Secretary of Food

Nicholas Kristoff has an excellent op-ed in today's NY Times making the case for the need to have a bold reformer take the reigns at the Department of Agriculture, or as it would prefer it to be called, the Department of Food:

"A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars....

...The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position...

... As Mr. Pollan told me: “Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.”

The op-ed is a nice synopsis of the arguments Michael Pollen (author of Ominvore's Dilemma and quoted above) laid out in a rather long, but incredibly brilliant and highly recommended open letter to the next president back in October.

Oh, and if you are really interested in this issue, you should sign the Food Democracy Now petition.