Bigger food is still eating my baby

I've written before about Big Food and the ridiculous subsidies our government doles out each year for... corn. Lots of corn. And soy beans, which, you know, I like tofu, but honestly. I could think of more productive ways to waste government money–I could even think of more effective corporate handouts.

There's an interesting editorial in the Times that touches on more than just the subsidy issue, making the point that Big Food also creates massive amounts of pollution (chemical and biological), shows little regard for sustainability of land, destroys the agricultural economies of foreign nations on which we dump our surplus crops, and just generally produces inferior food. The article argues that the only way out of this is to start subsidizing mid-size farms, like Niman Ranch (whose pigs feed me at least once a week in the form of a Carnitas Burrito from Chipotle), though I'd really like to see an end to subsidies altogether while there are so many government programs going unfunded and the deficit being what it is.

Big Food has a ridiculously powerful lobbying arm, and neither Democrats nor Republicans see it in their political interest to do much about agricultural subsidies, so there you go.