Tired of polishing the shoes of corporate agriculture
There can be no doubt that after more than 30 years of republican/conservative policies of deregulation and corporate consolidation that we are left with a non-functioning society.
What makes our current situation so frustrating is that there are simple solutions to most of our greatest issues. The problem is that credible and creative solutions get lost in the mishmash of information that is our current society.
There is no area that illustrates that more than our food system. We have a food system that is health killing, Earth killing and contributes to economic inequality by exploiting immigrant labor.
Our food system is at the nexus of health care, immigration, economic inequality and climate change and there is a simple way that President Obama can address these issues without congress.
The Washington Post has published a brilliant piece by Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter which addresses most of our current crisis by proposing a long needed National Food Policy.
The food system and the diet it’s created have caused incalculable damage to the health of our people and our land, water and air. If a foreign power were to do such harm, we’d regard it as a threat to national security, if not an act of war [...] So when hundreds of thousands of annual deaths are preventable — as the deaths from the chronic diseases linked to the modern American way of eating surely are — preventing those needless deaths is a national priority.
A national food policy would do that, by investing resources to guarantee that:
● All Americans have access to healthful food;
● Farm policies are designed to support our public health and environmental objectives;
● Our food supply is free of toxic bacteria, chemicals and drugs;
● Production and marketing of our food are done transparently;
● The food industry pays a fair wage to those it employs;
● Food marketing sets children up for healthful lives by instilling in them a habit of eating real food;
● Animals are treated with compassion and attention to their well-being;
● The food system’s carbon footprint is reduced, and the amount of carbon sequestered on farmland is increased;
● The food system is sufficiently resilient to withstand the effects of climate change.
A real no-brainer of a list. Imagine advocating that food be grown with the health of people and our planet in mind. What heresy!
The beauty of this practical and necessary proposal is that it can be accomplished with action by President Obama without the input of our dysfunctional congress. And what better time than the last (and hopefully most productive) two years of his presidency.
[...] In the next State of the Union address, he should announce an executive order establishing a national policy for food, health and well-being. By officially acknowledging the problem and by setting forth a few simple principles on which most Americans agree,[...]. The national food policy could be developed and implemented by a new White House council, which would coordinate among, say, the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA to align agricultural policies with public health objectives, and the EPA and the USDA to make sure food production doesn’t undermine environmental goals. A national food policy would lay the foundation for a food system in which healthful choices are accessible to all and in which it becomes possible to nourish ourselves without exploiting other people or nature.
I encourage you to
read the entire piece!. Creativity and focus can get us out of our current stalemate. Let's hope those open to simple solutions consider this brilliant idea.