This week’s explanation of our country’s Farm Bill touches on how our diet, welfare programs, and transportation are all directly effected by government administration. At first glance, one may notice that these characteristics make up a majority of this nation’s interests. Food for example, is more than just a life necessity, it’s also a social lubricant, thriving business, and leverage of power. With political involvement, regulation for food safety, subsidies, and stamps are all allocated. It is quite beneficial to have this type of government involvement with something so important to the American life. As explained in the lecture, the Farm Bill changes every five years. This means that the policies and support are meant to be tailored to the needs of the time, including shortages, warm and new technologies.
1 thought on “Farm Bill is more than just tractors, crops, and cows”
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The Farm Bill has many positive aspects in terms of regulating and stabilizing the agricultural and commodity chain systems in our country. When considering the overall impact, the farm bill has historically created a space for subsidizing crops that are not necessarily in demand, rather, they are used to perpetuate our industrial agriculture system which hemorrhages waste and inefficiency. How do we address the use of corn for ethanol which has been documented as being wildly inefficient in terms of carbon impact? Or the use of soy to feed livestock which increased the ecological footprint of our food several fold? These elements of our food and agriculture system are supported by the Farm Bill indirectly. Major reforms to how we look at industrial agriculture would help lower our footprint, and become less wasteful of our resources.