The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

40 OCTOBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Our objective should not be to “feed the world,” but rather to “enable the world to feed itself.” In short, American foreign policy should promote organic, small-scale, diversified, sustainable farming practices and not large-scale, commodity-focused agriculture that relies on chemical inputs, expensive machinery, and genetically modi- fied seeds and other biotech practices that place production and efficiency above all else. President Barack Obama’s “Feed the Future” initiative is a good step in the right direction, but it contrasts with other U.S. government programs that prioritize promotion of trade and exports. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps have several programs that promote small-scale farming, particularly women in farming, as well as organic and sustainable practices. But these programs are weak in comparison with other efforts—such as trade agree- ments like the Trans-Pacific Partnership—that promote the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) and other patented seeds, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and other costly inputs as part of global trade promotion. Consider how American agriculture has evolved since World War II, and how it affected Americans throughout our nation’s rural areas and small towns. Growing up in rural Kentucky, I saw firsthand how farmers and small towns were hit hard by the “industrial” model of agriculture. This so-called modern agriculture was shaped mainly by corporate profitability and the incessant drive for productivity and efficiency. What we have today across the United States are farms and farmers saddled with debt and dependent on patented seeds, both GMO and hybrid, that must be bought every year; a heavy reliance on expensive machinery that encourages large-scale farming; and dependence on chemical inputs such as herbi- cides, insecticides and fertilizers with potentially deleterious long-term effects. It is a farming model that relies on cash inputs from the farmer and that makes him or her dependent on large corporations and money lenders that are no longer community-based. The “Get Big or Get Out” Model This business model stems from the “get big or get out” phi- losophy first promulgated by Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson in the 1950s and reinforced two decades later by Sec- retary Earl Butz, who told American farmers to “adapt or die.” The policy pitted farmers against their neighbors and destroyed many of the bonds that had held rural communities together; one neighbor’s failure was a growth opportunity for another. There is even research underway now in the agroindustrial complex to enable “farming without farmers,” using remotely controlled farm machinery directed by GPS and satellite map- ping so that machine operation can take place around the clock without any human controls in the field. In other words, drone warfare meets farming. The result of these practices is visible in a vast region of America’s heartland that is today largely depopulated, littered with decaying ghost towns bereft of people and small busi- nesses. There is a devastating loss of topsoil across what was once one of the world’s richest agricultural areas. Depleted aquifers can no longer supply irrigation and drinking water. Water pollution from fertilizers and other chemical runoff has poisoned countless creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes and possibly created a massive “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. And there is flooding across the country in areas that did not flood before because the soil can no longer absorb the rain that farmers rely on to grow crops. Sadly, the increase in farmer suicides in many countries, including our own, has been directly related to this inability to “adapt,” as farmers become debt-ridden and even poisoned by the deluge of chemicals they are encouraged to use but not taught to handle responsibly. In addition, rural communities are often powerless to fight coal mining, timber interests and natural gas companies that treat once-vibrant rural farm areas as colonies to be depleted of natural resources at any cost and without regard for the environment or the people there. Is this what we want in the rest of the world? Is it in Amer- ica’s interest for Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and other farming regions of the world to deplete their soil and water, drive their people off the land into the cities and turn their prime farmland into large-scale commodity croplands that rapidly lose fertility, while serving mainly to generate export revenue rather than feed the local population?