Food Culture and Red Tape: A Tale of 2 Agricultural Systems

Commentary

Returning from a week of conducting farm workshops in Poland, I’m struck by the broad cultural heritage that permeates the regulatory climate. It helped put in perspective how a society’s heritage has a long tail into government bureaucracy.

In the United States, roughly 75 percent of all food consumed is prepared outside the home. Known as convenience food, it is processed and packaged in such a way that it can be eaten directly or simply warmed and eaten. In Poland, that number is far, far lower. Nobody gave me a definitive number, but all agreed that it was well below 50 percent. Domestic culinary arts are still alive and well there.

Yes, American fast food is invading the country, but in general, lunch served at a seminar is true culinary art. I’ve done farm seminars in 30 countries, and Poland just moved to the top of the chart as the best eating experience I’ve ever had in a foreign country. For the record, I like all kinds of food, but I found the Polish dishes more enjoyable on average.

In the United States, farmers enjoy relatively little production-side regulation. A farmer can raise as much or as little of something as he or she wants. We can mix animals together. On our farm, we use pigs to turn cow bedding, chickens to turn rabbit droppings, and chickens behind cows to sanitize pastures. Animals can be outside or inside, and farm buildings are often exempt from any building permits. We can cut trees with little government interference and launch a farming operation without asking permission. Vaccine and pharmaceutical programs are largely voluntary. At least so far.

Not so in Poland. First, you need a farmer permit in order to begin farming. No joke. If you want to start farming, you have to take a course and pass a test before receiving your farming license. You can’t have two different species of livestock in the same building, even if they are there at different times. A roving bureaucracy of government veterinarians visits farms to make sure that no two species of animals are in or have been in the same facility. On our farm in Virginia, we consistently and systematically put different kinds of animals together as part of our health program; diversity stabilizes immune function. At least that’s what I think—and that’s what you see in nature.

In Poland, no chickens can range free without being netted to make sure that they never associate with wild birds. Outdoor pigs require two fences to create a protected alley that keeps them from encountering any other animal. It just wouldn’t do to have a pig touch a hedgehog, you know.

Polish farmers may not cut a tree without permission from the local jurisdictional clerk. And farm buildings? Each requires a permit from the building police, who take a dim view of affordable livestock housing such as simple pole structures.

What’s remarkable is that, compared with the United States, Poland takes a fairly cavalier view of home-processed food prepared on-farm and sold to the public. In the United States, such value-added activity is heavily regulated, but on small farms in Poland, it’s almost exempt from everything, including taxes. In Poland, a washed egg cannot be sold. Consequently, grocery store eggs are filthy by U.S. standards. In the United States, virtually all commercial eggs are washed, mostly in chlorine baths.

Why? Why such drastic differences? I think that the reason is that the United States does not have a heritage food culture, or at least one that appreciates artisanship. Ask anyone in a foreign country what he or she thinks of as “American food,” and you’ll get one answer: “McDonald’s.” As an American, I can’t imagine being more proud of our contribution to the world’s cuisine than the golden arches.

As a result of Poland’s food heritage and its 47 years under Soviet dominance that turned it into a grain-producing juggernaut, it has a leftover bureaucracy policing production but doesn’t care too much about processing.

The United States, on the other hand, prides itself on feeding the world, understanding that regulations stifle innovation and development. A relatively hands-off approach assures America’s farmers the freedom to practice their craft unimpeded. This does, indeed, yield production and creativity that is the envy of the world.

Poland, on the other hand, stifles its farmers from any truly ecological creativity but maintains wiggle room on the food front. Radio icon Paul Harvey used the refrain “It’s not one world.” Encountering these stark differences validates his observation. An egg that the U.S. food police call “inedible” is the backbone of breakfasts across Poland.

In the United States, freedom to try different production protocols such as chickens with rabbits and unvaccinated cows are considered examples of individual experimentation. In Poland, these illegal diversity trials are considered a threat to the nation’s food supply.

Isn’t it interesting what one culture considers threatening and another considers positive? Or what one culture considers acceptable and another considers unsafe? I’ve talked with egg police in the United States who say an unwashed egg is inherently inedible. Fortunately, these tyrants haven’t successfully rewritten regulations. In Poland, their egg police say a washed egg must be cracked out and pasteurized in order to be safely eaten.

And yet both societies have children, schools, Little League teams, political parties, grandparents, and holidays. We’re similar, yet amazingly different. If you ask any of these bureaucrats how important their regulations are, they’ll all tell you that if it weren’t for them, society would collapse into sickness and chaos. We must have order. We must have control. We can’t let a Wild West proliferate; it’ll kill us all.

And yet cultures all over the world succeed by engaging in activities that others consider hurtful or deadly. How can humans abide such large inconsistencies and survive? It’s quite a scary thing to visit another country and learn that half of what bureaucracy views as sacred in your country is viewed as silly in another. How important are all these bureaucrat regulators, do you think?

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.