Oregon State University Klamath Basin Research and Extension Center Willie Riggs, director   

    The food industry in America has become efficiently massive.

   Rather than a barter system, where people trade eggs for bread or milk for meat, grocery stores provide endless varieties of innumerable foods.

   “Most people are two or three generations removed from agriculture. Two percent of the population is producing food for the other 98 percent,” said Willie Riggs, director of the OSU Klamath County extension office.

   “People don’t think about where the food comes from,” he said. “It’s not grown in the back room at the grocery store, it’s produced by agriculture.”  

   Producers have paid a price for convenience. Farmers and ranchers receive about 20 cents for every dollar spent on food. The other 80 cents goes to processing, wholesaling   , distribution and selling.

   Bread, for instance, comes from wheat and grains, which last year made up about 21 percent and $50.2 million of crop sales in the Basin, according to the OSU Extension Economic Information Office.

   Grain goes to the mill to make flour, which goes to the baker to make loaves of bread, which go to the packager to bag, which is transported to the grocery store, shelved by an employee, and sold to the consumer.

   For a $1.99 loaf of bread, 12 cents goes to the farmer and $1.87 goes to the steps in between.

D&D Seeds and Farm Equipment Sales Todd Greer, owner   

    Todd Greer, owner of D&D Seeds and Farm Equipment Sales, was forced to cut employee hours after business dropped off following a cut in water deliveries to irrigators.

   The store’s revenue comes half from seed sales and half from equipment sales.

   When farmers planted fewer acres, they needed fewer of Greer’s products.

   “This year overall less seed sold, but for the business, seed was a bigger percentage of sales than equipment,” Greer said.

   “We cut back everywhere,” he said, including employees and hours.

   “Farmers cut back, which means I cut back, which means I’m not spending money in the community I normally would because the money’s not available,” he added. “The power company, shoes, home improvement, restaurants, clothing, recreation — everything is affected.”

   Greer doesn’t know what to expect next year.

   “Nobody has any idea,” he said. “We’re very dependent on what the government does with water. The government has made such a mess of this that the farmers can’t plan, which means I can’t plan.”