Food As A National Security Issue

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This piece was recently repeated on NPR:

Food As A National Security Issue
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Alia Malley
Michael Pollan is a professor of science and environmental journalism at University of California at Berkeley. Courtesy Penguin Group


Fresh Air from WHYY, October 20, 2008 · In an open letter to the next president, author Michael Pollan writes about the waning health of America's food systems — and warns that "the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close."

The future president's food policies, says Pollan, will have a large impact on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, energy independence and health care.

Pollan is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals and In Defense OF Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95896389


In a nut shell:
Discusses Agricultural policy and Farm Bill and industrialization of food policy in US - how current policy codifies the rules that govern our country, farmers forbidden from growing certain foods, retarding the growth of local food economy. It has been to drive down the cost of food and make food as cheap as possible - stemming from Nixon administration, when he appointed Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture. Allows farmers to sell crops for less than it costs to grow them, how that lead to separation of animals on farms, which replace nutrients in soil, and then how we now remedy that by fossil fuel fertilizers. Unhealthy cycle, resulted in concentration of farmers, 4 meat packers are responsible for 84% of beef, chicken, pork....incredible concentration of food system ... hard to have local food system.

Talks about resolarizing food system, replacing fossil fuel agenda, farmers of future, green jobs, etc.

Here's the (lengthy) open letter he wrote last fall to President-elect:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html

Very enlightening. Very complicated, but, important issue, IMHO. So much is tied to fossil fuel...with such negative side effects. *sigh*