Junk Food Grows on our Farms
This excellent article from the Toronto Star paints this picture:
- No local markets for diversified farm crops
- Farmers grow corn and soybeans
- Soybeans make for cheap burgers (feed for cows) and most added fats to processed foods
- Corn gives us cheap sweeteners for pop and most other products (corn syrup / fructose)
- Big food processors ask for more and cheaper production (yet pay $3.70 per bushel to the farmer and make $440 off the products from it)
- Farmers expand their land removing woodlots, wetlands and buffer strips and stop crop rotation
- Farmers see their land become degraded and the streams and lakes degenerate with loss of fish
What can be done? We could follow recommendations from reports like “The Farm Crisis and Corporate Profits” and nutrition researchers:
“Better food labelling, health claims on fruits and vegetables, healthy food cheaper than junk food, government support for farmers who grow good food in an environmentally sustainable manner.”
Eating local is a beginning, but don’t stop there!