There's no clearer voice in America about the business of food than Michael Pollan's. In The Omnivore's Dilemma and subsequent articles for the New York Times he brings both passion (for fresh, local ingredients) and clarity (the result of feet-on-the ground research) to the table.
His latest piece reminds us that the Farm Bill is one of the country's most important pieces of social engineering. Up for renewal shortly, it sets the broad outlines of American agricultural policy, subsidizing just five commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton), thus determining what gets grown where.
This subsidized overproduction puts cheap processed food on supermarket shelves (so poor people often eat unhealthy diets) and cheap corn- and soy-based exports that undermine agriculture in developing countries (often forcing Latin American farmers off the land to seek work in the US).
To read the full article, click here. It's a complicated story, well worth digesting.
