Conclusion:
Bush Legs and the Geopolitics of Wicomico Agriculture
The
Delmarva Peninsula may not seem to have much in common with Russia, but in fact
the two spots are connected via a vital economic conduit formed by the shipment
of locally produced broilers. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Bush
administration sent emergency aid in the form of frozen chickens, particularly
the dark-meat leg quarters, helping to ward off famine among residents of the
splintered superpower. The chicken leg quarters came to be known as “Bush
legs.” As countries regained their economic footing, this humanitarian gesture
turned into a behemoth business; in 2003, the United States sold $700 million of
chicken to Russia.[i]
Charles “Chick” Allen, president of Allen Family Foods, a Delaware based
poultry operation that also has plants and growers in Maryland, recalled that
business was so bustling in the early and mid-1990’s, his company had an
office in Russia.[ii]
The Russian market, though lucrative for local poultry producers, is also
volatile. The Russian government has attempted to limit the importation of
American chicken in order to protect their fledgling domestic chicken industry.
One of their recent steps in carrying out this plan was the implementation of a
quota on U.S. chicken imports, which has effectively reduced the amount of
chicken meat crossing over the former iron curtain by about 30%.[iii]
This reduction has impacted Delmarva based poultry companies; Chick Allen
estimates that his company is exporting about a third of the volume to Russia
than they were in the early and mid-1990’s.
Another
clog in the poultry pipeline connecting the two countries developed when Russian
officials from the Ministry of Agriculture instituted a 45-day trade ban on U.S.
poultry beginning in March 2002. The ban resulted from the inspection of 341
stateside poultry plants by Russian officials, who denied certain poultry
producers the opportunity to ship to Russia and imposed contingency requirements
on others after alleging that 76 of the plants did not meet their standards for
cleanliness. The Russian government maintains that their actions were meant to
protect the safety of Russian consumers; some U.S. officials say that the ban
was intended to boost Russia’s own poultry industry by reducing the
competition, and may have been a retaliatory response to the younger Bush’s
tariffs on steel imports into the United States. Some companies, such as Perdue
Farms, have limited their dependence on the on-again off-again Russian market,
and are instead finding buyers in other places with a high demand for cheap
protein, such as Africa.[iv]
The problem lies not in finding markets for the darker meat, but in securing a
good price.
Separated
by vast stretches of land and water, lacking a common language, and operating
under different socio-political systems, Russia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore
are bound by the web of commodities that satisfies their citizens’ demand for
cheap chicken.
Poultry
Under Pressure
The
Russian controversy over U.S. chicken legs is one of many recent controversies
that have led some to question the viability of the poultry industry in Wicomico
County and on the rest of Delmarva. Ever since Cecile Steele’s fortuitously
misinterpreted order in 1923, the per capita consumption of chicken in the
United States has been steadily rising. At the current level of 69 pounds per
person per year, however, a plateau has been reached. This is referred to as a
mature domestic market. In order to continue growing, the poultry industry has
turned to value-added products, like heat-and serve-options and pre-formed
nuggets, and to foreign markets which are not yet glutted with fowl.[v]
The
example of Bush legs brings home the true meaning of the globalized food system
that the industry operates under, in which geopolitical tensions with a country
half a world away can directly affect the livelihood of growers and poultry
processors in an area like Wicomico County, MD. This web of economic
interdependence constructed by the flow of commodities such as poultry is part
of a system that divides areas into peripheries, where raw materials are
harvested or grown and then processed and packaged, and metropolises, to which
these processed and packaged goods are shipped and consumed.[vi]
In this system, Wicomico County has been a periphery for most of its
agricultural history, growing strawberries, tomatoes, and chickens to ship to
metropolitan areas like New York City. A key characteristic of peripheries is a
willingness to accept the negative environmental effects of agribusiness in
return for the economic benefits it brings. As a periphery becomes more
urbanized and transitions into a metropolitan area with a more diversified and
less agriculturally dependent economy, this acceptance of environmental
degradation comes into direct conflict with the typically metropolitan demand
that these less desirable side-effects of the system be moved somewhere else;
this attitude is summed up by the oft-heard refrain of NIMBY, or Not In My
Backyard.
In
Wicomico County, there are signs that indicate a shift from periphery to
metropolis, including increased population and more stringent environmental
regulations. Population increase result in the loss of available agricultural
land to raise chickens, grow grain for their feed, and dispose of their waste.
This loss of land, along with stricter protocols and regulations designed to
reduce the environmental impact of various steps in the production of poultry
(and more active citizen complaints to see that they are followed), has put
pressure on the poultry industry across the Delmarva Peninsula. In addition to
environmental health concerns, groups as diverse as the World Health
Organization and the McDonald’s Corporation have raised human health concerns
about the antibiotics necessary to raise disease-free chickens in modern chicken
houses.[vii]
The myriad outside pressures placed on the area’s poultry industry in
the past decade have been echoed by internal strife. Unionization attempts by
chicken catchers and talk of co-permitting spearheaded by the Contract Growers
Association have revealed cracks in the foundation of the vertically coordinated
poultry machine that dominates the economic and physical landscape of the
Delmarva Peninsula.[viii]
To understand the history, the present dilemmas, and the future prospects of
agriculture in Wicomico County, local activities must be viewed as part of an
underlying and overarching framework that guides global, and thus local,
agriculture and commerce. One theory that effectively relates individual and
local activities with large-scale economic forces is that of political economy.
The theory of political economy assumes that all aspects of society are
responses to the political economy, which in the case of the United States is
capitalism. According to proponents of this theory, capitalism is the
infrastructure, or base, of our society. All of the other legal and political
institutions that make up society are called the superstructure. These
institutions include our laws, our families, medicine, education, and
agriculture. Constant economic growth is one of the fundamental principles of a
capitalist society.
Another characteristic of
capitalism is the centralization of the means of production. In the case of the
poultry industry, the means of production include everything that gets the
chickens from the farm to your dinner plate. This includes the facilities and
equipment used to hatch and raise the chickens, the trucks that take the birds
from the farm to the slaughterhouse, and the processing plants where the
chickens are plucked, gutted, and packaged. The centralization of the means of
production means that fewer and fewer groups, in this case Perdue and other
large multinational agricultural corporations, have control over the production
of chicken for people all around the world.
Driving along the back roads of Wicomico County, it is impossible to miss the signs that we live in a rural, agrarian area. Clusters of chicken houses dot the flat landscape, fields that grew tobacco when we were still just a British colony are now sown with corn, soybeans, and sorghum, and along the Nanticoke and Wicomico there are still pristine stretches of river edged with spatterdock or spartina. Even in its earliest days as part of Britain’s vast empire, before it was called Wicomico County, the area has been part of a far-flung net of agriculture and commerce, connecting the things grown here to countless locations around the world. The tobacco that colonists grew was shipped across the ocean to Britain, and then sent through all of Europe. In the late nineteenth century after the invention of the refrigerated railroad car, shipments of strawberries and other perishable fruits and vegetables bound us to the metropolitan centers of the Eastern seaboard. Canning made it possible for tomatoes and sweet potatoes grown in the sandy, well-drained soils of Wicomico County to be canned and shipped all over the country. Now that the people of the area have redirected their agricultural energy towards raising chickens and growing corn and soybeans to feed the birds, Perdue, Allen, and other industry leaders who have houses and plants on the eastern Shore grow for and ship to markets as far away as Russia and China. All the components of a periphery are present; the food and livestock are grown here through intensive monoculture grain farming and high-density confined animal feeding operations (or CAFO’s, as modern factory farms are called), with all of its associated economic and environmental impacts, and then processed, packaged, and shipped all over the country and overseas.
But
the idea of Wicomico County as merely a periphery comes into question as soon as
one of those bucolic back roads intersects with U.S. Route 13, a divided highway
that bisects the town of Salisbury. Looking at a map, the thoroughfare forms a
big “X” with U.S. Route 50, the stretch of road that carries the summertime
hordes across the Bay and through Salisbury before dumping them out on the
shores of Ocean City. Starting just south of Salisbury, in the town of
Fruitland, and traveling north, a Wal-Mart Supercenter, open 24 hours a day,
looms on the right, quickly followed by car dealerships and gas stations. The
line dividing Fruitland and Salisbury would be undetectable without the Welcome
to Salisbury sign; on the left is the campus of Salisbury University, a
well-regarded University of Maryland school that attracts many out of state
students and shares its theatrical productions, guest lectures, and symphony
performances with the local community. The next several miles are packed cheek
to jowl with commercial establishments, some local but mostly national
franchises; gas stations, movie stores, fast food places, sub shops, a plethora
of grocery stores and banks. Then come the car dealerships, lining the approach
to the shopping mall, graced with a movie theater and several chain restaurants,
although across the street Cactus Taverna and English’s give diners the option
of local flavor. Then come the most recent additions as the road creeps closer
to the Delaware line. Target, Home Depot, and OfficeMax face off against another
Super Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, and Staples. There is even a Starbuck’s, that
omnipresent cultural marker of corporate capitalism, ensconced in the new Barnes
& Noble store.
These
establishments are a visual sign of the steadily increasing population of
Wicomico County, a population that is decreasingly employed by the agricultural
sector. During the first half of the twentieth century, population approximately
doubled, climbing from 22,852 in 1900 to 39,641 in 1950. Since 1950, the
population has increased at twice that rate, shooting up to 84,644 by the year
2000.[ix]
While
the economy, including the broiler industry, continues to grow, the number of
full-time agricultural jobs in the area is shrinking. In 1990, less than 4%
(1,514 people) of the labor force in Wicomico County reported farming, forestry,
and fishing as its primary occupation.[x]
Despite population growth over the next decade, in 2000 only 383 people reported
their primary occupation as farming, forestry, or fishing; they comprise less
than 1% of the county’s labor force.[xi]
As population increases, so does the need for housing, schools, roads,
and sewers. Wicomico County’s zoning laws are designed to maximize farmers’
and agricultural landowners’ ability to sell to developers.[xii] The result is sprawl
development, with cookie-cutter housing developments springing up haphazardly
all over the county where farm fields used to be, instead of concentrated
clusters of development near existing cities and towns. Since 1950, the
population dispersion of Wicomico County has shifted from about 50-50 urban vs.
rural residents to nearly 70 percent of residents living outside of Salisbury
and the county’s small towns. While it is understandable that farmers would
want to be able to sell their land for a large profit once they retire or if
farming is no longer economically feasible for them, the zoning laws are
contributing to the downfall of the rural legacy that so many people associate
with this area.
Doug Stephens, an Eastern Shore native who has followed in his father’s
footsteps to sell real estate here for the past seventeen years, says that it is
the allure of a rural landscape and a slower pace of life that is driving
residents of areas like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York and New Jersey to
buy homes in Wicomico County and other Shore locales. These people want to
escape the fast pace of city life, the crippling traffic, and the perceived
threat of terrorism that pervades many population centers of the East Coast.[xiii]
Mr. Stephens notes that these very things that attract people to places
like Wicomico County are being lost in large part due to the development of
rural land that is driven by the influx of population. He predicts that the area
“will become more like the places people are trying to get away from.”
Another
indicator that helps to measure an area’s status as periphery or metropolis is
public concern over and governmental regulation of the environmental impact of
agribusiness, such as the raising and processing of poultry. A recent
environmental scare that focused media attention on agricultural practices on
the lower Eastern Shore was the 1997 pfiesteria bloom in the Pocomoke River
(other blooms have been recorded from North Carolina to as far north as Delaware
Bay). There is some evidence that indicates nutrients may directly stimulate the
growth of pfiesteria, and not just the algae it feeds on. Currently, the
consensus in the scientific community is that more research is needed, and that
no one factor can be said to cause the toxic algae blooms.[xiv]
This ambiguous verdict reached by scientists about the cause of pfiesteria is
far from an indictment of the poultry industry and the farmers who grow the corn
and soybeans to feed their flocks, but the scare created by pfiesteria was
sufficiently large to turn the media spotlight on the excess nutrient levels in
the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, a condition that could largely be traced
to runoff of nitrates from too much chicken manure spread out over too small a
land area.. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, runoff from the land contributes
more than two-thirds of the 304 million pounds of nitrogen and the almost 21
million pounds of phosphorus that enter the bay each year.[xv]
Agriculture accounts for a larger percentage of this than any other source; 37%
of the nitrogen and 44% of the phosphorus that enter the bay each year come from
agricultural sources.[xvi]
*Includes sewage, septic, and air
The high concentration of chicken manure and its negative effects on the
environmental health of the Delmarva Peninsula and the whole Chesapeake Bay are
a result of the metropolis/periphery system. The system works by concentrating
the production of food in specific area, and then shipping the processed and
packaged food to cities and countries all over the world. Inherent in this
dichotomous network is the potential for great imbalances in the distribution of
nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. One contributing factor to the excess of
these nutrients is the corn and soybeans imported from states as far away as
Indiana and Illinois. As
illustrated by the table below, the demand for corn and soybeans generated by
the growth of the poultry industry on Delmarva has surpassed this area’s
production capacity of these feed grains.
Table 2
DELMARVA
SOYBEANS & CORN PRODUCTION
AND BROILER
CHICKEN USE[xvii]
Year
|
Millions of Broilers Grown |
Soybeans Used for Broilers* |
Delmarva
Soybeans Grown (%
of total used for broilers)* |
Corn Used for Broilers* |
Delmarva Corn Grown* (% of total used for broilers) |
1970 |
330 |
10.2 |
8.8
(86%) |
33.7 |
41.7
(124%) |
1971 |
320 |
9.8 |
11.5
(117%) |
30.5 |
35.1
(100%) |
1972 |
322 |
10.2 |
11.9
(117%) |
30.9 |
36.4
(118%) |
1973 |
346 |
15.5 |
16.6
(107%) |
33.0 |
42.0
(127%) |
1974 |
341 |
15.0 |
16.0
(107%) |
33.0 |
41.5
(126%) |
1975 |
326 |
12.0 |
15.7
(131%) |
31.8 |
47.0
(148%) |
1976 |
380 |
14.0 |
12.9
(92%) |
37.7 |
51.4
(136%) |
1977 |
380 |
11.0 |
13.9
(126%) |
36.0 |
34.3
(95%) |
1978 |
397 |
12.7 |
18.9
(149%) |
34.1 |
51.0
(150%) |
1979 |
420 |
15.4 |
20.7
(134%) |
41.8 |
51.2
(122%) |
1980 |
418 |
15.1 |
15.0
(99%) |
41.6 |
40.2
(97%) |
1981 |
433 |
16.4 |
20.1
(123%) |
43.3 |
55.9
(129%) |
1982 |
471 |
18.2 |
20.0
(111%) |
47.1 |
61.3
(130%) |
1983 |
468 |
19.3 |
16.9
(88%) |
46.7 |
32.5
(70%) |
1984 |
483 |
18.3 |
19.1
(104%) |
48.5 |
56.4
(116%) |
1985 |
497 |
19.6 |
20.0
(105%) |
52.8 |
60.1
(114%) |
1986 |
495 |
20.5 |
16.7
(81%) |
50.5 |
39.8
(79%) |
1987 |
490 |
16.5 |
12.7
(77%) |
54.0 |
28.0
(52%) |
1988 |
505.5 |
17.9 |
20.3
(113%) |
54.3 |
24.9
(46%) |
1989 |
502.6 |
17.9 |
23.1
(129%) |
56.6 |
37.6
(66%) |
1990 |
517.3 |
19.0 |
23.3
(122%) |
58.3 |
49.7
(85%) |
1991 |
536.9 |
19.5 |
24.4
(125%) |
58.4 |
46.8
(80%) |
1992 |
548.5 |
22.1 |
22.9
(104%) |
62.5 |
50.3
(80%) |
1993 |
573.4 |
22.5 |
17.7
(79%) |
65.3 |
32.0
(49%) |
1994 |
604.5 |
24.0 |
25.5
(106%) |
70.0 |
48.5
(69%) |
1995 |
623 |
28.0 |
14.4
(51%) |
72.1 |
39.9
(55%) |
1996 |
612 |
27.0 |
22.8
(84%) |
75.0 |
60.7
(81%) |
1997 |
609 |
33.1 |
19.4
(59%) |
69.0 |
43.6
(63%) |
1998 |
602 |
35.0 |
22.7
(65%) |
68.6 |
60.8
(89%) |
1999 |
606 |
26.5 |
18.3
(69%) |
70.7 |
39.6
(56%) |
2000 |
599 |
28.4 |
28.2
(99%) |
69.7 |
67.6
(97%) |
2001 |
587 |
25.0 |
25.3
(101%) |
73.0 |
66.5
(91%) |
2002 |
585 |
25.2 |
13.1
(52%) |
72.5 |
35.1
(48%) |
*Numbers in millions of bushels
Between 1970 and 1991, corn yields on Delmarva surpassed, met, or came within 10 percent of meeting the demand created by chicken feed producers around 80 percent of the time. In the decade between 1992 and 2002, this was only true half as often, or 40 percent of the time. Before 1985, there were only two years in which corn production has not been sufficient to meet the demand for chicken feed (1980 and 1983). After 1985, this trend reversed; in the next seventeen years the corn production was not sufficient in any year to meet the demand created by the chicken feed industry (although it did come within 10% in 2001 and 2002). These local shortages are resolved by the poultry industry importing grains from the Midwest. It is only logical that by importing more nutrients (in the form of corn and soybeans, whose nutrients end up in the air and water of Delmarva via chicken litter) than are locally produced, imbalances in ecological systems like the Chesapeake Bay will occur.
Under the political economy of capitalism, which touts profit and
demands constant economic growth, the environment is seen as a commodity,
something to be exploited in the pursuit of profit. The decline in environmental
health that results from the processes involved in industrial production, such
as the nutrient runoff that comes from farmers growing intensive monoculture
crops like corn and soybeans and growers raising chickens in CAFO’s, can be
seen as simply another cost of production, just like paying workers or
maintaining equipment. The difference is that the people who live where these
activities are taking place pay for these costs of production in environmental
degradation, health problems, and taxes used to fund restoration projects to fix
the damage that has been done. The companies themselves are not responsible for
these costs, a condition that is called externalization of the costs of
production. The tradeoff of environmental quality for jobs and economic growth
is a natural outcome of the metropolis/periphery system. If the metropolis areas
are not available for the production of food, then the process has to happen
elsewhere.
A
positive result of the externalization of the costs of production is a cheap,
safe, and abundant food supply. Chicken is less expensive than beef or pork, and
is an important source of protein for many poor people[xviii]. If one chicken
company, Perdue for instance, decides tomorrow that they are going to shoulder
the economic burden of all of their costs of production, they will be forced out
of business. Their cost of production will rise, and so will the market price of
their product. Consumers will simply choose to buy another, cheaper brand of
chicken. If all of the chicken companies decide tomorrow to take on the costs of
production that they have so far been able to externalize, the price of all
brands of chicken will rise. Some people will no longer be able to afford
chicken, thus eliminating an important source of protein in their diet.
Another
requirement for an affordable, safe, and abundant food supply is relatively
cheap labor. An abundant cheap labor supply is one of the factors that
facilitated the growth of the poultry industry in Wicomico County. Although
working conditions have improved over the years, workers who harvest and process
food still face health, safety, and economic concerns. Poultry processing plant
workers have high rates of injury and work in harsh conditions for low pay. The
injury rate for workers in the average U.S. workplace has hovered at around
three injuries per hundred workers in the past several years, but in the poultry
industry injuries have increased by 20% in the last decade, with the final tally
standing at 25 injuries per hundred workers, according to the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. Maryland poultry workers earned an average of
$13,500 in 1990, about 75% of what other Eastern Shore workers earned. Twenty
years ago, poultry workers earned 90% of what other area workers made.[xix]
Conditions
are far from ideal for many of the workers employed by the labor industry, but
structural factors inherent in a capitalist political economy, along with
practical concerns, for the most part keep the labor force from striking or
otherwise violently opposing the system. The laboring class, along with the
state and the capitalist class that controls the means of production, is part of
the growth coalition. Our country runs on the principles of equal opportunity
and capitalism. Presumably, these two ideas combine to form an economic reality
in which anyone can get ahead and improve their lot in life. Under this system,
the people who own and control the means of production—in the case of the
poultry industry, the processing plants that get the chicken off the farm and
onto the dinner plate—get a bigger share of the profits than the farmers who
grew the chickens, the truckers who carted them to the processing plants, or the
workers who plucked, gutted, and packaged the flightless fowl.
Under
our current economic system, these laborers will not receive the majority of the
profits. Their only chance at getting more money is to produce more chickens.
Producing more chickens in the same amount of time ensures constant economic
growth, which is absolutely essential under a capitalist political economy.
Growers take out bigger loans, which increases their potential profits but also
their potential risk for debt and bankruptcy. Plant workers do more work in less
time when the lines speed up. Working class people are concerned with short-term
economic goals, such as having enough money for rent and affording healthcare
for themselves and their families. Workers therefore participate in the growth
coalition by going along with economic decisions like constantly increasing
production, which serve their best interests in the short-term, but worsen their
economic situation in the long-term.
Another factor that is at work in the case of unskilled laborers (such
as those who work in poultry processing plants) is jobs blackmail. Workers fear
that if they complain unduly about unsafe working conditions or unfair wages,
the company will simply move south and they will be left unemployed. This is not
an unreasonable concern; many companies like Tyson Foods have moved their
processing facilities to southern states like North Carolina because the labor
is cheaper and the environmental regulations are less stringent, both of which
allow the company to produce the same product for a cheaper price[xx].
Perdue has a strong base in the Salisbury area, but it has recently purchased a
large processing facility in Georgia. Some are concerned that the company will
migrate south, leaving economic depression and unemployment on the Delmarva
Peninsula.
As early as 1993, the media began to question the long-term viability of
an industry that requires constantly increasing efficiency at all levels of its
vertically coordinated system, and is providing fewer returns to growers and
employees[xxi]. Chicken catchers and
poultry processing plant workers have periodically attempted to unionize since
the 1980’s; Frank Perdue was so determined to keep this from happening because
of its potential to raise labor costs, he was recorded twice by the FBI in the
1980’s asking the Gambino crime family for help in fighting the unions.[xxii] Mr. Perdue has long
since admitted that this was a mistake, but it shows the lengths to which
poultry companies will go to keep production costs low in this competitive
industry. A prime example of the
decreasing profits in the industry for chicken growers can be found in
Bishopville, where Jean Bunting, the daughter of the famous Cecile Steele whose
misinterpreted order for baby chicks gave birth to the billion dollar poultry
industry that exists on the Eastern Shore today, continues a family legacy by
raising chickens. Mrs. Bunting and her husband raise 65,000 chickens every seven
weeks, a vast number compared to her mother’s first flock of 500. And yet for
every 5,000 chickens that Bunting sold in 1993, she made less (in unadjusted
dollars) than her mother made on that first flock in 1927. Hudson Foods, the
company that the Buntings grow for, required that the Buntings buy thousands of
dollars worth of new equipment to improve their barns or risk losing their
contract. The Buntings made the improvements and retained the contract, but they
now work other jobs in order to pay off the thousands of dollars in loans they
took out while still supporting themselves. Mrs. Bunting teaches piano lessons,
and Mr. Bunting drives a school bus.
The corporate class, represented by poultry giants like Perdue and
Tyson, and the working class are two key components in the growth coalition, the
structure that facilitates economic growth and expansion in a capitalist
political economy. The third institution in this triumvirate is that of the
state. The state refers to government at the local, state, and federal levels.
In order to remain a viable and legitimate authoritative body, the state must
ensure that it has enough money to operate with, and it must also maintain the
support of the citizenry by serving, or appearing to serve, the needs of the
people. The state is financed by taxes; the more money that is made, the more
taxes they are able to collect. The existence and well-being of the state are
therefore dependent on the growth of the economy, and it makes sense that the
state often aligns itself with the interests of industry, sometimes at the
expense of equally important but less profitable concerns such as public health,
environmentalism, and workers’ rights. This is not to say that the state is a
corrupt structure that does whatever industry bids it; in addition to financing
itself, the state must also maintain the support of the people, or risk losing
its legitimate authority to make and enforce laws. One sign of the state’s
responsiveness to the people is the growing emphasis on legislation designed to
reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, despite the fact that this type
of initiative is often unpopular with the food industry.
One
way that the federal government shows its support for agribusinesses like the
poultry industry is through a variety of agricultural subsidies. Permanent
legislation that provides an ongoing framework for this federal aid began with
the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, introduced after the end of World War I
and the Great Depression had dealt serious blows to farm incomes.[xxiii]
The U.S. government only subsidizes selected crops and livestock. Crops like
fruits and vegetables, for instance, do not usually fall under the purview of
Farm Bill legislation. On the Eastern Shore, the main crops that are subsidized
are corn, soybeans, and wheat. Each
year, the United States Departments of Agriculture (USDA), along with members of
Congress, decides which crops to subsidize and what the parity levels should be
for each of these products. For instance, in a given year the Farm Bill passed
by Congress might set parity for corn at $2.10 per bushel. A farmer on the
Eastern Shore who has planted 100 acres of corn will sell his corn for the best
market price he can get once it is harvested. If there is a larger supply than
demand for corn that season, however, the farmer may only be able to get $2.00
per bushel. After he has sold his corn, he takes his receipts to the local USDA
Farm Service Agency and is reimbursed for the difference between what he would
have made by selling his corn for $2.10 a bushel and what he actually made by
selling it for $2.00 a bushel. The farmer also receives a small, guaranteed
payment regardless of the price he gets for his crop in return for signing up
for the USDA price support program. All agricultural subsidy programs under the
Farm Bill are voluntary.[xxiv]
In
1999, a total of $23.6 billion was paid out by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services.[xxv]
In Wicomico County during the seven-year span between 1995 and 2002, total crop
subsidies paid to farmers by the government equaled $13,905,741.
The most heavily subsidized crop during this period was corn, accounting for
over $5 million of the funds. Soybeans came in second at around $3.5 million. [xxvi]
Price
supports (when Congress sets a parity level for a particular crop) and other
failsafe measures provided by the state to farmers and food-processing
corporations are crucial to the stability of the industry. Agriculture is an
inherently risky business, with its supply at the mercy of unpredictable forces
like the weather and diseases among livestock, and the demand for its products
dependent on volatile foreign markets and fluctuating domestic ones. According
to John Burtman, Director of the Wicomico and Worcester County USDA Farm Service
Agency, recent increases in petroleum prices are worrying some local farmers and
substantially increasing their costs of production because the lubrication and
fuel used to run farm equipment like tractors and irrigation systems are
petroleum based. During a dry summer a couple of years ago, one farmer Mr.
Burtman knows of in Wicomico County was having a 7,000 gallon tank of diesel
delivered to his farm every ten days to keep his irrigation system running. If a
dry summer and high petroleum prices were to coincide, a farmer like that would
be hard-pressed to make a profit off of his crops.[xxvii]
In addition to acting as a safety net in instances like that, the federal
subsidy system plays a part in forging an economic reality that encourages
ever-increasing crop production.[xxviii]
If a farmer is guaranteed a certain price by way of a federal price support for
every bushel of corn he grows, it makes sense to ramp up the use of fertilizer
and plant corn on all the arable land he has access to so that he can have a
better chance of making it in the business of agriculture. This relentless drive
towards efficient and maximum agricultural production, as in the case of
monoculture grain crops and the broiler industry here on the Eastern Shore, has
deleterious effects on the environment and human health.
Mike
Heller manages Clagett Farm in Maryland, a Chesapeake Bay Foundation property
and working farm that is used as a model of sustainable agricultural practices.
He sees the current agricultural subsidy program as a fatally flawed system, but
one that cannot be jettisoned outright because so many of our nation’s farmers
are dependent on it for their livelihood.[xxix]
Heller explains that the problem with the Farm Bill system is that it was
conceived in the 1930’s, when the world was a very different place, and has
not been substantially overhauled since then despite sweeping systemic changes
in the way the agricultural industry operates. The Agricultural Adjustment Act
was one of the first pieces of the New Deal implemented by President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt in the late 1930’s. At that time, individual farms were
diversified in that they usually produced both crops and livestock in a
self-limiting, self-sustaining cycle. The manure that was produced by the
animals on a given farm was used to fertilize the farm’s crops, which were
then used to feed the livestock. The production of farms in a geographic area
was limited by the amount of nutrients produced in that area. After World War
II, however, the United States was left with the facilities to produce huge
amounts of cheap nitrogen, and no munitions to use the nitrogen for. The
affordable, readily available element was converted into agricultural
fertilizer, thus fundamentally altering the formerly self-limiting nutrient
balance in the world. The Agricultural Adjustment Act and its Farm Bill legacy
were engineered in a time when there was not enough food to go around in this
country, and now that the United States is the world’s largest exporter of
food, these systems and policies do not make economic or environmental sense.[xxx]
By encouraging over-production, markets become glutted, causing the prices of
commodities to drop, and excessive fertilizer and pesticide use become standard
practice, causing harm to the environment.
The
state must maintain popular support in addition to ensuring its own economic
viability; it is the support of the people that directly and indirectly gives
authority and legitimacy to the government. To this end, it is the state’s
responsibility to respond to citizens concerns about the hazards posed by
industry that negatively impact them and the environment. Recent funding
initiatives by the USDA point to a possible alternative to traditional
agricultural subsidies that also address environmental concerns. The 2002 Farm
Bill provides funding that will allow farmers on the Delmarva peninsula to
participate in three different programs that, according to USDA Secretary Ann
Veneman, “…will help protect farmland and wildlife habitat, restore
freshwater and tidal wetlands, as well as support the economic viability of
agriculture in this region.” The programs are the Farm and Ranch Land
Protection Program, a matching funds initiative that will keep agricultural land
from being developed; the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, which provides
technical and financial support to landowners who improve fish and wildlife
habitat; and the Wetlands Reserve program that will help landowners to preserve
and restore wetlands on their property.[xxxi]
These
programs are all typical of the response of the state thus far to the demand
that agricultural pollution be reduced. From a farmer’s perspective, they
contain many flaws that may prevent him or her from implementing these
innovations.[xxxii]
First of all, participation in programs like the Wetlands Reserve Program and
the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program is decided upon and ultimately benefits
the landowner. On the Eastern Shore, approximately half of farmland is rented.[xxxiii]
If the landowner does not decide to enroll in a conservation program, the farmer
does not have much say in the matter. If the landowner does decide to
participate, the farmer sees none of the benefits, but may have fewer acres to
farm on a given piece of land, or not be able to farm the property at all if the
owner decides to put it into a conservation easement, for example. There are
other reasons that may deter farmers from participating in conservation programs
even if they do own the land that they farm. Although cost-sharing and technical
support programs make environmentally beneficial decisions economically feasible
for more farmers, they are still taking a risk by taking part in these
initiatives. A small loss of capital or production capacity can take years for a
farming operation to recover from, because the profit margin is so low for
agricultural commodities.[xxxiv]
Rachel Carson brought one of the central conflicts between human and
environmental health and prevailing agricultural practices to light in her book Silent
Spring. 35 years later, the use of the harmful pesticide DDT has been banned
in the United States. Now, however, there are new concerns emerging about
possible threats to human health caused by the way that broiler chickens are
raised and processed.
Modern chicken houses contain huge and hugely concentrated flocks of
birds, and are a very high-stress environment for the animals. Antibiotics in
the chicken feed prevent disease and fortify the chickens’ resistance to
environmental stress, thus causing them to grow fatter in a shorter period of
time and with less feed, all of which translates into higher profits. In August
of 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that nations phase out
the use of antibiotic growth promoters in animal feed. These low-dose growth
promoters make up about half of the antibiotics administered to livestock; the
other half are used to treat sick animals. The growth promoters are the type
that concern public health experts, who maintain that their use leads to the
growth of disease-resistant bacteria that compound the existing problem of super
strains of various human illnesses that are proving resistant to the antibiotic
arsenal of modern medicine caused by over prescription of antibiotics by the
family doctor. In a WHO report that used the elimination of these low-dose
growth promoter antibiotics in the hog and poultry industries in Denmark as a
case study, the presence of resistant bacteria in meat was shown to drop
dramatically after the elimination took effect.[xxxv]
Even McDonald’s, a mammoth fast-food chain built on ever-larger
servings of high-fat, high-calorie comestibles, has made a move to protect the
health of those who consume its products. The corporation, which is one of the
world’s largest purchasers of meat, announced in July of 2003 that it would
ask its meat suppliers around the world to phase out the use of growth-promoting
antibiotics in healthy animals and reduce the use of antibiotics among sick
animals, citing growing evidence that antibiotic resistance in livestock is
linked to antibiotic resistance in the humans who consume their flesh. [xxxvi]
Not everyone is convinced that phasing out growth promoters is
economically feasible or an effective strategy against disease-resistant
bacteria in humans. Dan Murphy, vice president of public affairs at the American
Meat Institute, claims, “The real hot spot for the development of antibiotic
resistance is in the hospital and the doctor’s office, where antibiotics are
overused and resistance is clearly growing. What might be coming from the farm
is minor in comparison.”[xxxvii]
As far as the economic impact of eliminating these hormones, in the case of
Denmark the cost of hog production rose by about 1 percent. Regardless of the
validity of the science and the potential for economic woes among meat
producers, it is clear that public opinion is holding sway on this issue, and
fighting to keep using current levels of antibiotic growth producers is a losing
battle.
Two
aspects of agriculture in Wicomico County are clear. First, this area has
historically been a periphery, from its days as a tobacco-producing British
colony to the current importance of the poultry industry. Second, Wicomico
County is taking on an increasing number of metropolitan characteristics,
including population growth and an increasing awareness on the part of its
citizens and the state that environmental degradation caused by agricultural
pollution, like the poor water quality linked to runoff of chicken manure and
fertilizer, must be addressed. These developments have been paralleled by a
decrease in the amount of farmland and the number of residents who are full-time
farmers.
In
order to make sense of these trends and to interpret them in a way that places
Wicomico County in a national and global context, it is crucial to use some sort
of theoretical framework, such as the concept of agricultural metropolises and
peripheries. As with most theories, however, this one does not fully explain the
reality of a local situation such as agriculture in Wicomico County. Wicomico
does not fit neatly into either the metropolis or periphery category, and it
likely never will. This area is most certainly a periphery in the case of
poultry; hundreds of millions of birds are grown, processed, and packaged here
each year and then shipped all over the world. But residents of Wicomico County
can also drive up Route 13 to Wal-Mart and buy a shirt made from cotton that was
grown in India, and then pieced together into a garment in China before being
shipped here. In that case, Salisbury and Wicomico County are the metropolis,
the destination for pre-made goods grown and manufactured in far-away places.
This blurred and indistinct boundary between metropolis and periphery is a
reflection of the national milieu. The United States is one of the most
industrialized, technologically advanced nations in the world, displaying clear
characteristics of a metropolitan entity. And yet it is the world’s largest
exporter of food, placing it simultaneously in a peripheral role.
Similarly,
the theory of political economy provides useful categories and concepts to
organize information and view local events as part of a bigger picture, but it
does not account for every interaction between the state, the corporate classes,
and the labor force in Wicomico County. According to the power dynamics laid out
in political economic theory, for instance, one would never predict the move by
McDonalds, a mega-corporation traditionally motivated more by profit than by
public health concerns, to pressure meat producers to reduce the use of
antibiotics in healthy animals that speed their growth.
The
failure of these theories to match up precisely with local events and trends is
not grounds for dismissing them as useless. On the contrary, without broad
frameworks like political economy and the metropolis/periphery concept, local
history would be simply a litany of facts devoid of larger meaning and
connections to the big picture. It is therefore important to use economic and
social theories whenever possible to provide a context for historical
narratives, but equally crucial is the awareness of the limitations of this
method of analysis.
A
definitive prediction about where agriculture is headed in Wicomico County is
beyond the scope of this report examining agriculture in Wicomico County from
1880 until the present. Rather, we have attempted to provide a history of
developments in food and livestock production in this area, paying special
attention to the major transitions in types of farming and processing and the
reasons behind these shifts. By doing this and by giving a sense of how Wicomico
County is situated in a national and global agricultural context, we hope that
readers will come away with an idea of the potential for change in Wicomico
County and the ability to make informed guesses of their own about the future of
this unique piece of land and the people who make their living from it.
[i] Paul Adams. “Russia Continues to Shun Birds From Some U.S. Poultry Plants.” The Baltimore Sun, July 12, 2003: 8C.
[ii] Adams, p. 8C.
[iii] Douglas Birch. “Imports of U.S. Chicken Have Russians Stewing.” The Baltimore Sun, January 26, 2004: 1A.
[iv] Adams, p. 8C.
[v] “Vertical Coordination in the Pork and Broiler Industries”. USDA Economic Research Service, p. 21.
[vi] William Cronon. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. (New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1991): xvi.
[vii]Marc Kaufman. “WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth.” The Washington Post August 13, 2003: A1.
David Barboza and Sherri Day. “McDonald’s Seeking Cut in Antibiotics in Its Meat.” The New York Times, June 20, 2003: C1.
[viii] Heather Dewar and John Rivera. “Poultry Workers Find Their Voice.” The Baltimore Sun, February 2, 1998: 1B.
[ix] U.S. Census Bureau, “Population Estimates for Selected Counties, 1900-1980” on www.census.gov April 20, 2004.
[x] U.S. Census Bureau, “Labor Force Status and Employment Characteristics: 1990” on www.factfinder.census.gov April 10, 2004.
[xi] U.S. Census Bureau, “Labor Force Status and Employment Characteristics: 2000” on www.factfinder.census.gov April 10, 2004.
[xii] Tom Horton. “On The Bay”. The Baltimore Sun, March 17, 2002: B2.
[xiii] Interview with Doug Stephens, a realtor with Cooper-Stewart in Salisbury, via e-mail on May 3, 2004. Interview on file at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University.
[xiv] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Pfiesteria Piscicida Fact Sheet” on www.epa.gov/cgi-bin/epaprintonly.cgi April 19, 2004.
[xv] Tom Horton. Turning the Tide. (Washington: Island Press, 2003): 47.
[xvi] Horton, Turning the Tide, p. 47.
[xvii] Broilers Grown, Soybeans Used for Broilers, and Corn Used for Broilers provided by Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. Delmarva Soybeans Grown and Delmarva Corn Grown provided by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. Table Prepared By: Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. www.dpichicken.org April 16, 2004.
[xviii] USDA Economic Research Service. “Table 2: Average Monthly Retail Price for Beef, Pork, and Poultry, September ’03-February ’04,” on www.ers.usda.gov/Data/MeatScanner.htm April 16 2004.
[xix] Kim Clark. “Tender Times: Is sky falling on the chicken boom? Disquiet hits Shore’s Biggest Industry,” The Baltimore Sun July 4, 1993: 1F.
[xx] Doug Struck. “South’s poultry plants thrive, feeding on workers’ need,” The Baltimore Sun. September 8, 1991: 1A.
[xxi] Clark. “Tender Times: Is sky falling on the chicken boom? Disquiet hits Shore’s Biggest Industry,” The Baltimore Sun July 4, 1993: 1F.
[xxii] Paul Cunningham. “Frank Perdue Admits Seeking Advice from Mob,” The Daily Times March 4, 1986: 1A.
[xxiii] Geoffrey Becker, ed. “Farm Commodity Legislation: Chronology, 1933-1998”, CRS Report for Congress, on http://www.ncesonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/Agriculture/ag-60.cfm , April 12 2004.
[xxiv] Interview with John Burtman, County Executive Director for Dorchester and Wicomico County USDA Farm Service Agency: May 13, 2004. Interview on file at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University.
[xxv] Congressional Research Service, “USDA Gross Outlays for FY 1999”. On www.cnie.org/nle/agbill/ebagr5.html , April 12 2004.
[xxvi] http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=24000&progcode=total&page=county
[xxvii] Interview with John Burtman, County Executive Director for Dorchester and Wicomico County USDA Farm Service Agency: May 13, 2004. Interview on file at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University.
[xxviii] Horton, p. 67.
[xxix] Interview with Mike Heller, manager of Clagett Farm for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Interview conducted over the phone on May 17, 2004; tape of conversation on file at the Edward H. Nabb Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University.
[xxx] Interview with Mike Heller
[xxxi] Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. “USDA to provide $5 million for Delmarva Conservation Programs”. Bay Journal 14 no. 2 (April 2004): 6.
[xxxii] The Scientific and Technical advisory Committee (STAC) of the Chesapeake Bay Program. “Innovation in Agricultural Conservation for the Chesapeake Bay: Evaluating Progress and Addressing Future Challenges”. February 2004: p. 18.
[xxxiii] Interview with Mike Heller.
[xxxiv] STAC. “Innovation in Agricultural Conservation,” p. 18.
[xxxv] Marc Kaufman. “WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth.” The Washington Post, August 13, 2003: A1.
[xxxvi] David Barboza and Sherri Day. The New York Times, June 20, 2003: C1.
[xxxvii] Kaufman. “WHO Urges End to Use of Antibiotics for Animal Growth.”