Last month, Michael Pollan, author of the book, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, wrote a thoughtful letter (well, really a long article) in the New York Times to the man who would be elected President.  He talks about the issues impacting our food system.  He says food policy will wind up occupying much of the new President's time, not something that has been the case almost anytime in the past.  He says we are about to be reminded that "the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security".

It is the food policies of the past that have created the critical issues of the present.  "It must be recognized that the current food system — characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table — is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific set of government policies that sponsored a shift from solar (and human) energy on the farm to fossil-fuel energy."

These policies need to be changed in concert with other needed changes in energy use.  "After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study."

After a thoughtful explanation of how the policies of the past led us to the current situation, Pollan offers a solution:  "There are many moving parts to the new food agenda I’m urging you to adopt, but the core idea could not be simpler: we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine."

Pollan talks about many of the food policy directions that we at IWF discuss regularly, including sustainability, crop diversity, eating less meat, creating and supporting a market for local food growing and distribution.  And, finally his rather simple but perhaps potentially most controversial suggestion:

"Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden."

The article is several pages long so any summation does it a disservice.  Do read it.