39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Farm Policy for Dummies (Like Me), June 6, 2007
This review is from: Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill (Paperback)
Word of the day: "cornification." Cornification, in a nutshell, is the takeover of a diverse landscape by one mighty plant: corn. The "Effects of Cornification" graphic on page 17 of Dan Imhoff's new book shows the results: the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, factory livestock farms, obesity, immigration problems, food deserts (that's "deserts" not desserts"), the emptying of our rural communities, etc., etc. One look at the "cornification" graphic and a message comes through loud and clear: what the government tells farmers to raise has ramifications far beyond Renville County, Minnesota. Imhoff's book, Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, is full of these kinds of eye-opening, mind-expanding graphics. His message isn't new, but the way he presents it is fresh and important. The phrase "must-read" is much abused (I've thought that ever since someone used "must-read" and the book The Bridges of Madison County in the same sentence). But if you are interested in how U.S. farm policy affects our environment, our communities and what we eat, and you want to do something about reforming the system, then Food Fight, is, yes, a must-read.
Imhoff's book provides a valuable service in a year when a new federal Farm Bill is being written up. It's time to take the development of ag policy out of the hands of large agribusiness and narrowly-focused commodity groups. But creating a Farm Bill that's accountable to society requires an informed public.
That's where Food Fight comes in--it makes a dense topic quite accessible. In a succinct, clear, USA Today-type format, Imhoff's chapters relate information that anyone who reads newspaper investigative pieces or watches PBS regularly probably has an inkling of: federal farm policy in this country is dysfunctional and expensive, as well as harmful to the environment, human health and our communities.
Imhoff, who is the writing/publishing force behind such books as Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature and Farming with the Wild, knows the power of images. He's summarized studies, media reports and sleep-inducing statistics in brief, easy to digest graphics. He's read the think-tank white papers and plowed through the USDA data, so you don't have to. And then he's put it all in context.
Don't let the readability of this book fool you into thinking this is lightweight material; these are some heavy topics Imhoff is addressing: "...nearly 40 million Americans, 12 percent of all households, confront food insecurity, meaning that they often experience hunger or need to skip meals to get by. Many are children," reads one sentence above a heartbreaking photo of a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk.
This isn't all graphics, charts and photos. Imhoff also uses clearly-written text to explain complicated issues like the history of U.S. farm programs, how New Zealand reformed its system and what can be done here, now, to reform ours. With chapter titles like, "Why the Farm Bill Matters," "What Is The Farm Bill?" and "Where It All Started," this book lives up to its "Citizen's Guide" claim.
Glancing over Food Fight's facts and figures, I was surprised at how many of them I was familiar with. But the sheer weight of their overall impact had not struck me before. Having all of this information put together into one cohesive piece provides a powerful tool for action. As I was reading the book, I was also chagrined at how I've become numbed to the ludicrousness of federal ag policy. Over the years, I've read about the major corporations that receive the lion's share of crop subsidies, but it wasn't until I saw Imhoff's top 20 "Subsidy Recipients" list that the sheer criminality of it struck home.
For example, J.G. Boswell Company received over $17 million in USDA ag subsidies between 1994 and 2004. Boswell grows cotton in the bottom of what was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. Sixty percent of U.S. cotton is dumped on the world market at cut-rate prices, threatening the livelihood of farmers all over the planet. I've met a few of those Third-World farmers and they don't want a handout. All they want is to be able to sell their crop at a fair price. But they can't because our tax money is subsidizing behemoths like Boswell. Free market agriculture? Give me a break. I know a West African farmer (Ear to the Ground No. 20) that could teach us a thing or two about the free market.
Food Fight is a quick read and that's good; the 2007 Farm Bill deliberations are upon us and may be wrapped up as early as this fall. Read this book and call your Senators and Representatives armed with facts, figures...and a lot of righteous citizen anger.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Food- a political opportunity, June 11, 2007
This review is from: Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill (Paperback)
No one goes to the grocery store thinking that the government legislates what they buy or eat. But in fact, the government plays an enormously influential role on what products and foods are grown and produced, as well as distributed in your local grocery. The legislation known as the Farm Bill (some call it the Food Bill) has greatly altered the way that farms operate, thereby changing the landscape of food choice, nutrition, biodiversity in our country as well as other poorer countries, quality of life for farmers and eaters, as well as a multitude of other issues. Interestingly, this is legislation that not many citizens know about or realize has such far-reaching implications. This book is simple to read but clearly lays out many of the prominent issues that the Bill deals with and why the allocation of money and priorities in the Bill are so important for us to confront and influence, as eaters and as citizens.
Here is an example of an outcome of the Farm Bill's mismanagement and where we are now: (with some knowledge also gleaned from Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma)
You may think that the US grows a lot of corn and that's a good thing- did you know that most of the corn is not edible by humans and b/c of subsidies by the government to grow it big and cheap, most corn actually gets processed into byproducts: animal feed (forcing cows, who are physically designed to eat grass, to eat corn), processed sugars (corn syrup replaced sugar in many foods simply b/c it is cheaper and it's subsidized) or gets dumped onto poorer countries, driving those country's economics beserk b/c of our subsidization policy?
CHeck this book out if only so that you can be better informed about how the government has their hands in your meal. The Bill is up for re-legislation this year in 2007 so we have to get involved fast!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Review by David Schneider in American Scientist, May 6, 2009
This review is from: Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill (Paperback)
You might think that government agricultural policy is something of interest only to farmers or politicians, but as Daniel Imhoff shows clearly in his engaging new book, Foodfight, such an assumption would be far from the mark. In fact, the various government programs and subsidies created for farmers touch all of us quite directly: in the makeup of the foods we eat (thus influencing the health of our bodies) and in the many environmental side effects of agriculture (thus influencing the health of our planet).
Imhoff explains how the present system evolved over the past seven decades, mostly by virtue of a political alliance between antihunger advocates and agribusiness interests. The sad outcome is that the safety net our nation has put in place has, to use Imhoff's words, "become a calorie delivery system rather than a nutrition program"--one that tends to reward large-scale producers much more than family farmers. Imhoff also describes a more-recent concern: that our agricultural base is being co-opted to power our vehicles (primarily through the production of ethanol), at great cost to our food security and to the environment.
But Foodfight is by no means all doom and gloom. Imhoff explains, for example, how New Zealand, once mired in malfunctioning agricultural policies, decided two decades ago to eliminate most farm subsidies. Although financial support to farmers there now amounts to less than one percent of their incomes, agriculture (including the country's ubiquitous sheep ranching) contributes more to that nation's economy than it did when subsidies amounted to as much as 40 percent.
Imhoff also applauds certain U.S. government programs (albeit poorly funded ones) that have the potential to improve environmental stewardship and provide healthier food choices. And he gives many examples of what small groups and even individuals have done to combat the ever-rising tide of processed foods that are flooding America's school cafeterias, grocery stores and dinner tables.
Although Imhoff is off-base in some spots--for example, when he blames "cow farts" for producing atmospheric methane (cow belching is, in fact, the culprit), or when he concludes that the world could survive quite well with nonchemical farming methods (abandonment of synthetic fertilizer would indeed cause widespread starvation)--his judgment about how broken the present system is appears sound. In any case, Foodfight provides plenty of food for thought.--David Schneider
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