Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>]

Here's one of the causes of cheap food:

Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" speech from 1975:

Keep in mind that the ADM and Monsanto influences were there as well as they are now, but fewer people realized it back then. Now, they enact policies like this and do it with arrogance that there isn't anything we can do through government to stop the Corporatocracy from manipulating everything people eat.
In those days, food and energy were the inflation factors. Now, they are excluded from inflation calculations to keep retirees from getting their due social security raises.

Excerpt:

A stable American economy cannot be sustained if the world's economy is in chaos. International cooperation is absolutely essential and vital. But while we seek agreements with other nations, let us put our own economic house in order. Today, I have identified 10 areas for our joint action, the executive and the legislative branches of our Government.

Number one: food. America is the world's champion producer of food. Food prices and petroleum prices in the United States are primary inflationary factors. America today partially depends on foreign sources for petroleum, but we can grow more than enough food for ourselves.

To halt higher food prices, we must produce more food, and I call upon every farmer to produce to full capacity. And I say to you and to the farmers, they have done a magnificent job in the past, and we should be eternally grateful.

This Government, however, will do all in its power to assure him--that farmer--he can sell his entire yield at reasonable prices. Accordingly, I ask the Congress to remove all remaining acreage limitations on rice, peanuts, and cotton.

I also assure America's farmers here and now that I will allocate all the fuel and ask authority to allocate all the fertilizer they need to do this essential job.

Agricultural marketing orders and other Federal regulations are being reviewed to eliminate or modify those responsible for inflated prices.

I have directed our new Council on Wage and Price Stability to find and to expose all restrictive practices, public or private, which raise food prices. The Administration will also monitor food production, margins, pricing, and exports. We can and we shall have an adequate supply at home, and through cooperation, meet the needs of our trading partners abroad.

Over this past weekend, we initiated a voluntary program to monitor grain exports. The Economic Policy Board will be responsible for determining the policy under this program.

In addition, in order to better allocate our supplies for export, I ask that a provision be added to Public Law 480 under which we ship food to the needy and friendly countries. The President needs authority to waive certain of the restrictions on shipments based on national interest or humanitarian grounds.