The best medicine to save agriculture is actually yourself

Lead image/ munch

It all starts with seeds

Living things pass on the message of survival to the next generation, and so do plants. They are deeply influenced by the sunlight, rainfall, temperature, pests and diseases, and soil microorganisms of their environment, and they gradually evolve in response to these conditions, becoming better adapted with each generation until they become a local variety.

The Green Revolution added human intervention, using large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to domesticate and improve crops. Once these crops became accustomed to being cared for by pesticides and fertilizers, they gradually lost the ability to protect themselves and connect with natural resources (the law of evolution: use it or lose it). So when farmers choose such seeds, they are doomed to be unable to escape pesticides and fertilizers, which is also why, without saving their own seed, choosing friendly cultivation encounters so many obstacles.

Agribusiness sells not just products, but a three-in-one production method of seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, and only this can ensure their endless profits.

The fate of heading toward large-scale production

Farmers who originally saved their own seed controlled their own production costs, but once farmers chose the three-in-one production method, purchased seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers became a fixed expense. At first it was still profitable, but as total output grew higher and higher and the market was flooded with homogeneous products that could not all be absorbed, prices naturally plummeted.

Just like industry, as the cost of agricultural products rises and income declines further and further, and profits grow thinner and thinner, the only way out is large-scale production, which requires more land, machinery, and equipment, all of which require capital.

Thus agriculture began to move toward an industrialized, commercialized business model. This is a game farmers are unfamiliar with, so more and more small farmers are eliminated, and the most pitiful are those farmers who grit their teeth and take out loans to struggle on, often losing everything, selling land to repay debt, and even taking their own lives. Such bitter lessons have given society a widespread stereotype: there is no future in farming.

The red ocean of agriculture

Surviving this cutthroat war requires strong financial backing, by continuously driving down agricultural prices, eliminating small farmers in the field, and making those watching from the sidelines hesitate to enter. Government purchasing is usually far below the production costs of small farmers, and the biggest beneficiaries are still agribusiness, and the same is true of many laws, infrastructure projects, and subsidies.

While small farmers struggle to hold on, consumers unknowingly pick and choose and grab bargains, not realizing the interdependent relationship between the two. Once agribusiness gradually monopolizes the market, the prices of agricultural products, as seen today, skyrocket and crash at the slightest provocation. This is the final reshuffling, meant to make the small farmers who fought hard when prices soared fall into complete despair when prices crash.

The darkness before dawn

In the era of globalization, this game repeats itself endlessly around the world, as agricultural exporting countries use unfair competition through government subsidies to continuously export surplus agricultural products.

And a country like Taiwan, China, knowing it is unable to compete, yet unwilling to protect its agriculture, hands over its agricultural market in free trade negotiations in exchange for the interests of industrial exports. We think that as long as we use the money earned from industry to buy cheap foreign grain, that is enough, but we never expected to walk into a trap set by others. Now our industry is in grave danger, while grain prices keep rising, and all of this was long ago calculated by the advanced countries.

When we cannot feed ourselves and must depend on others, they will naturally cancel subsidies and even raise prices further, and we will still have to pay. This scenario is not in the future; it is already happening. Biofuel corn leads the way, crowding out feed corn cultivation, which in turn pushes up the prices of meat, milk, and eggs, and soybeans and wheat rise along with them. Taiwan, China's food crisis is already imminent.

From consumer to participant

The power to change all this is in our own hands, but we can no longer be mere consumers who just spend money and be done with it; we must become participants. Although at first it may feel unfamiliar and may also be inconvenient, our past habits and convenience were spoiled by food corporations, and once we begin to participate, we will discover more and more joys in life. All of this starts with reducing eating out and buying local agricultural products.

When more and more families cook at home and, through the power of collective purchasing, environmentally friendly small farmers have a chance to survive, building locally supported agriculture can not only reduce energy waste, but also obtain the freshest and safest agricultural products (the longer food is stored, the easier it is to spoil and grow insects, so some "processing" treatment is inevitably needed). Most importantly, the existence of many producers can maintain stable agricultural prices, and price stability is most beneficial to both farmers and consumers. And in the process of participation, urban and rural cultures will begin to exchange, allowing us to recover one by one the simple happiness lost in the process of industrialization and urbanization.

The way to solve this enormous problem really is just that simple.