Pollan in the NY Review of Books

Michael Pollan has a review article in the NY Review of Books.  Briefly he sees a "food movement"

Among the many threads of advocacy that can be lumped together under that rubric we can include school lunch reform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against genetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food; efforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” (the principle that nations should be allowed to decide their agricultural policies rather than submit to free trade regimes); farm bill reform; food safety regulation; farmland preservation; student organizing around food issues on campus; efforts to promote urban agriculture and ensure that communities have access to healthy food; initiatives to create gardens and cooking classes in schools; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the various efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing, especially to kids. 

He has problems with his facts and history in three cases

The dream that the age-old “food problem” had been largely solved for most Americans was sustained by the tremendous postwar increases in the productivity of American farmers, made possible by cheap fossil fuel (the key ingredient in both chemical fertilizers and pesticides) and changes in agricultural policies. Asked by President Nixon to try to drive down the cost of food after it had spiked in the early 1970s, Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz shifted the historical focus of federal farm policy from supporting prices for farmers to boosting yields of a small handful of commodity crops (corn and soy especially) at any cost.

This is a repeat of an error from The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is wrong.  Butz didn't have this power, the legislation passed by Congress was a change, but in the long view not that big of a change, and the decisions Butz made to lower loan rates were reversed by his successor after he was fired and during President Ford's reelection campaign.

Again:

Beginning in 2001 with the publication of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, a surprise best-seller, and, the following year, Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, the food journalism of the last decade has succeeded in making clear and telling connections between the methods of industrial food production, agricultural policy, food-borne illness, childhood obesity, the decline of the family meal as an institution, and, notably, the decline of family income beginning in the 1970s.

Did household income decline since 1970?  No. See this wikipedia article   Or see this for a quick view. Note he doesn't cite women's lib, which some of his readers might be supportive of.

And finally he twice refers to the White House "organic garden".  Wrong--Michelle's garden is not organic, though it leans that way. See Obamafoodorama.

Problems in Madagascar and Globalization

The NY Times has an article on how the new regime in Madagascar, a biologically unique island,  is lax on logging of its forests. What struck me was the picture showing loggers, one of whom is wearing what looks to be an American football jersey with the number 72.  I don't know how the jersey arrived on the man, but it's another indication of how interconnected we've become.

Ron Paul and the Food Movement?

Via John Phipps, Ron Paul says:

The Green Revolution -- a misleading name applied by PR firms to the onset of globalized, chemical-intensive, industrial agriculture that is anything but friendly to the environment -- is coming unraveled around the world, bringing devastation to farmers from the plains of China to the plains of America.

I'm not sure most foodies would be comfortable sharing a bed with Ron Paul. My stereotype is that the food movement, as Michael Pollan christens it, is generally leftish.

French See Our Farmers Markets and Go One Better

According to Mr. Beauregarde, they converted the whole Champs Elysses to a farmers market with 8,000 young farmers:

The aim of the operation, which started on Sunday and finishes at 8pm this evening is to remind Parisians that 80% of the nation’s territory is still predominantly rural, even if only 20% of the French actually live there, and 10% of the French still earn a living from the land. That living though can no longer be called a life. Revenues of the nation’s dairy farmers and cereal growers have fallen by 30% over the last two years, and things are not set to get much better with the forthcoming révision of the Common Agricultural Policy. So, today’s « display » of the nation’s agricultural wealth in the nation’s capital is to tell all those big city types that French agriculture can deliver the goods, but not for very long.

Picking on Texas

Briefly, the Post carried an article on the revised social studies curriculum for Texas schools on Friday, Ann Althouse posted an extensive criticism of the article Sunday morning at 1:48 am, and Jonathan Adler at Volokh Conspiracy posted early this afternoon.  Adler started off with Althouse in being critical, but it's become reasonably clear that the Texans published proposed standards in April, which is what Althouse read, but last week they made some more changes, which is what the Post article referred to, so Adler has switched to being critical of Althouse.

In addition to taking pride in being right (I commented on Althouse's post that the pdf's she referred to were last revised in April) I think the episode is interesting on several counts:

• Althouse jumped to conclusions, dissing the Post and defending the Texans. And her commenters mostly followed suit.  This might count as conservative close-mindedness, but more reasonably it's just another example of how easily we all follow our prejudices in what we accept.
•  Adler gets props for acknowledging his initial error.
• Althouse's jump was based on the assumption that the Texan pdf files were the latest version. That's probably the most interesting thing: we now assume that official actions are available on line and that they will be updated promptly.
• Texas bureaucrats get dinged--they wasted lots of time and electrons by failing to update their documents as fast as we expect.  If only they had used Google Documents, they could and should have been updated as the commission adopted changes and the documents up on the Net as the meeting ended.

[Updated: Althouse has added to her post to modify her position somewhat and to reflect some of the info available from the Post.  I'm disappointed though with the tenor of her addition, but anyone who's blogging at 3 in the morning! deserves some sympathy.

Meanwhile the American Historical Association sent a letter to Texas which is interesting.]

What's Hot? What's Not? (Bureaucracy)

Via Chris Blattman, the lexicalist site allows you to search the Internet stream (hey, I sound as if I know what I'm doing) and maps the results.  I searched for "bureaucracy" and got this:

"People are talking about this 27% less today than they were a month ago (on average, once every 1,678,795 words)."

Virginia and Iowa are the hottest venues.

{Updated: Meanwhile those stoic Down-easters in Maine have "love" on their mind.  And maybe Rep. Souder can blame his fellow citizens for his troubles, because Indiana is second.]

Kathleen Parker and Real Heroes

The Post's Pulitizer winning columnist, Kathleen Parker, opines on the Blumenthal false claims, ending thus:

"Had he gone to Vietnam, as he apparently thinks he should have, he would have learned that, and this: Real heroes never brag, and real Marines don't lie."

Very snappy, opines I, but real Marines are human like the rest of us, with their own fair share of failings, including falseness. And it'd be nice to think of Vietnam as a great school, but someone should check its accreditation.

Those Wimpy Liberals

Turns out we're easily "nudged" to save energy or otherwise be environmentally correct.  Meanwhile, those stalwart, independent-minded conservatives react to such "nudges" by wasting more energy.

(Or maybe I could interpret this as liberals being rational, conservatives irrational? Feels better to me.)

EWG and Crop Insurance

Over the last 15 years FSA bureaucrats have sometimes squirmed as the Environmental Working Group published farm program payment data on its website  and the news media wrote stories about it.
may now feel a little schadenfreude  vis a vis their crop insurance compatriots. EWG now has published crop insurance indemnity and administrative cost figures for 1995-2009.  I'm sure people with an axe to grind can make some hay out of it (though using an axe to cut grass doesn't work well).

Farm Bill Developments

I keep starting posts commenting on the latest farm bill developments.  But the House Ag committee hearings are generating stuff faster than I can finish a post, so the bottom line is: see Farm Policy,and Chris Clayton,as well as the testimony at the House Ag committee site.

I think what I'll do is occasionally offer observations on implications of various proposals.