After watching the documentary, Food Inc, I have an idea that might work.
There are a huge amount of people who eat unhealthy because healthy food is just too expensive. This is a clear problem in today's society and for the future when fast food is easily around a dollar, and a head of cabbage alone is already a dollar. Not everyone has the financial needs to eat healthy, so some people don't even have a chance to even get healthy. They're stuffed with fats and sugars their whole life, and honestly abused by the way our food system is set up.
I personally believe farmers should quit the mass production under larger corporation and should be paid more; they should be encouraged to have no contract. They farm at their own pace, and as long as they have progress and continuous production of food, they will get an average to high-ish pay. They will be paid like any other occupation in that way the food they produce will be sold for less so they aren't always seeking the goal of just "making a profit." This solution will eventually lower the price of vegetables and other healthy food in markets, easily making a healthy alternative from the fast food industry. This will lower the obesity rate and help our future so there is a higher percentage of healthy people. Additionally with a higher pay for farmers, more people will be inclined to become farmers. At the moment our farming system is corrupt. Owned by large companies and forced to do fake-chemical agricultural farming instead of letting nature do its thing. This will hopefully be able to produce healthy food and meats that aren't drenched in chemicals to be produce at a higher pace making the supply go up. Personally with a higher pay for farmers, I think this is a start towards a healthier society.
I agree that farmers should be paid more, but how will this be possible with the food industry we have now? You say that farmers should quit mass production under large corporation, but I think this is impossible, especially with how Monsanto dominates the farming industry. As shown in the movie, even though there were some farmers who weren't under Monsanto, they had a difficult time making a living since there are few varieties of seeds that had the DNA of Monsanto seeds and if these farmers in any way had even one Monsanto seed or violated anything under Monsanto they ended up being sued for large amounts of money. Though it could be possible in the future for farmers to quit mass production and make their own profit, I think the farming industry isn't ready for this yet.
ReplyDelete"Though it could be possible in the future for farmers to quit mass production and make their own profit, I think the farming industry isn't ready for this yet."
DeleteI think that this is one of the reason why companies like Monsanto manage to keep dominating the farming industry. Changes are only possible if someone start doing something about it, regardless of how big or small it is. If we keep having this type of self-defeating attitude, nothing will ever change and eventually this food process will become near invincible.
As shown in the past, the companies are not immune to all type of changes. Through the process of law and powerful organization such as unions, we should be able to prevent Monsanto's type of monopoly happening.
You also discuss about how farmers are not able to produce enough money and they must suffer the loss if they do not use the industry's ways, but I think that this can be fix. I read somewhere that the reason junk foods are so cheap and farmers' food are so expensive because the government choose to subsidize the industry. As shown in the movie that we watch in class, companies will use whatever products are demand by the customers. Using this logic, if there are enough demand for traditionally grown food, we can shift the government and companies in favor of the old way.
In the end, the consumers decide who gets paid the most...ideally, anyway. Ish.
ReplyDeleteIt's a really deep-rooted problem based on the hunger and effort towards making money, and due to us consumers not bothering to get to know our food, now large inorganic companies are able to be so successful. We're just in too deep. That's a good research question you can really layer on.