Michael Pollan gets it wrong: Big Ag not the villain

Journalist Michael Pollan deserves credit for elevating the national conversation about food…

But his latest piece in the New York Times Magazine reads like a script for a black and white Western, with food companies, agribusiness and commodity producers cast in the role of Bad Guy and local organic farmers and vegans cast as the Men in White Hats.

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All industries have issues that continually need to be addressed, and the food industry is no exception.

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Except, our food system is changing, more than Pollan acknowledges.

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[S]ome of the biggest conservation heroes in America are so-called industrial-scale farmers such as Justin Knopf, who grows wheat and soybeans on thousands of acres …

To restore and protect his soil, Knopf forgoes tilling and plants cover crops. … So do hundreds of the heartland farmers Environmental Defense Fund works with to make sustainable practices the norm.

Those who paint large-scale farmers, agribusiness and food companies as the monolithic villain ignore the improvements that are being made today on the ground, in corporate offices and in food company kitchens…

Change won’t occur overnight. But it will never occur if we stay entrenched in political ideologies.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: What Michael Pollan gets wrong about Big Ag