Why you should care about the "Farm Bill"

Who cares about the "Farm Bill", right? After all, no one I know is a farmer. Farming is big industry here in California, but it has little to do with my life, right? Besides, what could be more off topic to an Ed blog than talk of the "Farm Bill"?

The answers are all found in this very engaging article from this week's Sunday New York Times Magazine: You Are What You Grow by Michael Pollin, author of "The Omnivore’s Dilemma."

The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

The cold hard reality of federal agricultural policy are on full display here in San Francisco USD. The Herculean efforts by the hard working members of the Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee are no match for the forces unleashed by this federal policy. They can, and have, done wonders for our kids. But there are stark limits to what can be accomplished without confronting federal farm policy, either with an infusion of money to overcome the economic incentives encoded in the farm bill, or by legislating meaningful changes to those incentive. Which is why I urge you to read this very well written article.