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The Future of Food, According to 'Mother Jones'

Posted by Ed Levine, March 5, 2009 at 7:30 AM

"Forget about food miles. What about poop miles?" —Mother Jones' Paul Roberts

Mother Jones' food issue is out, and the lead story is an insanely long, detailed, and infinitely reasonable (for a change) look at what the future of real sustainable agriculture might look like all over the world. The author, Paul Roberts, concludes (after about ten bazillion words) that the answer to producing sustainable food will demand a multi-faceted, non-doctrinaire approach that will require:

• The fresher-than-thou, no-chemical food zealots to chill out (he suggests that instead of getting rid of all pesticides we have a more realistic and more productive goal of reducing their use by 80 percent)
• Government support for food sustainability research and development. That support might take the form of the "F" word: farm subsidies
• Re-examining and redefining the value of food miles calculations and locavorism
• Realizing that producing cost-effective sustainable food (delicious is not to found in this story—hey, we're talking about Mother Jones here!) is an incredibly complex, far-reaching issue with no easy answers or solutions to be found

You have to read the story slowly and maybe repeatedly to understand every issue Roberts raises, but it is worth your time. His point of view is far less doctrinaire than Michael Pollan (there is a requisite story on Pollan), and more real solutions-oriented.

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Tags: farming, Mother Jones, sustainability