teacher control them in order to teach? Why is food critical to national security? Well, there are those fossil fuels: making our food system greener (ironic!) is crucial to reducing our dependence on foreign oil. But there are other issues. Central processing and monoculture farming are dominant, whether it’s growing one crop or raising one kind and breed of animal. That makes food vulnerable to diseases and large-scale contamination, as witnessed by the recent spinach and tomato/pepper scares.
Most frightening is the potential for food terrorism. Pollan writes, “Whatever may be lost in efficiency by localizing food production is gained in resilience: regional food systems can better withstand all kinds of shocks. When a single factory is grinding 20 million hamburger patties in a week, or washing 25 million servings of salad, a single terrorist armed with a canister of toxins can, at a stroke, poison millions. Such a system is equally susceptible to accidental contamination: the bigger and more global the trade in food, the more vulnerable the system is to catastrophe.” If that sounds far-fetched, consider the comments of Tommy Thompson when resigning as Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2004: “I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.” How did our food system come to this? WWII’s aftermath brought dramatic changes.
Eisenhower’s agriculture secretary, Ezra Taft Benson, implored farmers to “Get big or get out.” That mantra was repeated by successive agriculture secretaries, reaching its culmination with Earl Butz, Nixon’s agriculture secretary.
Under Butz, “Get big or get out” became an obsession — in fact, the saying is associated with him more than Benson. (One of Butz’s own zingers was, “Adjust or die.”) Butz enthusiastically embraced industrialized agriculture and huge food corporations. The current subsidy system that favors centralization and industrial agriculture was begun under his watch. His impact was such that his 2008 obituary in one environmental publication was titled, “Earl Butz, the Man Who Killed the Family Farm, Has Died.” Benson and Butz probably meant well. And their successors have followed the same path in varying degrees. Their goal was to provide abundant, cheap food and they assumed that cheap oil to produce cheap food would always be available.
But cheap food doesn’t necessarily equate with good food. Giving farmers/producers subsidies that enabled them to grow huge quantities of corn and soybeans below cost flooded markets and encouraged ways to utilize the bounty. It was that bounty that led to CAFO feedlots and high-fructose corn syrup.
Meat was cheap, and so people began eating more than was healthy. High-fructose corn syrup was so cheap that beverages containing it began replacing nutritional stalwarts such as juice, milk, or simple water. Why not, when you can buy a 64 oz. (that’s two quarts) soda for 89 cents? High-fructose corn syrup, salt, transfats and other cheap fillers began replacing more nutritious — albeit more costly — ingredients in prepared foods.
Mr. President, you’ve said that effecting positive change is best achieved “bottom-up” rather than “top-down.” The good news is that there’s a movement that runs counter to the current entrenched, industrialized, fossilfuel dependent food system that has made junk food — some of which shouldn’t be called food, if your definition of food is that it nourishes the body — the norm rather than the exception. The explosion of growth in food system alternatives has definitely been “bottom-up” — it’s not really even a movement, as such. There are a few organizations with a national presence. Slow Food, begun in Italy, has chapters throughout America, including one here in Springfield, as well as a national office [www.slowfoodusa.org]. Food Democracy Now! is a “grassroots movement initiated by armers, writers, chefs, eaters and policy advocates who reognize the profound sense of urgency in creating a new food system that is capable of meeting the changing needs of American society as it relates to food, health, animal welfare and the environment.
The organization’s Web site, www.fooddemocracynow.org, has a petition with more than 80,000 signatures that proposes a list of sustainable/local USDA undersecretaries.
There are other organizations as well. But there’s no umbrella organization that consolidates disparate elements to influence national policy. (See “On the food front lines,” p.14 for local and regional organizations that are part of the alternative food movement.) One of those elements is “polyculture farming” (growing a variety of crops and animals) that creates a natural, elegant cycle of life that utilizes the sun instead of fossil fuels, nurtures the soil instead of depleting it, grows and raises food that’s chemical, hormone and pesticide free, and that can, through careful management, produce more per acre than monoculture farming. Others include artisanal cheesemakers, bakers and butchers; restaurants that utilize and promote healthy, organic and
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