The Farm Bill

It seems to me that many of the current dilemmas facing America are not the result of the free market, but because of poor intervention on behalf of the government. Such is the case with the American Farm Bill, legislation that encourgages American farmers to grow the crops that are used to create the foods contributing to our national obesity problem while doing little to assist farmers in growing more healthy foods.

Michael Pollan takes on this subject in today's NY Times. Here is an excerpt:

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called “an epidemic” of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation’s agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

Here is the whole article: You Are What You Grow.