Politics
Eating Corn on the Campaign Trail Does Not Count as Good Food Policy
To save our food system and our farmers, we need radical change
Presidential candidates ignore real food policy. They’re fine with pandering to corporate farmers in Iowa, but for the most part, they don’t talk about actual food.
Civil Eats has documented the Democratic primary candidates’ experience working on food security, labor rights, farm and environmental policy, and antitrust issues. They note that the scene “appears to be shifting,” and there are indeed some standouts, but there’s still little talk about how people actually farm and eat; if you look at Politico’s tally of the Democratic candidates’ official stances on food and agriculture, you’ll see that there’s just not a lot to grab onto.
On the campaign trail, there’s been a tiny bit of action, certainly more than in 2016. Marianne Williamson became the only candidate to say the phrase “food system” in the June and July debates, and probably the only presidential candidate in any debate ever to do so, but her webpage devoted to food is almost exclusively about GMOs — not wrong, but not quite the point. Several other debaters have paid lip service to the concept of farmers fighting climate change; that’s cute! A couple of months ago…
