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Farmer in Chief
Michael Pollan, New York Times
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention…
Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign. Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them. Let me explain…
…There is a gathering sense among the public that the industrial-food system is broken. Markets for alternative kinds of food — organic, local, pasture-based, humane — are thriving as never before. All this suggests that a political constituency for change is building and not only on the left: lately, conservative voices have also been raised in support of reform. Writing of the movement back to local food economies, traditional foods (and family meals) and more sustainable farming, The American Conservative magazine editorialized last summer that “this is a conservative cause if ever there was one.”
(9 October 2008)
This is a major piece from Michael Pollan laying out food policy ideas for the next President in the light of climate change, peak oil and health. Michael Pollan is the author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.” and “The Omnivore’s Dilema”-SO
Record numbers of people are looking for food
Roy Wenzl, The Wichita Eagle
For weeks now, while the national news reported fear and worry among Wall Street financial titans, a working mother of four named Darcy Fox was trying to stretch out her family’s Ramen noodles and canned goods until her next trip to a charity food pantry.
“Thank God for food pantries,” she said on Monday, holding her infant son.
But all over Wichita, while recent news has been dominated by worries from Wall Street, the leaders of Wichita’s food charities have watched with growing fear as the number of people showing up for meals and food has set records.
(14 October 2008)
Marijuana cartels polluting California
Tracie Cone, Associated Press
The 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest that is popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels is also home to some of the most intensely polluted pockets of wilderness in America, according to federal officials.
Grow sites — 700 were discovered on California’s U.S. Forest Service land alone in 2007 and 2008 — are soaked and sprinkled with the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides.
(10 October 2008)
