Free Kindle Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide To The Next Food And Farm Bill ebooks Download
Every five years, the U.S. Congress passes a little understood piece of legislation called the Farm Bill. Primarily accountable for setting the budgets and work plans for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Farm Bill is anything but bureaucratic trivia. It is an essential economic and policy engine that drives the food and farming system and provides nutritional assistance to tens of millions of Americans--many of them children. In recent years, more and more citizens are realizing just how much is at stake in this political chess game.Originally published in 2007, Food Fight was Daniel Imhoff's highly acclaimed primer on the 2008 Farm Bill. Now in a newly updated and expanded edition, packed with helpful charts and illustrations, Imhoff looks ahead at this important issue, as the debate for 2012 is already underway. With the legislation due to be reauthorized in late 2012, Food Fight offers a critical resource that can help all who live in the U.S. to deconstruct this challenging bill, organize in their communities to gain a seat at the bargaining table, and ultimately vote with their forks.Includes a foreword by Michael Pollan and introduction by Fred Kirschenmann.
Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Watershed Media (February 21, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0970950071
ISBN-13: 978-0970950079
Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 8.2 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #327,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #171 in Books > Business & Money > Industries > Agriculture #239 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Agriculture #275 in Books > Business & Money > Processes & Infrastructure > Government & Business
All citizens of the United States should read this book, and many outside the US could well use it. It exposes the grim truth about American agriculture: it is massively distorted by the subsidy system. Subsidies go almost exclusively to large-scale producers of a handful of basic commodities, largely maize (41% of all), cotton, wheat, sugar and soybeans. This greatly lowers the price of these items, distorting the market. One result, explored in detail in the book, is unhealthy diet; sweeteners--high-fructose corn syrup and sugar--are artificially cheap, and thus find their way into almost everything. Processed starches and soybean oil are also artificially cheap. So are meat and dairy products, which get some subsidies and benefit from artificially cheap feeds. Americans wind up with poor health, because the "bad" foods are cheaper and also because the subsidy-enriched giant agribusiness and food processing firms advertise heavily. (The book does not mention it, but one particularly annoying form this advertising takes is paying Fox News personalities to make constant, scathing, derogatory remarks about anyone who cares about good diet--calling such persons "food nazis" and making racist remarks about Michelle Obama when she shows an interest in better foods.) Another point about subsidies is that they block change. The giant subsidized interests can get research steered to their wants. They also block new initiatives, and of course they can outcompete any new or different farming, because the playing field is so far from level. We are thus locked into an increasingly dinosauric rural economy, with a few giant producers committed to an agricultural style that is less and less sustainable.
The second edition of Food Fight (February 2012) is a systematic overview for citizens of the labyrinths of a powerful piece of federal legislation commonly referred to as the Farm Bill, which is up for renewal as the 2008 Farm Bill is set to expire this year. With the assistance of many graphs and charts, it breaks down this colossus into as simple and understandable components: commodity crops, crop insurance, conservation, exports, etc. --- including the mammoth allocation that now goes to "nutrition", which involves SNAP (a.k.a., food stamps) and a gamut of smaller programs.The author gives a history and critique of each component of the Farm Bill. He is especially critical of how the allocations (and budget cuts) directed at farmers have shaped the agricultural landscape, creating perverse incentives to consolidate (subsiding agribusiness oligopolies) and to abuse the land. (The author doesn't quite say it, but nothing seems to cut the funding for conservation programs faster than their demonstrated effectiveness.)This book does an excellent job of making comprehensible an opaque subject matter, and as such will be a useful reference (probably even after the passage of the next Farm Bill passes). If someone wanted to be critical, there are several areas that could be pointed out. First, as a revision of a book written for the 2008, it suffers from the same problem that often afflicts second editions, namely you're never sure how much they're actually updated. Judging from the data, it looks like this book has been substantially overhauled, far more than is usual for books. There is, however, one sentence that implies 2009 is in the future, and that's jarring.The second issue is one that is inherent in the subject matter.
Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill The Bill Evans Trio - Volume 1 (1959-1961): Featuring Transcriptions of Bill Evans (Piano), Scott LaFaro (Bass) and Paul Motian (Drums) The Food Service Professional Guide to Controlling Restaurant & Food Service Food Costs (The Food Service Professional Guide to, 6) (The Food Service Professionals Guide To) Saints Who Battled Satan: Seventeen Holy Warriors Who Can Teach You How to Fight the Good Fight and Vanquish Your Ancient Enemy The Official Fight Promoter Playbook (The Fight Promoter Series 2) My Fight / Your Fight The Food Service Professional Guide to Controlling Restaurant & Food Service Operating Costs (The Food Service Professional Guide to, 5) (The Food Service Professionals Guide To) Better Farm Accounting: A Practical Guide for Preparing Farm Income Tax Returns, Financial Statements, and Analysis Reports Creative Country Farm Scenes Coloring Book: 30 Farm Inspired Design Pages for Immersive Fun, Relaxation, and Stress Relief (Adult Coloring Books - Art therapy For The Mind) (Volume 22) Farmyard Fun!: Cute & Easy Cake Toppers for any Farm Themed Party! Tractors, Diggers and Farm Animals Galore! (Cute & Easy Cake Toppers Collection) (Volume 7) Funny Farm: Relax and Enjoy our 25 Farm Patterns (Relaxation & Meditation) Real Estate Marketing To A Farm: How To Find, Grow and Reap The Benefits of a Geographic Farm (Realtor Marketing Book 1) The Citizen's Guide to Planning 4th Edition (Citizens Planning) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Audiobook): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction The Good Corporate Citizen: A Practical Guide Old-Fashioned Farm Life Coloring Book: Nineteenth Century Activities on the Firestone Farm at Greenfield Village (Dover History Coloring Book) Life on a Pig Farm (Life on a Farm) The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook: 150 Home Grown Recipes from the Green Mountain State (The Farm Table Cookbook) The New Mexico Farm Table Cookbook: 100 Homegrown Recipes from the Land of Enchantment (The Farm Table Cookbook) On The Farm For Kids: Fun Pictures for Kids on The Farm
