| Food
Systems - Global and Local
Ecology
of marketing and social life
Paying
the Price
Farmers:
In every corner of the world, small and medium-sized producers are
being squeezed by
middlemen, and are struggling to survive.
At the turn of the century, US farmers
received 44% of every dollar spent on food. By the 1990s, farmers
share of the market dropped to only 21%. In many cases this is insufficient
to cover the cost of production. Marketing now takes a full 79%
A
smaller slice of the pie
-
Supermarkets and middlemen are threatening the livelihood and
security of small and medium-sized farmers everywhere, taking
an ever-greater proportion of the prices paid by consumers.
-
Farming at a loss is becoming increasingly common. In May 2000,
English milk producers were paid about 25% less for their milk
than it cost them to produce it!
-
Suicide among farmers in both North and South is increasing. It
is now the leading cause of death among farmers in the US, occurring
at a rate three times higher than in the general population.
Creating
urban poverty: The globalisation of agriculture and food
leads to the marginalisation of small and medium-sized farms in
the South. More and more rural people are being pushed off the land
into cities where the vast majority end up in slums. |
