A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention map shows adult obesity prevalence in 2009. Missouri is among nine states with rates of at least 30 percent.
By Linda Greer
Published: Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A former Webster County farmer’s theory that cheap, processed food is linked to a worldwide obesity explosion will be part of an upcoming television documentary.
Home Box Office (HBO) interviewed John Ikerd, 70, a retired University of Missouri agricultural economics professor, and his older brother, Don Ikerd, a Rader farmer, in July for the show, set to air in 2012.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention map shows adult obesity prevalence in 2009. Missouri is among nine states with rates of at least 30 percent.
“There is a growing realization that there is something fundamentally wrong with our food system,” John said Wednesday, Aug. 4, via telephone from his home in Columbia. “We have an ethical, moral responsibility to explore methods of sustainable agriculture.”
John Ikerd, author of numerous books on the topic, including “Small Farms are Real Farms,” first drew the attention of HBO movie-makers examining why humans are unwittingly eating themselves to death.
Obesity rate
At the forefront of the pandemic are Americans, nearly a third of whom now profess to being obese, according to a 2009 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released last month.
Missouri (at 30 percent) is among the top nine states with adult obesity rates of 30 percent or more. Only Colorado (at 18.6 percent) has a rate of less than 20 percent. Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee are the three heftiest states, according to the study, all above 32 percent for obesity.
Carrying so much extra weight puts people at a greater risk for a host of medical maladies – from high blood pressure to heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, the CDC reported.
HBO documentary
As part of the film, HBO filmed the brothers on the family farm where Don lives with his wife, Sue, a Marshfield native.
The film crew spent seven hours on the farm, with three hours of John talking at the kitchen table about how the rise in obesity coincides with changes in agriculture.
Sue called the experience enlightening, as photographers and assistants temporarily rearranged her furniture and went through seven pages of questions for John. She tidied up before the crew arrived, confident some rooms in their old farmhouse wouldn’t be of interest to the filmmakers.
“By the time they left, I don’t think they missed a room,” Sue said of the “fascinating” experience.
1960s farming
Don and John Ikerd grew up alongside three siblings on the family farm where Don has lived his entire life, taking for granted the bountiful, locally grown meat, dairy and produce that kept them healthy.
“One of the advantages of being old is knowing what it was like before,” John said of the years before processed, shipped-in food was commonplace. “When I was a kid, 75-80 percent of the food in the Rader Store came from Lebanon or Conway.”
Along with many farms, the Rader general store is out of business, a consequence of what John calls “industrial food” grown on mega-dairies and factory farms several hundred miles from consumers.
Industrial food
John said the effects of industrialized food production are many: An unhappy, unhealthy society, rural communities facing extinction, depleted agricultural land and family farms displaced by corporations.
While lifestyle changes and the launch of fast food are partly to blame for weight gain, the main culprit is cheap food with almost no nutritional value, leading to over-consumption of calories, John said.
“People are trying desperately to lose weight,” he said. “And it’s almost impossible, because they are hungry all the time.”
Rural communities
Although still on the land they love, Don and Sue grieve the loss of their community.
“It was such a wonderful way of life,” Sue said of raising a son and daughter on the farm where she was introduced as a young wife in 1964 to “silo parties.”
Back then, the women prepared large meals on each others’ farms while the men filled the silos with corn or silage. The children rode horses and dune buggies while learning to respect the land that sustained them.
“Everyone is gone now,” Don said.
On the hilly, rocky land not suited to crops, many raised dairy cattle. With seldom more than 80 milk cows, the Ikerds put both their children through college, attaining degrees unrelated to agriculture.
Don said that, as much as his children cherished the farm, he forewarned them their lifestyle would not last.
“I was right,” Don said. “That’s the sad part.”
Don said nearly every farm around them at the time was a dairy. A milk truck was filled to capacity twice between the Ikerd farm and Conway, six miles away. Only two dairies remain, he said.
“Another one went out last week,” Sue said.
The Ikerds sold their herd in 2007.
Agricultural changes
Years before the concept was popular, Don practiced intensive grazing, moving his herd every 12 hours to a fresh two-acre pasture. The tactic cut his grain costs in half and yielded better grassland without fertilizer.
Although milk production stayed about the same, profits went up as costs decreased, Don said.
Don admits that he likely got the rotational grazing idea from John – after John abandoned his early educational advice to farmers to “get big or get out.”
“Corporate farms don’t work,” Don said.
John said he began questioning traditional farming techniques in the 1980s, often facing rejection from colleagues who believed dairies needed to expand to 1,000 or more head.
The future
Now, some 20 years later, the sustainable agriculture movement is growing. Naturally-grown and organic foods make up about 8 percent of the market, John said.
“It’s the fastest growing segment of the food market,” John said, adding that people will pay more for foods they believe in.
John said he is not necessarily an optimist, but is hopeful for a future with affordable, nutritious food that is accessible to people.
“I know that it’s possible,” John said. “I’ve seen people who are doing it all across the country.”
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