The Two Americas of Food:Reflections on the 2007 Farm Bill

[nosmokes]

This is a fairly good summation of the farm bill problems and possible solutions, but it certainly hits on the big one, too much millions of bucks to support the huge *industry* of agriculture and almost zip to support the farmer, even less to support folks trying to get by that need food stamps or some other help like WIC.
original-huffingtonpost

The Two Americas of Food:Reflections on the 2007 Farm Bill

byAnne Lappe

Like hundreds of others across the country, my neighborhood in Brooklyn got a farmers market a few years ago. Now, with summer in full swing, I can spend any Saturday morning wandering in fresh-food bliss. But I am certainly not taking a single Bing cherry for granted. I know that for most of us, including many millions here in New York City, it's a lot easier to find a Colt 45 than a farmers market.



Presidential candidate John Edwards likes to point out that we have two Americas when it comes to health care: one for the rich and one for everybody else.

Well, we have two Americas of food, too. For the rich and well-located -- often, though not always, synonymous -- we have the booming local foods movement, with more than 4,000 farmers markets now dotting the country. For the rest, we've got the wilted lettuce of bodegas and the high-calorie time-bombs of fast food.

This "other" America of food has led to a health epidemic of diet-related illnesses, costing us one in ten health care dollars, and to widespread hunger, too. Today, 36 million Americans don't know where their next meal is coming from -- that's a figure nearly the size of the entire population of Canada.

So, how do we close this food gap? One answer is immediately before us, embodied in two little words: the Farm Bill, and Congress is debating it right now.
~snip~
.
.
.
complete article here