Food is Oil

Michael Pollan wrote a fairly interesting article for the New York Times recently that details the challenges the next president of the United States will face in the realm of food.

While most of the arguments and facts will be familiar to people who have read a few key books on the subject, it was still an interesting read.

Sadly, I came away with the feeling that most of the change he calls for will not be implemented until there is an even greater crisis in the oil sector. If you look at people's reaction to the environmental warnings of the past few years, many have responded in small ways: changing their light bulbs, recycling a little more, etc. But it didn't really stop people from buying huge SUVs and the like because that was still very socially acceptable and desirable. That shift didn't occur until people's wallets were very heavily hit in oil prices.

Because so much oil goes into the production of our food (fertilizers, pesticides, transportation, etc) the price of food has also gone up. To then remove subsidies on the food items we're so used to, the items that have fueled the problem, we'd only cause prices to "artificially" inflate to their more true costs. But people would see this as external tampering, and so you'd have a very unloved politician. Even if told the reasons, I believe Americans are not tempered to deal with plans that require long-term vision; look at education.

Farmers' Markets have been growing rapidly and small local farms in my area have been gaining more and more of a celebrity status for their produce. Stimulation in that field seems like it could slowly show people a better alternative. But are the mandates in the article likely to help those farmers who are diversifying their crops, or simply shove them into an ideological high-ground that will leave them holding the bag when throngs of buyers don't follow?

I'd be interested to hear farmers weigh in on this.