In and Out of the Garden: A Blog

Many of you may have read Michael Pollan's brilliant article "Farmer in Chief" in the New York Times Magazine last month. If you didn't get around to reading, go read it right now, give yourself a little time — it's long, but well worth it. We'll wait for you, come back when you're finished.

Now the best news is that Obama actually read the article and referenced it in this interview:

"I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs."
- Barack Obama
The Full Obama Interview
Posted by Joe Klein

I am so encouraged that food issues are finally being talked about at the highest levels. Here's to a new awareness in the politics of food!