The current issue of The Atlantic Monthly has a great article about how understanding and unlocking the genetics of dairy cattle (and let’s be honest, it’s mostly about Holsteins in particular) has led to spectacular increases in the efficiency of those breeds, and in doing what they do best, which is making milk.

As the author, Alexis Madrigal, points out:

In 1942, when my father was born, the average dairy cow produced less than 5,000 pounds of milk in its lifetime. Now, the average cow produces over 21,000 pounds of milk.

There are a variety of reasons for this quadrupling of productivity, not all of them breeding related.  Housing, feeding and animal care are the other key drivers.  But as Madrigal describes in great detail how having a regimented system of scoring traits, along with meticulous records, has led to the ascendancy of a handful of Holstein lineages that are in great demand, the world over.  It also has allowed us in the U.S. to make more milk with fewer animals, and attendant resources, which is at the heart of many arguments about how to define a sustainable system of providing consumer goods as the population, domestically and internationally, continues to grow.

To its credit, the Atlantic article also doesn’t shy away from some of the tradeoffs of the focus on milk output.  Specifically, the author acknowledges that reproductive success (which is the sine qua non of successful breeding) is inversely related to milk output.   More milk sometimes comes at the cost of making more calves.  Most improvements in efficiencies in other sectors have similar tradeoffs.  Smaller cars, for example, use less gas, but tend to be less safe in crashes.  Electric cars use no gas, but cost a great deal more, and their power still has to come from somewhere, often coal-fired, on the grid.  Free lunches are always hard to find.

 And interestingly, Madrigal mentions that humans actually have a highly homogenous gene pool in comparison to Holsteins.  At some point in prehistory, there weren’t that many of us around, and even with 7 plus billion people later, the home sapiens gene pool is as shallow as a sidewalk puddle. 

Since the unlocking of the human genome more than a decade ago, we’ve been expecting the growing science of genomics to help us understand more about our strengths and weaknesses.  So far, the results have been skimpy; deciphering the origins of disease, and unlocking the secrets to our longevity, are more daunting than was first assumed.  But as we get more data, more will be learned.  That’s been the case with cows, and humans won’t be far behind.

So it turns out that Monday, February 27, was “Occupy Our Food Supply” day.  Other than a few emails from counterparts in the food and ag sector, I didn’t much notice any occupational activities, although supposedly there have been a bunch of them, such as a group getting together on Facebook to harangue the CEO of Cargill.

This general theme – that our food system is in crisis and in desperate need of repair – is by now a familiar refrain.  In fact, speaking of refrains, we also were treated recently to the Chipotle video that was developed last summer and used again on the Grammies.  Guess what, Willie Nelson is one of the leading backers of Occupy Our Food Supply.

Even though the “Occupy _____” (insert your grievance here) appears close to having jumped the shark, there’s still something appealing, in this era of flash mobs and Facebook likes, to banding together to “fight the Man” – even if you’re fighting a small business man, or woman, or merely picking a fight against some larger force that you think you can define and paint in Manichean terms, but really cannot.  I made reference to this dynamic in a post from last December, when I pointed out that all sectors of the economy tend to have their large actors, as well as their small ones – and that we need to have both.  Chipotle, which was once owned by McDonald’s, is hardly a small business, although it’s become the poster child for the right way to serve burritos to the masses.

It’s interesting to note that Vandana Shiva, one of the OOFS movers and shakers, is an Indian woman attacking…another Indian woman, Indra Nooyi, who is the CEO of PepsiCo.  Perhaps that’s progress, when it’s not just Woody Harrelson and Michael Pollan leading the charge against other white guys.

I’ll repeat a question I asked in my December posting, a query that the OOFS folks, and others who are upset about the status quo, really need to answer:  How, exactly, if feed grain and oilseed production in the U.S. [and I’ll add meat in there as well, even though many of the OOFS leaders and followers are vegans] are truly the result of food cabals, are they hurting the availability and quality of the food supply?  Is the problem too much availability of food, or too little? 

Yes, there are some food deserts in urban areas, but can it really be claimed with a straight face that any more than a small portion of our population truly has no access to “the right” foods, be they organic, fresh, local, vegan, sustainable, or Jack’s magic beans?  Or is the issue really that choice, and the exercise of free will for that matter, is good for some, but not others? 

I was in Nebraska last Tuesday to speak at the 2012 Commodity Classic, which is an annual gathering of many of the major farm groups in the Cornhusker state.  Setting aside the unseasonably mild weather of a week ago (it was 61 degrees on Jan.  10^th, which had to be a record), the state’s ag players have felt a chill in the past year because of concerns that a high-stakes, high visibility battle will be fought there between them and the Humane Society of the United States.

This is a song that’s been sung in a variety of other states, from California to Ohio.  Emboldened animal rights groups like the Humane Society are pushing for state referenda – ballot initiatives that voters can decide – on a variety of animal care practices.  In Nebraska, the stakes are high because of importance of agriculture to the state.  While California produces more farm products than other states, ag is not the linchpin of the state’s overall economy the way that farming and livestock production is in Nebraska. 

That’s why Gov. Dave Heineman has been so vocal on the issue.  Whereas most governors have taken a low profile and not rhetorically battled with the animal rights crowd, the dynamic is different back in Nebraska because (as I was reminded driving across the state last week) the health of the state is almost entirely a function of how well farmers and ranchers are doing there.  Given where commodity prices were in 2011, there were lots of happy faces and new (or at least late model) trucks and tractors in evidence.

While these types of debates are still mostly polemical, we had another reminder last week that wars of words can and sometimes do escalate into physical acts.  Back in California, the Animal Liberation Front has claimed credit for torching some feed trucks at a cattle ranch in the Central Valley.  It was a good year for most of agriculture last year, but there are battles brewing ahead.

Although the squatters’ camps that were the central visual focus of the Occupy Wall Street movement have mostly been dissolved, the apparent idea behind those various rallying points still lingers:  that financial power and resources are too concentrated (whether that’s really true, is it really a problem, and if so, what should be done about it, is a whole different discussion).

What sparked my interest in the topic is how a commentator on the Motley Food website seized on the OWS movement to write about how the food production sector also needs to be “occupied.”  You can read Brian Stoffel’s whole piece here, but the author’s key argument is this:

“If we are all up in arms over an industry (banking) where the four biggest players control 50% of the cash, surely we should be wary of the fact that 90% of our most consumed food (corn, whether for human or animal consumption) is in the hands of just three companies!”

Stoffel goes on to allege that corn and soybeans, in additional to being created, planted and processed by near-monopolistic companies, are overproduced in the U.S., and thus overconsumed, leading to deleterious health effects and rising medical costs. 

These are arguments we’ve seen before in various forums – there’s really nothing new under the sun – but it’s the first time I’ve seen criticism of American agriculture linked to the Occupy Wall Street movement. What these contentions really illustrate is an overly-simplified, even naïve understanding of food production.  In fact, it’s really a series of data points, strung together in random order, in search of a fact.

Stoffel says that because DuPont and Monsanto control patents on 58% of the corn planted in the U.S., that’s a problem.  Really?  Microsoft and Apple control the software in probably 90%+ of personal computers in the U.S., while Proctor & Gamble, and Unilever, control a big share of laundry detergent sales (just to pick some other random consumer product).  Should we occupy laundromats after we march on Seattle, WA, to protest those concentrations? 

And what about the hundreds of thousands of farmers who actually make decisions each spring about what to plant?  Isn’t that really where the issue starts?  And if these myriad small businesses are the decision-makers when the seed meets the ground, how is that monopolistic behavior?

The author also said that because four companies are responsible for 85% of global high-fructose corn syrup sales, that’s also a problem.  Never mind that four sellers is hardly a monopoly, even of 100% of a product.  More to the point, he says that corn syrup is too cheap, and thus too readily available.  I always thought the purpose of a monopoly was so you could limit competition and charge MORE for your product, not have so much that it overruns every grocery store and vending machine in America  (That’s why a pricey hotel on Boardwalk will bankrupt you if you land on it in the game of Monopoly…isn’t that the point?).

How, exactly, if feed grain and oilseed production in the U.S. are truly the result of food cabals, are they hurting the availability and quality of the food supply?  Is the problem too much availability, or too little?  Or is really that people eat too much and want to blame someone else for their choices?  And where is a mention that food retailers are where the real concentration has occurred in the past generation?

Stoffel quotes Attorney General Eric Holder about the Department of Justice’s quest two years ago to find evidence of collusive, illegal behavior in the food chain.  What he failed to include is that the DOJ effort found….basically nothing.  The lead investigator behind the effort, in fact, left the Justice Department this past summer for a job at a big New York law firm. 

And one last thought:  if “agribusiness” really needs to be occupied, why don’t some of these unemployed OWS protestors start their own farms?  That would kill at least two birds with the same stone.

I often discuss the politics of food production in this blog forum, and the same issues that I first covered back when I started three years ago are, if anything, even more trenchant and high-profile today.

Which brings me to the day after tomorrow.  On Thursday, Sept. 22, a variety of organizations and associations representing the full spectrum of American farming and ranching (calling itself the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance) will organize and conduct what is being called the Food Dialogues.  This is a unique opportunity to have an extended national dialogue about the whole range of issues involved in food production.

We know that consumers want to have this kind of exchange because of the concerns they have about where food comes from.  We also know that those in agriculture want to have the same conversation.  So Thursday, at a series of four regional forums, as well as online, that conversation, in a high-profile setting, will take place.

So, first let me urge anyone interested in these issues to participate.  You can go to the Food Dialogues website to stream the event, and/or access it through a special Facebook page if you have a presence there.

You can view the list of everyone participating in the process at this page, and I think it’s worthwhile pointing out that we have a variety of perspectives, from those involved in actual farming, to those who regulate the industry, to those who cook up and sell food, and even to those who are critical of various aspects of food production. 

Now, some people will dismiss this effort even before it begins (witness these comments from Marion Nestle, who even as she criticizes the process, admits she was invited to participate in the NY session).  Like any conversation, the exchange of information is going to be two-way; this isn’t about just telling people what we feel they should know, but a process of give and take.

But only by having this type of dialogue can we honestly and effectively dig into the issues sprouting up from the current cultural landscape.  Much of the promotional material for this event asks the question “when did agriculture become a dirty word?”  Regardless of the reasons behind why some ask it….regardless of whether it has a basis in fact….regardless of to whom that question really should be directed…despite all these caveats, the question is on the table.  Farmers and ranchers need to be at the same table to help answer it.