A "Gather Round the Table" Book Review - FoodFight: A Citizens Guide to a Food & Farm Bill, by Daniel Imhoff

A "Gather Round the Table" Book Review - FoodFight: A Citizens Guide to a Food & Farm Bill, by Daniel Imhoff

In a political landscape fraught with immigration questions, terrorism and war, foodborne illness, a weak dollar and burgeoning trade deficits, not to mention a new era of global economics, Daniel Imhoff has presented us with a compelling case for why anyone who eats should care about the farm bill.

First of all, we should dispense with that name.  Call it the "Food Bill" or the "Farm and Food Bill," simply because the side that frames the argument wins the argument, and the sooner people in America's urban and suburban areas realize that this legislation has profound impacts on them, the better.  This bill, up for re-negotiation this year as part of its regular 5-year cycle, is not simply arcane legal document that applies only to agribusiness interests in farming states.  It has since its inception effected every person who eats in America, and indeed around the world.  If this is you, read on.

For some, the points will be made quite clear merely by reading the succinct foreword and introduction written by Michael Pollan and fred Kirschenmann, respectively.  Pollan is the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley and author of the very important book The Omnivore's Dilemma - A Natural History of Four Meals and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  Kirschenmann is a distinguished fellow at the Leopold center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and owner of a 3500-acre organic farm.

Pollan points out that "An American shopping for food on a budget soon discovers that a dollar buys hundreds more calories on the snack food or soda aisle than it does in the produce section."  The reason for this is that our laws provide subsidies for those who grow corn and soy (which is what the snack food and soda aisles are made of) and provide zero in subsidies for carrots or broccoli.  So the snack foods are ludicrously cheap.  If your hungry and poor, you get the most calories you can for the fewest dollars.  Good for your budget, bad for your health.

Kirschenmann's intro makes it clear on an even starker level that this legislation is important.  Well crafted agriculture policy, he argues, makes for "stable societies.... An ecologically restorative food and fiber system.... An economically and ecologically efficient food and fiber system.... A food and fiber system that encourages independent entrepreneurship.... Regional food sufficiency and food sovereignty."  To drive home the point, he cites Pulitzer prize winner Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs and Steel", who teaches us that "those civilizations that have correctly assessed their current situations, anticipated the coming challenges, and gotten a head start in preparing for them, were the ones that survived.  Those that failed in that exercise collapsed."

All of this leads into a surprisingly easy-to-read primer on not only why the bill is important, but also what you can do to affect change. 

Were you aware, for example, that one of the primary reasons that there has been a massive influx of immigrants, some legal but most illegal, from Mexico and Central America is because the combination of massive corn subsidies and NAFTA served to flood those countries with surplus American corn, a process that international traders call "dumping."  It's illegal by the standards of almost every trade agreement, including NAFTA, but such provisions are often unenforceable, so roughly 2 million campesinos leave their farms to seek jobs and money in the US, just to send the funds home so their families can buy the corn that put their farms out of business in the first place.

Kirschenmann argues, "We cannot have stable, secure societies without a food production and distribution system that supplies a safe and adequate diet to every person.  Malnutrition and starvation breed terrorism and social unrest."  Imhoff drives the point home by lucidly illuminating the origin of the legislation - the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.

Using simple charts and graphics that make a truly complex bill easier to understand, Imhoff is able to describe present challenges and propose some new directions.  Concerned about the consolidation and concentration of land and money in the hands of a few corporate agribusiness landbarons?  Imhoff suggests "caps on payments to individual recipients to level the playing field for all farmers," as well as "reforms to make feed and raw material costs more accurately align with the costs of production."  In other words, as long as we're going to manipulate the market no matter what, we ought to at least do so fairly.

Consider the impact of food and our food system on health care.  Consider that there may not be a mere coincidence in the statistics that say there are an estimated 40 million American without health insurance, and an estimated 40 million Americans that suffer from chronic hunger and/or inappropriate nutrition.  Consider that there are twice as many farmers over 65 than there are under 35.

Now is the time to get educated, to get aware, and to get up and get your representatives moving on a bill that will help us all eat well, rather than just a few wealthy elites.  read the book, then start calling and writing your congressional contingent.  It is no less important than what you, your children, and their children eat.

		Kurt Michael Friese, Gather Food Correspondent
	Gather ‘Round the Table is a regular feature of Gather Essentials: Food. Chef Kurt Michael Friese is a freelance food and wine writer & photographer. He is also chef and co-owner - with his wife Kim - of Devotay, a restaurant in Iowa City, serves on the Slow Food USA Board of Governors, and is Editor-in-Chief of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. He lives in rural Johnson County, Iowa. Keep up with Kurt Michael's food series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.