the response

[Guest guest]

As many of you read, either in the NYT a week and a half ago, or in my post

mentioning it, we need to make our foodways a priority for our elected

officials. I mentioned that this issue did not seem to be on anyone's

radars on a national political level. I am glad to hear that Mr. Obama, one

of the candidates for president (in case you missed the memo), has not only

read the article, but took time to mention it and provide a glimpse into his

view on agriculture in America:

context: In case you haven't seen it yet, from a just-posted Joe Klein

interview

with Obama. It's important to note, in context, that Obama himself brought

out this specificity on food in response to a generic question about " the

need for an Apollo project ... that involves national security, jobs

growth, environmental [issues]. "

Obama Response to Pollan's " Farmer in Chief " Article.

" I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Pollan

about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on

cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is

contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in

the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national

security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in

food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible

for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to

type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that

are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector

of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation.

The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true

across the board. For us to say we are just going to completely revamp

how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with

national security and drives our economy, that's going to be my number one

priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done

enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation. "

entire Pollan article, i.e. " Farmer in Chief, " at the Growing Power Platform

http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/GrowingPower/HomePage

I got this from the post that Local Food Happy Hour organizers put out

today; that is at Common Roots this coming Monday at 5:30 if you want to go

to something fun, and local, and about fun local food!

Cheers,

Alan

--

Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful

~Nietzsche 1891