop approved for widespread human consumption (small amounts of GM papayas are grown in Hawaii).

But farmers and activists across India registered their disapproval and, due to the widespread opposition, Environment Minister Jairam Remesh put the cultivation of Bt brinjal on hold indefinitely.

“Public sentiment is negative. It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach,” Mr Ramesh said.

Bt brinjal had been undergoing field tests conducted by its inventors and owners for only one year. The seeds are owned by Mahyco, an Indian company that is partially owned by Monsanto, owner of the gene technology used in the Bt crops.

Remesh added that allowing companies to conduct their own tests “does raise legitimate doubts on the reliability of the tests,” and said the moratorium would be extended until independent studies establish the crop’s safety.

Supporters of the technology will say that farmers need Bt brinjal to prevent famine caused by climate change and lessen the environmental impact of pesticide use. The logic goes that because climate change makes eggplant more vulnerable to pests, pest resistant Bt brinjal can raise yields by reducing crop failure, while also requiring fewer pesticides.

According to Bhagirath Choudhary, head of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, the agency that approved the commercialization of Bt brinjal in October, “Our experience with Bt cotton has showed the technology has benefited the farmer, the consumer and the states’ economies. We have a solid case in Bt cotton, with higher yields, double the output and less use of insecticide.”

History has shown that this isn’t true. GM seeds lessen farmer’s choices, making them beholden and in debt to the seed companies, take the control of the food supply out of the hands of farmers and put it into the hands of industry, and threaten bio-diversity, the very best tool in the prevention of famine. GM crops over time often require ever-larger amounts of pesticides, as the pests develop resistance, or different pests attack the crop. So while GM crops may temporarily increase yields and profits for farmers, it has never been proven to be sustainable over time, especially when you’re talking about undercapitalized smaller farmers.

Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First, The Institute for Food and Development Policy, said “Growing GMO eggplant in India is unnecessary, untested for safety, and could destroy the livelihoods of many small-scale Indian farmers.”

According to Reuters, GM seeds would likely cost three times the price of regular seeds, and they cannot be saved from season to season so farmers would have to continue to buy the seeds from the seed company each year.

Engineering a crop to withstand a very specific threat (in this case, pests) is dangerous business because you court failure caused by other threats, as this article about farmer suicides and the diseases that Bt cotton is especially vulnerable to outlines.

While yields may be higher initially, farmers often end up deeply in debt due to crop failures and inability to plant non-gmo varieties. Seven years after Bt cotton was approved in India in 2002, Bt cotton is now 80% of total cotton acreage planted, leaving farmers with few other choices in the seed marketplace, as this video shows:

In addition to the unproven yields, expense, and unstudied human health effects, imagine the destruction of the culinary and cultural legacy represented by the loss of many of those 4,000 varieties of eggplant.

This important development is a turning point for both food sovereignty activists and the developers of GM crops. It indicates that in India today, the people have the power to influence at least some within their government, serving as an inspiring example to people everywhere fighting for the control of their own food supply. For Monsanto and other developers of GM crops, the independent tests that will be required to assure the safety of this particular GM food crop will influence every new development. This is a story to watch closely.

Photo: Greenpeace

AP reported that the protest was organized by Laura Daniels, a dairy farmer with 260 cows in Cobb, Wisconsin. But the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s president (and dairy farmer) Bill Bruins also kicked up a lot of dust after the book was handed out to all incoming freshman and announced as the common reading a few weeks ago. (Wait, isn’t there a huge dairy crisis going on in Wisconsin that would be a more important focus for the Farm Bureau rather than getting angry over a book discussion?) In Bruins’ op-ed he states that “Pollan has narrow and elitist ideas about how you should eat and how farmers should (or shouldn’t) feed a hungry and growing world.” This is a odd claim, considering that right now we have a food system in which the poor are forced to eat fast food — proven to lead to heart disease, diabetes and obesity — while Big Ag profits. Sounds quite elitist to me.

Farm Bureaus have long been havens for agribusiness interests, and I’m not surprised by Bruins’ reaction. More surprising is the farmer backlash being stoked against “agri-intellectuals” and people who speak out and feel passionately about the future of our soil. Rightfully, these farmers ask, “Who are you to be telling me what to do with my land after ignoring us for so long?”

Daniels, age 33, grew up on a farm, but only began working as a dairy farmer herself four years ago. She discussed her work and her decision to become a farmer here in an interview with a representative for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. Her interest in re-engaging with the land and her decision to farm is not unlike many of the other young people who consider Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma their sustainable bible, and who are returning to the land to try and change the food system with their own two hands. Daniels and farmers like her seem to be missing the point when they protest Pollan and other food system thinkers — the idea behind his writing and sustainable food advocacy work in general is to re-include farmers, long marginalized, back in the debate.

Indeed, farmers have had mostly corporate interests reaching out to them via the Monsantos of the world, the Farm Bureaus and other sponsored groups seeming to act in their interest for far too long. Corporate groups have marketed products to farmers as “the answer” to their problems, only to have super weeds and cancer crop up later as a result of their use. Corporate interests have removed farmers from the land with their short-term efficiencies, breaking down rural communities and making the way for a methamphetamine crisis, poorer health care services, poisoned rural water and air, and a less hospitable environment for small businesses. Meanwhile farmers are losing more and more of their freedom to choose how to operate their land — farmers can no longer save seed, which they have done for thousands of years, are increasingly dependent on subsidies from the government, and are caught in a bottleneck between corporations determining the price they will get for a product that cannot even be eaten by their families until processed. This is not how it has to be and that is why we speak out.

Here is my message to farmers like Daniels: Let’s work together. The people engaging the possibilities for agriculture want to have a dialog with you. Their concern is for our collective well-being as a nation –  no one is out to make billions in profit by thinking about and proposing new ideas about agriculture, digging up their lawns to plant vegetables, trying to affect policy, all while learning to cook and gaining appreciation for your labor. They are doing it simply because they are excited and engaged, and that is a good thing.

Let tonight’s discussion be the beginning of a civil dialog about food.

That’s exactly the idea behind what we are trying to do here at Civil Eats.

Today President-elect Obama announced that former Iowa governer Tom Vilsack, who has a history of dealings in favor of agri-business, will be his Secretary of Agriculture.  This is a disappointment for many grassroots organizers and food policy activists, who had hope that the President-elect and his team would take a leaf from the petition, signed by over 55,000 individuals, which suggested sustainable and qualified choices for the position and represented a true change for the way the government views food production in our nation.  It is clear that while our new president will bring much needed change to how we do business in other realms in Washington, that food has not yet become a part of that equation.

For some background on Vilsack, Tom Philpott gives a sense of his legislative history on food-related issues at Grist.  It is clear from what President-elect Obama said today, that he intends to further push biofuels and even biotech:

“To lead a Department of Agriculture that helps unlock the potential of a 21st century agricultural economy, I can think of no one better than Tom Vilsack. As Governor of one of our most abundant farm states, he led with vision, promoting biotech to strengthen our farmers and fostering an agricultural economy of the future that not only grows the food we eat, but the energy we use. Tom understands that the solution to our energy crisis will be found not in oil fields abroad but in our farm fields here at home. That is the kind of leader I want in my cabinet.”

I encourage those of you who, like me, are fighting for a better food system not to be discouraged.  It is our job to keep pushing and protesting until Washington understands how serious the issues surrounding our methods of food production in this country are.  I take inspiration from the workers at the Chicago factory that was shut down earlier this month, and by Obama’s encouragement of their protest.  We must insist that we be heard, and continue to ride the wave of hope, because we know that we have an incoming President who is at last receptive.