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.