A New York chef lays in on the policy failures, lost local economies, damaged environments, and the bland food that have resulted from the U.S. Farm Bill, which will have its every-half-decade facelift in Congress this year.
"Bad decisions about agriculture have defined government policy for the last century; 70 percent of our nation's farms have been lost to bankruptcy or consolidation, creating an agricultural economy that looks more Wall Street than Main Street."
"Now, after the uprooting of a thousand years of agrarian wisdom, we chefs have discovered something really terrible - no, not that the agricultural system we help support hurts farmers and devastates farming communities, or that it harms the environment and our health. What we've discovered is that the food it produces just doesn't taste very good."
"This is a sweeping bill, omnibus in every sense - nutrition, conservation, genetic engineering, food safety, school lunch programs, water quality, organic farming and much more. It's really a food and farm bill. If you're a chef or a home cook or someone who just likes to eat, it affects you, because it determines what you eat and how what you eat is grown."
FULL STORY: Amber Fields of Bland
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