4 Forces Driving More
crops, whose market value comes from plowing up habitat that wild bee
populations need to survive.
A market society does not question how intensive food production
has changed rural America, whose local businesses have crumbled and
whose educational opportunities have dried up. A market society goes
along with a seed industry controlled by three multinationals, whose
obligation is to their shareholders, not to present and future genera-
tions. In a market society, farmers, ranchers, and farm laborers (along
with fishermen and foresters) have a higher rate of suicide than do other
occupational groups in America.
Our Achilles heel from becoming a market society is how its financial
rewards ruthlessly reinforce what people want to value—all the while
ignoring irrevocable laws of nature. No matter who controls the market
or holds the most money, food is and will always be a product of the
environment. The evidence is all around us. For good reasons, corn is
never grown in Death Valley and banana plantations are not found in
Alaska. This seems like an obvious point, yet it is one we ignore every
day. As we will cover in the next three chapters of the book, this over-
sight comes at a cost. The consequences of our grand food bargain never
stop, no matter how much Americans pretend otherwise.