I’m not fully up-to-date with the latest wiles of industrial agriculture in the US, but I do have the feeling that they are spoiling things for everyone with their subsidies and special exemptions. Fortunately, I can read Susan Schneider’s latest post at Agricultural Law: Agriculture’s embarrassment. She refers to a column by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post that lays bare the self-serving antics of the farm lobby, and I’m pretty sure that what happens in the US happens in most other developed countries (but maybe not New Zealand).
Two things seem to be at work here. One is the public view — fostered by all those little-red-barn-and-mixed-livestock-in-the-kindly-farmer’s-yard books for children — that just about everything is fine on Old MacDonald’s farm, and that to thank Old MacDonald for the loving care he takes over our food supply we better give him what he asks for. The other is the reality of industrial food production, which nobody — least of all the food industry — wants anyone to know about.
The eating public — and what does consumer mean, after all? — really needs to open its eyes to what is being done in its name.
Meantime, Susan Schneider has the last word:
The agricultural community should stop to consider not only its own long range interest in climate protection, but to consider the public good that we all need keep in mind in order to address the issue of climate change. And, if it really wants to be selfish, it can also consider the backlash that may well be coming. Pearlman concludes his article with the following:
“The next time the world’s most selfish lobby comes to Washington demanding drought relief, someone ought to have the good sense to tell them to go pound sand.”
An industry so wedded to government support and special treatment should pick its battles wisely.
It is time for the agricultural industry to grow up and acknowledge that there are environmental problems that EVERYONE needs to work together to address.