The Slow Food USA Blog

Farm Bill Final Push

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"The politics of food have changed, and probably for good," said Michael Pollan in his NY Times Op-Ed last week. He ended his frustrated death-knell-for-a-Farm-Bill-we-can-be-proud-of piece on this hopeful note.

The Food and Farm Bill (up for vote on the Senate floor this week) will most certainly not show the massive changes we all hoped and fought for. Commodity subsidies? Still there. Though Tom Philpott over at Grist questions them as the ultimate evil. He calls them the symptom of the problem, not the cause. The real problem, says Philpott, is overproduction. Check out the above link to see his article and the extensive debate that follows in the comments section.

There are some programs being written in and voted on–good programs supporting food stamps and wetlands preservation, and small amounts of money to specialty crops. Whether or not they are merely "fleas on the elephant in the room," as Pollan calls them, used to buy off critics, they might be the best thing we have to speak up for at this point. So use these final important moments to call your senators and speak your mind.

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