Farmer in Chief

Check out Farmer in Chief by Michael Pollan. Food policy was on my mind recently since I went to a great training yesterday about helping victims of domestic violence get access to benefits. Random: did you know that TANF (Food Stamps) are budgeted as part of the Farm Act? I never would have paid attention to discussions about the Farm Act before but now I will. Pollan also addresses the idea of allowing food stamps to be used at farmers markets - this would allow greater access to fresh produce, support the local economy, and encourage seasonal eating! Great all around:

A few other ideas: Food-stamp debit cards should double in value whenever swiped at a farmers’ markets — all of which, by the way, need to be equipped with the Electronic Benefit Transfer card readers that supermarkets already have. We should expand the WIC program that gives farmers’-market vouchers to low-income women with children; such programs help attract farmers’ markets to urban neighborhoods where access to fresh produce is often nonexistent. (We should also offer tax incentives to grocery chains willing to build supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods.) Federal food assistance for the elderly should build on a successful program pioneered by the state of Maine that buys low-income seniors a membership in a community-supported farm. All these initiatives have the virtue of advancing two objectives at once: supporting the health of at-risk Americans and the revival of local food economies.