Family Farmers Demand Real Change

[Joanne98]

by Ben Burkett

As President-elect Barack Obama confronts the current economic crisis, in the shadows lurks an issue that demands equal attention, despite it's low profile during the campaign: agriculture. As an African-American farmer from Mississippi, I am hopeful that our next president will also recognize we cannot afford business as usual when it comes to the subject of our broken food system.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, while originally known as the "People's Department" under President Lincoln, has in recent decades been controlled by the voices of the corporate commodity groups and agribusiness interests. Those monied interests have continually stomped on the concerns of family farmers and consumers. As a result, our current disastrous model of industrial agriculture pushes for bigger factory farms, more genetically-modified monoculture crops, and more "globalization" and free trade that emphasizes export-driven growth and allows for cheap imports to displace American farmers.

Americans now must deal with poisonous Chinese imports in our pet food and dairy products, a flood of e.coli outbreaks in our meat and spinach, salmonella-tainted tomatoes from Mexico and contaminated water supplies due to factory farm pollution.

A new food and farm movement uniting family farmers, consumers, environmentalists, public health advocates and others has blossomed in recent years, backed by scientific research.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/09-2