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The government is forcing us to eat junk food and get fatPoor people in America are fat? Do you realize what a strange statement it is for a country to have a major obesity problem among its poorest citizens? In an article this week (April 22) in the New York Times by Michael Pollan, Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley, the blame is placed squarely on the Farm Bill for this problem with the author stating the most reliable predictor of obesity is a person's wealth. This professor is amazingly out of touch and elitist to surmise that poor people are fat because of the subsidization of food production by the government. Mr. Pollan goes to great lengths to infer that Twinkies are the cheapest calories in the grocery store, along with sodas (which he calls "liquid corn"). Therefore, low income Americans are forced to buy these items but are not able to purchase expensive vegetables which are healthier for them and their children. It further slams the American food system as the reason for problems in environment, immigration and as the reason for worldwide poverty. Finally, he states: "the farm bill has so many mind numbing details that legislators from non-farm states ignore the bill as a parochial piece of legislation affecting a handful of their Midwestern colleagues." Here is the reality of the government subsidized food system: Subsidies of targeted crops cause larger production, which increases the total food and livestock feed supply so that grain products, meat and milk are affordable for everyone in America, and millions around the world to have enough to eat every day. This is the greatest accomplishment in the history of mankind! It means that no one need face hunger and deprivation, no matter what their economic status. The United States has not had a shortage of food since the 1930s. The poor have been well fed since the anti-poverty programs of the Johnson era of the 1960s. There are case studies of the poor in the Delta region in the 1960s before food aid and in the modern era. In the first examination, almost 50 years ago, doctors and social workers found that due to lack of food the life span was shorter and serious health related conditions manifested themselves earlier than the average population. Revisited in the last five years, health professionals found that these same people are now grossly overweight with a shorter lifespan and serious health related conditions manifesting themselves earlier than the average population. The only thing that didn't change was education. This culture remained ignorant of the benefits of healthy eating habits. It was given food and other benefits in a vacuum. A child who would have shown the effects of malnutrition in the 1950s now weighs 300 pounds at age 10 and has signs of early onset diabetes and other physical problems. A person's education level is a more accurate predictor of health because it usually determines whether they buy Twinkies or eat a balanced diet. Mr. Pollan says our farm program makes Twinkies cheap and broccoli expensive. Have you priced cakes, cookies and cereals lately? The retail cost is totally disproportionate to the price of the raw product. Vegetables are priced more in line with their farm value. By the way, how much broccoli would you eat if it was free? We are creatures who look for comfort in food and the taste of meat, potatoes, and sugar and grain products is a whole lot better than steamed vegetables. Those who understand the food pyramid know what to eat and what to feed our children. Those who don't, eat and drink what makes them feel good today, tomorrow be damned. Worldwide hunger is caused by U.S. overproduction is an accusation in his article. More than half of the world's food aid comes from America. If we cut that off, would people be better off in a war ravaged area of Africa? He argues that the food we send bankrupts local farmers. I can buy that argument and I'd prefer that U.S. products be sold to those who can afford them and carefully directed funds be used to buy food within the region that is impoverished. The problem in most places that get food aid, though, is lack of infrastructure. A shipload of grain dumped at a rat-infested port does not mean that a single needy person gets fed. In many places the grain is sold by the military government to friendlies and denied to enemies. Our generosity, in food or money, is often a net sum zero. That doesn't mean Christian people should not help others, it means that we often can't help them because they won't let us. Finally, Mr. Pollan heads toward a social agenda in saying that "Enlightened eaters recognize our dependence on farmers, therefore they should support a farm bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices." We have found out the hard way those artificial prices to protect farmers are needed because treasury-draining surpluses of food that have to be dumped at an artificially low price which causes the problem that he is attempting to correct. The marketplace should be given a chance to work with the government maintaining oversight and awareness of the need for an adequate base of farm production. By his argument, we should have been better off in the 1930s than in the 1990s. Regardless of the criticism of up to $25 billion per year in price supports, farm legislation is evolving toward rewarding good stewardship of the land and water and ending market distorting subsidization. This isn't going to make the American poor thin or the foreign poor fat. By 2012 we may see shortages of some crops and livestock due to industrial demands for our agricultural output. Food prices could double in the next few years due to biofuel demand. We will still have a safety net for those below the poverty line and we won't demand that they be able to understand how many servings of each level of the pyramid are necessary for a balanced diet. Twinkies will still be made by the billions and fried chicken will be a lot more popular than Brussels sprouts. Perhaps a better pastime for a Berkeley professor would be to figure out how to fuel our economy without a military presence to keep oil flowing from countries who hate our way of life. Perhaps a dissertation on his ideal number of earthly human inhabitants who could live without damaging the environment or depleting our resources and how we should dispose of the billons of people we now have in surplus would be a better use of his time. Editor's note: Ken Root is now celebrating his 34th year as an agricultural professional. His career has spanned from being a vocational agriculture teacher to environmental consulting to farm broadcasting. He was the original host of AgriTalk (1994-2001) and now is lead farm broadcaster for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. Ken and Jennifer Bremer also publish the Midwest Ag Report electronic newsletter each Friday. A free e-mail subscription is available by going online to www.hpj.com/edemail/newsletter/MWAGRegistration.cfm. Ken can be reached by e-mail at kenroot@clearchannel.com or by mail at the Journal at P.O. Box 760, Dodge City, KS 67801. B 6 4/30/07 1 Star WK Date: 4/26/07
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