Slow Food USA is promoting efforts by groups who want an organic garden grown at the White House and who would like to see some representation of interest in sustainable agriculture at the USDA. Here’s your chance to sign petitions on both those issues. And the American Gothic illustration of the Obamas is pretty cute too.
Here’s a statistic that reveals the current status of the American agricultural system. According to a recent USDA report, farms earning a annual income of a million dollars constitute just 2% of American farms, but account for a whopping 50% of total U.S. farm income. Small family farms: where are you when we need you?
The New York Times editorial writers have some interesting things to say about the challenges facing the new USDA secretary. The Vilsack appointment, they say, “has the merit of being unsatisfactory to both extremes of the farm-policy debates.” This makes me wonder when sustainable agriculture will be viewed as the wave of the future, and not as “extreme.” Soon?
12/23 update: Here’s Kim Severson’s piece in the food section on what needs to happen at the USDA.
Food Democracy is circulating a petition to the Obama transition team to appoint a USDA Secretary who cares about sustainability (what a concept!). Click on the link to join the movement! If you want to read more about this, see Nicholas Kristof’s column linked to my post on December 10 and Michael Pollan’s magazine piece linked to the one on October 12.
Here is Bill Moyer’s recent interview with Michael Pollan, talking about what the new president can and cannot do for American agriculture. Worth a look.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11282008/profile.html
12/11 update: Take a look at today’s New York Times where Nicholas Kristof enthusiastically supports the idea that Obama should appoint a “Secretary of Food.”
Meatpoultry.com has collected President-Elect Obama’s statements about agriculture from his website (you will need to register - it’s free - to read this). As with much else about Obama’s views, these ideas sound hopeful. He will need much encouragement to follow through on some of these promises.
Lucien Joppen, who writes for Voedingsmiddelen Industrie, a Dutch food business magazine, asked this question: What does the
If it is McCain, it is business as usual or - impossible as it may be to imagine - worse. If Obama is elected, things could get better. The decision to vote for Obama may be a matter of the triumph of hope over experience, but everyone I know who cares deeply about social issues wants him to win, and by a huge margin. I do too.
The history of American politics teaches that once elected, candidates do not necessarily keep campaign promises so let’s not deal with the details. Both candidates have issued vague health care proposals and neither seems willing to take on insurance companies and demand what experts believe is absolutely necessary to fix the system: develop a single-payer health care program with universal coverage. If McCain is elected, we have no reason to expect improvement. If Obama wins, we can hope that he will use his mandate to push through a single-payer system.
As for food policy, the big question is who is appointed to lead the USDA. Historically, the USDA has promoted the interests of agribusiness. It still does, but the agency is now also responsible for everything connected to food policy: farm subsidies, land use, organic standards, international food trade, food assistance to low-income families, and dietary advice to the public. If McCain is elected, expect to see another USDA Secretary who represents agribusiness. I do not know who is advising Obama about agricultural issues (he has not asked me, alas), but let’s hope his advisers have a broad view of food and nutrition policy that includes social concerns about food security and food equity. Maybe we will get lucky. Let’s hope for fair weather and a huge voter turnout. Every vote counts, and—according to this video—mine is especially valued (and yours too!).
It’s a good one, with terrific articles by Michael Pollan on farm policy for the next administration, David Rieff on what to do about agriculture in Africa, and Mark Bittman on why food should be taken seriously. Read, think, and enjoy!
P.S. And for fun, check out Safire on the meaning of “locavore” and “functional food.”
This week’s Eating Liberally Q and A is about my talk at a conference run by Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea that it was possible to cause so much consternation in such brief remarks (we were allotted four minutes), but it elicited a quite lengthy and angry rebuttal from Professor Sachs. He took strong issue with my view that Capitalist economics might not help African agricultural development because farmers cannot afford to buy patented seeds, fertilizer, and machinery. The lack of agricultural development seems to me to be a social rather than a technical problem and, therefore, one that requires social rather than technical solutions. This seems pretty obvious to me, but not everyone agrees, apparently.
The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, of which I was a member, released its report today: Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America. This was a two-year investigation of the effects of our current system of intensive animal production on the environment, communities, human health, and the animals themselves. For me, this was an opportunity to visit huge dairy farms, feedlots, pig farms, and facilities housing 1.2 million chickens. The big issues? Antibiotics and waste. The big surprise? Laws exist; they just aren’t being enforced. This was quite an education.
The press response has been interesting, and somewhat predictable. Here’s what the Washington Post has to say. The meat industry is not pleased, as is evident from the report in the Kansas City Star.
