Speaking of "good for you" food
Another good story from eatlocalchallenge.com
Agriculture Policy and Your Health
How Legislation Can Make Us Fat
Farm policy rewards farmers for growing commodity crops, basically only eight types of crops; corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton, barley, oats and sorghum. Growing "speciality" crops like fruits and vegetables – foods that Michael Pollan insists should be the majority of our diets — makes a farmer ineligible for a subsidy, even if he only grows a small amount of fruits and vegetables on his land. Even the name "speciality" implies that these crops are a rarity, and they are according to U.S. food policy. As a result, only four percent of U.S. crop land was dedicated to growing fruits and vegetables in 2004.
The dependency of farmers on subsidies does not help the situation. While the large-scale industrial farms reap unnecessary extra profit in the form of subsidy "handouts," small farms are squeezed heavily by a system that only pays them about nineteen cents for every food dollar spent. The vast majority of the profits do not go to the farmer, but to the food industry that processes, packages, advertises and transports the finished "product." In fact, some 77,000 processed food products, many of which contain primarily cheap inputs like refined flour and sugars like high-fructose corn syrup with flavors and colors and added "nutrients."
It's indeed shocking that only FOUR percent of US crop land was dedicated to growing fruits and vegetables in 2004. Does anyone know the figures since then? We need a new paradigm for sure! Sarasota's government needs to do whatever it possibly can to encourage people to create more organic farms in this county. In fact, people ought to convert their yards to organic food gardens.