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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Michael Pollan's Food for Thought
  • Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:55:34 -0700



Michael Pollan's Food for Thought
http://www.truthout.org/112708Y
Thursday 27 November 2008
by: Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Writer and activist Michael Pollan has no interest in becoming Barack
Obama's secretary of agriculture, thank you very much, even though there are
a lot of people who think he'd be perfect for the job.

Pollan disagrees. Laughing, he told my colleague Bill Moyers on the
latest edition of public television's "Bill Moyers Journal" that "I have an
understanding of my strengths and limitations ... I don't want this job,"
then turned serious as he added, "What Obama needs to do, if he indeed wants
to make change in this area - and that isn't clear yet that he does, at least
in his first term - I think we need a food policy czar in the White House
because the challenge is not just what we do with agriculture, it's
connecting the dots between agriculture and public health, between
agriculture and energy and climate change, agriculture and education."

There's been an Internet-fueled citizens' movement to draft Pollan for
the cabinet post. As the author of countless articles and such books as "The
Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" and "In Defense of Food:
An Eater's Manifesto," his thorough reporting, literally getting his hands
dirty working on American farms and writing about it, has made him one of our
country's greatest experts on how and what we eat.

In an open letter to whomever would become our next president - or
"Farmer in Chief," as he put it in the October 12 New York Times Magazine -
Pollan wrote, "It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will
occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned
during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents
have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration -
the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril ... "But
with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and
abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you,
like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting
the fact - so easy to overlook these past few years - that the health of a
nation's food system is a critical issue of national securi
ty. Food is about to demand your attention."

In 2007, even before the financial meltdown had struck, some 32 million
Americans - at least one in nine households - had trouble putting enough food
on the table. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, food banks across
the country are struggling to meet a surge of people uncertain about their
next meal. They've seen a 20 percent increase in demand - middle-class
families, they say, account for most of the growth.

And the day before our annual Thanksgiving binge, The Washington Post
reported, "The number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30
million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in
2005 after Hurricane Katrina."

Contrast this with the big bucks being shelled out in the recent $307
billion farm bill, much of it going to massive agribusinesses - "A welfare
program," as Time Magazine described it, "for the megafarms that use the most
fuel, water, and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most
fattening crops; hire the most illegals and depopulate rural America."

In a press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Obama cited a report
released this week by the Government Accountability Office: "From 2003 to
2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies even though
they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such
subsidies, " he said. "If this is true, it is a prime example of the kind of
waste I intend to end as president."

All well and good, but as a senator, Barack Obama supported that monster
farm bill (although he was absent for the actual roll call). He also
supported the production of ethanol (a politically expedient move when the
Iowa Democratic caucuses were at stake), even though using corn for fuel
rather than food raises the price of grain and results in huge emissions of
greenhouse gases.

Thus, where food and agriculture are concerned, connecting the dots, as
Michael Pollan told Bill Moyers, is a tortuous journey involving internecine
politics, international diplomacy, big business, every branch of government
and every issue from morbid obesity to homeland security.

Pollan is hopeful that Obama will take advantage of his oratorical skills
and bully pulpit to set an example for the American people, perhaps even
suggesting "meatless Mondays" for the country - which according to Pollan
would have the ecological effect of taking 30-40 million cars off the road
for a year - and encouraging home gardening and eating locally; supporting
the small farmers who grow fresh food nearby - without chemicals or
subsidies. "I think we have to figure out different solutions in different
places, and it's not all or nothing," he said. "We need to let a thousand
flowers bloom. We need to try many things in many places, and figure out what
works ... Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the
farmer's market. Get out of the supermarket ... Plant a garden.... Declare
your independence from the culture of fast food."

Regardless of who Obama chooses as his ag secretary, it will be
interesting to see if the new president sees fit to make Pollan an unofficial
adviser on food issues, an influential voice in his - you should excuse the
expression - kitchen cabinet.






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