Big Ag – Part 2!

The Big Ag companies have grown over time. Similar to how other industries have grown and evolved, so has our food system. We’re going to need the Big companies to scale change. But how’d we get to where we’re at now?

by Chad Steiner

The automobile came about from seeing a need in the marketplace to replace horses. At the time, if you asked the person selling horses, they may have said we need a faster or stronger horse and not considered a “car”. The car didn’t happen overnight. There were multiple iterations and improvements. Where our food system is today could be a parallel metaphor. Increased food production came about from seeing a need for a larger more consistent food supply. Why? Population growth and a drive to create more from less. Do any of you work in corporations – is “more from less” a familiar mantra? Abundance from “farming” was born in the fertile crescent 8,000-10,000 years ago where we transitioned from hunting and gathering our food (in part of the world). Farming provided the opportunity for a part of the population to work “on the farm” and the other part to do other things – like inventing things or setting up a local grocery market. It’s all been evolving and improving ever since. What’s my point with all this? What I’d like to do is de-villainize our big food companies. I believe trying to describe the slow evolution over time can bring more compassion to the equation. Yes, it “is” then like a frog in boiling water and is not an excuse or does it mean the system doesn’t need to evolve. The goal is for us all to understand the system’s natural evolution, so we can then be confident knowing the people working in Big Ag companies are focused on good. We’re going to need Big Ag to help “scale” the food evolution. Just like Ford Motor Company acquired Lincoln, or electric car companies – the “Big Car” company (in this example Ford) has helped so many companies scale through their acquisition. I’ll circle back to this more in the final post in this series. For now, here’s an example of how I’ve seen the food system evolve. Let’s talk apples.

A common question on our Farm tours is – “why do so many apples get thrown onto the ground”. Often its during thinning timing – June/July. My answer is – we all need to convince our local grocery store to stock smaller apples. Apples in the United States are packed into 38lb boxes. Those boxes can fit a different number of apples depending on the size of the apple. For example, a “72” box is a 38lb box that fits 72 apples. This gives the grocery store an opportunity to order and sell the size their customer prefers. But hey, wait a minute, where did this all come from…? Well, it’s a beautiful example of how a system evolved – by finding a way to create a common system all the farmers could follow. In other words, the industry came together and developed standards. Before these standards existed, growers packed their apples into wooden boxes with their own label/brand on them. The apples were literally packed into wooden boxes on site. The opportunity to come together and pack apples then came about. And Coops or grower owned packing houses were formed. The coops helped growers come together and make the systems better. It allowed them to scale. And as you can imagine, the system continued to evolve to the place I described above – where apples are packed and sold based on size. The caveat with all this is – the apple trees do not cooperate. The apple tree would prefer to grow a whole bunch of small apples. Therefore, thinning helps remove some of the apples and thereby making the remaining apples get larger. But, it leaves apples on the ground. Full circle – if we can convince the grocery store we’d all eat small apples, there would be no need to thin them off the tree. The Big Ag companies have gone through similar evolutions as they’ve grown and looked for ways to help farmers. To thrive, they’ll have to keep evolving.

I feel like this helps articulate how systems evolve. Jumping into the picture without an understanding of the history lets us draw different conclusions than if we understand how it all came about. Like the apple example, it didn’t start with an intent to create waste, rather it evolved out of a need to help scale apple production. As individuals we like to see progress which comes in the form of solving problems sometimes. Therefore, I’ll foreshadow next weeks 3^rd post in this series about the people. The people in these large companies in my experience are driven to solve problems. The word Syngenta essentially stands for people working together. The sense of purpose at Syngenta was inspiring. And the people at these large companies that I still know – many of them are in leadership roles – recognize the evolution our food system has! Again, thank you for following along. I hope this all makes sense and is helpful. Let’s work together for a better food future.