Family farms in the US have been disappearing at a rate of about 1,500 a week over the past 50 years, accelerating in recent years. This filleting out of the agricultural equation of these small enterprises not only has transformed the social fabric of America's massive farming belt, but is of enormous environmental significance, according to Ms Paula Giles, the Green Party spokeswoman on food and agriculture.
Having attended and addressed the first global gathering in St Louis of campaigners seeking to preserve biodiversity and control the introduction of genetically engineered foods recently, she believes the threat to global biodiversity is most acute on our doorsteps, with every chance that Ireland and Europe are likely to follow the US.
Preoccupation with the US experience is inevitable because it is leading the corporate charge into farming and the pioneering of genetically modified (GM) crops, Ms Giles says. Visits to farming enterprises during the convention served to underline that world food production is at a crossroads.
The choice, she believes, is now between the organic approach embracing sustainability or the pursuit of intensive farming, where GM crops will be totally dominant and biodiversity is inevitably compromised in favour of corporation-generated/owned seedlines.
"The US is particularly hit by the ever-increasing intensification of agriculture, which has left family farms at crisis point. Between 1978 and 1992, for example, the number of individual farmers declined by 16 per cent. It is a foretaste of what will hit Ireland if European governments continue to follow blindly the American model of agricultural production."
She believes that corporate control of the food supply means, inevitably, that profits dominate issues of food safety, the environment and sustainability. Moreover, because of weather conditions and the need to protect their investment, farmers are using more chemicals, with the current annual spend there on pesticides now totalling $11.3 billion; $43 per person, she noted.
Missouri Rural Crisis Centre and the National Farm Coalition outlined to delegates the spending implications. Coinciding with multinationals moving into agriculture as never before over the past five years, spending on seed has tripled and the cost of chemicals has doubled at a time when yields have reduced.
Monsanto, nonetheless, insists that GM crops are an opportunity to use fewer sprays and has cited a study by the University of Minnesota (which it commissioned), and the conclusion that using "RoundUp-ready soyabeans" (beans modified to resist the effects of glyphosate weedkiller) reduced herbicide usage by 22 per cent.
The recent trend in the US is also beginning to manifest itself in other parts of the western world; the conglomeration of agrochemical, seed and biotechnology industries, which is tightening the stranglehold on family farms, she said. Thus farmers inevitably see their options for planting and farming methods further eroded; all coinciding with reduced bargaining power.
The stunning growth of Monsanto, she claimed, underlined the extent of change. After some $750 million spent during 1996 in expanding its biotech interests, 1997 saw it move into the seed industry, with its acquisition of Holden's Seeds for $1 billion and Agroceres for $70 million. The buy-up trend has continued unabated this year.
Nor is it simply Monsanto that is sweeping all before it. Three companies control 80 per cent of flour-milling in the US; three buyers control 46 per cent of the broiler chicken market; and four companies control 50 per cent of the cattle feed sector.
It's not all gloom, however, as there are some signs US agriculture may change. US sales of food from its organic industry increased by 20 per cent to reach $3.5 billion in 1996. Dairy food products are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the organic market, and there are indications of increasing consumer interest in direct marketing with farmers through special markets and community-supported agriculture, Ms Giles added.