Excuse Me Flo, Where’d This Big Mac Come From

7 Pages 1799 Words

the food system has greatly dropped. The Center for Rural Affairs in Nebraska estimates that, if current trends continue, producer profits in the food system will be zero by 2030!
Driving the decline in farm profits are historic low prices for agriculture commodities. Last year’s crop prices reached a 27-year-low for soybeans, a 25-year low for cotton, a 14-year low for wheat and corn, and an 8-year low for rice, according to the House Committee on Agriculture. "Net cash income five of the last three years fell in real dollars to its lowest point since the Great Depression," the committee reported. Yet supermarket prices did not drop with respect to crop prices.
With food prices remaining level while farm income continues to decline, there is one unmistakable conclusion: The profits of agriculture have shifted from the growers to the brokers, processors and retailers. Generally, this means that the real profits from agriculture leave the rural areas where they originate and go instead to corporate headquarters, big stores, brokerages and shareholders—entities that often do little to reinvest in the areas where food and fiber are produced.
Whether a consequence of government policy or a result of free market economics, it is clear that the biggest forces in agri...