Log In | Register
Pollan finds one common point on which all the various movement splinters can agree: that the way our food system is organized and supported in this country has led to an epidemic of ill health.
Michael Pollan chronicles rise of the food movement(s)
Seeded on Sun May 23, 2010 2:40 PM EDT
Article Source: Grist- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (7)
Related Content:
Gimme your lunch money
Blanche Lincoln’s dismal school-lunch bill:
Between 1995 and 2006, the farm program paid out $140.2 billion in crop subsidies -- an average of $12 billion per year, or roughly equal to the annual school-lunch budget.
That annual gusher of cash has benefitted large crop buyers (think meat giants like Tyson and grain traders like Cargill and input suppliers (e.g., seed giant Monsanto) much more than it has farmers. And the farmers who do benefit tend to be the very largest ones. Right now, people making as much as $500,000 annually are eligible to receive farm-program payments. That's indefensible. To fund her tiny bump in school-lunch spending, Lincoln could at least lower that cap to a reasonable level. It makes sense to support working farmers, but it makes no sense to hand government cash to rich people who happen to own some farmland.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-18-blanche-lincolns-dismal-school-lunch-bill/
- 4 votes
#1 - Sun May 23, 2010 2:46 PM EDTI agree in principle with the article.
However...farmer's markets are about the farmer making a reasonable sum of money for his/her efforts!!!
I am a farmer, selling at farmer's markets, and frequently get some idiot trying to hammer me on the price when I am already below the price at the local market, they have no clue, and I do the production, marketing, advertising et al...
Consumers, and I am one, need to smarten up!!! Food should cost more. When a consumer beats up on a farmer at a market they are idiots!!!
I work an extra day by going to sell my products at the farmer's market and expect to be compensated for it!
- 4 votes
#2 - Sun May 23, 2010 9:38 PM EDTYour customers are clueless about the quality of product you take to market. You have to jog lazy brains that resist expending the effort to appreciate.
- 4 votes
Consumers, and I am one, need to smarten up!!! Food should cost more.
Ah, the Walmart Effect. I'm a small business owner and often have "friends" ask me, "so why should I buy from you rather than from [insert Big Box Retailer Name here]?"
To which I reply something like, "well, I pay my property taxes that go to the local school budgets, garbage clean up, etc. I support local charities and organizations through financial gifts and through gifts of my time...from my church to the schools (on top of taxes), from little league sports to Girl Scouts, etc...[The Big Box Retailer] is not local. Besides, you can get the same product from me sometimes for a little bit less, sometimes for the same amount, and sometimes for a little bit more...it all evens out."
Then I'm told that it's just more convenient to buy at [the Big Box Retailer] because they can also pick up other stuff there.
And many of these people are the ones who say that the only road back to economic recovery is through supporting small businesses...and in the next breath they say it's about convenience and cost savings.
- 3 votes
Mahalo for the support Gozo and Pete...,
Yes I try to educate those folks but...some are not redeemable.
There are also those folks who have no appreciation for the value of their labor or mine!
- 3 votes
Let's not forget ADM as culprits. You only have to receive daily emails from the FDA to understand part of what is happening in this country. A day does not go by that at least one and sometimes more products are recalled because of contamination -- ecoli, salmonella, etc. It costs billions of dollars and many illnesses and yet our food check system is weak to almost non-existent and the pesticides and food modifications in this country are making all of us sick. I read recently that Bing cherries from Chile have far fewer pesticides than American Bings. What's up with THAT!!!! We are what we eat -- unfortunately, so is the produce we consume.
- 4 votes
#3 - Mon May 24, 2010 11:09 AM EDTBut they want you to believe that real, natural nutrients are causing disease not the poison that they apply to the soil, plants, water and air.
- 4 votes
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
As a new user, you may notice a few temporary content restrictions. Click here for more info.
