| If you feel, as I do, food is a progressive issue.
A fundamental responsibility of our government is to protect the common good. We take for granted, clean drinking water, protection of our national parks, and drug safety. While the government falls short in all these areas, Americans have real expectations of their government.
Why don't our expectations extend to food? I don't mean food safety (such as preventing the conditions described in "The Jungle" that prompted creation of the FDA), I am talking about government support of bad food. An example -- government subsidies for "commodity corn." Commodity Corn is inedible but is the raw material in processed foods. The corn is turned into a variety of products like High-fructose corn syrup, or fed to livestock in manufacturing line slaughterhouses.
Add the negative impacts of agribusiness -- pesticide runoff in our water systems, the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and other food sourced diseases, fertilizer contamination of our air, water and food, and the problems come into sharp focus.
I advocate a "Healthy Food Initiative" that will change the paradigm in America. Imagine creating an infrastructure for a healthy, affordable food system by shifting massive subsidies from the pockets of Agribusiness to a system that rewards America's farmers, ranchers, fisherman, and others who feed us, for growing healthy food while protecting our environment. We can do this with tax credits for farmers who reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides. We can promote family farm ownership. We can invest in community garden areas in urban areas. These are some possibilities to change our food future.
Imagine a food future where food contributes to America's greatness, rather than just our GNP. Imagine a food future that promotes healthy life styles and a clean environment. Imagine a food future where environmental footprints is more important than shelf space foot prints for packaged food. Imagine a food future where children learn to select foods for their value, not their sugary cartoon images. It is time to stop imagining. It is time to make this imagination of a food future a present reality. It is time to be the change we want to be. I feel that food is our future -- healthy food is our birthright. Won't you join me in supporting my "Healthy Food Initiative"? It is time for a fresh start. It is time for healthy food.
Steve Young, Democrat for Congress, [Ca-48]
"For a fresh start"
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