What do you think about tampering with genetics? They had an article today here.

Also, “organic” was how all food was grown–until U.S. industrial framing practices fucked everything up.

I’ve got many questions about local vs. imported and good-for-society vs. cheap. It’s a big deal because everyone wants to be environmentally friendly and eat organic, local foods, but only the upper middle class and above can afford to. Green buildings are better for the environment and do great things for society long term, but only a handful of developers can afford the extra expense. This makes it somewhat difficult.

I remember reading somewhere that corn was always heavily subsidized by the U.S. government, which is why junk food with “high fructose corn syrup” is so much cheaper than good, wholesome foods. This is another reason why so many poor people in the U.S. are fat.

Abe hasn’t even won the nomination for the Republicans yet, and it may be a while before I get to the book, but what would Pollan say about prices in a more local world? Sure, industrialized farming is bad for the land and not as healthy, but if it weren’t industrialized, wouldn’t prices also go through the roof? People in third world countries around the world are rioting, but wouldn’t things be worse if the industrialization of farming stopped and everyone had to pay Japanese prices?

The issue isn’t really small farms–that’s something the American government wants everyone to think so that we support industrialized farming. Efficiency isn’t necessary in the best interests of the land that rice is grown on, or for farmers and consumers. The government SHOULD be protecting small farms–if the American government did this, there wouldn’t be a farm system in the US that’s pinned to petroleum, rather than to the sun.

The problem here lies in overproduction of rice, which hasn’t been altered with the changing Japanese diet. The US has the same problem with corn, except that corn is farmed on a huge scale, and we end up eating it in everything.

Also, Japanese rice may be richer in nutrients because of the way it is grown–which means it should be more expensive. Food should have value in the way it nourishes us.

But yeah, it is messed up that there’s a world rice shortage and Japan can’t help. (There’s also the question of why food should be sent thousands of miles–we should be helping countries with their farming, not exporting food to them if we want everything to be sustainable. Otherwise, if war broke out a country could starve because no one is willing to trade food.)

Yet, if farmers were supported by their governments to grow staples, like Japan has, then fields meant for rice production wouldn’t get switched to more lucrative crops like wine grapes.