Omnivore Atlanta

Still undecided on who to vote for in the upcoming primaries and presidential election? Never fear — I’ve got the information to help you make up your mind: where the candidates stand on … food! That’s right, health care, education and security might be kinda important, I guess, but where the candidates stand on issues of food is the real test.

OK, maybe not. But I did think it would be interesting to take a look at what different candidates had to say about our food supply and our farm communities, as well as food safety. Anyone who has followed the politics of food in the past few years, or read Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, knows that government legislation is directly affecting what we eat, what is available to us and at what prices, and contributing to the obesity epidemic in America. So where do this crop of presidential candidates stand on these issues? I decided to check it out.

What follows is everything I could find on the top three Democratic and Republican candidate’s websites, as well as some searching on their voting records and press about their activities relating to these issues. It’s not the most appetizing stuff in the world, but I think it gives an interesting insight into how deeply some of them are thinking about an issue that probably won’t get a ton of attention in the upcoming elections.

Barack Obama

Obama is the only candidate I could find who specifically mentions supporting local and organic food on his website. Under the “Issues” tab in the section devoted to the steps Obama will take on issues related to agriculture, it reads:

Encourage Organic and Local Agriculture: Obama will help organic farmers afford to certify their crops and reform crop insurance to not penalize organic farmers. He also will promote regional food systems.

Obama also supports country-of-origin labeling, so consumers will know how far food has traveled to get to our shelves, and so shoppers have the option to consciously buy American.

One of the biggest complaints against the Farm Bill is that it helps huge corporate farms more than small family farms. Obama’s website echoes the same ideas and proposals he gave in a speech on Aug. 17 2007, when he said:

“It’s time for us to make some changes to the Farm Bill so we spend fewer resources subsidizing corporate megafarms and more time and resources supporting family farmers and rural America. Specifically, we should lower the payment limit to $250,000 annually and make sure those payments go to farmers who need them — not to millionaire farmers who are relying on the American taxpayers to protect their multi-million dollar profits.”

Obama even brings local food and small farmers into his plan to put a higher tax on fossil fuels:

Allow local farmers to gain more share of the local food market, giving small farms more profit by easing competition. Reducing food mileage reduces transportation costs. It rebuilds the connection between consumers and producers by reducing unneeded transportation of our food, incidentally also giving us fresher foods by reducing transit time.

Hillary Clinton

I could not find anything on Clinton’s website about her stance on issues regarding food. She has in the past been involved with bringing these issues to the attention of Congress, most notably in June 2006 when she joined with Sens. Arlen Specter, Tom Harkin and Herb Kohl to sponsor a congressional briefing on “Leveraging Local Food Systems for Healthy Farms and Healthy Communities.” The briefing provided an overview of economic impact and policy recommendations for leveraging local community food systems to improve access to healthy foods by schools, retailers, restaurants and local communities.

She also commented publicly about the new Farm Bill, saying that she thought it would “pile more vegetables” onto Americans’ dinner plates.

John Edwards

Edwards is the only candidate I found who had an official stance on food safety on his website. Some of his proposals to deal with this issue include implementing a country-of-origin law (the same law Obama supports, but in Edwards’ case he sees the law as both helping the American farmer economically and helping the American consumer become less vulnerable to tainted foreign goods), integrating food safety agencies and laws, increasing inspections of imports and requiring safety measures abroad. You can read his lengthy stance on food safety here.

Edwards also supports the $250,000 cap on farm subsidies to help family farmers. His website says:

To help family farmers he will also limit farm subsidies to $250,000 per person, close loopholes in payment limits, and expand conservation programs.

John McCain

John McCain does not have anything on his website regarding food or farmers that I could find. He did not vote on the Farm Bill this past December, however, he has stated in recent Republican candidate debates that he would like to reduce farm subsidies over time, saying that doing so would open up foreign markets to American farmers.

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee supports farm subsidies as a matter of business and economic health. From his website:

We take for granted that our food is not only plentiful and diverse, but also inexpensive. As a percentage of income, we spend about half what people in other developed countries do, which gives us an enormous economic advantage. We have so much more money to spend on discretionary items. Part of the reason prices are low is that subsidies keep production at high levels, so keeping American farmers in business is not just good for them but for all of us.

We must continue subsidies because our farmers compete with highly subsidized farmers in Europe and Asia, and they face fixed costs (land, equipment, seed, supplies) whether or not they produce a crop. Subsidies insulate farmers from natural disasters like droughts, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, as well as from sudden spikes in the price of fuel, feed, and fertilizer.

Mitt Romney

Romney has nothing I could find on his website about food or farming, but in a response during the YouTube Republican debate, he gave an answer that seems very close to Huckabee’s position above. He argued for retaining subsidies (and did not address changing who those subsidies are directed at) because otherwise there would be unfair competition from subsidized European and Asian farmers. Both Huckabee and Romney seem concerned more with keeping farming a big business than in helping the small farmer.

So there we have it — not a complete picture of where these candidates stand, but at least an idea of how important these issues are to them, and what angle they are coming at it from. As the presidential race progresses, we will try to keep abreast of any food-related issues that arise.

Bookmark to:

Posted in Food & Life, News | Add a comment

Tags: Barak-Obama, farm-subsidies, food-safety, Hillary-Clinton, John-Edwards, John-McCain, Mike-Huckabee, Mitt-Romney, presidential-elections, presidential-race.