Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Some say subsidies tip the scales against health
Is the U.S. government's farm policy making you fat?
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/10286014.htm
Posted on Sun, Nov. 28, 2004
BY ALAN BJERGA Eagle Washington bureau

WASHINGTON - Billie Jo Jones stays away from buying cheap, sugary foods for
herself, her husband and four children. But it isn't easy.

"My kids, they beg me to buy popcorn or cream soda, Dr. Pepper, root beer,"
said the 32-year-old south Wichita resident, who is diabetic and watches her
and her family's diet closely.

"I don't buy it, but it would be easier if I did," she said. "Lettuce and
tomatoes and onions and cucumbers are pretty expensive."

Jones' grocery-aisle dilemmas are common. The incredible variety of tasty,
safe, and inexpensive food choices is a testament to the hard work of
farmers and the help they've received through decades of government aid.

But Americans may be getting too much of a good thing. Increasing obesity in
the United States has nutritionists, scientists and activists wondering how
to stop the national eating binge.

Some argue that federal farm supports make America's weight problem worse.
By creating a system that maintains a cheap and plentiful supply of corn,
wheat and other commodities, policymakers have inadvertently nurtured
unhealthy snack foods, they charge. Healthier fruits and vegetables, which
largely aren't supported by farm programs, end up becoming relatively more
expensive, encouraging bad consumer choices.

Farmers and their supporters say that's a scientifically unproven position
that obscures the real causes of obesity--general overeating and lack of
exercise. They also argue that attacking farm programs threatens
agriculture, a key part of the Kansas economy.

"I am not aware of any action taken by any farmer or rancher or caused by
any agriculture program that has forced American consumers to go into their
favorite food establishment and order the supersized number three menu item,
the two appetizers preceding and the dessert following the main entree,
followed by ten to 12 hours of television," said Sen. Pat Roberts, a member
of the Senate Agriculture Committee and author of the 1996 farm bill.

The debate is likely to influence government decisions on nutrition,
education programs and farm policy.

Whichever side tips the scales in its favor will shape what Americans eat,
what they pay for food, and whether the obesity problem, which costs
billions of dollars and touches millions of lives, is reduced.

Bulging waistlines

One fact on which everyone agrees: Americans are heftier than they used to
be.

The obesity rate, as defined by the federal government, has jumped from 14.5
percent of U.S. adults in 1971 to 30.6 percent in 2002.

Not only do Americans eat too much food, they eat bad food. Americans eat
about 50 percent more fat and more than twice as much sugar as they should
according to Agriculture Department research.

Meanwhile, they eat slightly fewer vegetable and dairy products and
significantly less fruit than the department recommends.

Obesity shortens lives and adds costs, from $11 billion a year to treat
diabetic complications to the estimated $275 million airlines spend annually
in extra fuel because their passengers are, on average, 10 pounds heavier
than they were in 1990.

"This is an incredible problem," said James Tillotson, a professor of
nutrition science at Tufts University in Boston. "How do you slim down a
nation of 280 million people?"

Tillotson studies the relationship between American public policy and
nutrition. American obesity is exploding, he said, in great part because of
the unintended consequences of farm policies.

A national choice

More than 80 years ago, farmers hard-hit by weather disasters and low prices
demanded, and received, government programs to stabilize their industry.

Subsidy programs gave government payments mainly to farmers in farm-belt
states who raised crops like wheat, corn and soybeans, the staples of the
American diet. The programs were structured to keep the nation's food supply
constant and consumer prices low.

>From that standpoint, they've been incredibly successful.

In 1929 the average American spent about a quarter of every dollar earned on
food. Now, it's about a dime. But Tillotson said those programs evolved in
ways that encourage obesity.

"Certain crops that contribute to high-calorie diets are favored, and more
beneficial foods aren't," he said.

Farm subsidies end up making staple crops cheaper compared to fruits and
vegetables.

That encourages people to neglect a balanced diet, he said. This is
especially true among the lowest-income families, which according to a joint
U.S. and Canadian health survey are twice as likely to be obese as families
in the top 20 percent of income.

More importantly, Tillotson said, cheap commodities encourage food companies
to make unhealthy high-calorie snacks and sodas.

High-fructose corn syrup, a sugar substitute, is most often mentioned as a
contributor to poor diet, but inexpensive wheat and soybean products also go
into low-cost snacks that tend to be high in calories and unhealthy fats and
low in nutrients, Tillotson said.

Subsidy critics describe the cycle like this:

Americans eat too many snacks and get heavier. That creates demand for more
snack ingredients, which farmers meet by growing more crops. If farmers
overproduce, prices fall, but government aid encourages production anyway.

Oversupply means food companies can buy more, cheaper crops, driving down
the cost of snacks. So Americans eat more snacks. And get heavier.

"It's been devastating," said Mark Muller, agriculture director at the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, Minn. "Farmers
are getting distorted low prices for commodities, the government pays for
the overproduction, and it has an impact on how we eat."

Muller, whose group advocates for small family farms, said he wants to
continue subsidies, but wants them restructured so farmers won't overproduce
low-priced crops.

Though that could drive up some food prices, he noted that bringing fruits
and vegetables into farm programs could lower the prices of healthier foods.

"We can use pricing structures to support more fruits and vegetables and not
so much soda pop," he said.

Muller said his group plans to push for changes to encourage healthier
eating in the next farm bill, due in 2008.

Farmers not responsible

But many lawmakers, along with food and nutrition experts, reject obesity
arguments against farm programs, saying obesity is a multi-faceted problem
in which farm programs play only a minor role, if any.

Farm policies have little effect on the eating habits of a nation rich
enough to binge on whatever it wants, said Michael Jacobson, anti-obesity
campaigner and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public
Interest in Washington, D.C.

He rails against fast-food restaurants, junk food and the marketers who
promote them.

Americans "are offered food wherever we go," he said. "Free coffee in your
office, huge supermarkets with packaged foods and fresh foods. All that,
backed with $30 billion of advertising to encourage more eating."

In addition, some researchers are skeptical that payments to farmers do much
to prices. A study by Iowa State University economics professor Bruce
Babcock states that ending all corn subsidies, for example, would at most
raise corn prices by 5 to 7 percent.

That's not much difference to consumers. On the other hand, major changes to
farm programs could disrupt rural America, which received more than $12
billion in farm payments in 2002. Kansas farmers received $457 million in
subsidies in 2002.

Paul Penner grows about 500 acres of hard red winter wheat outside
Hillsboro. He said he follows policy debates closely, and he's aware of the
obesity controversy.

He said that major changes to wheat programs, for example, could devastate
rural Kansas.

Farmers "pay the fertilizer dealer, the banker," he said. "We go downtown,
we buy home items. If the programs were suddenly cut off, you would see a
drastic change in the local economy," he said.

Penner said he'd like to see government anti-obesity efforts focus more on
education and fitness programs, especially in schools.

A total effort

In Wichita, the school district received a $1.3 million federal grant for
physical fitness programs last year, and a group of about 20 educators and
community members are meeting to come up with a district wellness plan by
this summer.

Vicki Hoffman, food services director for the district, said the group is
reviewing everything from physical education requirements to vending
machines to school lunch offerings.

In school policy, "the philosophical difference is control versus choices,"
she said. "Everyone would like to have healthy choices, but the district has
to decide whether you limit choices only to healthy choices."

At the federal level, Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, said he could see a limited
role for government intervention against obesity.

"We need to make sure people have information about the consequences of
being obese," he said, but he'd like to see the marketplace and local
governments make as many decisions as possible.

Yet Moran, who heads the House Agriculture Committee's subcommittee on
commodity crops and helped craft the most recent farm bill, also
acknowledged that obesity will figure in farm-bill discussions that will
begin next year.

"Agriculture policy isn't only about farmers and ranchers," he said. "It
affects everyone."

Jones said it certainly affects her. She said she's hoping future trips to
the grocery store will offer better nutrition choices for her dollar.

In the meantime, she said she's trying to stay within her budget while
teaching her children to eat well.

"My three-year-old likes to eat celery sticks," she said, with pride.


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