The Acre Potboiler

Mark Bittman is a gifted cook with a string of great cookbooks to his name. This past weekend he penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled, “Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables.”

We’re all free to have an opinion, and some of us, like Mark Bittman, are in a position to get our opinions widely circulated. I’m a vegetable farmer.  My business would presumably benefit from the policies Bittman advocates. I don’t get federal subsidies and I don’t want any. I appreciate Bittman’s intentions, but I think the policies he’s promoting are unlikely to achieve the goals he desires.

First of all, let me stress that I share Mr. Bittman’s concerns about the food industry. Bittman writes, “…the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods… so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise.” Agreed! But he continues, “That ‘other force,’ should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.”

What? Agriculture departments at federal, state, and local levels have already been charged by the public with far more responsibilities than they can fulfill effectively given the budgets they have to work with. Do you think that government officials are at present making consistent, rigorous inspections of the slaughter houses, the processing plants, the fields, the watercourses, and the chemical plants? Do you imagine that the authorities are in control of the black market trade in contraband agricultural chemicals? Do you suspect that any meaningful fraction of the foods that we import into the US are being monitored for contaminants? Do you see any of the agencies responsible for policing our food systems getting more funding in the near future than they have right now?  I don’t.

Thankfully, as bad as our culture of food is, there have been a number of very positive changes in America over the last 30 years; we’ve seen the rise of organic farming as an industry, the rediscovery of artisanal foods, and at present we’re witnessing a new found national appreciation for vibrant local food production and distribution systems. It’s worth remembering that ALL of the positive developments that mark the disparate ambitions of the sustainable food movement have grown up from the grassroots, not come down to us from on high. The federal government has NOT been a leader in the progressive food movement; in fact, the USDA and the other agencies of the federal government have been followers, at best, when they haven’t actually been outright obstructionist. Bittman doesn’t like the processed food industry? It owns the USDA! Much of what is dysfunctional about American food policy is a result of the distortions that politically motivated subsidy schemes have had on the market. Any subsidy of fresh vegetable production is going to be politically manipulated by the largest industrial concerns for their own benefit and against my interests and yours. It is foolish for us to put our hopes for a sustainable agriculture in the federal government. But it is proven that we can effect positive change, farm by farm, consumer by consumer, and community by community. Making a better world is a slow process but we are already creating a sustainable agriculture by knitting together a nationwide community of advocates based around shared values, interdependency and shared economic interests. Organic practice teaches us that if we feed the soil the earth will raise us up a nice crop naturally. Organic farmers don’t pump powerful fertilizers into sterile soil; that’s a conventional, chemically oriented approach. Federal money is like triple 20 lawn fertilizer coming down from above. Bittman raises the specter of “another force,” that may skew our food culture in a positive way. Call me a hippie but I say, “Power to the people!” Let that “other force” Bittman invokes be you, be me, be us.

What is the alternative? “Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods,” Bittman writes, ”we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyper-processed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available. We could sell those staples cheap — let’s say for 50 cents a pound — and almost everywhere: drugstores, street corners, convenience stores, bodegas, supermarkets, liquor stores, even schools, libraries and other community centers. This program would, of course, upset the processed food industry. Oh well.”

“Oh well?” I’m not even going to get into the economics of selling produce for 50 cents a pound in liquor stores. As for our underfunded libraries, they’ve become living rooms for homeless people who have had no where else to take shelter ever since the mental health facilities were shut down; do we really want the librarians to shoulder the burden of managing produce departments too? Mark Bittman doesn’t have a clue about what it means to store, ship, and market produce. The processed food industry sure isn’t going to be upset at Bittman for what he’s written; they’re delighted that he’s standing up for the principle of Federal subsidies, and they’re relieved that he discredits much of the valuable information he does relate concerning health, obesity, and junk food with his half-baked notions about the business of food distribution. The right wing talk show hosts that mock liberals who crave a “Nanny State” are going to love Bittman for all the ammunition he gives them.

I have no problem with the idea of a “junk food tax.” Sure, if the taxes are high enough the kids on the corner will add boxes of Captain Crunch to the inventories of black market, tax free packages of cocaine, heroin, and cigarettes that they’re already selling, but that’s street-level capitalism. But the best farms are productive and profitable and pay taxes, so let them produce and profit and pay their taxes and don’t waste scarce public money on risky subsidy schemes. Schools can’t create profits to sustain themselves. We should fund education, but not off junk food taxes; we don’t need the schools to become dependent on junk food too. Teach children about good food. Teach them about the realities of food production, and teach them how to cook. Today’s students are tomorrow’s consumers and voters. Remove federal subsidies from the commodity crop industries that use the public’s wealth to buy the public’s policy makers. Use the reclaimed subsidy money to support research in our universities that will explore how to more effectively grow organic crops. Right now the universities are focused on solving the questions that industry asks. Let’s pay the scientists to answer questions in the public’s interest. That’s a recipe for success!

Copyright 2011 Andy Griffin.