It’s Time to Think About the Farm Bill
One key to our health and the health of our planet could be in the upcoming Farm Bill
I usually write about politics, but in this article, health and politics are intertwined because the Farm Bill, which comes up for a vote every five years, is up for a vote this year.
This matters to all of us because it could give corporate lackeys in Congress yet another opportunity to make amendments to a bill that could undo some of the climate change initiatives Biden was able to get passed in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
According to California Environmental Voters, there are a handful of areas where Republicans (and some Dems as well) will do their best to reward big agriculture at the expense of the rest of us. So it’s up to us to prevent that from happening.
Check out this video for details:
As this video explains, the Farm Bill provides Congress with the opportunity to enact legislation that promotes sustainable agriculture, among other things. Unfortunately, if Congress decides they would prefer to allow Big Agro to continue to plant the same crops over and over on the same land, which destroys the topsoil and adversely affects ecosystems, Democrats and Independents in Congress need to be prepared to fight.
This is where we come in. As voters, we have power. It’s one thing to vote for the president; the real work in a democracy is the work of staying informed and keeping Congress in line. If we allow Congress to kowtow to corporate agriculture, as we have too often in the past, we will be asking for trouble. That’s because corporate agriculture is only concerned about one thing: money.
We need to be stewards of this planet, and that means we need to be concerned about climate change as well as food production and our own health. The Farm Bill is a great place to start.
Farming subsidies should create healthy people, not wealthy people
We should support bills that provide food assistance that allots a larger amount of money for fresh fruits and vegetables. This is what we need to eat — not processed foods like potato chips, packaged baked goods, and sodas. If we give money to people for food, it needs to be used for food — not poison.
If people want to poison themselves, they should have to pay for it themselves — the government shouldn’t be paying them with taxpayer dollars to inflict self-harm.
The only safe food is real food — made by nature with minimal preparation. When we make the choice to buy real food, we also invest in our health. If enough of us stop buying packaged garbage that passes for food, we’ll reduce the demand for it. Eventually, junk food manufacturers will not find selling poison labeled as snacks to be profitable. It’s the simplest form of activism, and it works.
So eat well, stay healthy, and tell your elected representatives in Congress to ensure that our health and the health of our planet is their priority — not kowtowing to Big Agro.
In other words, tell them to do their job.