Obama Cites Michael Pollan's Sun-Food Agenda
by Jeff Nield, Vancouver, British Columbia on 11. 3.08
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
In a recent National Public Radio interview, Michael Pollan talks about how he was approached by a Democratic party staffer about his New York Times article, Farmer in Chief. The article is an open letter to the next president concerning U.S. agriculture policy. The staffer wanted Pollan to summarize the article into a page or two to get it into the hands of Barack Obama. Pollan declined, saying that if he could have said everything that needed to be said in two pages, he wouldn't have written 8000 words.
Despite the snub, it looks like the article created enough of a buzz that it made it into Obama's stack of pre-election reading material...
In an interview with Joe Klein, Obama refers to the article, explaining how Pollan's ideas fit into the concept of a new energy economy.
Obama's analysis of Pollan's message:
There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy. 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. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
We've received no word on whether John McCain has read Pollan's article.
Note: Edited Nov 3, 2008 at 10:30 pst to reflect that Pollan was asked to write a summary of the article, not just to give his consent for someone else to summarize as I originally stated. Thanks to kendrainman in comments below.
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Its sad that Michael Pollan is so talented but his ego is so big. I hope that staffer just summarized it anyway. You can't expect a presidential candidate to read a long winded article that could actually be summarized in 1 paragraph.
@ seahors: He obviously read the article anyway. Good for him.
It makes me pretty excited that Obama has read Pollan. Hopefully his books too. This was probably my biggest worry about him, and once again he exceeds my expectations. Maybe he'll even appoint Pollan to be Sec. of Agriculture. Now that would be exciting.
I hope that Obama can bring the insights of the great minds of our country to the politicians who thinks they're the actual great minds of our country.
In Michael Pollan's defense, they did not ask for his consent to summarize the article. What he said in the interview was that Obama's staff had asked him to write up a summary of his own letter. He felt like Obama's staffers should do something like that, as he had written what he felt like he needed to say. I don't think that is unreasonable or an indication of a big ego.
The omnivores dilemma goes into huge detain on this.
It's a really good read.
Let's see the front-runner for the race to lead the world's most important nation is interested in my ideas on how to transform agriculture. Do I write a summary of those ideas so he can digest them or not?
Come on! The only explanation for Pollan's response is a supernova sized ego.
Most people would jump at the chance to influence policy in this way.
Thankfully his ideas have made it into the debate anyway.
I agree with the previous comments. I'm sure that Obama couldn't have had time to read all of Pollan's paper with how busy he is in the the pre-election season, so someone had to condense it for him. Who better than the author? I agree that it does seems like a big ego.
Often the people who need convincing are the ones who need all that information, but aren't willing to read something that they don't agree with. A good author should be able to condense their argument into the most important points, information and examples. Use this to get the denier's attention so that they will read the full document.
Michael Pollan undertands and I hope Obama understands that the way to make material change is to appoint the right people to positions of power.
Industry coalitions and their lobbyists have poisoned consumer protection agencies. All of the good efforts around the country to post calorie counts on menu boards will be lost if an industry coalition gets its way and the LEAN Act passes. The federal Act will preempt state and local laws, like those in New York City and CA that mandate calorie postings on menu boards.
A new industry coalition is trying to preempt FDA involvement in front-of-package food labeling. The icon system called Smart Choice is an industry PR stunt to preclude meaningful comparative labeling of packaged foods.
If Obama reads Michael Polland and Marion Nestle, he will begin to get the flavor (pun intended) of the issues. These are universal problems and apply beyond food politics. Foxes should not be guarding hen houses, and consumer protection laws should not be written by industries from whom consumers need protecting.
Rick
http://www.foodrecalls.blogspot.com
Big Ego?? No, it's called being honest. If people would practice it more we wouldn't waste so much time in trying to get anything worthwhile accomplished. Big issues cannot be summarized in what would amount to soundbites, despite the palatable diminution of the spoon that feeds us our information these days. Complicated and lengthy problems need to be addressed thoroughly and comprehensively. Should MLK have simply summed up "I have a dream" in a couple short sentences; "I have a dream that one day we will all share the same equal rights and opportunities under law, as alluded to in the constitution" If that's all it took we could all be history-making public figures, and therein lies the rub. Are you jealous of Micheal Pollan's cognitive ability or do you resent the fact that you didn't think it first? Either way, maybe you should try summing it up then. For my part, i don't have time to write another word. I must go and tell Karl Marx that if he wants his manifesto to be taken seriously it would be better if he presented it in comic-book format...(p.s. Michael Pollan should be appointed as an Obama Agricultural consultant asap. GOBAMA!!!!)
It's so nice to have a president (elect) who actually reads books.
Unfortunately, Obama is considering appointing Tom Vilsack as the head of the USDA. Obviously, he didn't take Pollan's message too seriously. In case you don't know, Vilsack is a big supporter of genetically engineered crops, as well as ethonol, and other environmentally damaging ideas.
See here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_15573.cfm