McSoybeans, McSlavery, and McNuggets

McSoybeans, McSlavery, and McNuggets

            Throughout class we have referred to social constructions of convenience, in which today we primarily think of cell phones, and transportation, but this chapter exposes another construction that controls almost every aspect of the agricultural community; soy beans. I don’t know much about farming but, I realize the difference between corn and soybeans, and you would have to be blind not to notice the immense amount of soy beans produced in Indiana alone. My thinking, and maybe that of others like me while driving past these large soybean fields, goes like this “I eat a lot of corn, people like corn, animals probably eat corn too, but I’ve never even seen a soybean, I know soy milk is a thing, but there’s no way all of those little green plants are used to make fake milk,” and my inquisitiveness stops there. However, Patel was nice enough to show me why all those soybean plants are there, and even more prevalent in Brazil, but I’m a visible learner so I’ll follow one of his trips through soy bean life in pictures.

Step 1: Illegal farming, crushing, and transportation throughout Brazil

Cargill, based in the United States, is the largest soy producer and exporter in the Amazon, operating 13 silos in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, most of them illegally, and Green Peace tried to stop them with this banner.

Cargill, also employs the lax laws usually characteristic of countries in the global south, allowing slaves to cut down rain forests, farm soy beans, crush them, and transport them to the coast without pay. Illegally built ports create coastal agri-business hot spots that attract other black market commodities, such as drug and human trafficking.

Step 2: More Bad Stuff With a Touch of Legality

Once the soy has been illegally farmed, processed, and shipped, while simultaneously contributing to negative externalities such as human trafficking, deforestation, and removal of indigenous communities, there is still more harm to be done. But now that we’ve followed our soy past the line of poverty and into the global north of the UK, human slavery is less kosher, but CAFO’s employed by Sun Valley, a division of Cargill, are preferred (notice the lack of Sun or Valley). A pinkish McNugget slime is also created.

Lastly, these soy fattened chickens, products of slavery and deforestation, are slaughtered processed and shipped to McDonald’s. Yum.

Now I know why all these soy beans are there, and I still enjoy McDonalds, because Step 1 isn’t in my backyard. But for those that experience Step 1 first hand, affluent MST societies were created. And maybe the silver lining of this story rests in the hands of a community of farmers that, although a little misunderstood, are “not only producing new kinds of farming but new kinds of people.” A true democracy exists here, and reminds us that “though most of us live under what’s called a democracy, we’ve never tasted the real thing. And by precisely this token, we’ve never owned the mistakes that have come of poor democratic decisions- we’ve merely had them thrust upon us.” The idea of providing for ourselves has been tossed around in conversation, but finds a fruitful fruition throughout communities in Brazil. Americans may find the system radical, but a fix to hunger for everyone, and not just the majority, might have its roots in these communal farming methods.

 And in keeping with the pictures, these functional communities might be impossible and radical (The Village), or a possibility that humanity has yet to accept (MST).