foodperson.com

It’s no surprise that getting food to our plates is a little more complex these days than when Grandma rung the chicken’s neck, dressed it and cooked it up with a mess of vegetables she grew in the garden. What may be a surprise to many people is that our efficient food growing and delivery system just may be more fragile than Grandma’s.

The complexity of that system was one thing that speakers agreed on today at a panel discussion, “Selling Our Daily Bread: Farmers, Consumers and the American Grocery System,” at the University of Kansas’ Burge Union. The panel was part of the Second Biennial Conference on Food, Farmers and the American Way of Agriculture.

The complex, consolidated and efficient system is one of the things that makes our groceries so inexpensive compared with what they were in days gone by. But that same efficiency also makes the system more risky.

Tom Giessel, a Pawnee County, Kansas, farmer who followed the agricultural trend and got big rather than getting out of farming, works 6,000 acres with his brother. They raise 2,400 acres of wheat-enough, he said, to supply all Topeka residents for a year. He quoted from an analysis that found that the United States today has about five farmers for every supermarket in the country, and three of them are producing products for export, restaurants or other channels. “What happens if we get a little hiccup in the system?”

What happens, indeed? The tainted pet food scandal-where one manufacturer is implicated in poisoning countless dogs and cats-gives us a hint at the possibilities in the human food supply, as did last year’s e-coli spinach problem. Does anyone remember the Irish potato famine? William Nelson of the CHS Foundation, the nation’s biggest agricultural cooperative, said the world’s food cache is so poorly stocked that we’re just one growing season away from food shortages.

While the contemporary food system has given us a vast selection of food products that we weren’t able to get in our groceries thirty years ago, it has also left us with few people having firsthand knowledge of agriculture, meaning most Americans may not understand just how fragile the food supply is.

Professor Dennis Karney and Geissel noted Lawrence’s good fortune in having two good-sized food stores that aren’t operated by large chains, which gives Lawrence residents far more food options than do residents in many cities and rural areas where mega retailers like Wal Mart now sell the groceries. We can ask Jim Lewis of Checkers to order special items, and he’ll do it, or we can go to the Community Mercantile and get an array of local and organic foodstuffs.

Those stores exist because of good luck, good management and providing what the customers want, rather than providing only what some food processing behemoth makes available. Consumers can get more alternatives and a greater sense of the security of their food if they look beyond the price, today, of their food. How? Patronize your farmers’ markets. Buy more fresh and unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

Or, as Karney said, “Think a little before you purchase things. Think about what things you want for yourself, for your lifestyle, for your health.”