The contradiction of food production and the profit motive
What does it mean to try and produce food cheaply in a world where everything continues to cost more money?
A common argument made by farmers is that food production in and of itself should be a “public good”. In Gramscian language this represents a kernal of the ‘common sense’ within farming that can be worked with and developed into ‘good sense’. What most farmers want art the end of the day, is the ability to produce good food. We can get into arguments about what constitutes good food and well produced food, but regardless of one’s outlook, this is what most farmers are striving for. That is something we can work with.
In the UK, the claim of food being a public good by itself is made in the context of the broader policy shift from the previous Basic Payment Scheme, to the new post-Brexit schemes based on the notion of “public payments for public goods.” There has been a move from productivist policies to post-productivist agricultural policies.
The rationale of the new schemes are to provide compensation for “ecosystem services” provided by land managers, that are not accounted for by markets. This might include services already provided, but a lot of the new schemes across the UK are aimed at incentivising farmers to provide new ecosystem services. These are wide-ranging: from planting fields of flowers, to tree planting, to better soil management and more. This is a needed shift: in simple terms it says that farming isn’t just about maximal food production at whatever cost to the environment. There is a genuine attempt to try and reverse biodiversity decline, which has been rapid since the so-called Green Revolution of the post-WWII era.
There’s a schism within British farming. For some thee new schemes work very well, for others they might threaten their livelihood. The more land you manage, the greater the levels of capitalisation, the better you will likely do. Research has forecasted that upland farmers will see a steep decline in incomes. These are often farmers already earning well below the national average wage.
A lot of the arguments against the new schemes, and the biggest grievances have come from Welsh farmers in response to the new Sustainable Farming Scheme, centre on the importance of food security. This argument usually leverages the sensitivity of global supply chains to war and pandemics. That farmers would be concerned about the central importance of food production makes complete sense. And food production should be valued. The UK should aim to improve its levels of self-sufficiency. Environmental NGOs will retort that we mustn’t neglect ecosystems given the ongoing collapse of biodiversity. This sets up an oppositional discourse where each side tends to become entrenched in their position. In this impasse both groups speak past each other.
There are problems with both positions so let’s take each one in turn.
Food Security
The UK produces around 60% of the food it consumes. The other 40% comes from a global mix (about 60% from the EU) that includes horticultural produce from the Netherlands and Andalucía, along with crops from across the global south, particularly (sub)tropical items like coffee, tea, bananas, avocados, rice etc. This often relies upon super-exploitation. A worker in a banana plantation works for an absolute pittance. This allows huge amounts of surplus value to be appropriated by companies like Chiquita. Such a labour regime relies upon violence. The ongoing “slow violence” of working in such an exploitative work environment which entails exposure to toxic chemicals, but also the abrupt violence of literally murdering organised labour. Chiquita have just been forced to pay compensation to the families of murdered workers in a landmark case. This is one way food is cheapened. Cheapened food keeps costs down for capital: if food cost more then wages would need to be higher and this would eat into profits and reduce capital accumulation. We also see this super-exploitation occur with the migrant labour provided in the polytunnels of Andalucía and fields across Europe. Again enforced through violence.
Another way that food is cheapened in the global north is by the exploitation of the lands of the global south where forests and savannahs are turned into monocultures of soy. Soy, which is an exceptional protein, flows into Europe to fatten eye-wateringly high levels of poultry and pigs. Margins in such industrialised systems are very tight, but profits can be secured if done at scale. One of the knock-on effects of this global metabolic rift is that rivers like the River Wye in Wales, are awash in phosphates and nitrates, from excessive numbers of chickens along its banks. The soils of the Americas are degraded as watercourses are degraded across Europe. This is playing into the current farmers’ protests, particularly in the Netherlands, where the Dutch government are trying to implement EU regulations on nitrogen pollution, which directly threatens the livelihoods of farmers, in a bid to reduce levels of pollution.
Nature
Amidst a growing biodiversity and pollution crisis environmental NGOs stress the importance of ecosystem restoration and reducing agricultural pollution. Both of which are undeniably necessary. The natural capital model, which can be boiled down to “putting a price on nature”, has come to typify the favoured mechanism of reform. It is a modest reform that conforms to the logics of neoliberal governance. It is likely that the adoption of the ecosystem services model will lead to regeneration of some ecosystems. But there is a problem if the scheme makes farming less profitable given that most landscapes are managed by farmers. Myself, Kai Heron and Rob Booth covered some of this before. As the placard in the image shows: farmers can’t be green, if they’re in the red. Yet this is often ignored and too many in the NGO space just act as if the scheme will pay adequately. In Wales, in particular, there is little evidence to suggest we should believe this. If the scheme undermines profitability, in an industry with tight margins, then many might not sign up for the scheme. So we might have some farms specialising more in ecosystem services and others continuing to double down on industrial production. Would such a bifurcation do much to restore the River Wye?
Not only this but the refusal to hear farmers’ grievances, say with regards to the tree planting requirement in Wales, is partly driving the reaction and sometimes morphing into conspiracy theory and climate denial. I think that’s a small minority but it’s not something to ignore. As I argued in The Conversation, there is a middle ground on this, which I think would keep both parties happy for now. It does seem like the Welsh Government are going to be making some changes in response. But still the underlying contradictions exist.
To farm profitably in the global north, generally means economies of scale and this leads to environmental pollution. Dairy farms, for example, only need lots of cows and the requisite storage for slurry, because it’s not financially viable to keep a smaller number of cows. This leads to small patches of land having to house hundreds or thousands of cows, either all year round or over winter. All of the slurry stored has to be spread on the fields at some point, and with shifting climate, it becomes difficult to find a dry window at the right time. When slurry is applied at the wrong time, more of it washes into the rivers. None of the proposed policies will change this fact.
The central contradiction of use-value and exchange-value
Behind this growing agrarian crisis-to-come is the contradiction between food production and the profit motive. One that was, to some degree, managed by the previous Basic Payment Scheme, albeit leading to declining ecosystems and making farming harder to profit from1. Farms did go under, farmer numbers declined, farm sizes grew, so clearly there were plenty of losers under the previous scheme. One thing I’m not sure on yet is whether we’re just seeing the continuation of that process or whether there is a shift in pace.
Either way the farmers’ protests are showing that this is becoming a political crisis for European governments. As you see on placards at the protests, “Enough is enough”. I feel like there is a heightening of this contradiction right now, especially in the UK, due in part to Brexit and the disruption of long established trade deals. 95% of Welsh red meat is exported, most of that is into the EU. If the new scheme does lead to reduced incomes for these farmers, food production becomes even harder to maintain. And if the majority of red meat is exported, then the food security argument is weak at the policy level. Although it does seem to play well at the level of the public. A stronger argument can be made for food sovereignty, but this would require the bulk of Welsh produce to stay in Wales/UK, and would require more farms to produce cereals, mushrooms, fruits and vegetables. The reason meat is exported is because it secures a better price for farmers compared to domestic markets. In other words, a better exchange-value.
For some of the reasons mentioned already capital requires ‘cheap food’. Capital is indifferent where that food comes from or how its produced. In a country with rising costs of production, along with a rising cost of living, this poses a problem for its farmers. Can they continue to produce at a profit? The ecosystems services model could’ve been an option, to buffer declining incomes, but owing to the political austerity enforced in the UK, these schemes are underfunded. For it to work it needs something like a doubling of its budget. But instead, in real terms, agricultural budgets have halved over the last several years with little sign of this being reversed. The economics of farming sheep and cattle were hard enough as it was. This contradiction manifests within agroecological sector too. Those of us in that world all know successful farms, that have been going for years, really struggling right now.
The response of leaders and practitioners in regenerative agriculture is to show a way you can continue to farm whilst cutting costs, and sometimes improving levels of productivity. That’s an interesting tangent to explore in more depth another time. There is some truth to their claims. Although some of that does depend on whether you own most of your land or have managed to secure a good tenancy. So even with that best case approach, there are winners and losers. At best, regenerative agriculture is an attempt to negotiate the contradiction at this time for a small percentage of farms. Totally understandable. I’ve been there and tried that. My argument isn’t about whether some farms can adapt and survive. My argument against this is that it’s not a strategy for a wholesale transformation of the farming system as part of an agroecological transition—bearing in mind growing ecological breakdown.
We’re left with a contradiction between use-value and exchange-value. The primary use-value of farming is food production, as farmers assert. However, in a capitalist system this is mediated via markets and exchange-value. Morally and rationally, it should be enough to produce good quality food and be able to make a living this way. But it’s increasingly not enough, hence diversification, intensification, expansion and ecosystem services. The overall trajectory, under capital, is a decline in farming as a viable business in the UK. All of these tactics of survival are attempts to negotiate this central contradiction. A contradiction that is central to capitalism. Housing is another perfect example. There is a growing housing crisis across the global north, with the growing prominence of rentiers in the housing market. This has driven up rents, driven up house prices, and more people have to pay more of their money on housing or are even going houseless. The exchange value of housing has become more important than it’s use-value (ie. shelter and home). This isn’t unrelated to the growing agrarian crisis. The more money that goes into housing (and utilities) the less there is available to spend on food. There is also a considerable housing crisis in the countryside. These crises are interlinked and all fundamentally stem from the workings of capital. Capital has an in-built need to grow but producing things in the global north is becoming unprofitable.
Under capital, food is about generating profits (exchange-value), most of which is appropriated by those who don’t do the farming. Food companies, tractor companies, chemical companies, supermarkets and so on, all taking a percentage each. Under capital, and particularly since the waves of financialisation since the 70s, land is increasingly valued for its ability as an asset ie. it’s potential to be leveraged against future income. The modernisation and intensification of farming has been driven by a process of debt-leveraging against the farm as an asset. Land becomes more desirable for its potential exchange-value than its use-value. Rising land prices helps to ensure farming continues but it has side effects. One is that it’s becoming more difficult to get into farming. Many banks don’t want to lend to younger farmers lacking an asset base. Many local authorities are flogging their council farm estate to help plug a gap in their accounts (although it doesn’t really). Opportunities for tenant farmers are declining.
This heightened contradiction between use-value and exchange-value manifests as farmers’ protests, farms going out of business, tenants being turfed out, and a widespread challenge to the succession of the family farm. Where economic prospects are dismal, the next generation leave the family farm to work elsewhere. As much as anything, the farmers’ protests are about asserting the importance of farmers in modern society. At the same time food banks grow to previously unimaginable numbers, where people simply don’t earn enough money to be able to afford subsistence. One of the morbid symptoms of this heightened contradiction is factions of farmers looking for a scapegoat to blame such as an imagined global conspiracy, culminating in soft or outright climate denial. The cause, however, is capital.
The farmers’ demand to a decent livelihood, with some qualifications, should be supported. For a growing number their livelihood won’t be provided under capitalism. The kinds of reforms needed are ones that undermine the rule of capital whilst restoring ecosystems. I will try to explore some of these in upcoming posts.
An example of what James O’Connor calls the second contradiction of capitalism: the tendency to undermine the ecological conditions accumulation depends upon. See his paper from 1988: ‘Capitalism, nature, socialism a theoretical introduction’ in Capitalism Nature Socialism
A great piece. One we will never read in mainstream outlets, such as Nature Food...