At first suggestion, the idea of a "Food Secretary" to replace the Secretary of Agriculture sounds a bit redundant, maybe even silly, but in his article "Obama's 'Secretary of Food'?", Nicholas Kristof makes a very good argument for redefining the scope and activities of the Dept. of Agriculture.
A shift away from subsidies for industrial food products would be a start. Kristof makes the point that a farm that produces as much waste (not trash, but literally, to be graphic, shit) as a small town is not required to have a sewage system, whereas the town would be. Who pays to clean up that shit? You and I do, via subsidies.
There is a problem with our food system when everything else is more expensive than it was 20 years ago except for meat and poultry. As my husband recently pointed out: Labor is more expensive, storage, transportation and processing is more expensive but meat and poultry are much cheaper.
Think about where that savings comes in. Part of it is subsidies - your tax money going to make your steak cheaper, instead of the apple, for example. Part of it is just gross: treating animals like products instead of like animals, which is inherently shitty, in all the terms of the word.
There is a problem when it is cheaper for your grocery store to give you that unsubsidized apple from across the country rather than from the farmer 50 miles away.
Kristof says many of these things with less cursing and more precise language than I do, but the point remains: why shouldn't this change? For economic reasons, for health reasons, for environmental reasons, why on earth should this failing system be allowed to stay?
2 comments:
I swear to Gawd, I have to do some work at some point today.
I completely agree with you here. Are you a member/supporter of FarmAid? It's Willie Nelson's organization to help local family farmers. They're working to create demand for the same kinds of fundamental changes to our food systems that you're discussing here.
The hard part is helping people understand that it's acceptable for food to be relatively expensive. Produce should not be cheaper. Meat/poultry/dairy should be more expensive due to more humane treatment of the animals.
I'm far too inarticulate to justify that sentiment at the moment. Maybe later.
Its a hard sentiment to justify in a world where people are starving. But its also an easy on in a world where people are dying due to diabetes and heart problems that are directly linked to what we eat.
But I agree with it.
Post a Comment