Those that know me know that the stupidity of American farm policy is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. (I recommend going to see Food Inc. if you haven’t, not only will that make you annoyed at farm policy but also the intense stupidity of the US legal system and the interpretation of DMCA (Hint, a dude using a machine that’s basic design is 100+ years old working at a job that is as old as human agricultural operations is being sued by a company that says he is an enabler of copyright infringement, and of course the guy being sued lacks the resources to defend himself against a multi national conglomerate so big and far reaching consumers cannot boycott them). Also, read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food).
Anyway, the Obama administration is attempting to actually do something about the stupid. by stopping the practice of giving healthy animals antibiotics. The Farm industry, is of course, trying to stop them.
I would encourage everyone to keep an eye on this developing situation and voice your support of common sense farm policies over some of the countries most massive and destructive corporate welfare interests. And if your Representative or Senator votes against it don’t reelect them (unless of course the farm industry manages to kill the bill by getting some sort of whacky rider in it. Of course still vote against them if they had a hand in getting said wacky rider in the bill in the first place.) US farm policy is a disaster and we need to start taking steps to fix it or we will all be up a creek and I don’t mean just in the US.
Does your peeve extend to our country’s ethanol policy?
By the way, this conservative is right there with you on corporate and farm welfare reform.
Absolutely. Ethanol is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever. Truly mind boggling stupid. All you need to know is how we grow (and subsidize) commodity corn in the US to know that Ethanol actually causes the burning of more fossil fuels than if we just put the gas in the freakin’ tank in the first place. Dumb dumb dumb. We just needed something to do with all the excess corn we keep subsidizing. That excess subsidized corn is also killing agriculture in Mexico. Turns out NAFTA has been pretty damn disastrous for Mexico. Dumb dumb dumb. By the way, we can thank Nixon’s Agricultural department for changing the goal of farm policy from avoiding over production to, basically, absolutely assuring a surplus. But in answer to your question. Yes ethanol is stupid.