Obama's 'Secretary of Food'?

by: teacherken

Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 13:22:07 PM PST

Somehow I feel as if someone else should be writing this, but I am still up.  And when I read a column that begins

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed "secretary of food."

But he doesn't have to.  Nicholas Kristof grew up on a farm.  And he has read, and talked with, key figures, such as Michael Pollan.

if you want, you can just go read Kristof and ignore me.  Or you can continue below the fold while I try to further entice you to read him, and - uh oh - offer a few additional thoughts of my own?  Really?  On food? You betcha.

that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy - all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

Kristof points directly at the source of the problem:

The Agriculture Department - and the agriculture committees in Congress - have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.

But let's be clear. The problem isn't farmers. It's the farm lobby - hijacked by industrial operators - and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.

Kristof speaks with background of growing up on a farm in rural Oregon, and  receiving payments not to grow crops on timberland he owns (he does direct the money to charity).

He reminds us of the damage of things like large hog farms, which are not required to have sewer systems (or reprocess the waste) -  just imagine if you can the output of 5,000 hogs, while they are alive.    

And to put things in context, he quotes two REPUBLICANS;

Change we can believe in?

The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position. A former secretary of agriculture, John Block, said publicly the other day that the agency should be renamed "the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forestry." And another, Ann Veneman, told me that she believes it should be renamed, "Department of Food and Agriculture." I'd prefer to see simply "Department of Food," giving primacy to America's 300 million eaters.

Like Jill (orangeclouds115) and Pollan he is sympathetic to appointing a reformer to the position.

Let me digress, or rather, wander into a few of my thoughts.

I am a school teacher.  The direct connection?  The school lunch program is run through the Department of Agriculture.  So is the food stamp program, something now being used by about one in every ten American families.  Given the health implications of what we eat, it is incredible that the programs directed towards feeding people do not insist on healthy diets.  The downstream costs of the diets upon which we feed our school children are incredible.  These include obesity, heart disease, colon cancer (it is possible to have a school lunch with absolutely no fruits, vegetables or whole grains), dental caries (take a look at how much refined sugar is a part of what can be purchased in school lunches -  and unfortunately, food stamps).  

And the kind of crop growing that we encourage is monoculture, destructive of the soil to begin with, and compounded by the fertilizers which we then require.

I have no idea whether Obama is willing to consider a reformer for Ag.  I am encouraged that this issue has risen to the prominence it will receive as a result of this column by Kristof.  

And it is interesting, since so often Kristof writes about human rights issues.  Well folks, he is doing that in this column.  Access to healthy food is a human right, and allowing agribusiness to dominate the food policy of this nation is a violation of the rights of most of us, who are not motivated by the the profits they make and who pay for the subsidization of their destruction of the fertility of our soil and of our health.

So, I am a scold.  I would like something very different.

That's why I am sharing this column with you.

Send it around, especially to anyone you know in the transition, or in the Senate.  

Kristof quotes Pollan again at the end, and then offers a simple statement:  

As Mr. Pollan told me: "Even if you don't think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we're not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on - health care, climate change and energy independence - unless we reform agriculture."

Your move, Mr. President-elect.

Your move, indeed.  

Peace.