America's Good Food Fight

Great op-ed in the LA Times by Nicolette Niman about the tug-of-war between the sustainable food movement versus the desire to provide cheap food to all people.

The controversy is often framed by agribusiness and food companies, heavily
invested in maintaining the status quo, claiming that a globalized,
industrialized system is the only way to produce enough food to feed the world's
growing population, and to do so affordably. Reform advocates working to
transform the system to one that's more locally based and isn't dependent on
chemicals, mechanization and cheap fossil fuels are pitted against the world's
poor, working class and hungry.

One important point the article makes is about the "cheapness" of commodity food (commodity food = corn, soybeans, etc). The food isn't really cheap. The government subsidizes the food to make it cheap! In other words, our tax dollars pay for part of our food supply so when you go to the grocery store it seems cheap. But, if you took the amount of your tax dollars that help subsidize the food supply plus the amount you spend at the grocery store, only then would you see the true cost of the food. Here's what the article says about that:

Commodity foods — from large-scale, industrialized agricultural production
— seem cheap by comparison because they're produced without bearing their true
costs, which are passed on in the form of pollution, virulent infectious
diseases and animal suffering.

"If the full cost of externalized environmental and health costs were taken into account, those same products would be far more expensive," the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production concluded in a 2008 report issued with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

So, this explains why you can get food so much cheaper at Walmart than at the local food stand. But, at what immeasurable cost? Walmart food may provide calories, but they are increasingly empty calories -- lacking nutrient value -- compared to the food produced locally and sustainably.

You fill your belly with calories, but lack the nutrients needed to keep you healthy and free of illness. (Have you wondered why our people have so many illnesses these days? Think... lack of vitamins and minerals in our food. But, that's another rant for another day...)


Back to the article....

The good news is that sustainable farming can feed the world. Productivity
comparisons of organic crops versus conventional crops have been hotly contested
for decades. But recent years have seen mounting studies showing that organic
crop yields are catching up and even surpassing chemical-based
agriculture.

Nonetheless, there is no denying that foods from sustainable farms
carry a higher price tag for the U.S. consumer. Most of us can actually afford
it. Americans spend about 9% of their incomes on food, according to the
Agriculture Department, one of the smallest percentages in the world.

The real challenge now is making good food available to people at every income level.
Currently, the financially strapped single mother has a hard time buying local
and organic. This is precisely where hunger advocates and good food advocates

I took this picture on vacation in Maine.

can and should unite to make wholesome food more accessible.

And, here's what she recommends as a long-term plan for solution:

Longer-term policy changes should include reinventing government food,
farm, education and nutrition programs to make healthy eating easy and
affordable. A few examples: States and localities should facilitate the
acceptance of food stamps at farmers' markets; school districts should create
lunch programs that offer healthier meals and purchase from local farms; federal
and state agriculture departments should help beginning farmers set up
sustainable farming operations and reestablish programs that teach citizens
skills for cooking, canning and growing some of their own food.

Read the article and judge for yourself: America's good food fight - latimes.com

What do you think?