Are we fooled by efficiency?
Farmers today are more efficient than ever before, using technology and science to minimize inputs while producing food for a growing global population. In fact, less than 2% of the US population grows enough food to feed the full 100% of us – that’s efficient farming!
This locution is the feature story of every mainline agriculture organization in the country, and it’s the greatest defense agribusiness has against any opposition: they’re efficient, so you have cheap, abundant food. Don’t complain.
I’m worried we’ve become too focused on a singular outcome. Efficiency is great for our washing machines and light bulbs, yet I don’t think efficiency and farming mix well. Efficiency emphasizes equipment, production lines, specialization, centralization, and technology.
According to Google, the definition of efficiency is “(especially of a system or machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.”
Comprehend that. It’s a mechanical definition, isn’t it? When we apply the notion to the natural world, it doesn’t fit. Nowhere in nature is a standalone system operating for the singular purpose of creating one outcome. It’s logical to conclude, then, when we apply our efficiency mindset to nature in the form of agriculture we’ll be fighting her every step of the way.
Some consumers are noticing flaws associated with efficiency farming: frequent catastrophic flooding, food recalls involving half the country, mushrooming farm financial bailouts burdening taxpayers, and a tremendous influx of foreign food, to name a few. When solutions to these faults are sought, unfortunately, the established paradigm points back to improving efficiency and technology, thus diminishing the hope of creating a real solution. As the saying goes, what got us here won’t get us there.
I love this thought from grazier Steve Kenyon: ‘We don’t need more efficient farming, we need more effective farming.’ Effectiveness encompasses a whole array of desired results instead of pigeon-holing us into one singular objective.
Effective farming examines the whole picture and addresses each desired outcome. Here are two examples for comparison:
Efficient corn farming pursues rapid planting, ubiquitous chemical weed control, rapid harvest, and high yields per acre. Effective corn farming focuses on minimizing soil disruption by carefully choosing planting sites, maintaining vegetative cover, incorporating organic materials to stimulate living organisms, and planning long-range crop rotations.
Efficient beef production results in concentrated animal feeding, highly streamlined industrial slaughterhouses, and consumer dissent. Effective beef production is unique to region and rear-er, featuring infinite adaptations to the climate in which the animals are living, the terrain, and proximate population centers, thus drawing people’s interest.
Convenience and efficiency have become synonymous, and convenience is the impostor that’s distracting modern agriculture from effectiveness.For effective change to take place, consumers and farmers must close the gap between their respective worlds to establish mutual understanding that leads to common goals.If our quest for efficiency is driving people away from agriculture, then small farms must take advantage of their scale and create hands-on diversity that will bring the public back.Issues will only be exacerbated if we continue using the same methods that caused them in the first place.