Franciscan Family Farms

Michael Pollan had a great article in the NYT Magazine a few weeks ago, entitled Farmer-in-Chief (link to article). The article talks about the fact that farming and food policy is something that almost never comes up in elections, but is actually tied to many of the problems facing our nation. Consider these facts:

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent
Chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food
Four of the top 10 killers in America today are chronic diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer.
While food costs have dropped as a percentage of our spending since 1960 (18% down to less than 10%), medical costs have exploded (5% up to 16%). (Perhaps our move toward abundant cheap food has taken a toll on our health?)

So Pollan is pointing out that while the presidential candidates talk at length about solving the climate crisis or the health-care crisis, they rarely mention that our farm policy is a major contributor to both problems. Nor do they mention that our food supply represents a national asset that must be insulated from terrorist attacks, etc. One might think that an issue that is tied into our health, economic, and military security would be higher on the agenda – but since elected officials from both parties support the current farm policies (with precious few exceptions), we hear almost nothing about it – other than platitudes emphasizing how much the candidates care about small farmers.

It’s a long read, but well worth it if, like me, you’re interested in the intersection of politics and farming.