Food and Foreign Policy

As I pulled several wilted tomato plants from my sorry, soaked vegetable garden this weekend, I listened to a news report about how global warming and attendant change in weather patterns are expected to lead to famine and massive population movements.

I read two items today that remind me once again how food and foreign policy are so  profoundly linked.

One is a Washington Post story on how Michelle Obama’s celebrity in Russia is to a large degree  focused on her creating and tending an organic garden at the White House.

The other is a sentence in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs:

“Families in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia spend up to 80 percent of their incomes on food; for the average U.S. household, that would mean an annual grocery bill of $40,000.”

How would life be different if 80 percent of earnings had to go to food? I really can’t imagine it.

In 2008, Americans on average spent 9.6 percent of income after taxes for food. But I don’t believe that really cheap food is the answer to food shortages. Food that is American-cheap and processed has given us soaring obesity and diabetes, and diminishing fertility of farmland. I’m sure it will cost more to support  food grown locally in a sustainable way. We should no more be the food provider to the world than we should be the policemen to the world. Both concepts are unsustainable.

White House Getting Vegetable Garden

For the first time since WWII, a vegetable garden is being carved out of the White House lawn. The First Lady says it will provide organic food for family meals, but more importantly, will help educate children  about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.  Here’s the New York Times story.