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Where does your food come from?

Supply Chains: Farmworkers

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Supply Chains

Inputs
Farm
Processing
Packaging
Marketing
Eating
Waste

Source: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/supply-chain

Question prompt: Before reviewing slide, ask students to list all the steps involved in getting food from seed to table. What resources or supplies are needed? Who is involved? Where does the food come from and where does it go?

One working definition of supply chain:

The series of relationships between plants, people and businesses that allow us to transform a seed into a meal. Supply chains connect the individual people and resources that all work together to produce, process and sell the food we eat.

Basic steps of food supply chain:

Inputs: land, seeds, nutrients (fertilizer, compost), water

Farm operation: People! Planting, harvesting, machine operation, animal life cycle & care, managing relationship between what you’re growing and the surrounding ecosystems (plant pests, soil disease, weather patterns, animals that eat or destroy crops, etc. etc.)

Processing (making raw product ready to eat): washing, destemming, sorting for proper size and aesthetic, skinning, cutting, precooking, freezing, etc.

Packaging (making ready-to-eat product ready-to-sell): additives, preservatives, bagging, bottling, branding, ready for customer

Marketing: food moves could include online sales, farm box/ CSA/ delivery, farm stand, farmers market, grocery store, sales to restaurants, cafeterias (hospitals, prisons, schools), etc.

Eating (consuming): dinner table, restaurant, events, etc.

Waste: food that is grown, but not sold or consumed must go somewhere! The end point is different depending on where it gets wasted. (E.g.: back into the earth, landfill, compost, animal feed, etc.)

When food is composted, it turns back into nutritious soil that can be used as an input to start the process again

Each time the food changes hands from farm to processing to marketing to consumer there is an exchange of money and ownership. Supply chains also require a global and national network of transportation. E.g.: semi trucks, boats, etc. connecting each step in the process

There is also “value added” at each step along the way

Value added definition: adding traits or features to the original raw product to increase the desirability or value of a good to the consumer; by washing carrots, cutting them into baby carrot size, and then bagging them in small portions, we make it more desirable (for some customers) and therefore are able to charge more than we would for a raw carrot directly out of the ground. Another example is dry bean soup mix in a cute jar. Each type of bean is harvested, cleaned, and dried. When we add them together into a single labeled package with a recipe and nutrition facts, the product is worth more than the sum of its parts alone.

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Value Chains

Health, nutrition
Local community impacts
Environment
Cultural relevance
Equitable access
Distribution of resource control (land, water, food)

Source: https://www.ams.usda.gov

This can be background reading for appropriate age level.

Summary of value chain concept:

https://dreamingnewmexico.bioneers.org/food-farming/local-foodshed-local-value-chains/

Page 4 & 5 for supply chain & value chain distinction

https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Food%20Value%20Chains%20Creating%20Shared%20Value%20to%20Enhance%20Marketing%20Success.pdf

*Note: “value added” is a process or activity that happens in both supply chains and value chains.

The goal of our global food supply chains is to get as many calories to as many people for as cheap as possible. We value efficiency, speed, convenience and low prices.

Alternatively, the goal of a “value” chain is to provide the most embedded value in the food we eat.

Thinking about our food system in terms of value instead of efficiency allows us to incorporate the importance of the attributes listed on the slide in our assessment of what a successful, desirable food system design looks like.

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Cookie dough ice cream! Where does it come from?

Cow milk? Vermont

Sugar? Florida, Mexico

Wheat flour? North Dakota, Kansas, Montana

Eggs? Iowa, Ohio, Texas

Chocolate? Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Ghana >> Canada, Mexico

Source: https://www.statista.com/

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Dinner depends on PEOPLE from around the world

800,000 farmworkers in California

3 million farmworkers in U.S.

1 billion people in agriculture globally

Source: Pixabay.com

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Dinner depends on PEOPLE from around the world

Rice fields, Source: Pixabay

Banana harvest, Source: fruitnet.com

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Dinner depends on PEOPLE from around the world

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Day in the life of a U.S. farmworker

Photo Source: http://dbacon.igc.org/FarmWork/farmwork.htm

Strong resource for photography and stories of farmworkers in California, United States by David Bacon. Good background reading for students or in-class reading out loud

http://dbacon.igc.org/FarmWork/farmwork.htm

See page 4 of this report for a graphic on “A day in the life of a farmworker” Use as much detail as you’d like:

https://causenow.org/sites/default/files/CAUSE%20Raising%20Up%20Farm%20Workers%20Ventura%20County%20September%202015%20(2).pdf

Ask the question:

What do people who work on farms do?

Some answers that can emerge:

-harvest, cut, pick, catch fish/ seafood

-fill bags, barrels, cartons with produce

-load on to processing vehicles

Note that the work is difficult, low to ground, repetitive, moving heavy equipment and product, exposed to extreme weather (cold and hot, wind), exposed to chemical inputs, early mornings (4am), long days, low pay

10 minute video on tomato harvest in Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWCMql9gjgw

Image source, eggplant harvest: https://www.sacbee.com/