IN THIS increasingly sanitized and regulated world, modern consumers expect perfection in the things they buy, including food.
With lives far removed from the realities of farming, with its dirt, insects, manure and myriad biological processes, most consumers want safe, pristine food with a perfection often better suited to the laboratory than the field or barn.
While sometimes difficult to meet this evolving expectation, farmers ignore it to their peril because nothing kills a food market quicker than a perception that the food is unsafe.
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The United States beef industry got an unwanted review of this lesson last month when the Japanese slammed shut their borders again after receiving a beef shipment contaminated with banned spinal cord material, contrary to the BSE protocol that allowed U.S. beef to return to that market.
Closer to home, some prairie farmers have had loads of grain rejected at elevators this year because they were tainted with deer feces.
This trend for perfection often moves beyond issues of food safety to esthetics. For example, a company that sells toasted flax seed to Japan can have a shipment rejected if even one kernel in three million is cracked or contaminated with a mustard seed.
While all are examples of zero tolerance, each has different expectations and responsibilities for the various players through the food chain.
The examples also raise the issue of who – producers, consumers or taxpayers – should pay for the quality control and tracing that must be instituted to guarantee that the food meets the standards demanded by buyers.
In fairness, all three should pay depending on the circumstance, and particularly on whether the consumer’s expectation is a necessity or a desire.
It is reasonable for consumers to expect that farmers will not allow wildlife free access to defecate on unprotected grain piles and the cost of protecting them is the farmer’s responsibility. But if for public policy reasons governments allow wildlife to proliferate to the point where it becomes difficult for farmers to stop them from fouling unharvested crop, then it is reasonable to expect the taxpayer to compensate the farmer.
And if there is a cost to meet a consumer expectation that goes beyond regular food safety, such as a desire for zero risk or an aesthetic goal, then the consumer should pay for it.
When trying to share these costs within a commodity model, where pricing is based on supply and does not reflect cost of production, the producer will wind up carrying an unfair and unsustainable share of the costs.
Producers must move into closer relationships with processors, retailers and consumers, where through personal contact, information sharing and direct negotiations, the costs are more likely to be fairly and sustainably shared.
