$0.12 for a loaf of bread?!?
August 12, 2024 5:30 AM Subscribe
"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spent a whopping 42.5% of their household budgets on food in 1901, nearly four times what we spend now. In real numbers, that means the equivalent of a household with the current median income of almost $75,000/yr spending $2,610 a month on food. And that was the reality for a long time—even a few decades later in the 1930s, people were still spending more than a third of their income on food compared to our 11% today." How much did groceries cost the year you were born? Check out the Food Timeline. See also: the price of bread. Groceries have, of course, risen in price lately.
Outside the U.S., food prices ain't good, for various reasons. For data, reports, and visualizations, check out Food Prices on Our World in Data. On food prices in Africa, check with The African Climate Foundation and the IMF.
"Food and Foodways in Science Fiction" [SLPDF] is what it says on the tin. "From Farm to Fable: Food, Fantasy, and Science Fiction" appeared a decade back at Clarkesworld. Saveur recommended 8 books the thought essential on envisioning the future of food. Of course, no mention of SF food can omit the now half-century-old Soylent Green. Or, perhaps, the meal-in-a-pill.
Note that eggflation has appeared previously on MetaFilter.
Outside the U.S., food prices ain't good, for various reasons. For data, reports, and visualizations, check out Food Prices on Our World in Data. On food prices in Africa, check with The African Climate Foundation and the IMF.
"Food and Foodways in Science Fiction" [SLPDF] is what it says on the tin. "From Farm to Fable: Food, Fantasy, and Science Fiction" appeared a decade back at Clarkesworld. Saveur recommended 8 books the thought essential on envisioning the future of food. Of course, no mention of SF food can omit the now half-century-old Soylent Green. Or, perhaps, the meal-in-a-pill.
Note that eggflation has appeared previously on MetaFilter.
As opposed to paying more for our food so Galen Weston's offspring can purchase additional top hats and monocles.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:52 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:52 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
All of what SaltySalticid is true, and it is also true that average wages have risen considerably since 1901. More of us have more to spend, so we can have more things in our lives: better housing, cars, healthcare, entertainment, communication and more recreational hours a day. And then we also pay relatively less for our food because it is shittier food.
posted by mumimor at 5:53 AM on August 12 [9 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 5:53 AM on August 12 [9 favorites]
Reuters reports that 20% of Britons are now stockpiling food and household goods due to shortage concerns.
Reuters reported it 5 years ago, when it likely was the case. IIRC that was about the time that Government was actually advising some households to stockpile, against the chance that Brexit would lead to actual shortages, especially at the periphery of the food supply chain. And there were some, if you go through twitter from the period you'll find examples of empty shelves in supermarkets due to some of the logistics problems that Brexit drove.
posted by biffa at 5:56 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
Reuters reported it 5 years ago, when it likely was the case. IIRC that was about the time that Government was actually advising some households to stockpile, against the chance that Brexit would lead to actual shortages, especially at the periphery of the food supply chain. And there were some, if you go through twitter from the period you'll find examples of empty shelves in supermarkets due to some of the logistics problems that Brexit drove.
posted by biffa at 5:56 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
biffa, thank you for that. I swear on a box of stale Walker's Shortbread that link came up when I limited my search to the last year, and I found it surprising! I remembered the pre-Brexit concerns, but I had not seen similar recently at that level.
I will ask for a mod fix.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:03 AM on August 12
I will ask for a mod fix.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:03 AM on August 12
I feel like this data is useless unless we also have information on
-- how much food was grown by people, and
-- how much food was foraged.
There was a study in Maine or Vermont recently that asked this question, and found out that something like 17% of food was self-grown or foraged. I know my grandmother, who was born in the early 1900s, grew and canned and foraged and baked, and family members hunted, so her food expenses were mostly for things like flour and sugar and butter and pectin and salt. I'll need to dig deeper into this study, but if it's based on "this bag of groceries today would cost X dollars 100 years ago ", I am not sure we are looking at equivalent things.
It would also be useful to see this in comparison to housing costs.
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:09 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
-- how much food was grown by people, and
-- how much food was foraged.
There was a study in Maine or Vermont recently that asked this question, and found out that something like 17% of food was self-grown or foraged. I know my grandmother, who was born in the early 1900s, grew and canned and foraged and baked, and family members hunted, so her food expenses were mostly for things like flour and sugar and butter and pectin and salt. I'll need to dig deeper into this study, but if it's based on "this bag of groceries today would cost X dollars 100 years ago ", I am not sure we are looking at equivalent things.
It would also be useful to see this in comparison to housing costs.
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:09 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
Thinking of my own FPP from earlier in the weekend about exploited workers, it is a shitty system when we rely on underpaid workers to harvest our food. They should be paid a living wage but if that happened, then food would become even more unaffordable. Again, it is a shitty shitty system where the only winners are Galen Weston and his ilk.
posted by Kitteh at 6:10 AM on August 12 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 6:10 AM on August 12 [3 favorites]
Food is not unaffordable, at least compared to any time in the past 30 years. The median earner pays less as a proportion of income for food today than they did in 2012. (14% vs 14.5%). In 1984, the median earner spent 19% of their income on food.
Food feels unaffordable because housing costs, auto expenses, insurance, and utilities have increased so much more than the general rate of inflation that half of the country doesn't have shit left over after paying for those firm expenses.
posted by wierdo at 6:23 AM on August 12 [31 favorites]
Food feels unaffordable because housing costs, auto expenses, insurance, and utilities have increased so much more than the general rate of inflation that half of the country doesn't have shit left over after paying for those firm expenses.
posted by wierdo at 6:23 AM on August 12 [31 favorites]
Almost all of that price reduction is related to more efficiently exploiting workers, spreading more pesticides into our food and water, reducing the number of farms, and destroying soil health. Mechanization helps a bit too, but that also comes with a big ramp up in environmental destruction and externalizing costs.
You'll have to provide some pretty deep citations to make an argument that worker exploitation and externalized costs (a nebulous metric that's almost never backed up around here), are somehow worse now, in proportion to, say, 1901.
A quick search shows agriculture work composed about 40% of labor force in 1900 to somewhere around 2% today. Consumers in the US weren't eating tremendously more food, rather efficiencies have risen tremendously. It's not hard to determine that 40% of labor dedicated to feeding the population is likely to exert a significantly higher environmental toll from inefficiencies alone, for the proportion of population.
Significantly fewer ag workers also means less precarity among people who relied upon agriculture for their existence. And severe precarity among ag workers and farming was a very real thing a century ago. Practices and technology have increased productivity to levels unheard of in 1901. I'm sure people will argue this is a bad thing, for reasons.
Metrics of "exploitation" are more difficult to pin down, and loaded with problems just defining the term. Interestingly, the "meal pill" seems to be a pretty antiquated scifi trope, a leftover from a time when many people were quite intimate with hunger and famine, and would have known it first hand. Times when your existence may have significantly depended on what you can actually raise yourself. It was a fictional technological solution that sounds absurd and extremely austere today.
We live in remarkable times. Exploitation and environmental destruction are not gone. But let's keep some perspective here and avoid indulging in some weird self flagellation over a very real success of the modern world.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:01 AM on August 12 [26 favorites]
Was it the median income households in 1901 spending 42.5% of their budgets on food? Or was the aggregate statistic skewed by the budgets of households in higher/lower income brackets? How did the household budgets vary with income?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:04 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:04 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
biffa, thank you for that. I swear on a box of stale Walker's Shortbread that link came up when I limited my search to the last year
(A thing I saw on twitter lately is that the time delimiting of search no longer works!)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:34 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
(A thing I saw on twitter lately is that the time delimiting of search no longer works!)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:34 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
Only on the internet can you find the patent given immediately after the one for slicing bread, being the only invention that can be definitively declared the greatest invention since sliced bread.
US1867379A Temperature controlled electric switch.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:45 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
US1867379A Temperature controlled electric switch.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:45 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
Was it the median income households in 1901 spending 42.5% of their budgets on food?
factoid actualy just statistical error. Turnips Georg who lives in a tractor and spends 1.5 million percent of their budget on turnips daily was an outlier adn should not have been counted.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:48 AM on August 12 [13 favorites]
factoid actualy just statistical error. Turnips Georg who lives in a tractor and spends 1.5 million percent of their budget on turnips daily was an outlier adn should not have been counted.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:48 AM on August 12 [13 favorites]
And then we also pay relatively less for our food because it is shittier food.
Upton Sinclair would like a word. The reduction in the cost of food production is one of the great triumphs of the modern world. We've gone from a United States in which a substantial proportion of the population lived on the edge of starvation & malnourishment to one where we have a solid surplus. That latter creates it's own problems, but it's the height of privilege to have the ability to decide to pay more for food and still get enough calories.
posted by Galvanic at 8:18 AM on August 12 [14 favorites]
Upton Sinclair would like a word. The reduction in the cost of food production is one of the great triumphs of the modern world. We've gone from a United States in which a substantial proportion of the population lived on the edge of starvation & malnourishment to one where we have a solid surplus. That latter creates it's own problems, but it's the height of privilege to have the ability to decide to pay more for food and still get enough calories.
posted by Galvanic at 8:18 AM on August 12 [14 favorites]
It's worth highlighting something from the end of the first linked article. There really weren't transportation costs and medical costs in 1901. We also have things like cell phone bills and the phones themselves that aren't a thing in 1901. This is a measure you need to contextualize and take with a huge grain of salt.
posted by advicepig at 8:34 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
posted by advicepig at 8:34 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
This is just very complicated, it's like comparing apples and carburetors.
In an economy where 40% of the population work in agriculture, there is going to be a completely different economy than the one we know. Because I am European and Europe's modernization was way behind that of the US, the difference is within my living memory.
In general, you can't possibly know how much a rural person in 1901 spent on food vs. other necessities because a lot of their economy was based on trading stuff rather than money. You might know that mrs. Jones owned a house with a garden and payed taxes of an income of xxx, but you couldn't know how much she traded her apple sauce for corn, or her pork for cleaning or whatever. In my living memory, I've visited a Sardinian lady who had literally 0 income, and who lived entirely from her land. She served us the most memorable meal I have ever had, because everything was freshly sourced, and she was also a good cook. She would go to Milan regularly, her kids paid the tickets and in return they enjoyed the fruits of the land, literally. I don't know how that works out in statistics.
Another lovely memory is of visiting a friend and having fresh warm strawberries from her garden, with cream directly from the cows in the barn. This was an almost priceless luxury then, and I think it is even rarer now. Her family wasn't poor, but I don't think the tax system or the statistical bureau was able to measure the real riches they had.
With the urban population, you'd know a lot more about their economy, and I believe that they spent a lot of their basic income on food, and that food was truly relatively expensive compared to our times. For one, their housing was cheaper because it was really shitty. People lived in smaller homes without any of the amenities we are used to today. People who lived in NYC in the 80s and early 90s know what I mean.
Before the food industry grew to what it is today, a working or middle class person would have to pay what we pay today for premium fresh produce, because there was no alternative. Like going to the organic farmer's market every day. You had to cook from scratch and in some cases buy expensive products. This is where my personal experience comes in again: in my first apartment in 1986, there was no oven or hot water. But there was also no cheap bread available in my neighborhood. We did have supermarket "sandwich bread" but it was a novelty, and not yet cheap as dirt. So bread made every day by real bakers was a large post in our budget. Because our rent was really cheap (see the no oven no heat), I did actually eat out quite a lot, mostly for breakfast and lunch, mostly at bakers, and it took a big part of the budget. The alternative for me would have been eating oats with milk and a seasonal fruit. I worked at a grocery store, and a bell pepper almost cost the same as it does today, the equivalent of 1 dollar, because there was not yet a huge international distribution system. While my wage was about 100 dollars a month (I did get to take stuff home when they closed at 1PM on Saturdays because that was another European thing). The grocer next to our apartment started classes for single mothers teaching them to cook seasonal vegetarian food because it was literally impossible to buy meat or imported vegs on a single parent budget.
If you don't believe me or think this never happened in the US, you could try and read How to Cook a Wolf
I think in general when we read about global food economy, there is a tendency to ignore that a huge part of the global population are subsistence farmers and some of them are doing quite well, thank you. This is not an accident. Big Ag want us to believe they are vital for human existence, and that governments need to aid and protect them, regardless of their nefarious dealings.
And this brings me to this:
Upton Sinclair would like a word. The reduction in the cost of food production is one of the great triumphs of the modern world. We've gone from a United States in which a substantial proportion of the population lived on the edge of starvation & malnourishment to one where we have a solid surplus.
The World is not the US. One of the huge problems the US has dealt with in a breathtaking manner is that it has created farmland where there should be plains and deserts. At first it couldn't, that's why those immigrants were starving. But then ingenuity and hard work persevered and we have the American agricultural revolution. Which is a miracle and a disaster all at once. I'm not claiming we can turn back, we can't. But I am saying we need a new food revolution.
posted by mumimor at 8:40 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
In an economy where 40% of the population work in agriculture, there is going to be a completely different economy than the one we know. Because I am European and Europe's modernization was way behind that of the US, the difference is within my living memory.
In general, you can't possibly know how much a rural person in 1901 spent on food vs. other necessities because a lot of their economy was based on trading stuff rather than money. You might know that mrs. Jones owned a house with a garden and payed taxes of an income of xxx, but you couldn't know how much she traded her apple sauce for corn, or her pork for cleaning or whatever. In my living memory, I've visited a Sardinian lady who had literally 0 income, and who lived entirely from her land. She served us the most memorable meal I have ever had, because everything was freshly sourced, and she was also a good cook. She would go to Milan regularly, her kids paid the tickets and in return they enjoyed the fruits of the land, literally. I don't know how that works out in statistics.
Another lovely memory is of visiting a friend and having fresh warm strawberries from her garden, with cream directly from the cows in the barn. This was an almost priceless luxury then, and I think it is even rarer now. Her family wasn't poor, but I don't think the tax system or the statistical bureau was able to measure the real riches they had.
With the urban population, you'd know a lot more about their economy, and I believe that they spent a lot of their basic income on food, and that food was truly relatively expensive compared to our times. For one, their housing was cheaper because it was really shitty. People lived in smaller homes without any of the amenities we are used to today. People who lived in NYC in the 80s and early 90s know what I mean.
Before the food industry grew to what it is today, a working or middle class person would have to pay what we pay today for premium fresh produce, because there was no alternative. Like going to the organic farmer's market every day. You had to cook from scratch and in some cases buy expensive products. This is where my personal experience comes in again: in my first apartment in 1986, there was no oven or hot water. But there was also no cheap bread available in my neighborhood. We did have supermarket "sandwich bread" but it was a novelty, and not yet cheap as dirt. So bread made every day by real bakers was a large post in our budget. Because our rent was really cheap (see the no oven no heat), I did actually eat out quite a lot, mostly for breakfast and lunch, mostly at bakers, and it took a big part of the budget. The alternative for me would have been eating oats with milk and a seasonal fruit. I worked at a grocery store, and a bell pepper almost cost the same as it does today, the equivalent of 1 dollar, because there was not yet a huge international distribution system. While my wage was about 100 dollars a month (I did get to take stuff home when they closed at 1PM on Saturdays because that was another European thing). The grocer next to our apartment started classes for single mothers teaching them to cook seasonal vegetarian food because it was literally impossible to buy meat or imported vegs on a single parent budget.
If you don't believe me or think this never happened in the US, you could try and read How to Cook a Wolf
I think in general when we read about global food economy, there is a tendency to ignore that a huge part of the global population are subsistence farmers and some of them are doing quite well, thank you. This is not an accident. Big Ag want us to believe they are vital for human existence, and that governments need to aid and protect them, regardless of their nefarious dealings.
And this brings me to this:
Upton Sinclair would like a word. The reduction in the cost of food production is one of the great triumphs of the modern world. We've gone from a United States in which a substantial proportion of the population lived on the edge of starvation & malnourishment to one where we have a solid surplus.
The World is not the US. One of the huge problems the US has dealt with in a breathtaking manner is that it has created farmland where there should be plains and deserts. At first it couldn't, that's why those immigrants were starving. But then ingenuity and hard work persevered and we have the American agricultural revolution. Which is a miracle and a disaster all at once. I'm not claiming we can turn back, we can't. But I am saying we need a new food revolution.
posted by mumimor at 8:40 AM on August 12 [17 favorites]
Metafilter: a miracle and a disaster all at once.
posted by Kibbutz at 8:59 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
posted by Kibbutz at 8:59 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
OK fine, strike "worker exploitation" from my list, and I'll focus on the ecological and environmental issues.
My main point is, the "improvements" in agriculture over the past century (and especially the past 30 years) that have driven down prices are incredibly damaging: to our water supply, our air, our wildlife, and even to our future ability to produce food. While many of us are already aware of this, here's some references for further reading on the topic.
We have roundup in most of our water now for fuck's sake. We are destroying our soil carbon faster than ever, and much of our most fertile cropland now has around a third of the carbon it did in 1901. The fact that rampant pesticide use is killing off our birds at an accelerating rate is well-documented. Not to even mention the insect apocalypse and worldwide amphibian decline, both linked directly to relatively recent changes in agricultural practice and scope (which itself is a large driver of climate change).
If you want to learn more about how we define and quantify hidden and external costs of dousing most of our country with pesticides many times per year, here's a nice recent review of that topic that is freely accessible.
Call it flagellation if you like, I call it trying not to destroy our planet in pursuit of corporate profits and a cheap burger. There's no easy fix, but it's generally true that smaller organic farms are less harmful in terms of less pollution, energy use, and soil degradation.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:59 AM on August 12 [14 favorites]
My main point is, the "improvements" in agriculture over the past century (and especially the past 30 years) that have driven down prices are incredibly damaging: to our water supply, our air, our wildlife, and even to our future ability to produce food. While many of us are already aware of this, here's some references for further reading on the topic.
We have roundup in most of our water now for fuck's sake. We are destroying our soil carbon faster than ever, and much of our most fertile cropland now has around a third of the carbon it did in 1901. The fact that rampant pesticide use is killing off our birds at an accelerating rate is well-documented. Not to even mention the insect apocalypse and worldwide amphibian decline, both linked directly to relatively recent changes in agricultural practice and scope (which itself is a large driver of climate change).
If you want to learn more about how we define and quantify hidden and external costs of dousing most of our country with pesticides many times per year, here's a nice recent review of that topic that is freely accessible.
Call it flagellation if you like, I call it trying not to destroy our planet in pursuit of corporate profits and a cheap burger. There's no easy fix, but it's generally true that smaller organic farms are less harmful in terms of less pollution, energy use, and soil degradation.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:59 AM on August 12 [14 favorites]
Odd that Norman Borlaug's name doesn't come up.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:15 AM on August 12 [9 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:15 AM on August 12 [9 favorites]
> It's not hard to determine that 40% of labor dedicated to feeding the population is likely to exert a significantly higher environmental toll from inefficiencies alone, for the proportion of population.
I think the opposite is true, and much more obvious? SaltySalticid's comment above gives lots of sources showing how vastly and rapidly environmental pollution has spread in tandem with industrialized farming techniques, tools, and chemicals.
In general manual labor is invariably less environmentally destructive than mechanized and chemical methods to perform the same amount of "work", especially once externalities are considered. Might be easier to intuit when considered from the other end: hands on human effort is expensive, and purely as a result of that expense, relying on human effort rather than machines/chemicals forces people to stick to meeting just our needs rather than construct extravagantly wasteful consumer cultures full of disposable products that we "want".
posted by MiraK at 9:16 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
I think the opposite is true, and much more obvious? SaltySalticid's comment above gives lots of sources showing how vastly and rapidly environmental pollution has spread in tandem with industrialized farming techniques, tools, and chemicals.
In general manual labor is invariably less environmentally destructive than mechanized and chemical methods to perform the same amount of "work", especially once externalities are considered. Might be easier to intuit when considered from the other end: hands on human effort is expensive, and purely as a result of that expense, relying on human effort rather than machines/chemicals forces people to stick to meeting just our needs rather than construct extravagantly wasteful consumer cultures full of disposable products that we "want".
posted by MiraK at 9:16 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
something that folks have gotten at quite nicely in this thread is that there are underlying assumptions behind these attempts at cross-era comparison and that these assumptions are based on a narrow and unwarranted presentism.
i’d like to add to that a pointer to an unwarranted assumption behind those unwarranted assumptions that shows up in both cross-era comparisons and also in public discourse in the present day and further in policy decisions made in the present day to wit the assumption that bringing more human activities and more of human life into the money economy is a good thing rather than a goddamned motherfucking scourge.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:09 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]
i’d like to add to that a pointer to an unwarranted assumption behind those unwarranted assumptions that shows up in both cross-era comparisons and also in public discourse in the present day and further in policy decisions made in the present day to wit the assumption that bringing more human activities and more of human life into the money economy is a good thing rather than a goddamned motherfucking scourge.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:09 AM on August 12 [2 favorites]
I never trust articles like this because, like, I buy food? I buy food now???
According to the delish article, 2020s allegedly:
Milk: $3.96 per gallon
Eggs: $2.72 per dozen
I buy eggs and milk every time I go to the store. Eggs and milk do not cost me this much.
posted by phunniemee at 10:35 AM on August 12 [3 favorites]
According to the delish article, 2020s allegedly:
Milk: $3.96 per gallon
Eggs: $2.72 per dozen
I buy eggs and milk every time I go to the store. Eggs and milk do not cost me this much.
posted by phunniemee at 10:35 AM on August 12 [3 favorites]
And yet, modern agricultural techniques, and particularly the Green Revolution, have saved both people and ecological resources by making yields more efficient and avoiding the need to convert additional land into farmland. Here's a citation to start. It has not been perfect by any means. But the idea that humans have not, on the whole, and well beyond the united states, been well-served by agricultural advancements, is just not supported by reality. We are all better off in terms of health and food affordability thanks to these advancements.
Whether you think this is about human life in whatever "money economy" means, it's for sure about human life full-stop. People who were starving, are not starving. This, to me, is a pretty clear good thing. We can and should continue to improve the ecological impact, but short of shrinking the human population, we have done very well as a species on this front.
posted by ch1x0r at 10:49 AM on August 12 [13 favorites]
Whether you think this is about human life in whatever "money economy" means, it's for sure about human life full-stop. People who were starving, are not starving. This, to me, is a pretty clear good thing. We can and should continue to improve the ecological impact, but short of shrinking the human population, we have done very well as a species on this front.
posted by ch1x0r at 10:49 AM on August 12 [13 favorites]
phunniemee, the US government tracks the national averages of certain key foods. The current averages are $3.95 for a gallon of whole milk and $2.71 for a dozen grade A eggs. Those are current costs, and are lower than during spikes in recent years. It's great you can get those items cheaper, but availability may be related to either promotions at your preferred stores or regional variability. The data can be found here.
posted by eschatfische at 10:51 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
posted by eschatfische at 10:51 AM on August 12 [5 favorites]
Whether you think this is about human life in whatever "money economy" means, it's for sure about human life full-stop. People who were starving, are not starving.
There are countries today, in a world where we have cars and cellphones, where the median household spends 40% of their incomes on food. You don't have to look very far.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:07 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
There are countries today, in a world where we have cars and cellphones, where the median household spends 40% of their incomes on food. You don't have to look very far.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:07 AM on August 12 [1 favorite]
I recently moved to Canada, and am easily spending 15-20% more, maybe 25% more, on groceries than I did in Nashville. In both places I was/am in a four-person household where we do a lot of our own cooking. Everything here is just pricier, and at every social gathering at some point somebody will share a tip about where you can get cheaper milk or meat or whatever; at yesterday's BBQ we had a long conversation about the price of bread. It's just a concern in a way it didn't seem to be even 5 years ago, for my particular social set (middle-middle class folks, nurses and teachers and fellow secretaries). I've been assuming that it has to do with the pandemic, and how supply chains were disrupted, and so on, without looking into it. The boycott on the Superstore and Lobblaws generally (prev) points to price gauging as well.
posted by joannemerriam at 11:15 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 11:15 AM on August 12 [4 favorites]
The data can be found here.
The BLS doesn't seem to have any data at all for milk in the entire Chicago metro area, and doesn't seem to have any stats for a gallon of low-fat milk after 2003, so I am still feeling sus.
I understand aggregate data and average cost, but if all of low-fat milk and all of Chicagoland isn't data there's reporting on, what else is missing.
posted by phunniemee at 11:15 AM on August 12
The BLS doesn't seem to have any data at all for milk in the entire Chicago metro area, and doesn't seem to have any stats for a gallon of low-fat milk after 2003, so I am still feeling sus.
I understand aggregate data and average cost, but if all of low-fat milk and all of Chicagoland isn't data there's reporting on, what else is missing.
posted by phunniemee at 11:15 AM on August 12
The BLS doesn't seem to have any data at all for milk in the entire Chicago metro area,
Chicago-Naperville-Metro is listed, you just have to scroll down past all of the generic "Class A/B/C city" data.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:46 AM on August 12
Chicago-Naperville-Metro is listed, you just have to scroll down past all of the generic "Class A/B/C city" data.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:46 AM on August 12
TBH, I don't really know what the future will bring. I would like to mention that I am right now sitting on a farm that was created in a desert in 1854 and was seen as a model farm through many, many years. It used all the modern technology known to man, and over the ages and generations it adapted to new ideas and new resources. With Marshall Plan money it moved into the modern American era of agriculture. Books and articles have been written about this farm. And now, I don't really know what we are going to do. I have ideas, don't get me wrong. But it is very, very clear that the Green Revolution doesn't work here anymore.
I was just over at my aunt's house. She has a beautiful view over our neighbor's field of barley and we talked about why he even tries anymore. No amount of fertilizer and pesticides can give him a fair yield, the field is filled with grass. And I didn't even bring up the thousands of birds that arrive every winter and eat his seed and seedlings so he has to start over. Every year. He is like Sisyphus. And also extremely angry. The birds are wintering here because of global heating. They don't have to travel further south anymore. They have always stopped here during migration season, but now they stay and make a glorious racket. Obviously, they also poop a lot, which is a good thing, but somehow doesn't do anything for his barley.
What I'm trying to say is that the type of industrial agriculture that was invented in the US and spread from there first to Europe and then to other parts of the world has a limited lifespan. In Europe we probably have less tolerance for polluted ground water and pesticides in our food, but eventually, even in the US and in other continents, you will realize that growing grains as if they were cress in a plastic tub is not sustainable*. The vast swaths of forest that are being cut down in Brazil will only last for a few decades as agricultural land, regardless if they are used for growing corn or raising cattle.
My neighbor is lucky this year. Grass in the barley isn't terrible, he can sell the stalks for fuel production. I'm guessing it's because we have had an unusually wet season, and that in itself might cause another problem come harvest time. Which should be now but clearly isn't, the barley is still quite green. Other years, it hasn't been half grass but half sand. Right. The desert is finding its way back, as deserts do if you don't plant forests.
* a super simplified explanation for non-farmers: the basic premise of modern industrial grain production is that it doesn't matter too much what soil you have, you adjust your given conditions with fertilizer and pesticides, and with GMOs that is elevated to almost an art form. You might as well be growing cress in cotton wool in your window sill.
posted by mumimor at 11:56 AM on August 12 [8 favorites]
I was just over at my aunt's house. She has a beautiful view over our neighbor's field of barley and we talked about why he even tries anymore. No amount of fertilizer and pesticides can give him a fair yield, the field is filled with grass. And I didn't even bring up the thousands of birds that arrive every winter and eat his seed and seedlings so he has to start over. Every year. He is like Sisyphus. And also extremely angry. The birds are wintering here because of global heating. They don't have to travel further south anymore. They have always stopped here during migration season, but now they stay and make a glorious racket. Obviously, they also poop a lot, which is a good thing, but somehow doesn't do anything for his barley.
What I'm trying to say is that the type of industrial agriculture that was invented in the US and spread from there first to Europe and then to other parts of the world has a limited lifespan. In Europe we probably have less tolerance for polluted ground water and pesticides in our food, but eventually, even in the US and in other continents, you will realize that growing grains as if they were cress in a plastic tub is not sustainable*. The vast swaths of forest that are being cut down in Brazil will only last for a few decades as agricultural land, regardless if they are used for growing corn or raising cattle.
My neighbor is lucky this year. Grass in the barley isn't terrible, he can sell the stalks for fuel production. I'm guessing it's because we have had an unusually wet season, and that in itself might cause another problem come harvest time. Which should be now but clearly isn't, the barley is still quite green. Other years, it hasn't been half grass but half sand. Right. The desert is finding its way back, as deserts do if you don't plant forests.
* a super simplified explanation for non-farmers: the basic premise of modern industrial grain production is that it doesn't matter too much what soil you have, you adjust your given conditions with fertilizer and pesticides, and with GMOs that is elevated to almost an art form. You might as well be growing cress in cotton wool in your window sill.
posted by mumimor at 11:56 AM on August 12 [8 favorites]
Chicago-Naperville-Metro is listed, you just have to scroll down past all of the generic "Class A/B/C city" data.
not 👏 for 👏 milk 👏
I am not trying to make this a Midwestern Milk Truther derail here but I feel insane.
posted by phunniemee at 12:05 PM on August 12 [4 favorites]
not 👏 for 👏 milk 👏
I am not trying to make this a Midwestern Milk Truther derail here but I feel insane.
posted by phunniemee at 12:05 PM on August 12 [4 favorites]
There are countries today, in a world where we have cars and cellphones, where the median household spends 40% of their incomes on food. You don't have to look very far.
Yes there are. Which is why it is important that we keep investing in advancing agricultural technology over time, so that we can continue to tackle the scourge that is hunger and starvation.
posted by ch1x0r at 12:10 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]
Yes there are. Which is why it is important that we keep investing in advancing agricultural technology over time, so that we can continue to tackle the scourge that is hunger and starvation.
posted by ch1x0r at 12:10 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]
> I am not trying to make this a Midwestern Milk Truther derail
skim milk isn't real
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:38 PM on August 12 [6 favorites]
skim milk isn't real
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:38 PM on August 12 [6 favorites]
I remember reading George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (poverty tourism novel if there ever was one) and thinking how weird to be crammed in this apartment, barely making ends meet and how much better things are now; and remember reading about Italy and multi generational households and thinking wow that’s different from how we do it in North America, don’t they want to get places on their own? Now I see in Canada how freaking expensive everything is and it just looks like the past is our future. The post war boom was the anomaly not the rule. Home owners renting out portions of their houses to make ends meet, families bunkering together across generations to save, or living in small small apartments; the grind of every day… society is going to sort itself back to upper class, landed peoples and the rest of us fools in my kids lifetime. Or maybe I’m crazy pessimistic…?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:45 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:45 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
I am not trying to make this a Midwestern Milk Truther derail here but I feel insane.
I've lived in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin, and milk costs were always lower than average there, likely given the proximity to milk production from nearby dairy farms.
I've also lived on both coasts, and I looked up current milk costs at the major grocery stores nearest to where I used to live, both of which are over (or well over) $4 for a gallon of the "bottom shelf" no-name fat-free milk. Similarly, a dozen eggs are currently more expensive than the averages I posted.
Chicago does not have a low cost of living overall, but you're very likely living in a location where milk and eggs simply cost less than the national average, which is necessarily true for almost half of the country. The fact that the US Bureau of Labor doesn't have a breakout available in the data set for your MSA doesn't mean that they're calculating the averages incorrectly.
posted by eschatfische at 12:53 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
I've lived in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin, and milk costs were always lower than average there, likely given the proximity to milk production from nearby dairy farms.
I've also lived on both coasts, and I looked up current milk costs at the major grocery stores nearest to where I used to live, both of which are over (or well over) $4 for a gallon of the "bottom shelf" no-name fat-free milk. Similarly, a dozen eggs are currently more expensive than the averages I posted.
Chicago does not have a low cost of living overall, but you're very likely living in a location where milk and eggs simply cost less than the national average, which is necessarily true for almost half of the country. The fact that the US Bureau of Labor doesn't have a breakout available in the data set for your MSA doesn't mean that they're calculating the averages incorrectly.
posted by eschatfische at 12:53 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
Lordy, my bad! I was indeed looking at the wrong selection because I didn't add the Chicago listing correctly.
FWIW I paid 3.99 for eggs in Chicago yesterday (yeah yeah, I get the cage free guys, I know it probably doesn't matter but LET ME LIVE) so, that average does not sound wild to me.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:03 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
FWIW I paid 3.99 for eggs in Chicago yesterday (yeah yeah, I get the cage free guys, I know it probably doesn't matter but LET ME LIVE) so, that average does not sound wild to me.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:03 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
another thing for taking to account is the massive government subsidies spent on industrialized culture, which also drives the price down. In a history of the world in seven cheap things, Raj Patel and Jason Moore point out that it’s been profitable to capitalists to keep food cheap so we can survive on lower wages, and so discretionary income can be spent to other rent-seeking enterprises, like, well, rent.
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:37 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:37 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
I think the opposite is true, and much more obvious? SaltySalticid's comment above gives lots of sources showing how vastly and rapidly environmental pollution has spread in tandem with industrialized farming techniques, tools, and chemicals.
One of the criticisms of alternative farming methods, such as "organic", is that the yields are correspondingly lower, necessitating increased inputs. Land, water, fertilizers, labor. Leading to correspondingly increasing costs. This is not an insignificant problem. It's interesting in that "environmentally friendly" farming is a luxury in rich countries like the US, that consumers enjoy at their leisure, and a curse for poorly developed economies without alternatives, using such methods because they don't have access to modern technology.
The World is not the US. One of the huge problems the US has dealt with in a breathtaking manner is that it has created farmland where there should be plains and deserts. At first it couldn't, that's why those immigrants were starving. But then ingenuity and hard work persevered and we have the American agricultural revolution. Which is a miracle and a disaster all at once. I'm not claiming we can turn back, we can't. But I am saying we need a new food revolution.
It's kind of disingenuous to make a claim about farmland "where deserts should be". There's no such thing as a natural farm.
Regarding a new food revolution, any reason to think it isn't happening? Ag practices are not the same as they were 100 years ago, and are not likely to be the same 100 years from now. The big problem many people pose regarding issues such as sustainability is that things are bad and it's going to break down (end of the world as we know it, etc). Which is an argument that was made 100 years ago, and could have been made 100 years prior, etc. Without regard to the fact that humanity has changed, and continues to do so.
another thing for taking to account is the massive government subsidies spent on industrialized culture, which also drives the price down.
You say that as if it's a bad thing. Of course, it often is, but the devil is in the details. I have no doubt many on MF would love increased subsidies for the right things. The idea, however, that food is kept cheap "so we can survive on lower wages, and so discretionary income can be spent to other rent-seeking enterprises, like, well, rent" sounds pretty conspiracy-ish and bullshitty. The biggest and most notorious ag subsidies are directed more toward the politically well connected, and seem to have the happy coincidence of keeping prices down on key areas.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:49 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]
One of the criticisms of alternative farming methods, such as "organic", is that the yields are correspondingly lower, necessitating increased inputs. Land, water, fertilizers, labor. Leading to correspondingly increasing costs. This is not an insignificant problem. It's interesting in that "environmentally friendly" farming is a luxury in rich countries like the US, that consumers enjoy at their leisure, and a curse for poorly developed economies without alternatives, using such methods because they don't have access to modern technology.
The World is not the US. One of the huge problems the US has dealt with in a breathtaking manner is that it has created farmland where there should be plains and deserts. At first it couldn't, that's why those immigrants were starving. But then ingenuity and hard work persevered and we have the American agricultural revolution. Which is a miracle and a disaster all at once. I'm not claiming we can turn back, we can't. But I am saying we need a new food revolution.
It's kind of disingenuous to make a claim about farmland "where deserts should be". There's no such thing as a natural farm.
Regarding a new food revolution, any reason to think it isn't happening? Ag practices are not the same as they were 100 years ago, and are not likely to be the same 100 years from now. The big problem many people pose regarding issues such as sustainability is that things are bad and it's going to break down (end of the world as we know it, etc). Which is an argument that was made 100 years ago, and could have been made 100 years prior, etc. Without regard to the fact that humanity has changed, and continues to do so.
another thing for taking to account is the massive government subsidies spent on industrialized culture, which also drives the price down.
You say that as if it's a bad thing. Of course, it often is, but the devil is in the details. I have no doubt many on MF would love increased subsidies for the right things. The idea, however, that food is kept cheap "so we can survive on lower wages, and so discretionary income can be spent to other rent-seeking enterprises, like, well, rent" sounds pretty conspiracy-ish and bullshitty. The biggest and most notorious ag subsidies are directed more toward the politically well connected, and seem to have the happy coincidence of keeping prices down on key areas.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:49 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]
It's kind of disingenuous to make a claim about farmland "where deserts should be". There's no such thing as a natural farm.
Maybe I'm being too longwinded about this. My farm is on one of the first areas in this country that was "reclaimed" from desertification during the 19th century. We are a community of 12-13 farms who have built our prosperity on modern farming techniques, just like people are doing today in Africa and India. And it is a huge part of our identity. I know just about everything both historically, culturally and technically there is to know about what farming in a desert is. Some time ago, someone bought up a lot of our land and created a park, and renamed the areas; what was formerly known as desert now became heath. Which is all fine, but the reason it changed from sand to a diverse biotope was our ancestors walking out in their bare feet and planting tiny trees and grasses. And I don't mean distant ancestors, I mean my granddad, and my neighbor who is very old but still alive down the road. I was there on the tractor, watching the adults planting the tiny trees.
There is no way I want to go back to the desert, though to be honest I loved it. I knew every dune and every tiny watering hole where you could meet wild animals in peace. I loved the smell of the sand. And the squeak. I loved rolling down the dunes. And spending a day with my best friend in a quiet dune, eating little black berries.
I know 1000% that there is absolutely nothing natural about farming or about landscape management. That ship has sailed a long time ago.
But exactly because I know all this and because I've witnessed it for decades, I have also seen the problems. 20 years ago, there was no wildlife. The hares had disappeared, and the foxes, and the butterflies and hundreds of plants I don't even remember all the names of. Our streams were devoid of life, where they once were filled with eels, trout and salmon. And other stuff I don't eat. I was used to seeing cranes and eagles, but they disappeared.
The EU started to regulate the natural habitats and support regrowth of some of the natural species, and gradually, a lot of the things I grew up with have reappeared. But it also means that all of us need to rethink what we are doing. We have only one neighbor left who is still trying to grow grains here and he is failing, but all of us need to figure out how else we can make a living. There is no simple solution. We all have other jobs to pay the bills.
And to get back to feeding a global population of 11 billion. Everyone needs to do their part, but I think a modern take would be to make a more scientific evaluation of how everyone can contribute. I don't think burning the Amazon to raise cattle or grow corn is a smart solution. Maybe the Amazon can give something else. I know I can't grow wheat or barley, but I think I might be able to grow fruits. And maybe even have pigs and birds in the orchard. One of my neighbors is doing a pretty good job of raising cattle in a sustainable manner. We all do our best.
posted by mumimor at 2:36 PM on August 12 [7 favorites]
Maybe I'm being too longwinded about this. My farm is on one of the first areas in this country that was "reclaimed" from desertification during the 19th century. We are a community of 12-13 farms who have built our prosperity on modern farming techniques, just like people are doing today in Africa and India. And it is a huge part of our identity. I know just about everything both historically, culturally and technically there is to know about what farming in a desert is. Some time ago, someone bought up a lot of our land and created a park, and renamed the areas; what was formerly known as desert now became heath. Which is all fine, but the reason it changed from sand to a diverse biotope was our ancestors walking out in their bare feet and planting tiny trees and grasses. And I don't mean distant ancestors, I mean my granddad, and my neighbor who is very old but still alive down the road. I was there on the tractor, watching the adults planting the tiny trees.
There is no way I want to go back to the desert, though to be honest I loved it. I knew every dune and every tiny watering hole where you could meet wild animals in peace. I loved the smell of the sand. And the squeak. I loved rolling down the dunes. And spending a day with my best friend in a quiet dune, eating little black berries.
I know 1000% that there is absolutely nothing natural about farming or about landscape management. That ship has sailed a long time ago.
But exactly because I know all this and because I've witnessed it for decades, I have also seen the problems. 20 years ago, there was no wildlife. The hares had disappeared, and the foxes, and the butterflies and hundreds of plants I don't even remember all the names of. Our streams were devoid of life, where they once were filled with eels, trout and salmon. And other stuff I don't eat. I was used to seeing cranes and eagles, but they disappeared.
The EU started to regulate the natural habitats and support regrowth of some of the natural species, and gradually, a lot of the things I grew up with have reappeared. But it also means that all of us need to rethink what we are doing. We have only one neighbor left who is still trying to grow grains here and he is failing, but all of us need to figure out how else we can make a living. There is no simple solution. We all have other jobs to pay the bills.
And to get back to feeding a global population of 11 billion. Everyone needs to do their part, but I think a modern take would be to make a more scientific evaluation of how everyone can contribute. I don't think burning the Amazon to raise cattle or grow corn is a smart solution. Maybe the Amazon can give something else. I know I can't grow wheat or barley, but I think I might be able to grow fruits. And maybe even have pigs and birds in the orchard. One of my neighbors is doing a pretty good job of raising cattle in a sustainable manner. We all do our best.
posted by mumimor at 2:36 PM on August 12 [7 favorites]
not 👏 for 👏 milk 👏
Skimming through the different categories, I don't think any individual city or sub-region shows data for anything other than utility/fuel costs (oil/gas/electric/gasoline).
Milk (and any other food) only shows up under the widest regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, West).
(But, yeah, it looks like they stopped tracking anything but gallons of whole milk a long while ago now, which, in case anyone's curious, looks like it was most recently a few months ago -- on average -- 4.389 in the Northeast and 2.574 in the Midwest, with the South and West in between those two but much closer to the Northeast's.)
(Okay, and for completion's sake: eggs were most recently this June 3.164 in the Northeast and 2.618 in the Midwest, with the South having even cheaper eggs, and the West's being just barely below the Northeast's high.)
(And note all of these appear to be labeled "urban" once you're looking at the spreadsheets themselves, because that's probably all they track.)
posted by nobody at 2:37 PM on August 12
Skimming through the different categories, I don't think any individual city or sub-region shows data for anything other than utility/fuel costs (oil/gas/electric/gasoline).
Milk (and any other food) only shows up under the widest regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, West).
(But, yeah, it looks like they stopped tracking anything but gallons of whole milk a long while ago now, which, in case anyone's curious, looks like it was most recently a few months ago -- on average -- 4.389 in the Northeast and 2.574 in the Midwest, with the South and West in between those two but much closer to the Northeast's.)
(Okay, and for completion's sake: eggs were most recently this June 3.164 in the Northeast and 2.618 in the Midwest, with the South having even cheaper eggs, and the West's being just barely below the Northeast's high.)
(And note all of these appear to be labeled "urban" once you're looking at the spreadsheets themselves, because that's probably all they track.)
posted by nobody at 2:37 PM on August 12
Oh, I suddenly remembered: Peter Brook's version of King Lear was filmed here, the horses were stabled at our farm and the crew ate at the very table I'm sitting at. So if you are curious about the landscape I'm in, see the film.
I was living in England at the time, but my cousin was there and is in the film, as a 5 year old.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
I was living in England at the time, but my cousin was there and is in the film, as a 5 year old.
posted by mumimor at 3:13 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
George Ade (humorist, 1900s, _Fables in Slang_) had a story about a farm family that moved to the city and went broke trying to eat as well as they did on the farm, for what that's worth.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned climate change. Even if a place is quite livable, different temperatures and amounts of water will affect what grows well there. We might not just need more heat-tolerant plants, but also plants that can handle a larger or more erratic range of conditions.
I don't know that it's a large proportion, but we need better/faster food testing. I'm amazed at how much gets thrown away because of a risk of infection. It's important to know what food is dangerous, but also what isn't.
I think it was Charles Stross who said shopping in Scotland was getting to Soviet conditions-- you travel around. Maybe the thing you're looking for is there, maybe it isn't, and when you find it, the quality is very low. Anyone care to confirm or deny whether things are getting bad?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:22 PM on August 12
I'm surprised no one has mentioned climate change. Even if a place is quite livable, different temperatures and amounts of water will affect what grows well there. We might not just need more heat-tolerant plants, but also plants that can handle a larger or more erratic range of conditions.
I don't know that it's a large proportion, but we need better/faster food testing. I'm amazed at how much gets thrown away because of a risk of infection. It's important to know what food is dangerous, but also what isn't.
I think it was Charles Stross who said shopping in Scotland was getting to Soviet conditions-- you travel around. Maybe the thing you're looking for is there, maybe it isn't, and when you find it, the quality is very low. Anyone care to confirm or deny whether things are getting bad?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:22 PM on August 12
I have really appreciated the thoughtful comments and engagement. Thank you for the stories of your own personal situations and knowledge of food history, farming, and economics.
I personally buy the organic/fancy/sustainable stuff when feasible, and it's higher than the BOL averages, by a long shot. I can get cheaper than those averages, but it takes buying the cheapest options and stores that are out of my way and cost time and gas to shop, so--not worth it.
Or maybe I’m crazy pessimistic…?
The hopepunk says yes, and that we will rebuild a better world from the ashes of the impending cataclysm. The cyberpunk says, no, not pessimistic enough: the more likely answer is neo-feudalism with corporations and individual billionaires as lords, everyone else (everyone lucky, anyway) as vassals. Or perhaps (c) none of the above, and ingenuity will take us to a better place.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:57 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
I personally buy the organic/fancy/sustainable stuff when feasible, and it's higher than the BOL averages, by a long shot. I can get cheaper than those averages, but it takes buying the cheapest options and stores that are out of my way and cost time and gas to shop, so--not worth it.
Or maybe I’m crazy pessimistic…?
The hopepunk says yes, and that we will rebuild a better world from the ashes of the impending cataclysm. The cyberpunk says, no, not pessimistic enough: the more likely answer is neo-feudalism with corporations and individual billionaires as lords, everyone else (everyone lucky, anyway) as vassals. Or perhaps (c) none of the above, and ingenuity will take us to a better place.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:57 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
This is just very complicated, it's like comparing apples and carburetors.
In an economy where 40% of the population work in agriculture, there is going to be a completely different economy than the one we know.
I feel like this data is useless unless we also have information on
-- how much food was grown by people, and
-- how much food was foraged.
Was it the median income households in 1901 spending 42.5% of their budgets on food? Or was the aggregate statistic skewed by the budgets of households in higher/lower income brackets? How did the household budgets vary with income?
I agree this data is useless. We haven't a clue on what it's based on. Compare the average cost of a 'typical' bag of groceries 1901-2024. What typical bag of groceries? How many times does the average 2024 Joe/Jane purchase a bag of flour per year vs baked goods?
There was no 'typical' bag of groceries in 1901 and not now, either. Then, if you were rural, you butchered your meat--maybe not beef or pork, which could be bartered from a neighbor. Might be game, chicken, or rabbit. Meat was eaten sparingly unless you were a rancher. You kept chickens for meat and eggs. You planted a garden and canned. You foraged game, berries and tree fruits or traded for them. Somebody always had a milk cow. Cheapest flour was still obtained from a mill, most places had to buy store bought by then. Baked goods, especially bread, were usually homemade, occasionally traded. And if you didn't have it seasonally, especially in winter, you didn't eat it. Country living could be very, very good with only an occasional few purchases of beans, flour, yeast, and salt. City living could be completely different, or still very much similar to that.
In Johnstown, Pa, 1968, my grandmother went to the store maybe 2-3 times a month and didn't get much. Her yard was maybe 20'x 30' and backed up against the railroad tracks. She had chickens and a summer garden, with a few items put up for the winter (sauerkraut--ugh.) The scrawny chickens mostly foraged and sometimes got lucky with feed fallen off the grain cars. She didn't like rabbit, so wouldn't raise them, as many of her neighbors with kids did. We had a chicken Sunday dinner maybe twice a month, with broth soup on Monday, and maybe a casserole if there was any scrap meat left. Homegrown turkey was for the holidays. Beef bones from the butcher for oxtail and other soups cost pennies. In the fall she went in for part of a hog from out-of-town friends, and would make headcheese, pickled pig's feet, scrapple, and render her own lard. She made bread several times a week (often sourdough.) When I was there for the summer, she bought milk (with cream) from a neighbor for a quarter a gallon.
This was in the 60s! In the city! They weren't really poor-- there was a house and a car-- just frugal because she remembered the Depression, and she was a hard worker. She was 63 and still used the wringer washer she got as a young married woman at age 19.
At home, mom did things different. She fed us from the store. We had shrink-wrapped cuts of meat, canned vegetables, cake mixes, chips, and Wonder Bread. No gutting home-grown chickens and no baking bread.
If you realistically look at a 2024 food budget, you're going to need to figure in the cost of eating out. People eat out because they don't have time to prepare food, they don't know how, they don't have the facilities. What good does a bag of flour do you?
Somewhere in the grocery bag there has to be a calculation for preparation. Factor in the cost for bag of flour if you consider the time to prepare something edible from it. I can't imagine how you would even figure the unacknowledged 'worth' of 'women's work' in the past because we can hardly give it credit in the present.
For the non-working wife with no help in a family of two kids taking care of a dotty father-in-law, the tradhubby better have her insured for hundreds of thousands. Enough to pay for daycare (~ avg. $18,886 per year per child) assisted living (~ avg. $54,000 annually) weekly low-end cleaning service (~ avg $8000 per year) and don't forget the cooking and chauffeuring after school. No mere housewife is worth what a low-end CEO should make!
Yah, that whole para was a vast derail, but the cost of food has to factor preparation at the consumer end. Because of retirement time for food prep, we eat pretty good. We trade out the cost of prepared items and junk food for fresh vegetables, but that's pretty spendy, too.
If this society pushes forced prison labor, exploited immigrant labor, underpaid work for taxed tips, exploited women's work at home--oh hurray, the tradwife--we might as well acknowledge this is a society propped up by suppression. That suppression factors into what you eat and what you pay for food.
I giggled at the idea of comparing apples and carburetors. Let's compare a 1901 Victor Talking Machine with a 2024 Velocity Micro Raptor Signature Edition. Probably makes as much sense
The data is useless. We might as well be talking about different worlds as well as different ages. Although this our own Gilded Age.
Is... the aggregate statistic skewed by the budgets of households in higher/lower income brackets? How did the household budgets vary with income? This. With real charts.
If you're making $150K you might grumble about these figures and move on. If you're making >$32K, you're probably thinking it's just more lies, damned lies, and statistics.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:31 PM on August 12 [4 favorites]
In an economy where 40% of the population work in agriculture, there is going to be a completely different economy than the one we know.
I feel like this data is useless unless we also have information on
-- how much food was grown by people, and
-- how much food was foraged.
Was it the median income households in 1901 spending 42.5% of their budgets on food? Or was the aggregate statistic skewed by the budgets of households in higher/lower income brackets? How did the household budgets vary with income?
I agree this data is useless. We haven't a clue on what it's based on. Compare the average cost of a 'typical' bag of groceries 1901-2024. What typical bag of groceries? How many times does the average 2024 Joe/Jane purchase a bag of flour per year vs baked goods?
There was no 'typical' bag of groceries in 1901 and not now, either. Then, if you were rural, you butchered your meat--maybe not beef or pork, which could be bartered from a neighbor. Might be game, chicken, or rabbit. Meat was eaten sparingly unless you were a rancher. You kept chickens for meat and eggs. You planted a garden and canned. You foraged game, berries and tree fruits or traded for them. Somebody always had a milk cow. Cheapest flour was still obtained from a mill, most places had to buy store bought by then. Baked goods, especially bread, were usually homemade, occasionally traded. And if you didn't have it seasonally, especially in winter, you didn't eat it. Country living could be very, very good with only an occasional few purchases of beans, flour, yeast, and salt. City living could be completely different, or still very much similar to that.
In Johnstown, Pa, 1968, my grandmother went to the store maybe 2-3 times a month and didn't get much. Her yard was maybe 20'x 30' and backed up against the railroad tracks. She had chickens and a summer garden, with a few items put up for the winter (sauerkraut--ugh.) The scrawny chickens mostly foraged and sometimes got lucky with feed fallen off the grain cars. She didn't like rabbit, so wouldn't raise them, as many of her neighbors with kids did. We had a chicken Sunday dinner maybe twice a month, with broth soup on Monday, and maybe a casserole if there was any scrap meat left. Homegrown turkey was for the holidays. Beef bones from the butcher for oxtail and other soups cost pennies. In the fall she went in for part of a hog from out-of-town friends, and would make headcheese, pickled pig's feet, scrapple, and render her own lard. She made bread several times a week (often sourdough.) When I was there for the summer, she bought milk (with cream) from a neighbor for a quarter a gallon.
This was in the 60s! In the city! They weren't really poor-- there was a house and a car-- just frugal because she remembered the Depression, and she was a hard worker. She was 63 and still used the wringer washer she got as a young married woman at age 19.
At home, mom did things different. She fed us from the store. We had shrink-wrapped cuts of meat, canned vegetables, cake mixes, chips, and Wonder Bread. No gutting home-grown chickens and no baking bread.
If you realistically look at a 2024 food budget, you're going to need to figure in the cost of eating out. People eat out because they don't have time to prepare food, they don't know how, they don't have the facilities. What good does a bag of flour do you?
Somewhere in the grocery bag there has to be a calculation for preparation. Factor in the cost for bag of flour if you consider the time to prepare something edible from it. I can't imagine how you would even figure the unacknowledged 'worth' of 'women's work' in the past because we can hardly give it credit in the present.
For the non-working wife with no help in a family of two kids taking care of a dotty father-in-law, the tradhubby better have her insured for hundreds of thousands. Enough to pay for daycare (~ avg. $18,886 per year per child) assisted living (~ avg. $54,000 annually) weekly low-end cleaning service (~ avg $8000 per year) and don't forget the cooking and chauffeuring after school. No mere housewife is worth what a low-end CEO should make!
Yah, that whole para was a vast derail, but the cost of food has to factor preparation at the consumer end. Because of retirement time for food prep, we eat pretty good. We trade out the cost of prepared items and junk food for fresh vegetables, but that's pretty spendy, too.
If this society pushes forced prison labor, exploited immigrant labor, underpaid work for taxed tips, exploited women's work at home--oh hurray, the tradwife--we might as well acknowledge this is a society propped up by suppression. That suppression factors into what you eat and what you pay for food.
I giggled at the idea of comparing apples and carburetors. Let's compare a 1901 Victor Talking Machine with a 2024 Velocity Micro Raptor Signature Edition. Probably makes as much sense
The data is useless. We might as well be talking about different worlds as well as different ages. Although this our own Gilded Age.
Is... the aggregate statistic skewed by the budgets of households in higher/lower income brackets? How did the household budgets vary with income? This. With real charts.
If you're making $150K you might grumble about these figures and move on. If you're making >$32K, you're probably thinking it's just more lies, damned lies, and statistics.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:31 PM on August 12 [4 favorites]
I cannot in good conscience recommend Jeremy Clarkson to anyone but because the topic fascinated me I did watch the first three seasons of Clarkson's Farm and hoo boy, if you want a lesson on the vagaries of crop yields and farm economics over Brexit (bearing in mind that it's 'reality' tv), it's worth a watch. And that's industrialized but small scale farming. (Mostly, he tries some more natural methods here and there.)
I thought the article was a bit silly but I guess it wants to provide perspective. The thing is, changes have been stacked and stacked. Housing and land prices. Taxes. Social expectations - my grandmother lived on a farm with her aunt's family after her mother died and she had two dresses, one for every day and one for church, and one pair of shoes she had to wear with holes. She was also pulled out of school after grade 7 to work on the farm and in the house...the bucolic family farm's economics depended on the free labour of multiple kids. Of course you have to feed them.
I think what I'm saying is that it is really hard to compare.
I've been part of a produce CSA each June - Oct with a small family-owned organic farm since 2005 and it's always instructive to learn which things are failing and why the strawberries are mouldy and what happened when there were no migrant workers in 2020. I do like the model, but I would be pretty freaked out if my family's grains and legumes were dependent on that. I'm also always worried for the farm family, because margins are slim (they have to work outside jobs too like a lot of farmers.) Through that experience...I don't think traditional/organic farming will save the world from hunger, although I do think it will (paradoxically) save the soil.
I think continued research and learning is needed. In the meantime, we can feed everyone, but maybe we can't feed everyone cow stuff all the time.
On the food price topic - it's bad here in the GTA, even though we have a lot of buffers on prices compared to somewhere like Ottawa. The food bank I sometimes volunteer with is overrun in ways it never has been before. It's fine to understand that we pay less for food than in the past, but when everything goes up in a housing crisis, people are vulnerable to food insecurity really quickly. If we're going to change things there needs to be time and support. But war and climate change are going to accelerate supply issues regardless.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:59 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
I thought the article was a bit silly but I guess it wants to provide perspective. The thing is, changes have been stacked and stacked. Housing and land prices. Taxes. Social expectations - my grandmother lived on a farm with her aunt's family after her mother died and she had two dresses, one for every day and one for church, and one pair of shoes she had to wear with holes. She was also pulled out of school after grade 7 to work on the farm and in the house...the bucolic family farm's economics depended on the free labour of multiple kids. Of course you have to feed them.
I think what I'm saying is that it is really hard to compare.
I've been part of a produce CSA each June - Oct with a small family-owned organic farm since 2005 and it's always instructive to learn which things are failing and why the strawberries are mouldy and what happened when there were no migrant workers in 2020. I do like the model, but I would be pretty freaked out if my family's grains and legumes were dependent on that. I'm also always worried for the farm family, because margins are slim (they have to work outside jobs too like a lot of farmers.) Through that experience...I don't think traditional/organic farming will save the world from hunger, although I do think it will (paradoxically) save the soil.
I think continued research and learning is needed. In the meantime, we can feed everyone, but maybe we can't feed everyone cow stuff all the time.
On the food price topic - it's bad here in the GTA, even though we have a lot of buffers on prices compared to somewhere like Ottawa. The food bank I sometimes volunteer with is overrun in ways it never has been before. It's fine to understand that we pay less for food than in the past, but when everything goes up in a housing crisis, people are vulnerable to food insecurity really quickly. If we're going to change things there needs to be time and support. But war and climate change are going to accelerate supply issues regardless.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:59 PM on August 12 [3 favorites]
see also the price of illumination...
-Why the falling cost of light matters[1,2,3]
-Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED
> the assumption that bringing more human activities and more of human life into the money economy is a good thing rather than a goddamned motherfucking scourge
one effective way to combat this: make them too cheap to meter[4,5,6] :P
posted by kliuless at 9:45 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
-Why the falling cost of light matters[1,2,3]
-Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED
> the assumption that bringing more human activities and more of human life into the money economy is a good thing rather than a goddamned motherfucking scourge
one effective way to combat this: make them too cheap to meter[4,5,6] :P
posted by kliuless at 9:45 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
Farmers of Forty Centuries is a 1911 account of East Asian farming practices and rural life by an American agronomist; I think it would make a really interesting read if you're interested in this stuff. He describes many Chinese families making a living on just a handful of acres - as well as the tremendous amount of labor it took to keep their soils fertile. He was convinced that Western farmers would have to adopt their methods to survive. The Haber-Bosch process for industrial nitrogen fertilizer production was developed just a couple of years later.
posted by McBearclaw at 9:51 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
posted by McBearclaw at 9:51 PM on August 12 [1 favorite]
Ag practices are not the same as they were 100 years ago
Ag practices are largely not the same as they were 20 years ago, either. Fertilizer and pesticides are no longer stupid cheap, so even the least environmentally conscious farmers have a strong incentive to use as little as possible. This is why John Deere has gone all in on high tech, with all the good and bad that comes with it.
And when I say high tech I don't just mean the tractor has GPS and drives itself. I mean remote sensing from satellites monitoring crop health so the tractor can use that data to apply fertilizer only where needed in a particular field and only apply pesticides where needed in a given field, combining with the self driving to ensure that there is no overlap between rows and no missed spots.
This does come with downsides, of course. Subscription fees, dumb shit agreements to not repair your own shit, etc. However, it is simply not true that farmers are (with few exceptions), today, blindly soaking their fields in chemicals just in case it might be needed.
It never ceases to amaze me how people who decide that something is a problem, then get most or all of what they wanted keep banging on about the same shit as if the world hasn't moved on.
Even on the topic of nutrient depletion where we have made less progress because it doesn't immediately impact the bottom line, despite extreme opposition from Republicans who can't get over the incorrect view that it is "paying farmers to do nothing" the USDA has been working for over a decade now to get farmers to leave fields fallow every few seasons and rotate crops more effectively by paying them to do just that.
If you want something about food production to rail about, cattle feedlots and giant pork farms are your best targets, followed shortly by chicken farmers. Not necessarily because of animal welfare or excess methane (though those things are issues), but because the excess shit isn't being handled well even to this day and it leads to all kinds of ecosystem destroying issues surprisingly far downstream even when there isn't flooding that makes it worse.
posted by wierdo at 11:48 PM on August 12 [6 favorites]
Ag practices are largely not the same as they were 20 years ago, either. Fertilizer and pesticides are no longer stupid cheap, so even the least environmentally conscious farmers have a strong incentive to use as little as possible. This is why John Deere has gone all in on high tech, with all the good and bad that comes with it.
And when I say high tech I don't just mean the tractor has GPS and drives itself. I mean remote sensing from satellites monitoring crop health so the tractor can use that data to apply fertilizer only where needed in a particular field and only apply pesticides where needed in a given field, combining with the self driving to ensure that there is no overlap between rows and no missed spots.
This does come with downsides, of course. Subscription fees, dumb shit agreements to not repair your own shit, etc. However, it is simply not true that farmers are (with few exceptions), today, blindly soaking their fields in chemicals just in case it might be needed.
It never ceases to amaze me how people who decide that something is a problem, then get most or all of what they wanted keep banging on about the same shit as if the world hasn't moved on.
Even on the topic of nutrient depletion where we have made less progress because it doesn't immediately impact the bottom line, despite extreme opposition from Republicans who can't get over the incorrect view that it is "paying farmers to do nothing" the USDA has been working for over a decade now to get farmers to leave fields fallow every few seasons and rotate crops more effectively by paying them to do just that.
If you want something about food production to rail about, cattle feedlots and giant pork farms are your best targets, followed shortly by chicken farmers. Not necessarily because of animal welfare or excess methane (though those things are issues), but because the excess shit isn't being handled well even to this day and it leads to all kinds of ecosystem destroying issues surprisingly far downstream even when there isn't flooding that makes it worse.
posted by wierdo at 11:48 PM on August 12 [6 favorites]
However, it is simply not true that farmers are (with few exceptions), today, blindly soaking their fields in chemicals just in case it might be needed.
I know. No one ever wasted a penny on any farm. But if you look at the outcome, rather than the input, the waterways are still terribly polluted and the loss of biodiversity is still shocking, and perhaps irreversible.
I think what the EU wants to do is to widen the protective zones around the different forms of wetland, like streams, rivers, lakes and marshes and seas. Which seems simple from a bureaucratic point of view. But on the ground, it looks different. Here, we had an offer of EU money already 20 years ago to voluntarily convert our drainage ditches into something more "natural" (I know it wouldn't be natural, but I can't spend the whole morning explaining what it would be in technical terms). None of the others in our area wanted anything to do with it. What looks like a tiny thing seen from Bruxelles would be a big deal here.
I think it will probably become the law this fall because the situation in the groundwater and waterways is so grave, so it is finally going to happen in a couple of years, and I welcome it. Maybe I can use the compensation for that orchard I'm dreaming of.
The political situation in Europe is probably different than that in the US, because Europe is more densely populated and people are physically closer to agriculture. But I don't think there is less pollution from agriculture or land with a lack of biodiversity because of monocultural farming in the US.
If you want something about food production to rail about, cattle feedlots and giant pork farms are your best targets, followed shortly by chicken farmers.
We can agree on that. But the waste from animals has been tightly regulated in the EU since 1993 and it is still a big unsolved problem. We don't have those open ponds of waste that they have in some other regions. The waste has to be kept in closed tanks and can then be used for fertilizer in regulated amounts. You have to prove you have the acreage to handle it. It is still a problem.
We have to change agriculture, and that also means we have to change our foodways. there is no way around it. It is going to happen, at least in the EU, because we can't live without clean water and also because climate change is upending food production in the south. I think we had been better off if we had started the change towards sustainable management of our planet voluntarily 20 years ago, instead of having it forced upon us now.
To bring this back to the food on our table, I've noticed that here, three of the biggest supermarket chains have started handing out recipes for eating healthier and more sustainably, which luckily goes together. Their produce sections have grown larger and better, too. They are selling it in positive terms which I think is the way to go, rather than all the doomerist talk about the government taking away our hamburgers. Or Big Ag claiming they are necessary for feeding the world.
One 1 hektar you are allowed to raise about 45 organic pigs (it varies between the countries). The pigs will eat corn or barley that you are growing on that land, using manure from the pig production for fertilizer, some of which will contaminate the ground water or run out into the local waterways. But you can also grow about 3 tons of organic lentils using 0 fertilizer. If we are talking about feeding the world, lentils are pretty obviously more efficient. Now I am not an either/or person. In my fantasy future, there will still be both pigs and lentils. But I would like more consumers to know that we can live a more balanced life on this planet.
posted by mumimor at 1:26 AM on August 13 [8 favorites]
I know. No one ever wasted a penny on any farm. But if you look at the outcome, rather than the input, the waterways are still terribly polluted and the loss of biodiversity is still shocking, and perhaps irreversible.
I think what the EU wants to do is to widen the protective zones around the different forms of wetland, like streams, rivers, lakes and marshes and seas. Which seems simple from a bureaucratic point of view. But on the ground, it looks different. Here, we had an offer of EU money already 20 years ago to voluntarily convert our drainage ditches into something more "natural" (I know it wouldn't be natural, but I can't spend the whole morning explaining what it would be in technical terms). None of the others in our area wanted anything to do with it. What looks like a tiny thing seen from Bruxelles would be a big deal here.
I think it will probably become the law this fall because the situation in the groundwater and waterways is so grave, so it is finally going to happen in a couple of years, and I welcome it. Maybe I can use the compensation for that orchard I'm dreaming of.
The political situation in Europe is probably different than that in the US, because Europe is more densely populated and people are physically closer to agriculture. But I don't think there is less pollution from agriculture or land with a lack of biodiversity because of monocultural farming in the US.
If you want something about food production to rail about, cattle feedlots and giant pork farms are your best targets, followed shortly by chicken farmers.
We can agree on that. But the waste from animals has been tightly regulated in the EU since 1993 and it is still a big unsolved problem. We don't have those open ponds of waste that they have in some other regions. The waste has to be kept in closed tanks and can then be used for fertilizer in regulated amounts. You have to prove you have the acreage to handle it. It is still a problem.
We have to change agriculture, and that also means we have to change our foodways. there is no way around it. It is going to happen, at least in the EU, because we can't live without clean water and also because climate change is upending food production in the south. I think we had been better off if we had started the change towards sustainable management of our planet voluntarily 20 years ago, instead of having it forced upon us now.
To bring this back to the food on our table, I've noticed that here, three of the biggest supermarket chains have started handing out recipes for eating healthier and more sustainably, which luckily goes together. Their produce sections have grown larger and better, too. They are selling it in positive terms which I think is the way to go, rather than all the doomerist talk about the government taking away our hamburgers. Or Big Ag claiming they are necessary for feeding the world.
One 1 hektar you are allowed to raise about 45 organic pigs (it varies between the countries). The pigs will eat corn or barley that you are growing on that land, using manure from the pig production for fertilizer, some of which will contaminate the ground water or run out into the local waterways. But you can also grow about 3 tons of organic lentils using 0 fertilizer. If we are talking about feeding the world, lentils are pretty obviously more efficient. Now I am not an either/or person. In my fantasy future, there will still be both pigs and lentils. But I would like more consumers to know that we can live a more balanced life on this planet.
posted by mumimor at 1:26 AM on August 13 [8 favorites]
One can't mechanically harvest the three sisters (corn, beans, squash) grown together as they should be, but it is one of the most productive crops, providing complete nutrition, and it stabilizes and revitalizes the land it's grown on.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:11 AM on August 13 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:11 AM on August 13 [4 favorites]
> This does come with downsides, of course. Subscription fees, dumb shit agreements to not repair your own shit, etc. However, it is simply not true that farmers are (with few exceptions), today, blindly soaking their fields in chemicals just in case it might be needed.
It never ceases to amaze me how people who decide that something is a problem, then get most or all of what they wanted keep banging on about the same shit as if the world hasn't moved on.
speaking of markups, artificial scarcity, private equity and the new enclosure movement...
-Private Equity Builds $722 Billion War Chest in Hunt for Deals
-Robber barons in the food system
posted by kliuless at 5:58 AM on August 13
It never ceases to amaze me how people who decide that something is a problem, then get most or all of what they wanted keep banging on about the same shit as if the world hasn't moved on.
speaking of markups, artificial scarcity, private equity and the new enclosure movement...
-Private Equity Builds $722 Billion War Chest in Hunt for Deals
-Robber barons in the food system
posted by kliuless at 5:58 AM on August 13
> People who were starving, are not starving. This, to me, is a pretty clear good thing. We can and should continue to improve the ecological impact, but short of shrinking the human population, we have done very well as a species on this front.
Another way to frame this is to look at the percentage of the workforce who are employed in agriculture, food production, etc. In the US this is roughly 10% of the total workforce. Our society & species is so efficient at food production that there is enough "surplus" for the remaining 90% of our population to be engaged with other activities, not merely focused on food production! Much of that efficiency is because of cumulative historical investments of surplus over hundreds of years, where surplus has been invested into R&D, developing a body of knowledge about how to do things effectively, building and maintaining things like transport infrastructure, energy sources, industrial fertilizer production, farm machinery, breeding improved crops, etc. I reckon historical cumulative investments in education and heathcare also contribute to this -- agricultural workers can be more productive if they are heathy and well-educated.
But, a bunch of this apparent agricultural and economic efficiency of our society is also temporary as we mine through finite reserves of high-nutrient soil that has accumulated over thousands of years, consume our finite high EROEI fossil-fuel reserves, consume the remaining finite storage capacity for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before the climate locks into a 4 degrees+ heating trajectory.
So, there's two quite different perspectives -- from a perspective of looking back at the human species over hundreds of thousands of years, framed as a struggle of humans somehow managing to eke out a way to subsist in the harsh environment -- we're doing great! we've somehow managed not to go extinct all this time! From a much more recent perspective that's only started to dawn on us in the last couple of hundred years, our major struggle now is not against the environment but against our own success.
posted by are-coral-made at 2:07 PM on August 13 [3 favorites]
Another way to frame this is to look at the percentage of the workforce who are employed in agriculture, food production, etc. In the US this is roughly 10% of the total workforce. Our society & species is so efficient at food production that there is enough "surplus" for the remaining 90% of our population to be engaged with other activities, not merely focused on food production! Much of that efficiency is because of cumulative historical investments of surplus over hundreds of years, where surplus has been invested into R&D, developing a body of knowledge about how to do things effectively, building and maintaining things like transport infrastructure, energy sources, industrial fertilizer production, farm machinery, breeding improved crops, etc. I reckon historical cumulative investments in education and heathcare also contribute to this -- agricultural workers can be more productive if they are heathy and well-educated.
But, a bunch of this apparent agricultural and economic efficiency of our society is also temporary as we mine through finite reserves of high-nutrient soil that has accumulated over thousands of years, consume our finite high EROEI fossil-fuel reserves, consume the remaining finite storage capacity for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before the climate locks into a 4 degrees+ heating trajectory.
So, there's two quite different perspectives -- from a perspective of looking back at the human species over hundreds of thousands of years, framed as a struggle of humans somehow managing to eke out a way to subsist in the harsh environment -- we're doing great! we've somehow managed not to go extinct all this time! From a much more recent perspective that's only started to dawn on us in the last couple of hundred years, our major struggle now is not against the environment but against our own success.
posted by are-coral-made at 2:07 PM on August 13 [3 favorites]
« Older It is almost 4; I hear the birds. | Only Conexo Newer »
I'd rather pay more for our food so that my hypothetical grandchildren can still see birds and butterflies.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:41 AM on August 12 [26 favorites]