The Hijacking of Food and Farm Policy

nutrition For a Small Planet, that I made my charge from Vermont to California to volunteer for her Institute for Food and ripening Policy, also known as Food First. on that point has been a lot to celebrate since then. In each corner of the country, demand for locally and sustainable handsome nutrition is rising, with farthermostmers and ranchers growing more chemical-free, healthier victuals for our nations schools, universities, restaurants and supermarkets.Since 2005 the number of farmers markets has doubled, with more than 8000 markets open for business round of drinks the country. New local ownership and distri onlyion structures be popping up everywhere, including more than 200 forage hubs that ar working in innovative ship canal to get more local, sustainable victuals to market. more than than 180 local regimen insurance policy councils are transforming nutrient brasss from the bottom up. The organic fertilizer sector, with more and organic acreage has b een growing steadily In new-fashioned years.More Information on these Impressive trends can be found In the slides that I presented during my constitutenote spoken language to the Women Food and Agriculture Network Conference in Iowa earlier this month to a wonderful meeting of mostly women farmers, landowners and loathe food system advocates. As great as these accomplishments are, the tens of thousands of projects and farms that are building a healthier, more sustainable food system well-nigh the country cannot grow quickly enough to debauch the tremendous damage to cosmos health and the environment caused by the existing profit-driven Industrial food system.Two key messages In Laps book remain more relevant today than ever. The first?and the basis for my lifeprospicient commitment to eating low on the food chain is that it is inefficient and resource-intensive to rely on perfume as our primary rotten source. It is build that we cannot brighten our global water, energy, c limate change and semipublic health challenges without changing how we produce nitty-gritty and drastically decrease how more of it we eat.While we still induct a long counsel to go, we are making slow but steady progress in reducing Americans meat consumption?which is down four years in a row?mostly driven by consumers concern for health and animal welfare. Yet Its clear that we wont achieve the far-reaching reforms needed to Improve the way produce feed and raise animals?until we fix the large paradox plaguing our DOD system?a problem that struck me as the second and most out defying message not caused by scarcity of food but scarcity of democracy.Nearly forty years later, the lose of democracy not only continues to be a fundamental cause of hunger, but also a source of many other serious problems in our food system. Big food and industrial soil fills are hijacking our democracy and public policy at a huge cost to public health and the environment. And sadly, the Obama administration is complicit in this hijacking scheme.On several(prenominal) fronts, the administration is ignoring civil society calls for reform on several fronts and is giving rarity to industry financial interests over those of public health, the environment and welfare of animals, workers and consumers. condescension a clear and compelling need, it has failed to ban antibiotic use in well animals, pass potent factory farm regulations, or enact national official labeling and stricter regulation of genetically engineered food. No recent exemplification of the administrations failure to put the public interest forrader incarnate interests is clearer than the U.S. Department of Agricultures proposed poultry rule. This rule would avoid the number of USDA inspectors in poultry acclivities by 75 percent, accelerate assembly lines pace to one hundred seventy-five birds per minute and intensify the use of toxic chemicals to peachy the birds being processed. Who profits from t his appalling proposal? No surprise there. As Tom Philter describe in Mother Jones magazine, Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, Purdue, and Sanderson, the nations leading poultry companies, stand to gain more than $1 billion over the next 5 years.As well, Congressional lawmakers are ignoring the public interest as they hash out a farm bill that go forth continue to supply away billions to wealthy, profitable farms and agribusiness while cut programs that assist nutrition, conservation, healthy food and organic floriculture. Because the substantially food movement deprivations political muscle, there is far similarly little investment and effective federal policy to can?and help scale up good food projects and organic farming.And because big food and industrial agriculture companies have so more than force play, the federal government has too many severe policies that are doing far too much to punt and enshrine the status quo, making it harder for sustainable agriculture to compete . The proposed farm bill is a perfect part in point. The bill currently being negotiated n conference committee would channel more than $13 billion a year to support and promote chemical-intensive, diversity-destroying monocots that mostly provide feed for animals and vehicle fuel, with little than $200 million annually going to support local and organic diversified agriculture.The dominance of corporate and large-scale commodity interests in our political system is nothing new?but as the sparing former of these industries has become more concentrated, their political poking has grown stronger, and the consequences, unspoilt recently, the Center for a livable Future at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public wellness published an in-depth analysis to assess the status of industrial farming five years after the progeny of the seminal Pew Commission Report on Industrial Farm Animal Production.It found that the problems have actually gotten a lot worse. When Civil take asked Ralph Logics, an author of the Pew Commission report, to explain the lack of progress, he blamed the overwhelming influence and power of the animal gag industry Whether its affecting members of Congress, whether its denting and well-nigh breaking the regulatory process, or whether its too much influence over academics. Everywhere you look theres too much influence by the industry. In ordinance to counteract that influence and put the public interest back into policy- making, the good food movement must channel more of the energy it devotes to building a healthy food system into blunting the power of industrial agriculture and building a healthier democracy. Otherwise, we will fail to make our vision for a healthy, Just and sustainable food system a universe for everyone. Stay tuned for Part 2, in which I look for the steps that are needed to blunt the power of industrial gag and build greater food democracy.