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Parity Pricing and the Agriculture Chemical Crisis

August 10, 2019

Did you know that, globally, farmers produce 1.5 times the amount of food consumers need?
Because farmers must sink so much money into food production in the way of chemicals and seed, they have little choice but to overproduce, in order to recoup what they've overspent. As things stand, far too much of what farmers spend to grow food winds up in the hands of chemical and seed companies. Needless to say, farmers can't stay in business if they can't make money. Farmers in Iowa are grappling, not only with prices that are too low, but with flooded fields. In fact, farmers throughout the Plains and the South have dealt with the effects of spring floods and summer downpours this year. That's why the time is right for parity pricing.

Did you know that the American agricultural economy contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than all forms of transportation combined? Stop overproduction of food and you limit production of these gases. Another reason fair farm prices matter. And there's another reason.  Farm incomes have been reduced by 50 percent since 2013. That's right - in only six years! This is the largest reduction since the Great Depression.

What to do? Change our food and farm policies in such a way that farmers are guaranteed prices that cover all of their expenses.  These prices would pay farmers the cost of environmentally beneficial practices, as well. Establishing price floors, or minimum prices, allows farmers the peace of mind they need from knowing prices will never fall below their cost of doing business. Price floors are a part of parity pricing.

Another part is supply management. For those of you familiar with the Bible, this will remind you of the story of Joseph, who told Pharaoh to store food produced in good years, so that people would have food to eat during bad years. Supply management means precisely that: store food produced during good years and we will have enough to eat during years like 2019, when circumstances are unfavorable for food production. This practice is, in this instance, thousands of years old. In the case of parity pricing, these policies were part of the U.S.'s very first Farm Bill, written in 1933.

Let's fight climate change and, at the same time, implement changes in food and farm policies as if our farmers and our lives depended on them.



With thanks to the Pesticide Action Network.

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