As a vegetarian, food politics geek, and concerned cook, I’ve been a little upset that neither of the major presidential candidates has talked about the problems with our food system. I’m not surprised; it’s not a topic that’s high on most Americans’ list of concerns, though I’d argue that it should be. We all eat food every day, and what we eat (e.g. what’s cheap) is driven largely by economic and political concerns, not nutrition. Furthermore, the way we eat is deeply implicated in both rising health care costs and the growing threat of climate change. (Did you know agriculture about as much to global warming as transportation does?)
Michael Pollan to the rescue. This weekend he wrote an open letter to the next president in the New York Times Magazine, explaining exactly why the next administration will need to reform our food system, and then laying out a sweeping plan for how to do it. From changing the USDA subsidy system to support sustainable agriculture; to providing incentives for towns to build permanent local food markets, to planting a “victory garden” on the White House lawn, his plan includes points both essential and innovative, and even provides counter-arguments against some of the challenges that he predicts will arise.
It’s long, but it’s well worth a read. If you’re not familiar with Pollan’s works (notably “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food”), the letter will give you a good grounding in his ideas, which blew me away when I first learned them. For those of you who have read some of his other work, there are some cool new ideas in here about how politics can potentially get us out of the mess we’re in.
And will it work? Will the candidates read this letter, and if so, will they follow through on any of it? According to Alice Waters, Obama is already familiar with Pollan’s ideas, and is receptive to them. I couldn’t find evidence of that on Obama’s website, though. I cringe every time I hear him talk about biodiesel, too: the last thing we need is to cover more farmland with petroleum-laden pesticides to grow monoculture corn so we can burn it in our cars. Still, Obama seems generally in tune with the links between environmental and social issues like this one, and I’ve seen no evidence that McCain recognizes the problems with our food system. On this issue, maybe a leader with a taste for arugula is what the sustainable food movement needs?