In Defense of Michael Pollan

The Santa Clara County Library system has a program called Silicon Valley Reads. The idea is to have everyone in the valley read the same book, and then to participate in events or actions surrounding the themes in that book. For 2010, the book is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I have read it. Good stuff. Synopsis comes from the introduction: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Kick-Off of Silicon Valley Reads 2010

with Michael Pollan, in person, interviewed on-stage by Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy

Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 7:30 p.m.

Heritage Theatre, Campbell Ave. @ Winchester Blvd., Campbell, CA

Free! First come, first seated!

Pollan's appearances can produce controversy. When he spoke at Cal.Poly SLO back in October, David Wood, the chairman of Harris Ranch Beef Company, threatened to revoke a pledge of major financial support to the university unless Pollan's appearance was turned into a panel discussion with representatives of BigAg to present a "balanced view".

I find it unacceptable that the university would provide Michael Pollan an unchallenged forum to promote his stand against conventional agricultural practices.

Read the story in LA Times which quoted from or San Luis Obispo Tribune where it generated a substantive discussion.

That is the way that our underfunded education system works on behalf of Corporate America.

Secretary of Food

I have, on occasion, made reference to Michael Pollan and his ideas about food. My earth day comments included a reference to Pollan's statement that you can do more to combat global warming by planting a garden than by installing CFL's. More recently, I referred to his recent letter to President-elect Obama that was published in the NY Times Magazine.

Last night, I watched Bill Moyers Journal as Moyers asked Pollan what he would do were he to become the Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama administration. Click Read more! to get my take.


I rarely get the opportunity to get ahead of Moyers. Maybe this time I was successful because he was on vacation. My Green Talk column in the very local Morgan Hill Times this week got at the same issue, though not as directly.

Still, I am of the opinion that possibly the single most important appointment the new president will make is to the position of Secretary of Agriculture. We have gone through an era in which the family farm has disappeared, in which factory farms and multinational corporations like ADM dominate not only the market but also the politics of agriculture.

There are two issues here. One is the fact that, as Pollan told Moyers that

...you have to understand that that department of the government, the $90 billion a year behemoth is captive of agri-business. It is owned by agri-business. They're in the room making policy there.

I agree with Pollan that making change in Agriculture has to go through Nancy Pelosi. We not only need to watch Obama's choice for Sec. of Agriculture, we need to pay attention to Pelosi's appointment to the Chairmanship of the House Committee on Agriculture. In the past, that committee has been loaded with Representatives from the mid-western farm states and California's Centeral Valley. They represent farm interests meaning ADM, Cargill and Blue Diamond Walnuts. (Yes. it get's that specific.) No one on that committee makes a habit of representing consumers for any other issue than driving down the prices of food and driving the family farms out of business.

There are a couple of actions that we can take. The easy one is to go sign a petition to Obama to name Pollan Secretary of Agriculture. As he told Moyers, he won't take it but getting some names on the petition is one way to make a statement without having to really do anything else.

More to the point, we need to create pressure on Pelosi in every way that we can. That means writing letters / OpEds to the San Francisco Chronicle, Challenging Michael Krasny to put Pollan on KQED's FORUM program again and then following up with call-ins and email questions. As I said at the end of my MH Times Column...

Even in my own Green Party it is not easy to get people to think of agriculture in this way. It challenges many deeply held, but false beliefs in how the real systems work. I am working to change that, in my community, in my party, in the whole country. Join me.

All Hail the Farmer in Chief

In 2006, Stockton Record columnist Mike Fitzgerald rather put the nail in Richard Pombo's coffin with his just before column calling Pombo the Taker in Chief. Now, I believe that the Nation needs a Farmer in Chief and if you click read more, you will find out why. This is an OpEd that I submitted to my home town newspaper and which, I hope, runs next week.


We have heard a lot about what the next president, whomever that may be, will do for our economy, energy and the manner in which we project American Power into a world that is increasingly skeptical of our motives. We have not hear a lot about food. It is a subject that seems more likely to be covered in the life style segments of the evening news than as “hard news.”

I know, that in these increasingly hard times, my wife and I are very happy to have the ability to raise a significant amount of our own food. I would be sorry to inform the folks at Nob Hill, Safeway, Trader Joe's, or Target that we almost never buy fruit, not when we can eat what we have grown ourselves every day. And, we don't have to worry about whether or not is was contaminated by e coli somewhere in the food chain. We do not have to think about how much natural gas was required to manufacture the fertilizer, the possible contamination by pesticides nor any of the other concerns that can turn food into real news.

Still, I am of the opinion that possibly the single most important appointment the new president will make is to he position of Secretary of Agriculture. We have gone through an era in which the family farm has disappeared, in which factory farms and multinational corporations like ADM dominate not only the market but also the politics of agriculture.

Why do I write this here, in Morgan Hill, when agriculture is slowly disappearing from the Santa Clara Valley? Because there are alternatives that work and which address a range of other problems: energy, global warming, health care.

You could say that our current situation, an unhealthy diet, a fossil fuel driven agriculture, an expensive delivery system, and the factory farm are all the result of Richard Nixon's single instruction to Sec. Of Acticulture, Earl Butz: “Do whatever you can to boost production.” Nixon was facing rapidly increasing prices for agricultural products and a declining popularity. Butz had the answer: subsidies.

NY Times write Michael Pollan is not a farmer. He is rather a journalist, an avid gardener and a thoughtful consumer of food. Earlier this month (October 9), the Times published his open letter to the next president. He gives some data to underscore the importance of food. “After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study.”

It would seem that we can not make the progress that we want in any area without contemplating how agriculture, our food, fits into the picture. Consider that it now takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of food in our supermarkets.

One solution, according to Pollan, is to re-solarize agriculture. After all, every bit of what we consume comes from the sun. The energy to grow plants comes from photosynthesis. The animal proteins that some of us eat are the result of animals eating plants, or their products. Even the petroleum, coal and natural gas on which we have based our energy system are there because of photosynthesis and the sun.

I can not think of any better solution. It may mean the end of the factory farm, but if it also means that we can improve the quality of the American diet, lowering the incidence of diet related chronic disease that costs our health care system

It may mean that we no longer practice mono-culture agriculture where only a single crop is grown. Since McDonald's only buys one type of potato for it's fries, that is all that many farmers grow, even though it requires the use of more pesticides than almost any food crop we have. The alternative is to practice multiple crop rotation as is done in Argentina where the rotation of cattle and grains on the same land has brought a lower cost of production, no pesticides required and far less fertilizer.

Standing in the way of this is the fact that we, as consumers, have this notion that the only choices are some high priced organic market. That would not be true if the food system were operated for the benefit of the farmer or the consumer rather than corporate profitability.

Both major party candidates talk of change. But when their campaigns started in Iowa, they bowed down to the corn god and mouthed the right words. Even our supposedly environmental senator, Barbara Boxer votes on the food bill knowing that “we have our cotton people and our rice people” and so supports subsidies to those who need it the least.

Effecting change will not be easy. We need political leadership that will challenge the prevailing wisdom and I am not sure that it will come from presidential candidates who are fighting over Indiana or Iowa votes.

Even in the Green Party it is not easy to get people think of agriculture in this way. Too many have a strictly urban view or confuse ecology with environment where the environment is a place to visit. It challenges too many deeply held, but false, beliefs in how the real system works. I am working to change that, in my community, in my party, in the whole country. Join me.

You can read Pollan's full open letter here:

Farming the front yard.

My Earth Day Messages post generated a bit of discussion, most of it good. Steve mentioned the manner in which some are taking the step of re-introducing self sufficiency in food production. I would like to note two great examples of this sort of thinking. They are from those famous neo-Luddite publications, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

As I referenced before, Michael Pollan's New York Times article suggests that planting a garden, rather than installing CFL's, is the perfect response for someone who is concerned about global warming. With a CFL, you buy it, you replace the old bulb and they you walk away, forget about it but you feel like you have done something. If you plant a garden like Pollan suggests, it has a more lasting affect. You may even begin to notice the cycles of the weather, to think about where the water will come from in a dry month, year, decade. It will substantially change you, even to allow yourself to shed the "cheap-energy mind".

The Wall Street Journal gives you an example of a man who did just that, and in his own front yard yet...they call it Green Acres II. Like the original, you can watch it.

Individuals acting for the collective good.

Why bother?

Faced with the overwhelming scope of the problems that face us because the world is getting warmer and the seeming futility of small actions, some would ask "Why bother?" In a recent Green Issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan tries to answer that question. He starts from a bleak point of view.

I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs.

Pollan ends up asking you to do something just as simple, but philosophically more profound... go plant a garden.

You may not believe the "go plant a garden" bit, but read it. Pollan is very convincing.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.