Reading an article that Tom sent me and that I linked to two posts below, I came across an interesting quote. The article is about sustainable farming, the hard truths of trying to farm organically and the collective will needed to amend our farming practices. Here's the quote:
If we're going to ask the market to pull in a new direction, we'll need to give it new rules and incentives. That means our broader food standards, but it also means money—a massive increase in food research. (Today, the fraction of the federal research budget spent on anything remotely resembling alternative agriculture is less than 1 percent—and most of that is sucked up by the organic sector.) And, yes, it means more farm subsidies: The reason federal farm subsidies are regarded as anti-sustainability is mainly because they support the wrong kind of farming. But if we want the right kind of farming, we're going to have to support those farmers willing to risk trying a new model. For example, one reason farmers prefer labor-saving monoculture is that it frees them to take an off-farm job, which for many is the only way to get health insurance. Thus, the simplest way to encourage sustainable farming might be offering a subsidy for affordable health care. [my emphasis]
Barack Obama has it right: everything comes back to health care. Solve the health insurance problem in this country, and other problems will be on the way to being solved, or at least one big hurdle to solutions will be removed.
Source: Paul Roberts, "Spoiled: Organic and Local is so 2008," Mother Jones, March/April 2009. www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/02/spoiled-organic-and-local-so-2008
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