[THREAD WARNING]

Okay so apparently Dan Barber is in hot water for some high priced vegetable seeds he (read: Cornell) developed that have lower yields so I feel the need to say some things about the U.S. food system.

First, crop breeding is inherently tricky and contentious. There’s a lot to get into, from patenting the genetic stock of a living organism to breeding for chemically intensive agricultural systems to the whole GMO kit and caboodle.

But in all of that messiness, the basic idea of crop breeding is trying to emphasize certain characteristics of a plant or animal over others.

And in the grand scheme of weird problematic shit that folks breed for, *cough Monsanto/Bayer* sacrificing yield for flavor is pretty benign and - if distributed equitably - probably a good thing.

BECAUSE in the U.S. the majority of our agricultural land is not used to grow food for humans! According to data gathered in Bloomberg ( https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/) only 19.7% (77.4M acres) of all crop land in the US is used to grow food that humans eat...

and a portion of that is still commodity crops like field corn that are processed into things like high-fructose corn syrup, which I guess is technically « food » but ... you get the idea.

If we were to grow real edible food on the land currently growing commodities used to feed livestock (127.4M acres) and manufacture biodiesel and ethanol (38.1M acres) we could more than double the plant based food we’re currently growing.

This doesn’t even take into account rangeland which takes up a whopping 34.4% of the entire land area of the U.S.

I’m not trying to make it seem like we can just flip a switch and get the entire U.S. population to stop eating meat or even that that should be our goal. I’m also not trying to make it seem like all of the current rangeland can easily be switched over to growing veg.

A lot of it can’t and a bunch of it is stolen public land that should be returned to the native folks that have stewarded it for thousands of years.

What I AM saying is that before we get hot and bothered about the yield of some experimental seeds we need to recognize the larger issue that the power of this land to feed and sustain people is being abused to instead feed oil companies, agricultural giants, and meat monopolies.

So if you’re breeding a super tasty, healthy, and colorful new variety of snap peas that may have lower yields, good for you. The USDA needs to dismantle the industrial agricultural complex to make sure there is land for those seeds to grow in.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

Now, there’s still a big reason to get mad at Dan Barber and the « good food » movement and that is that food is not truly « good » unless it is for EVERYONE.

Dan Barber and the crop breeding program at Cornell and the Greenmarket Regional Grains Project where I used to work are doing very very important work in rebuilding networks between cooks and farmers and breeders and eaters...

but it is only within a specific and very monied class of society where this « agriculture renaissance » actually has an impact.

Yes, developing new organic and tasty barley varieties is important but if you have to pay $108 at Blue Hill to try it -

or have to pay $10 including shipping to get a packet of 12 seeds for the *experimental* and *bon appétit tested* 898 squash to be mailed to you, that food isn’t accessible and therefore is not good.

What I am left wondering is why only « elite » (read: rich and white) chefs like Dan Barber get proprietary access to crop breeding programs like the one at Cornell?

Why is SlowFoodUSA the only org sending free seeds to community gardens, Black run farms like East New York Farms, and school gardens?

Why are immigrant farm laborers disproportionately subject to the severe health impacts of the industrial agriculture system while never being able to savor the literal fruits of their underpaid labor?

Why is crop breeding and seed saving something that only takes place in wealthy research universities like Cornell?

And why, when these issues come into the public consciousness is the focus on something trivial like the yield of some experimental seeds, instead of the larger issues of a system that increasingly yields « good » food for the wealthy and NO food for the hungry?