Obama is considering appointing Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as his Ag secretary. So much for change foodies can believe in. If this Big Corn appointment goes through, you'll know that Obama's remark about how he'd read Michael Pollan's great "Open Letter to the Next President" and found it intriguing was all bulls**t. John Schwenkler is not surprised:
Well, yeah - and if you expected anything else, then I've got a few gallons of E-85 to sell you. As has been the case in any number of other instances, the kind of "I read Michael Pollan!" talk that gets folks like Ezra and Alice Waters all excited was just that - talk - and all those who fell for it should be taking a lot more cynicism with their morning coffee.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Wait-he's actually a politician? I'm utterly shocked. What a revolting development.
You call it corn, we call it maize, Iowa calls it cold hard cash. Welcome Secretary Vilsack. Remember that the Iowa caucus gave The One his big start. Payback! If you recall the whole idea of the mafia in "Goodfellas"-" ___ you; pay me!"
Obama read a book and found it "intriguing" and somehow that locks him into a policy position? I find Rod's blog intriguing and agree with maybe 20% of what he says. People should quit projecting their policy fantasies on Obama and wait for what he actually does. There will be plenty of time to call BS.
"But without the rest of America implementing an alternative method of doing agriculture before "King Corn's" highly anticipated demise, I certainly hope you all have your copies of the Haitian Cookbook -- the one with 101 different recipes in which dirt is a main ingredient."
Well, considering most of our corn and beans goes into livestock food, I am not sure that there will be a huge dent made in the food most folks eat when the Midwest farmers go belly up. What will happen is that the farmland will simply be bought up by a handful of large corporations. After all, there will still be people on earth who need to eat, and there will still be good farmland here in Iowa and the rest of the midwest.
What will happen is that the cost of food for the foodies will go up dramatically. Not unexpected, and perhaps an even beneficial condition if you want to see local production spurred. After all, when hamburger goes to $10/lb for the stuff WalMart sells, there might be some demand for locally grown options.
Of course, this will take a generation or so to implement, and I pity the folks out west who are running out of water to irrigate their backyard gardens. Who knows, we might see some large scale starvation before it is all over.
But you are right. Those of us in the Midwest will survive. We have the land, the seed stock, the livestock, and (at least so far) the will power to take care of our own.
But let's see the folks in New York City and Washington DC eat their fancy cars, concrete buildings and asphalt streets. And let's let them remember...the primary beneficiary of the cheap food program in this nation is the consumer. Take away price supports and after 5-7 years prices in the store would double. After all, when ADM ends up owning 90% of the arable land between the Appalachians and the Rockies, they will decide who gets the food. And I'm willing to bet they will not have a lot of loyalty to the Red, White and Blue.
I don't think the prospect of Vilsack as Ag Secretary is necessarily the capitulation to the "corn lobby" that some fear. Vilsack has spoken recently about the need for corn ethanol to be a transition fuel to more efficient and cleaner burning feedstocks that don't compete as directly with livestock feed or human food. He also is bullish on enhancing food quality, import standards, and revamping our currently ad hoc food safety regime. Having said that, I also think it is likely that Vilsack is nowhere near the top of the short list for heading up USDA - someone who wants him there is floating his name. Wendell Berry for Secretary of Agriculture, anyone?____I am generally sympathetic to Pollan's thinking on the need to reform our country's food culture, but I grow increasingly skeptical as he leaps into the realm of public policy - specifically on his airy speculation that non-GM crops might feed the world. A very good counterpoint to Pollan's perspective on this issue can be found in Paul Collier's essay in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, "The Politics of Hunger." ____I support the expansion of locally grown, natural food products for much the same reason as I support higher-density, walkable neo-traditional developments: Not becuase I want to remake society into an organic carrot-eating, carless paradise, but because I wish Americans - especially American families - had greater choice (that's right: greater choice) among organic, locally produced food and processed food - or for that matter, a modest New Urbanist bungalow with a front porch instead of a suburban tract home in a cul de sac. ____
Perhaps we don't need more choices, but rather different ones. In our area, if you have $250,000 to spend on a house you can get a townhouse in a development, a run down home in a bad neighborhood, or a cute, albeit small, bungalow with a front porch. Sadly, people don't know how to live with only one bathroom and no dishwasher. Even if they don't like the townhouse, what choices are there? Especially for families who are concerned about schools. The schools in our neighborhood, we live in a bungalow, are the worst in town! We used to live in a townhouse with the best school in town. You do the math.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.