In Meat We Trust (48 page)

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“The word came down”: Quoted in Barham, “Sustainable Agriculture,” 176.

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“replac[e] the mechanical”: Quoted in Beus and Dunlap, “Conventional Versus Alternative Agriculture,” 610.

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“I’d call it FIDO”: Quoted in ibid.

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“Our worthless opponents”: Quoted in ibid.

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“iron triangle”: My understanding of the agricultural legislative process and how it changed is informed by James T. Bonnen, William P. Browne, and David B. Schweikhardt, “Further Observations on the Changing Nature of National Agricultural Policy Decision Processes, 1946–1995,”
Agricultural History
70, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 130–52; William P. Browne,
Private Interests, Public Policy, and American Agriculture
(University Press of Kansas, 1988); William P. Browne,
Cultivating Congress: Constituents, Issues, and Interests in Agricultural Policymaking
(University Press of Kansas, 1995); Harold D. Guither,
The Food Lobbyists: Behind the Scenes of Food and Agri-Politics
(D. C. Heath and Company, 1980); Don F. Hadwiger and William P. Browne, eds.,
The New Politics of Food
(D. C. Heath and Company, 1978); Don F. Hadwiger,
The Politics of Agricultural Research
(University of Nebraska Press, 1982); and Don Paarlberg,
Farm and Food Policy: Issues of the 1980s
(University of Nebraska Press, 1980). One consequence of the disarray is obvious: the more, and the more diverse, players involved, the more difficult it was to accomplish anything beyond the basics, in this case support for commodities. None of the players had any interest in, and thus no focus on, “agriculture” as a whole or its relation to the totality of American society. All any could hope was that he/she/it would manage to forge an alliance with other players in an effort to insert his/her/its agenda into the bill. As a result, fundamental agricultural “reform,” argued a trio of political scientists who had watched this process unfold over the years, “fails not because agricultural policy making is closed to” everyone but “agribusiness,” a “bit of conventional wisdom [that] is badly out of date,” but because “there are too many players, each seeking something from decision processes” (Bonnen, Browne, and Schweikhardt, “Further Observations,” 151).

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“agricultural establishment”: Don Paarlberg, “Agriculture Loses Its Uniqueness,”
American Journal of Agricultural Economics
60, no. 5 (December 1978): 772. Paarlberg served on the faculty at Purdue University, helped launch the Food for Peace program in the 1950s, and worked in high positions at the USDA under three secretaries. This 1978 publication is based on a speech he gave in 1975 at the National Public Policy Conference. For that, see Garth Youngberg, “Alternative Agriculturalists: Ideology, Politics, and Prospects,” in
New Politics of Food
, ed. Hadwiger and Browne, 242–43. For one of Paarlberg’s more blunt assessments see Paarlberg, “The Farm Policy Agenda,”
Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies, 1975
(Farm Foundation, 1975), 95–102. Paarlberg elaborated on the implications of this shift in his
Farm and Food Policy: Issues of the 1980s
(University of Nebraska Press, 1980).

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“unthinkable”: Luther Tweeten, “Domestic Food and Farm Policy Issues and Alternatives,”
Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies, 1975
(Farm Foundation, 1975), 103, 104, 111.

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“a farmer who [would] cry”: Browne,
Private Interests, Public Policy
, 88.

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“We warned everybody”: Quoted in Barham, “Sustainable Agriculture,” 161.

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“There’s a particular person”: Quoted in Martin Everett, “How Coleman Sells the Sizzle,”
Sales & Marketing Management
139 (August 1, 1987); accessed online.

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“upgrade”: Quoted in Michelle M. Mahoney, “Coleman Launches a Branded Beef Line,”
Adweek’s Marketing Week
, November 6, 1989; accessed online.

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“countercuisine”: The delightful term is from Warren Belasco,
Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took On the Food Industry
, 2d ed. (Cornell University Press, 2007).

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“wholesome”: Jane Mayer, “Now You Can Dine Knowing the Entree Lived a Happy Life,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 6, 1989, p. 1; and Sonia L. Nazario, “Are Organic Foods Spiritual Enough? Not for Everyone,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 21, 1989, p. A1.

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“Before they became available”: Quoted in Kathleen A. Hughes, “If Fitness Matters, Shouldn’t a Chicken Do a Workout Too?”
Wall Street Journal
, July 16, 1986, p. 1.

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“We tell retailers”: Quoted in Everett, “How Coleman Sells the Sizzle”; accessed online.

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“overpriced and overbilled”: Ibid.

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An alliance: For the Wyoming and Kansas examples, see Steve Painter, “Producers of ‘Natural’ Meat Claim Growing Market Share,”
Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader
, May 4, 1986; accessed online.

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“I hope I don’t radiate”: Quoted in Katy Butler, “‘Natural’ Beef Is Big Business,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, February 19, 1986; accessed online. In the late 1990s, Schell took a position at the University of California–Berkeley as dean of the School of Journalism and sold his share of the ranch to Niman. Several years later, Schell helped recruit a new faculty member: Michael Pollan, a journalist who had published, among other things, a series of articles about the food industry. The influence of the older man on the younger can be seen by reading Schell’s
Modern Meat
and Pollan’s
Omnivore’s Dilemma
.

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“We sold to Los Angeles”: Ibid.

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“I’ve got ranchers”: Quoted in Keith Schneider, “The Profitable Road to Natural Beef,”
New York Times
, September 5, 1986, p. A10.

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“I definitely think”: Quoted in Hughes, “If Fitness Matters,” 17.

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“We don’t have a working definition”: Quoted in Carrie Dolan, “Federal Agents Lay Down the Law to Some Chicken-Livered Rangers,”
Wall Street Journal
, January 29, 1990, p. B1.

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“beneficial magnetic forces”: Nazario, “Are Organic Foods Spiritual Enough?” A1.

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“wherewithal”: Quoted in Judith Blake, “‘Hormone-Free’ Label Raises Questions,”
Seattle Times
, March 1, 1989; accessed online. The story was a bit more complicated than that. The European Community had recently voted to ban imports of U.S. beef from cattle raised on synthetic hormones. That prompted a trade war, and one way to end the dispute was by eliminating any chance that some beef was hormone-free and some wasn’t.

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“great injustice”: Quoted in Judith Blake, “Federal ‘Natural Beef’ Program’s Future Concerns Participants,”
Seattle Times
, March 8, 1989; accessed online.

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“essential”: Quoted in Marj Charlier, “Raisers of ‘Natural’ Cattle Fear Losing Market Niche,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 17, 1989; accessed online.

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“better than food produced”: Quoted in U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture,
Proposed Organic Certification Program
, 101st Cong., 2d sess., June 19, 1990, p. 11.

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“I’m still trying”: Quoted in ibid., 49.

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“I assume”: Quoted in ibid., 22.

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“[T]here is not”: Quoted in ibid., 18.

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“constantly exposed”: Quoted in ibid., 26.

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“negative advertising”: Quoted in Michelle Mahoney, “Discouraging Words Heard over Ads for Natural Beef,”
Denver Post
, March 29, 1991; accessed online.

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“I’ve paid a lot of dues”: Quoted in ibid.

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“been embraced”: Garth Youngberg, Neill Schaller, and Kathleen Merrigan, “The Sustainable Agriculture Policy in the United States: Politics and Prospects,” in
Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of Sustainability
, ed. Patricia Allen (John Wiley & Sons, 1993), 295.

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“systematic world”: Howard R. Cottam, “Toward a World Food System,” in U.S. Senate, Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Subcommittee on Agricultural Production, Marketing, and Stabilization of Prices,
U.S
.
and World Food Security
, 93d Cong., 2d sess., March 15, 1974, p. 71. For a brief but useful summary of the politics of postwar hunger, see A. H. Boerma, “The Thirty Years War Against World Hunger,”
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
34, no. 3 (1975): 146–57.

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“a decentralized, safe”: Joe Belden and Gregg Forte,
Toward a National Food Policy
(Exploratory Project for Economic Alternatives, 1976), 34.

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“localized, small-scale production”: Ibid., 121.

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“between the urban consumer”: Quoted in ibid., 34.

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To name one example: The federal marketing act lost its funding in 1980 over the strenuous objection of the General Accounting Office, which argued that such projects represented a way to reduce the nation’s energy costs and urban reliance on “out-of-region food sources.” See U.S. General Accounting Office,
Direct Farmer-to-Consumer Marketing Program Should Be Continued and Improved
, CED-80–65, July 9, 1980, p. 1; accessed online. There are no substantive histories of these early self-reliance, food security projects, but useful information is in Joe Belden et al.,
New Directions in Farm, Land and Food Policies: A Time for State and Local Action
(Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, Agriculture Project, [1979]; Belden and Forte,
Toward a National Food Policy;
and Kate Clancy, Janet Hammer, and Debra Lippoldt, “Food Policy Councils: Past, Present, and Future,” in
Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability
, ed. C. Clare Hinrichs and Thomas A. Lyson (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 121–43.

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The most influential and long-lived: For the Hartford plan, see City of Hartford,
A Discussion Draft for Community Review: A Strategy to Reduce the Cost of Food for Hartford Residents
, by Catherine Lerza (Hartford, 1978). A summary of the plan is in Belden et al.,
New Directions
, 276–77; but also see Mark Winne,
Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty
(Beacon Press, 2008). Winne was hired to run the original program and worked there for several decades. An important compendium of ideas is in Catherine Lerza and Michael Jacobson, eds.,
Food for People, Not for Profit: A Sourcebook on the Food Crisis
(Ballantine Books, 1975). This book was issued in conjunction with Food Day.

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“most prevalent and most insidious”: Howard Kurtz, “Mayors Say Hunger in Cities Is Growing Faster Than Aid,”
Washington Post
, June 13, 1983; accessed online. An excellent recounting of the hunger crisis of the 1980s is in Janet Poppendieck,
Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement
(Viking, 1998). Another useful assessment is Katherine L. Clancy, “Sustainable Agriculture and Domestic Hunger: Rethinking a Link Between Production and Consumption,”
Food for the Future
, ed. Allen, 251–93.

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As two analysts: See Barbara E. Cohen and Martha R. Burt,
Eliminating Hunger: Food Security Policy for the 1990s
(The Urban Institute, 1989).

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“tension”: Quoted in Barbara Ruben, “Common Ground,”
Environmental Action
27, no. 2 (Summer 1995); accessed online.

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“like two trains”: Winne,
Closing the Food Gap
, 134. For a general description of the tensions and conflicts in those early years, written by a participant, see Robert Gottlieb,
Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change
(The MIT Press, 2001), 226ff. For the food miles calculation, which came from Mark Winne, see Ruben, “Common Ground.” Food miles were much discussed by participants in the 1990s.

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“from a global everywhere”: Jack Kloppenburg Jr., John Hendrickson, and G. W. Stevenson, “Coming in to the Foodshed,”
Agriculture and Human Values
13, no. 3 (Summer 1996): 34, 36, 38. For a good summary of the community food security idea and the problems of putting it into practice, see Molly D. Anderson and John T. Cook, “Community Food Security: Practice in Need of Theory?”
Agriculture and Human Values
16, no. 2 (June 1999): 141–50. The merger of sustainable agriculture and food security activists energized both communities, but so did their shared interest in another movement that took shape in the 1990s: resistance to globalization. During that decade, world leaders replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which dated to the 1940s, with the World Trade Organization (WTO), a move that amounted to more than a change in name: WTO replaced long-standing policies that defined food as a right with ones that dumped food into the same general category, trade-wise, as “spark plugs and refrigerators.” Negotiations over GATT and WTO, as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), galvanized activists who argued that global corporations had taken over the planet’s food supplies and were wreaking havoc on the environment as well as the lives and health of billions of people. In the United States, resistance to globalization translated into enthusiasm for building local, sustainable food systems that could be controlled by those who participated in them. The food security agenda also rested on and benefited from the institutional infrastructure that had been cobbled together over the years. By century’s end, land grant schools, once scorned by critics, housed dozens of programs and centers devoted to the study of sustainable agriculture, food security, urban gardening, and the like. Professors who specialized in sustainability and food security research taught cadres of students who went to work in community programs or at the USDA or as professors who taught more students. In many respects, the new food activism echoed the civil, gender, and sexuality rights projects of the 1960s and 1970s, when colleges and universities responded to social change by introducing programs and majors in African American, Native American, women’s, and “queer” studies. Once in place, those programs perpetuated themselves thanks to successive generations of students and scholars. So it was with alternative food studies.