The landscape of health has changed. No longer are our families
guaranteed a healthy livelihood, not in the face of the current rates
of cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimers and allergies. In the words of
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard University law professor who
is head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, “We need a new model,”
and we need a new food system. It’s our health on the line. Here’s
eight steps Obama could take to save food.

1. Evenly distribute government moneys to all farmers: The current system allocates the lion share of our tax dollars (approximately $60 billion)
to farmers growing crops whose seeds have been engineered to produce
their own insecticides and tolerate increasing doses of weed killing
herbicides. As a result, these crops, with a large chemical footprint,
are cheaper to produce, while farmers growing organic produce are
charged fees to prove that their crops are safe and then charged
additional fees to label these crops as free of synthetic chemicals and
“organic.” If organic farmers received an equal distribution of
taxpayer funded handouts from the government,
the cost of producing crops free from synthetic chemicals would be
cheaper, making these crops more affordable to more people, in turn
increasing demand for these products which would further drive down
costs. If we were to reallocate our national budget and evenly
distribute our tax dollars to all farmers, clean food would be
affordable to everyone and not just those in certain zip codes.  

2. Reinstitute the USDA pesticide reporting standard that was waived under the Bush administration.
In 2008, the USDA waived pesticide reporting requirements (a procedure
that has been in place since the early 1990s) so that farmers and
consumers would know the level of chemicals being applied to food
crops. Given a report just released that
reveals a 383 million pound increase in the use of weed killing
herbicides since the introduction of herbicide tolerant crops in 1996
and the potential impact that this glyphosate containing compound is
having on both the environment and on our health, perhaps the “don’t
ask, don’t tell” policy assumed under the previous administration
should be reversed.  

3. Reinstate the pre-Bush administration dollar value that the EPA places on the life of every American: in May 2008, the Bush administration lowered the value placed on the life of every American by
almost $1 million, benefiting corporations who use this figure in their
cost benefit analyses, marking down our lives from $7.8 million to $6.9
million the same way a car dealer might markdown a ’96 Camaro with bad
brakes. The EPA figure is used to assess corporate liability when a
company’s actions put a life at risk. While this figure benefits the
corporations conducting the cost benefit analysis when assessing the
health impact of their chemicals, the costs of these chemicals are
being externalized onto the public in the form of health care costs.  

4. Allow public debate over the nomination of pesticide
lobbyist, Islam Siddiqui for Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the office
of the United States Trade Representative. As addressed in a letter sent to Chairman Max Baucus and Ranking Member Charles Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee,
Islam Siddiqui, nominated for Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the
office of the United States Trade Representative, was formerly employed
by CropLife America, whose firm challenged Michelle Obama’s organic
garden, has consistently lobbied the U.S government to weaken
international treaties governing the use and export of toxic chemicals
such as PCBs, DDT and dioxins, and blocked international attempts to
help regulate pesticides that increasingly linked to chronic skin and
respiratory problems, birth defects and cancer in our community. Given
that a growing body of scientific evidence supports the theory that
chemicals in our food are contributing to the rise in health problems,
particularly in children, the appointment of an industry lobbyist to
export our challenged food system to the rest of the world may be in
the best interest of agrichemical corporations but consideration should
also be given to the health implications that these novel chemicals,
proteins and allergens may have.