12—Lancaster Farming. Saturday. May it. 1968 Consumer Impact On Food, Agriculture ED NOTE: This article was presented at the twenty-fourth Agricultural Clinic for Indiana Rankers at Purdue University. hy Herrell DeGrnff. Pres., American Meat Institute PART I American agriculture produc es for many markets. -The larg est single outlet for harvested crop tonnage is feed for live stock Thus one part of agricul ture becomes the market for an other Non-food industries utilize fibers, tobacco, vegetable oils, starch, and the like, equal to about ten peiccnt of total farm output Overseas markets absorb another 15 percent of farm pro duction. including a wide range of crop items and livestock by products In other words, domes ■tic needs foi these materials have been satrlied and overseas outlets are the best available al tei nativ e By far the largest, the most remuneratn e market foi American farmers-takmg three ouarteis of aggiegate farm pro- the food needs of 200 million American consumers most of whom have the habit of three square meals a day True there are two hundred millions of us who eat But for the purposes of this discussion I pi efer to recognize—and to ana lyze. if possible-the 49 million homemakers who keep the fami ly hearth who decide upon fam ily food purchases in terms of ■what each one thinks will keep her family most happy (within her means’), and who are. in deed the purchasing agents for the homes of America (To these must be added 12 million house holds maintained bj. “unrelat ed ’ individuals ) The only generalization that can be made about American homemakers is that one cannot generalize about them One mar ried homemaker in six is less than 30 years old one in seven is 65 or older A thud of all fam ilies aie only two persons, 15 percent are six peisons or more Fifty-nine percent of all hus toand-and-wife families have chil dren under 18 years old in the household 31 percent have chil dren under age six More than a third of all married homemak eis (35 percent in 1966) have gainful employment outside the home—so they have two yobs, one as wage earner and one as homemaker Meehan faimlj income in 1966 was $7 436 up from $4,971 ten years earlier But this is mere ha statistical “a\ ei age” Four teen percent of families in 1966 were below the $3 000 “poverty” le\el (veisus 25 pel cent in 1957), while 30 percent were above $lO 000 and nine percent were at $l5 000 or more Some homemakers—just over si\ percent of the total —live on faims but even these do not utilize home canned \egetables, home-prepared meats, home made butter and homemade bread as farm waves have done up to this geneiation At least thiee times as many live in the open country but not on farms The largest number live in small uiban communities or m sub uibia Mam aie apartment dwellers in central cities But wheiever thev h\e and however their livelihood is derived all ait busy—in ways that the na tion’s homemakers never befoie have been busv IF not employed, they die at home with small children If neithei of these ab soibs their time, they are en gaged in community-service or othei such activities as nevei be fore They have neither the time noi inclination to spend long hours in the kitchen, dealing with an ingredient __ food supply Impact of Technological Change Nor do they have to. It Is not only American agriculture that has changed. The food industries beyond the farm are at least equally a different model than only a few decades ago. This country has gone five full dec ades. 50 years, on a static base of agricultural crop land, and with total breeding herds of live stock no greater than they were at the end of World War I. Yet the population of the country over these 50 years has doubled Wc feed twice as large a popula tion even better than we did 50 jears ago and have a larger part of our total farm output now available for export This is what the ad\ances in processing in volume: from re agricultural technologv have duction of perishability: and meant. An acre of land'is not a fiom simplicity in distributing static unit Its productivity is a the processed products these function of the technology ap- factors taken together are an off phed to its fixed area Fertilizer set to practically the total cost and better seed and pest control oi processing Startling as this have more than doubled its pro- may sound food processing ser ductive - potential since World vices cost the American consum- War I—and the same is true for er almost nothing net. If she the productivity of our food-pro- took raw food from the farm, to ducing farm livestock gether with a short list of basic The food processing industries ingredients, and prepared the have done as much. Few items finished products in her kitchen, come fiom the farm in the form the costs would be much the m which they are wanted by the same as they are now for the homemaker No one wants a live processed food that she does, in pig It would be interesting to fact, obtain at the supermarket see how it would get to the table And this supermarket is one HOLLAND CONCRETE STONE BLOCKS Ready-Mixed METAL CONCRETE WINDOWS New Holland Concrete Products New Hollond. Pa. 354-2114 START NOW!... Start your spring fertilizing program • Top dress small grains w ith 30 - 60 lbs. of Nitrogen, NOW! • Top dress pastures with'6o - 100 lbs. of Nitrogen, NOW! • Prepare alfalfa seedbeds by plowing down phosphorus and potash, NOW! • Plan your corn program around ✓ ANHYDROUS AMMONIA, the most economical nitrogen, and Master Farmer BULK BLENDS. For Complete Field Service Call Your FULL SERVICE COMPANY ORGANIC PLANT FOOD CO. Grofftown Rood P. O. Box 132 Lancaster, Pa. 392-4963 or 392-0374 if indeed it did get there, if de livered alive to the typical fam ily. I wonder, in fact, how many homemakers today could serve dinner tonight if they had to be gin with a live chicken? More and more the raw prod ucts of the farm have been grown in the location and at the season of the year where they could be most economically pro duced; then processed in large quantity and in a manner that reduces their perishability and converts them into a form that is most readily stored and dis tributed throughout the nation and throughout the year. The savings derived from most ef ficient areas of production; from of the wonders of the world. It is service” in food, and thus they the display case for the abund- either can hold down a job or ance of the American farms and engage in endless other aotivl for the ingenuity of the food lies outside the home, processors. It is very much the A moment ago I said we can same wherever you find it, in not generalize about the Amer whatever corner of the nation, man homemaker. Now I shall and at whatever season of the ignore my own statement and year . - try to do so. As many of you This array of highly processed, have done, or surely would have highly varied, highly serviced done if you were in the food bus food makes it possible for worn- iness, I have talked with a great en now to be 37 percent of the many homemakers about food, gainfully employed labor force and have watched many more of the nation. They buy “maid as they did their shopping.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers