The Coming Food Crisis

As I listened to President Obama speak about his solutions to the growing (literally) problem in the Gulf last week, I couldn’t help imagining a similar speech in the near future concerning our nation’s next big crisis: the Big Ag crisis. We’ve already seen our share of disasters brought on by corporate excess and greed. We’ve seen banks that are too big to fail, and an oil company so guided by profit that it failed to drill safely. There is no real way to say what the ag crisis will look like, but much of the same language used recently applies to Big Ag. There are bills before Congress now, particularly the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, that if passed could mean the difference between a procactive and reactive strategy for confronting the coming agcriculture crisis.

“Too Big to Fail” is certainly apt here, albeit in a different manner. Due to our dependence on a handful of monocultures that are used to make the processed foods that most Americans are eating, if something caused a shortage in supply of just one of those foods our food industry would crumble. Those of us who support local and sustainable food might cheer such a result, but the hunger crisis in this country and the most of the modern world would be catasrophic. We need a graceful weaning from the teat of Big Ag, not a sudden deprivation.

Just like the Minerals Management Service contains many ex-oil people and the US Treasury is packed with former Wall-Street players, the governing bodies overseeing food policy are often former Big Ag players. A recent Obama appointee hails from a group with close ties to Monsanto, for example. In it’s search for more oil and more profit BP–together with oil lobbying groups–paved the way for lightly-regulated drilling in the Gulf. Big Ag is another in a line of industries allowed to seek profits with very little regulation standing in their way. If there are corners concerning safety, health or quality to be cut, you can believe they will be. How else can you explain things like melamine being found in baby formula?

The truth is America is addicted to cheap food. In order to keep those costs down companies have to continually grow, and that pace often means things get ignored or selectively forgotten. Until we realize that our food should cost more companies will continue doing business as usual. We have to change how food is grown and produced in this country or one day our President will greet us from behind his desk to explain why there are millions of starving people in our country and what we must do to feed them again. Instead of waiting for the crisis we should begin anticipating it and encouraging lawmakers to act preemptively.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is a step in the right direction. The bill is currently stalled in congress but if passed would

amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) to expand the authority of the Secretary of Health and Human Services (the Secretary) to regulate food, including by authorizing the Secretary to suspend the registration of a food facility.

The act also requires the preparation of a National Agriculture and Food Defense Strategy. Learn more about the bill at Bill Marler’s blog. Congress has a lot of change to enact, but this should be among its highest priorities.