Editor’s Note: The urban agriculture experts at Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link program are detangling the federal Farm Bill in a series of posts. We are reposting Amelia Swinton’s post here to help get the word out.
Since you’ve wound your way to Lettuce Link’s corner of the blogosphere, it’s safe to say that you have a stake in how we interact with food in this country. Maybe you’re fed up with high prices at farmers markets, alarmed by skyrocketing rates of diabetes, or just totally grossed out by what kids eat in their school cafeterias. Regardless of your motives, we probably all agree that many of our food policies have broken.
Sustainable farming. Photo courtesy of Grow Food (c) 2005 (see link at bottom)
Over the next few months, this series will set out to situate our frustrations in specific policies, budgets, and farms so that we can understand why dinner tables look like they do. Cause eating has become political, and the health equity of our edible landscape will be determined by how we choose to consume it.
- What did the Farm Bill originally aim to do? What does it do now?
- How does the bill influence spending and policies?
- Who does the bill affect?
- What type of agriculture does the bill promote?
- How does the bill affect our nation’s schools: nutrition education, fitness initiatives, lunch offerings, and garden projects?
- Can we discuss the language of food, especially terms like “organic”, “sustainable”, “agribusiness”, “obesity”, “food deserts”, “commodities”, and “eating well”?
So that we can eventually sink our teeth into a much juicier question: - How can we reform the bill to support a food system that is just, affordable & nourishing, from seed to table?
Photo courtesy of Grow Food (c) 2005.
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