Our own government recommends we fill our plate with 50% fruits and vegetables, yet only 4% of farm subsidies go to their production. Meanwhile, the bulk of government spending goes towards feed crops for livestock all over the world.

Federal subsidies ensure an excess of cheap corn and soybeans. This benefits multinational meatpacking corporations, which buy corn and soybeans at low costs and turn around to make record profits. In fact, about 42% of corn and 30% of soybeans grown in the U.S. go towards industrial animal feed production. These numbers do not account for exports, which are a major money-maker for corporations.

We call this mechanism the Feed-Meat Complex. It has contributed to the devastating loss of America’s independent family farms: In 1950, there were 5.6 million farms raising 100 million farm animals. In 2017, there were 2 million farms raising 9.32 billion farm animals. 

The Feed-Meat Complex is one of the primary tools of corporate greed — and one we can eliminate with Food Not Feed.

Thanks to corporate control over the food system, the United States grows more and more feed grains like corn and soybeans, and less and less food for people. We’re only growing about 25% of the dietary fiber our population needs, so we have to import two-thirds of our fresh fruit and one third of our fresh vegetables.

We’ve racked up a trade deficit due to this dependence on produce imports, leaving Americans more vulnerable than ever to the whims of foreign governments and global trade.

Shifting support away from industrial grains would shore up U.S. food security and yield substantial economic benefits. Fruits and vegetables are higher-value products than the corn and soybeans the U.S. food and farm system currently prioritizes. Even though the soybean industry receives substantially more government support, its industry value is estimated at 20% lower than that of fruits and vegetables.

Our current food system is designed to make profits for corporations — not to make foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, cereal grains, and regeneratively-raised meat and poultry accessible and affordable to citizens. 

This is the result of federal policies that shape the food system and determine what foods get support: for example, the USDA classifies fruits and vegetables as “specialty crops.”

Our diets reflect this federal support for industrial meat and processed foods:

• Nearly 90% of the U.S. population falls below the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vegetables, and 80% fall below the RDA for fruit.
• Half of Americans’ caloric intake comes from ultra-processed foods, made with the starches and sugars derived from corn and soybeans.

Eating the food that the government subsidizes is taking a toll on our health:

• More than 10% of us have diabetes, and more than 40% are classified as obese. Obesity-related illnesses like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer are the leading causes of preventable premature death. 
• In 2018, national health expenditures were $3.6 trillion and are projected to nearly double to $6.2 trillion by 2028. 

If we shifted resources to the production of food for people — not industrial livestock — we would see improved access to healthy, nutritious food and better health outcomes for Americans. 

Our current policies favor corporate-controlled industrial agriculture — even though it wreaks havoc everywhere you look. 

Rural Communities

Industrial agriculture has focused their operations largely in rural America, where the presence of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) inflicts asthma and other respiratory ailments on residents. These factory farms destroy the air people breathe, the water they drink, and the lakes and streams they can no longer use for fishing and swimming.

The Environment 

Industrially monocropped animal feed production degrades soil, causing nutrient runoff into groundwater and freshwater sources (mostly nitrate and phosphorus), and is commonplace in the corn belt. In Iowa alone, 61% of rivers and streams are categorized as impaired or polluted, mostly due to agricultural runoff. 

Animal Welfare

Industrial meat production inflicts abusive conditions on animals for the duration of their short and uncomfortable lives. For example, female breeding pigs are contained in gestation crates barely big enough to hold them, which prevent them from even turning around. Most chickens raised for meat live their lives indoors in poorly ventilated sheds; and egg-laying chickens, usually packed ten to a cage, often have their beaks burned or cut off.