March
17, 2005: In the opening pages of Ploughing up
the Farm, Jerry Buckland says his book is concerned with
the changing state of farmers, mostly over the last fifty
years. But you need only thumb through the book to see that
you will meet few, if any, farmers in the pages that follow.
Instead you will encounter charts, graphs, tables, figures
and enough notes at the end of each chapter to make you into
a part-time economist or a full-time bibliophobe. Expect no
angels to fly up out of the pages, harps in hand, singing
you verse; but do expect a professor to step forth, unrolling
a supply-and-demand graph, rolling up his sleeves, saying
‘You want to understand what’s happening to farmers?
Then let’s talk about the facts.’
The core of Buckland’s book details how farming has
changed under what has come by many to be called ‘neoliberalism’—a
belief that the economy is better off in the (invisible) hands
of the market than of governments. It is the driving philosophy
behind the policies implemented by the major economic institutions
of our time: the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO. Such policies
seek to eliminate barriers to trade (hence the notion of free—or
unobstructed—trade) and let the market determine prices
and production levels. The claim is that free markets are
efficient, by virtue of their competitive nature, and allow
for the benefits of comparative advantage through specialized
production (you grow what you’re good at, I’ll
grow what I’m good at, and we’ll trade).
Without polemics or sarcasm, and in a cool academic manner
(each chapter even has its own conclusion), Buckland offers
evidence that farmers have not benefited as proponents of
neoliberalism claimed they would. Transnational corporations
have stepped into the policy-making void that states left
behind them, now steering with increasingly visible hands
the supposedly free and competitive markets. Through mergers
and acquisitions, companies have gained monopolies or oligopolies
that stifle competition. In some cases, as in U.S. poultry
and livestock rearing, the same parent company can raise,
slaughter and process animals under its subsidiaries so that
“only the final product—chicken, pork or beef—is
sold on the market” (p. 59). The gene revolution of
the 1990s, while potentially benefiting farmers and consumers,
so far only seems to be an effort by corporations to further
control the market (plants are now engineered to produce sterile
seeds, or to have weaker immune systems unless a chemical
is applied to them). As for the free market, so often invoked
with ecclesiastical solemnity, it is a curious fact that the
U.S. and the E.U. decry the protectionist measures taken by
poorer countries seeking to develop fledgling industries while
they themselves continue to increase domestic farm subsidies
each year.
In Chapter Four, the meatiest of the chapters, Buckland examines
various aspects of farm trade, including the reasons for the
replacement of GATT by the WTO in 1994, the debate over trade-related
intellectual property rights, and the effects of NAFTA on
farmers in Canada and Mexico. Along with his own analysis,
he includes a potpourri of highlighted excerpts from other
texts that are relevant to the discussion. For example, when
describing export subsidies, he excerpts a Guardian
article by Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist of
the World Bank, about how Northern Hemisphere subsidies hurt
Southern Hemisphere farmers by flooding their markets with
cheap cotton and powdered milk. When describing NAFTA (the
North American Free Trade Agreement), Buckland excerpts a
2002 article from the Union Farmer Monthly that gives
figures on how Canadian farmers fared under the free trade
agreements with the U.S.--Canadian agriculture and food exports
almost tripled but wages went up only slightly, farm debt
doubled, the price of wheat dropped while the price of bread
increased, and the number of farmers declined.
Buckland envisions what he calls a ‘farmer-led food
security approach,’ in which farmers, with the support
of the state and the market, are at the heart of decision-making
about farm development. He does not advocate a pure subsistence
model, which would hurt the urban poor who depend on cheap
food, but rather “a level of farm specialization that
ensures food security for farm and city” (p. 204). Although
he goes into some detail about how to do this and gives some
recommendations on reforming economic institutions like the
WTO, the strength of the book lies in its earlier analyses.
Just brace yourself to encounter terms like price elasticity
of supply, trade distortion, transfer pricing and—that
darling euphemism of the IMF—structural adjustment.
If you want to understand the reasons behind the state of
the world’s farmers today, learning those terms is part
of the required economic homework. Ploughing up the Farm
may not be easy to get through but, like drinking cod liver
oil or giving birth, the effort does not go unrewarded.
Constantine Markides lives on Monhegan Island, Maine.
He can be reached at cons76@yahoo.com
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