The Obama administration's competing agricultural policies could prompt a bad case of indigestion - or whiplash.
Longtime food policy observers are having a difficult time squaring the Department of Agriculture's entrenched preference for high-tech industrial agriculture that emphasizes biotechnology and genetically engineered crops with its newfound interest in helping those who favor low-tech ag: small farmers, advocates of organic and local food and champions of sustainability.
Margaret Mellon, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, describes the USDA as schizophrenic. "It wants to promote both organic and sustainable local," she said. "It is also committed to promotion of biotech here and around the world. So far, there has not been collision between those two priorities, but I'm not sure that situation will last much longer."
She's got it soooo right. I think this idiotic contradictory policy is due to a fundamental lack of understanding of agriculture... and a very good understanding of politics. Obama's doing very well to try and please two very disparate constituencies - the biotech/pesticide lobby and health & environmentally conscious citizens. You can't have it both ways, but they sure are trying.
