Food Chain Radio Show #1214

Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist

Sustainable Control of Food

Guest: Tom DeWeese, President of American Policy Center Author of The War on Free Enterprise

In agriculture’s on-going war of words, the potency of the word weapons comes and goes.

Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Sustained Control Over Food – Why and who should control the food chain?

Consider, for example, the word “organic.” At one time, organic was the word small family-scaled farms used to defend themselves against the predation of large industrial-scaled farms. The small farmers would say, “We grow food in organic soil, and they grow food in poisoned soil!” The word organic proved to be an especially potent weapon, and demand for organic food went through the roof.

To preserve the potency of their word weapon, the small farmers gave it to the federal government for safe-keeping. But when “organic” became a federal franchise, it also became accessible to the large industrial-scaled farms who had the economies of scale sufficient to influence federal policy. As a consequence, the rules governing what is organic were changed to allow for more participation, and now the large industrial-scaled farms grow food organically, and can even grow their organic food in water!

When organic foods began showing up on the shelves of big box stores, the small family-scaled farms turned to another word to protect themselves from the predation of the industrialists. That word was “sustainable.”

“We grow food in ways that sustain the environment, while they grow food in ways that harm the environment.”

The word sustainable proved to be an especially potent weapon. After all, we do want to sustain the environment for those who follow.   And so “sustainable” became a battle cry in agriculture’s on-going war of words.

But if one were to go searching for what the word sustainable actually means, one would find more than 600 definitions. While most definitions would seem to be protective of the future, we ran across a definition in a transcript of a speech given to the Colorado Independent Cattlemen’s Association in which “sustainable” was said to mean “sustained control,” and “sustained power.” And that definition leads us to ask,

Leave a comment below: Why sustain control over us?

Tune in here, for the syndicated the Michael Olson Food Chain Radio Show #1214 January 11, 2020 Saturday 9AM Pacific

Nationally syndicated Food Chain Radio airs live Saturday mornings 9-10AM Pacific.