Change we can believe in? It starts with farm policy reform

Op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof makes the case for a radical reform in the politics of agriculture in his poignant editorial. Perhaps, he says, the Department of Agriculture should be retitled the Department of Food, since eaters now vastly outnumber farmers, and agricultural policy has become so susceptible to the agribusiness lobby that it undermines rural American towns and small farms, favoring only the wealthiest, highest-volume industrial outfits.
 
We should readjust the focus agricultural policy to producing nutritious food sustainably, which should have been the original goal of policy. “The problem isn’t farmers,” says Kristof. “It’s the farm lobby – hijacked by industrial operators – and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.” Interests without lobbying clout, by contrast, are too often left in the dust. Full story: The New York Times