Summary of Ellen Ruppel Shell's "Cheap eats" chapter

Cheap: Chapter 8

Cheap, a Summary of Chapter 8:"Cheap Eats"

Ellen Ruppel Shell takes a critical look at some of the intended and unintended consequences of efforts to produce inexpensive food in Chapter 8 of her book Cheap. Shell argues that our penchant for saving money on our diets is in reality more costly because this practice promotes factory farming. Shell warns that food grown on the factory model is in reality more costly in the long run due to erosion of health, the environment and its impact on humanity.

Shell notes that the modern factory farm is more analogous to a factory than a farm. Agribusiness and the technologies supporting it provide results beyond the capabilities of any ordinary farmer. Genetically engineered livestock fattened on corn and growth hormones in confined facilities and pumped with antibiotics grow to enormous size as do crops grown from scientifically optimized seeds with large quantities of petroleum-based fertilizers and herbicides. These practices work to keep the cost of food low, not only in the United States, but in much of the world as well.

Furthermore, government supported protections and subsidies for mega-farms works in the same manner. The independent family farm has become a thing of the past in the U.S. And developing countries are importing cheaper Western-subsidized food. In developing countries these subsidies have an effect on native farmers who often abandon native farming traditions and practices due to the inability to compete with imported foods. This in turn increases the demand for imported food.

Shell writes about the spike in food prices in 2008 and claims they were at least in part a consequence of the market's inability to sustain the low prices that preceded this event. She notes that as the market becomes saturated with a specific commodity the price of that commodity falls to an artificially low level. Eventually, as happened with food in 2006, the market will correct itself and prices will climb. However this increase in price resulted in a panic and people began hording, which led to scarcity. Prices jumped even higher which led to the food crisis of 2008. Ironically, there was no shortage of food in the world during the food crisis of 2008; however the panic in the trade market left millions in under developed countries on the edge of starvation.

While at first cheap food may seem like a good thing, an over reliance on cheap food contributes to food dependency, complacency, and even social unrest. Shell believes if agricultural prices were higher incentives to produce food in developing countries would be higher and there would be more food production in the developing world. The author points out that another reason for the food crisis of 2008 can be attributed to reduced investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure throughout the 1980s and 1990s in developing countries. This resulted in falling productivity. When food growth in food production fell behind growth in food consumption this also contributed to food scarcity and drove market prices higher. Unfortunately many developing countries did not have, or had lost, the capacity to produce food within their borders.

Cheap food requires cheap labor. Shell uses the shrimp industry in Thailand as an example of human rights abuse brought on by the quest for lower food prices. Not enough Thais are willing to work cheaply enough to satisfy the demand for cheap shrimp. As a consequence the industry is mostly served by migrant workers from Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam. There are well documented incidents of these migrants, many of whom do not speak the native language, being subjugated to abuses ranging from unpaid overtime, child labor, torture, and even rape.

The increase in factory farming is also leading to an increase in food related illness. Shell warns that food farmed, harvested, and processed in enormous quantities and sold at low prices is more susceptible to being handled with a lack of care. This often leads to contamination, infestation, and infection. More than 200 known diseases are transmitted by food through viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and other means. It is estimated that 76 million cases of food borne disease occur each year in the United States alone resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths.

There are also potential health related issues with imported food products. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), responsible for inspecting imported meats and poultry, inspects only 16% of imports while the FDA, responsible for inspecting imported fruits, vegetables and most other foods inspects only 1% of these imports. Given this, one may easily conclude that it is highly likely that cheap tainted food imports are a growing threat to American health.