Christopher D. Cook is the author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis, now out in paperback. He has written for Harper's, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Mother Jones, The Christian Science Monitor, The American Prospect, The Nation, and elsewhere. His website is www.christophercook.com.
What a frightful spectacle our food has become. Human sustenance has been reduced to a corporate portfolio item – one whose success rides increasingly on sheer size and market control. In the name of profit, everything else gets squeezed: consumer health; smaller-scale farmers and processors; food industry workers and farm laborers; and the soil, air and water that are the lifeblood of our food supply. Read more
Within hours of former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s nomination as agriculture secretary, the web was humming with well-documented critiques of his troubling affinity for genetically engineered crops, Monsanto, and other agribusiness interests. Some expressed outrage, others surprise, after mounting a vigorous, 55,000-plus strong online petition effort to nominate a more progressive pick who would promote sustainable food and farming.
Obama’s pick of Vilsack offers more proof of the incoming administration’s unwavering centrism – meaning they’ll need to hear from sustainability and food justice advocates, and other progressive forces, early and often. Read more
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