Presidential candidates:
On food, farming and climate change
The differences between the candidates on food policy is enormous even though neither has a well-articulated, comprehensive plan that adequately addresses the issues.
Access to sustainably raised local food should be a national priority. It is foundational to the environment, climate change, health and justice.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found 75 percent of the nation’s health care costs are preventable with a healthy diet. Yet the U.S. government subsidizes an industrial agriculture system that promotes highly-processed foods, favors maximizing corporate profit and hurts people, especially the poor and most vulnerable.
Any serious budget analysis needs to start with the cost of health care in this country. Diabetes, largely preventable through diet: $322 billion a year; obesity, clearly linked to diet: $215 billion a year; cardiac disease, cancer and dementia, also largely linked to diet: $1 trillion a year.
America spends more on health care than any other nation in the world yet we have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and chronic diseases.
Do we want a national policy supporting food for life or food for corporate profit?
Hillary Clinton actually started the first White House organic garden. Michelle Obama took it to a new level. Clinton wants to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as Food Stamps, in order to expand access to fresh foods.
Donald Trump wants to break the Food Stamp program away from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a move that would make it more vulnerable to cuts.
Clinton is calling for an emergency summit on climate change.
Trump calls global climate change a Chinese hoax. He wants to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency that regulates farm runoff and clean water.
Clinton advisors for food and agriculture include some of the current players like Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but also Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Marc Hyman, leading advocates for consumption of less meat and more vegetables.
She supports Big Ag but she also calls for labeling GMO foods.
Trump supports Big Ag and opposes GMO labeling. His ag advisors will include people like Sid Miller, Texas ag commissioner, who wants to bring cupcakes and brownies back to schools and scrap Michelle Obama’s work on making school lunches more nutritious.
Another, Todd Staples of Texas, wants to eliminate meatless Mondays in Texas schools. Also on the Trump team are Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and Bruce Rastetter who championed “ag gag laws” that make it unlawful for journalists and animal rights people to expose livestock operations to public scrutiny. Trump opposes animal welfare initiatives and champions farm chemicals. His sons are big game hunters in Africa, posing with dead leopards, tigers and elephants.
Our food system is based on government subsidies for monocultures of corn and soybeans relying on toxic chemicals made with fossil fuels that increase greenhouse gases. That food system contributes to many of the problems facing our country.
CAFO’s, concentrated animal feeding operations that rely heavily on antibiotics, account for most of America’s livestock production. CAFO’s pollute like factories but are regulated like farms.
The Obamas tried to take on the American system of food and farming but the $1.5 trillion industry struck back and was successful in minimizing the Obamas’ efforts. Trump, the self-proclaimed ultimate businessman, wants to unshackle Big Ag from regulations and make it even more profitable. Clinton wants to maintain regulations and shift toward a more sustainable system.
When Trump talks about eliminating the EPA, he refers to “job-killing regulations,” but regulations can be viewed as money saving and life saving. A report on endocrine disrupting chemicals published two weeks ago in The Lancet calculates the harm done by these chemicals, including flame retardants, plastics, pesticides and other sources like Teflon, cost the United States $340 billion a year compared with $163 billion in the European Union. Why? The EU has tighter regulations. (Clare Howard)