The Nation — October 30, 2017

16 The Nation. October 30, 2017

THE

FUTURE

OF

FOOD

TOP: SHEILA MENEZES / BOTTOM: TWITTER / LINDSEY SHUTE

THE PROBLEMS

WITH FAIR TRADE

BY RAJ PATEL

T

rue equality and sustainability can

only be attained when we recognize where

inequity and unsustainability come from.

Consider something as simple as

a banana. In the banana industry,

workers are treated poorly: They’re exposed to

dangerous pesticides and toil for low and uncer-

tain wages. Fair-trade organic bananas offer a

solution to this: no more pesticides (organic

bananas!) and better pay for farmers.

But a fair-trade label on bananas guarantees

neither equity nor sustainability. Even when

consumers pay more for the promise that farmers are

getting a better-than-market price, the evidence of posi-

tive outcomes remains mixed. Fair trade only sometimes

raises farmers’ incomes—and for migrant workers, pro-

tections are rare. Also, there is some evidence that fair

trade deepens household gender inequality when farm

families specialize in the cultivation of export-driven

cash crops.

Most important, fair trade takes for granted that Lat-

in America, the Caribbean, and other parts of the Global

South ought to task themselves in perpetuity with grow-

ing our bananas. Fair trade doesn’t force us to confront

how these countries became America’s fruit bowl.

For instance, more than one in three bananas on US

store shelves come from Guatemala. When Guatema-

lan President Jacobo Árbenz tried in 1952 to inaugurate

land reform for dispossessed peasants, the United Fruit

Company was so concerned that it called its friends in

the CIA, which initiated a coup that led to a 36-year

civil war in which 200,000 people died—most at the

hands of the brutal military and security services—and

for which President Bill Clinton apologized in 1999.

Nor was Guatemala the only case: The term “banana

republic” was originally coined to describe Hondu-

ras and its neighbors, sovereign states dominated by

American companies like United Fruit, backed by US

military force.

Equity and sustainability demand more than a mere

apology. Guatemala is among the world’s top 10 coun-

tries for long-term vulnerability to climate change, its

economy battered by extreme weather, its coastline re-

drawn by rising seas. For true equity, the United States

needs to recognize its debt with reparations—repara-

tions for the many ways we continue to benefit from

past horrors in the food system, both here and abroad.

There’s no magic number that we in the United

States can put on this, no sufficient check to write. But

surely it’s better to recognize how far back in time we

need to go to accept responsibility for our actions, how

deep that debt runs, and how inequity and unsustain-

ability continue to mount under capitalism. To evade

this long, hard reckoning is to ask for a very attenuated

kind of equity and sustainability—the kind whose de-

mands can be shrunk to fit on a label.

THE NEW FACE

OF FAMILY FARMS

BY LINDSEY SHUTE

I

f you want to disrupt the auto industry,

you’d better have a few billion dollars: Mom-and-

pop automakers are unlikely to outflank the Big

Three. But in agriculture, small operators can

outdo the major players. By connecting directly

with customers, and by responding nimbly to changes

in the markets as well as in their ecosystems, small

farmers can keep one step ahead of the big guys. As the

co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition

and a family farmer myself, I have a front-row seat to

the innovations among small farmers that are trans-

forming the industry.

For example, take the Quick Cut Greens Harvester,

a tool developed just a couple of years ago by a young

farmer, Jonathan Dysinger, in Tennessee, with a small

loan from a local Slow Money group. It enables small-

scale farmers to harvest 175 pounds of greens per

hour—a huge improvement over harvesting just a few

dozen pounds by hand—suddenly putting the little guys

in contention with the mega-farms of California. Be-

fore the tool came out, small farmers couldn’t touch the

price per pound offered by California farms. But now,

with the combination of a better price point and a gen-

erally fresher product, they can stay in business.

The sustained success of small farmers, though,

won’t happen without fundamental changes to the

industry. One crucial factor is secure access to land.

Competition from investors, developers, and estab-

lished large farmers makes owning one’s own land unat-

tainable for many aspiring new farmers. From 2004 to

2013, agricultural real-estate values doubled, and they

continue to rise in many regions.

Another challenge for more than a million of the

most qualified farmworkers and managers is a nonexis-

tent path to citizenship—the ultimate barrier to build-

ing a farm of their own. With farm operators over the

age of 65 outnumbering farmers

younger than 35 by a margin of six

to one, and with two-thirds of the

nation’s farmland in need of a new

farmer, we must clear the path for

talented people willing to grow

the nation’s food.

There are solutions that could

light a path toward a more sustain-

able and equitable farm economy,

but farmers can’t cobble them to-

gether in our barns. We at the Na-

tional Young Farmers Coalition

need broad support as we urge

Congress to scale up farmland conservation, as we push

for immigration reform, and as we pursue policies that

will ensure the success of a diverse and entrepreneurial

next generation of farmers from all backgrounds. With

a new farm bill on the horizon in Congress, consumers

must take a stand with young farmers.

Raj Patel is an

award-winning

writer, activist,

and academic.

He is a research

professor at

the Lyndon B.

Johnson School of

Public Affairs at

the University of

Texas at Austin.

Lindsey Shute is

co-founder and

executive director

of the National

Young Farmers

Coalition.

For true

trade equity,

the United

States

needs

to pay

reparations.