Distancing and Food Production

Partly responsible in my choice to become a vegetarian are the issues surrounding genetically-modified foods and products, how they are produced, and how far those foods travel to get into my pots and pans. Since the world is increasingly more globalized and interconnected, food—a staple all people share—comes from all over the place. I eat fish from China, rice from India, blueberries from Canada, and drink red wine from Spain. Sometimes I’ll get oranges from California or orzo pasta from Illinois. Not many things I eat, though, come from my local community, or even Georgia for that matter. I sometimes stop at the roadside produce stand in my town and buy locally grown tomatoes and lima beans, (although I have my suspicions about whether it’s truly local produce) but not often. So I’ve taken into consideration two things I eat often, Nutella and Tilapia fillets, and thought about where these items are produced, who labors to produce them, and especially the concept of “distancing,” defined by Deborah Barndt as “the increasing distance between production and consumption,” as well as “the deepening separation of humans from nature,” and the disconnect between laborers and the “fruits of their labor” (133).

            Nutella is a product I was wholly unfamiliar with until earlier this year when my French professor brought some to class; it was instant love: chocolate + peanut butter = this heavenly thing called Nutella. Although Nutella is more hazelnuts than chocolate, and nothing like peanut butter except that like peanut butter you spread it on bread or crackers, I thought it was the best thing to show up since sliced bread (and you spread it on sliced bread—even better!). I was aware of Nutella commercials on my television, but I had only noticed them in recent years, and I knew Nutella was a product more widely used in Europe. But a quick look at the label on my personal jar of Nutella told me that my Nutella was made in Canada, and distributed by Ferrerro USA, Inc. out of New Jersey. But it is a product more commonly and more widely consumed in Europe and is only now making headway in America. It seems as though Nutella bounces all over the globe before it ends up in my pantry. And after some research, I learned that Nutella was originally created by an Italian man, Pietro Ferrerro, in the 1940s when chocolate was scarce because of World War II, thus he created a product using hazelnuts because they were plentiful in the northwest region of Italy (NutellaUSA.com). This “traditional Italian breakfast item” was brought to America in 1983 and has steadily grown in popularity ever since (NutellaUSA.com). In fact, Ferrerro USA, Inc.’s official website claims that Nutella “rapidly gains distribution and awareness across the US, [and is] destined to become as big a success here as it is in Europe” (Ferrerro U.S.A., Inc.).

In regards to Barndt’s idea of distancing, I think it is very obvious that there is a gap between production and consumption of this product because (1) it’s made in Canada, (2) it’s made of hazelnuts (grown largely in Turkey and Italy [USDA]), (3) it’s distributed by a company based in New Jersey, and (4) it finally makes its way down here to Georgia, where I eat it. I also think Nutella is an example of what Barndt calls “the distancing from natural products and processes inherent in biotechnology, processing, preservation, and packaging” (133); I don’t even know what a hazelnut looks like, or really what it tastes like. The ingredient list on the back of my jar of Nutella reads: sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, soy milk, reduced minerals whey (milk), lecithin as emulsifier (soy), vanillin (an artificial flavor). All of these ingredients are processed to make this gooey spread, plus there are at least three artificial or man-made (non-natural) ingredients included. Also, Nutella is an example of “the deepening separation of humans from nature;” again, don’t ask me what a hazelnut tastes like (Barndt 133). I wouldn’t be able to pick one out of a lineup even with peanuts and pecans.

The other product I eat often that I chose to analyze concerning Barndt’s theory of distancing is Tilapia fillets. The package I get from the freezer section of my local Wal-Mart gives me about six individually sealed frozen fillets, white-fleshed with a pinkish-red color down the middle. I love to cook these fillets in the pan, or broil them, and serve them with asparagus, rice, or a multitude of other sides, and I usually season the fish with garlic powder, onion powder, and roasted garlic & herb seasoning. The side of the package tells me the fish are a product of China, but that the package is distributed by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. out of Bentonville, Arkansas. And after doing some research, I learned that Tilapia is actually a non-native fish to China; these fish are native to Africa, but thrive “better in tropical climates, so most of it comes from Asia or Latin America” (Einhorn). The U.S. does have some Tilapia fisheries, but Bruce Einhorn claims domestic fish farms “can’t come close to meeting demand.” Tilapia is “ecologically sustainable,” grows quickly, is cheap to produce, and takes on the flavor of ingredients it’s cooked with, thus consumption of Tilapia has raised dramatically in the past few years (Nicholls). Walter Nicholls points out that “in the mid-1980s, the average American had never heard of this firm-fleshed North African native,” and that over 300 million pounds of the fish were consumed in 2006 with the “overwhelming majority of imports [being] frozen fillets from China.”

Here again, there is an obvious distance between production and consumption of this product. Although there are some Tilapia fish farms in the U.S., China is the largest producer of Tilapia from fish farms, who process and ship the frozen fillets over here to the U.S. Then, Wal-Mart packages the frozen fillets into their little red bag and puts them into a truck to be driven all the way over here to Georgia, and then I carefully select my bag from the freezer section. The “distancing of natural products and processes inherent in biotechnology, processing, preservation, and packaging” is also evident here because although fish are a natural product, the Tilapia in my freezer grows up on a fish farm controlled by humans, then when it is killed, it goes to a plant to be cleaned, chemically preserved, and frozen, and is then packaged into its neat little bag (Barndt 133).

In a world this large with billions of people to feed, it is understandable that the distancing of some foods could seem necessary to get as much food to as many people as possible. However, that is not necessarily the case since there are millions around the globe still starving; an interesting point that the documentary The Future of Food makes is that the problem of hunger is an “access problem.” Many of the countries where there are starving people do not have the affluence to purchase all these commodities—“They don’t have the money to buy food or access to land on which to grow it” (McMahon 204). Even if biotechnology has made some products cheaper, there is still the issue of importing it, which involves cost for the distance it has to travel by boat, air, or land. Scholars such as Martha McMahon have pointed out that “local small-scale farming [is said to be] far too inefficient” in the face of globalization and new biotechnologies (204). The food production of small-scale farmers is deemed “less, or is not counted at all because it is produced for family, community, or a local market rather than for the export trade,” thus “concentration, specialization, and reaping the advantages of comparative advantage” are thought to be the best way to produce food for the world (204).  (Think of the hazelnuts harvested largely from Turkey and Italy, and the multitude of Tilapia fish farms in China.) However if we were to “resist globalization,” as McMahon puts it, I don’t think I would be able to enjoy my Nutella or Tilapia or any other imported product such as some fruits, vegetables, or seafood  that make their way to my local grocery store without globalization. I guess I would have to till my 4’x4’ front yard and grow some veggies or set up a fish tank in my living room.

Works Cited

Barndt, Deborah. “On the move for food: Three women behind the tomato’s journey.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 29:1/2 (2001): 131-143. Print.

Einhorn, Bruce. “From China, The Future of Fish.” Bloomberg Businessweek. 21 Oct 2010. Web. 20 Oct 2011. <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201088229228_page_6.htm>

Ferrerro. Nutella USA: The Original Hazelnut Spread. Web. 20 Oct 2011. <http://www.nutellausa.com/history.htm>.

Ferrerro U.S.A., Inc. Ferrerro USA History. 2011. Web. 20 Oct 2011. <http://www.ferrerousa.com/ferrero-usa/history/?IDT=8928>.

The Future of Food. Dir. Deborah Koons Garcia. Lily Films, 2004. Film.

McMahon, Martha. “Resisting Globalization: Women Organic Farmers and Local Food Systems.” Canadian Women Studies 21:3: 203-206. Print.

Nicholls, Walter. “Two Sides to Every Tilapia.” The Washington Post. 8 Aug 2007. Web. 20 Oct 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080700470.html>.

USDA. “World Hazelnut Situation and Outlook.” World Horticultural Trade and U.S. Export Opportunities. March 2004. <http://www.fas.usda.gov/htp/Hort_Circular/2004/3-05-04%20Web%20Art/03-04%20Hazelnut%20Web%20Article.pdf>.