News Saturday, April 28, 2007
Polarization with environmentalists questioned
By Candace Krebs, Regional Correspondent
Published: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:48 AM MDT
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NORMAN, Okla. - With the influence of the ecological movement going mainstream, how long can farmers and environmentalists afford to remain enemies?
That's what some industry experts are asking.
"What we've seen is the evolution of a bi-polar food system," says Bob Taylor, an ag economist from Auburn University who is best known for testifying on behalf of disgruntled cattlemen during the Pickett vs. IBP/Tyson trial alleging anti-competitive marketing practices. "I like to use the word bi-polar because it makes it sound dysfunctional, which it is."
Taylor was speaking at the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Sustainability Conference, which offered evidence of how the green movement continues to build steam. Held in the beautiful new National Weather Center building on the University of Oklahoma's Norman campus, the conference doubled its attendance from the previous year and attracted a long list of sponsors and exhibitors.
In a recent New York Times Sunday magazine cover story, Thomas Friedman, the Times political affairs columnist and author of bestselling books The World Is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, called the green movement "the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century."
Once seen as a liberal issue, the eco movement is increasingly bi-partisan. Even conservative Republican Newt Gin-grich is now preparing to publish his own environmental treatise, Contract with the Earth.
America might be heading toward a greener future, but bringing together environmentalists and agriculturalists to find common ground is a process as slow as watching glaciers melt. For the most part, the two remain in distinct camps.
Interest in local foods is one thing that connects them. During the sustainability conference, avid listeners poured into the auditorium for a session on the topic, conducted by representatives from the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, based in Poteau, Okla.
The statistics offered were sobering, but the growth potential is enormous. According to the Kerr Center's report, Oklahomans spent $1.07 per person last year buying food directly from farmers. In Iowa, a state that has launched a massive "Buy Fresh Buy Local" campaign, that figure was just under $4. More than 99 percent of the asparagus consumed in Oklahoma comes from outside of the state, as well as more than 98 percent of the tomatoes, though both crops can be grown locally.
The Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign - a blueprint for promoting awareness of local food sources - is being adopted all over the country, including cities like Colorado Springs and Kansas City. It is being introduced in Tulsa this year.
Kerr Center demographic maps show that some of the most traditionally agricultural counties have the fewest farmers markets and the least interest in the farm-to-school project.
But the local food trend is already having an impact. Consumer preferences are powerful enough to drive big changes, a phenomenon that continues to amaze Bill Heffernan, a retired rural sociologist from the University of Missouri, who also spoke at the conference.
When Heffernan and his associates at Missouri studied trade journals representing the full spectrum of the food industry, they discovered a distinct difference between the staid production and processing publications and those geared to the retail level.
"Some of the retail trade journals devoted whole issues to all of these new interests that are coming down the line," he said. "Then right after first of the year Smithfield came out and said that in ten years they will have eliminated all sow gestation stalls. A lot of people on the production and processing side were just stunned that someone as big as Smithfield would do that."
"In the end, the most powerful stage is the retail stage, where the marketing people have contact with the consumer," he said.
When it comes to picking up on these trends, farmers in general have been slow to jump on the bandwagon, in part, because they haven't embraced a new way of thinking, he added.
"By and large they are reluctant because they are caught in a whole ideological belief system that was stressed for the last 20 or 30 years," he said.
Taylor, who is originally from Oklahoma, says farmers need to be involved in the environmental movement, for several reasons.
"I think the farm community can bring some common sense that could tone down some of the environmental extremism that we hear about," he said.
He also advocates the necessity of forming alliances "with environmentalists that have common sense."
Concerned consumers create new opportunities, he added.
"There are niche markets that small farms can fill, and there are quite a few niche markets, so to me there is a lot of potential in the middle to develop a whole new food system," he said. "But it's going to take a major effort to make that come about, and it's ordinary people like this who will make it happen, not professors."
Polarization with environmentalists questioned
By Candace Krebs, Regional Correspondent
Published: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:48 AM MDT
E-mail this story | Print this page
NORMAN, Okla. - With the influence of the ecological movement going mainstream, how long can farmers and environmentalists afford to remain enemies?
That's what some industry experts are asking.
"What we've seen is the evolution of a bi-polar food system," says Bob Taylor, an ag economist from Auburn University who is best known for testifying on behalf of disgruntled cattlemen during the Pickett vs. IBP/Tyson trial alleging anti-competitive marketing practices. "I like to use the word bi-polar because it makes it sound dysfunctional, which it is."
Taylor was speaking at the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Sustainability Conference, which offered evidence of how the green movement continues to build steam. Held in the beautiful new National Weather Center building on the University of Oklahoma's Norman campus, the conference doubled its attendance from the previous year and attracted a long list of sponsors and exhibitors.
In a recent New York Times Sunday magazine cover story, Thomas Friedman, the Times political affairs columnist and author of bestselling books The World Is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, called the green movement "the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century."
Once seen as a liberal issue, the eco movement is increasingly bi-partisan. Even conservative Republican Newt Gin-grich is now preparing to publish his own environmental treatise, Contract with the Earth.
America might be heading toward a greener future, but bringing together environmentalists and agriculturalists to find common ground is a process as slow as watching glaciers melt. For the most part, the two remain in distinct camps.
Interest in local foods is one thing that connects them. During the sustainability conference, avid listeners poured into the auditorium for a session on the topic, conducted by representatives from the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, based in Poteau, Okla.
The statistics offered were sobering, but the growth potential is enormous. According to the Kerr Center's report, Oklahomans spent $1.07 per person last year buying food directly from farmers. In Iowa, a state that has launched a massive "Buy Fresh Buy Local" campaign, that figure was just under $4. More than 99 percent of the asparagus consumed in Oklahoma comes from outside of the state, as well as more than 98 percent of the tomatoes, though both crops can be grown locally.
The Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign - a blueprint for promoting awareness of local food sources - is being adopted all over the country, including cities like Colorado Springs and Kansas City. It is being introduced in Tulsa this year.
Kerr Center demographic maps show that some of the most traditionally agricultural counties have the fewest farmers markets and the least interest in the farm-to-school project.
But the local food trend is already having an impact. Consumer preferences are powerful enough to drive big changes, a phenomenon that continues to amaze Bill Heffernan, a retired rural sociologist from the University of Missouri, who also spoke at the conference.
When Heffernan and his associates at Missouri studied trade journals representing the full spectrum of the food industry, they discovered a distinct difference between the staid production and processing publications and those geared to the retail level.
"Some of the retail trade journals devoted whole issues to all of these new interests that are coming down the line," he said. "Then right after first of the year Smithfield came out and said that in ten years they will have eliminated all sow gestation stalls. A lot of people on the production and processing side were just stunned that someone as big as Smithfield would do that."
"In the end, the most powerful stage is the retail stage, where the marketing people have contact with the consumer," he said.
When it comes to picking up on these trends, farmers in general have been slow to jump on the bandwagon, in part, because they haven't embraced a new way of thinking, he added.
"By and large they are reluctant because they are caught in a whole ideological belief system that was stressed for the last 20 or 30 years," he said.
Taylor, who is originally from Oklahoma, says farmers need to be involved in the environmental movement, for several reasons.
"I think the farm community can bring some common sense that could tone down some of the environmental extremism that we hear about," he said.
He also advocates the necessity of forming alliances "with environmentalists that have common sense."
Concerned consumers create new opportunities, he added.
"There are niche markets that small farms can fill, and there are quite a few niche markets, so to me there is a lot of potential in the middle to develop a whole new food system," he said. "But it's going to take a major effort to make that come about, and it's ordinary people like this who will make it happen, not professors."