Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News

There is troubling news this spring as many US farmers are switching from traditional food crops such as wheat and corn to cotton, which is selling at all time highs. Cotton today is seen to be a very profitable crop in 2011. This is troubling for several reasons.

First, as we have previously reported here on Health Impact News, the major cause of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa is due to rising food prices, particularly wheat. (See The Real Cause of Revolution in the Middle East? Food Subsidies can no longer Provide Cheap Bread) Russia stopped exporting wheat last year due to drought conditions. Now with less wheat being grown in the US in 2011 due to many farmers switching from wheat to cotton, the problems could get even worse. Here in the US, food prices are sure to soar as well.

Secondly, cotton is known as the “dirtiest crop” on the planet, requiring more pesticides than all other crops. The Organic Authority reports: “Cotton covers 2.5% of the world’s cultivated land, yet it accounts for 24% of the world’s insecticide market and 11% of sales of global pesticides; or $2.6 billion worth of pesticides making it the most pesticide-intensive crop grown on the planet. It can take almost a 1/3 pound of synthetic fertilizers to grow one pound of raw cotton in the U.S., and it takes just under one pound of raw cotton to make one t-shirt. It takes approximately one pound of chemicals to grow three pounds of conventional cotton.” Much of the cotton planted today is also genetically modified, and the residue cotton seeds are used to produce animal feeds and cottonseed oil, ending up in the food chain.

So why is the price of cotton so high, making it irresistible to farmers to switch from food crops to a more profitable cotton crop this spring? You can place a lot of blame on our government spending, and the sovereign debt crises around the world. Investors have very little confidence in world currencies right now, including the US dollar, and they are flocking to basic commodities as safe havens for their investments. The value of gold and silver is climbing fast, along with oil. Cotton is a traded commodity, and it is an attractive investment because prices are not kept artificially low due to subsidies common on food crops. Farmers understand this all too well, and they see the great opportunities that currently exist in cotton. See the recent New York Times article: Amber Waves to Ivory Bolls

So what does the future hold for industrial agriculture and our food sources? Low quality toxic food is about to become a lot more expensive due to looming food shortages. People need to become more concerned about who is producing food in the US, and realize just how disconnected our culture has become from those who grow our food. When the US was founded in 1776 90% of the population was engaged in agriculture. When Lincoln was president in 1860 it was still about 50%. Today, many years after the industrial revolution, it is LESS THAN 1%. It is high time more people got into small scale sustainable food production and entered the food chain. For that to happen however, the consumer is going to need to become more educated and start demanding better quality food by supporting those who make the effort to produce it.

Sources:

Commodity prices soar as investors seek hedge against global instability – gantdaily.com

Amber Waves to Ivory Bolls – New York Times

Cotton: The World’s “Dirtiest” Crop – Organic Authority

See also: Our Need for “Daily Bread”