“96% of American farms are still family owned. Which means on the farm the CEO is usually referred to as mom, and mom usually refers to her big farming operation as home,” began a Monsanto ad that ran during the half time of last night’s Super Bowl.
I’m named after one of these farmer moms. Her husband died on the farm when he was 42. She is this kind of CEO.
So I paid attention as the ad went on. It was in partnership with the American Farmers. It used moms.
As I listened, I thought of all of the moms working on farms that I have had the privilege to meet in this work. They sit on both sides of the GMO aisle, some using this technology and the suite of chemicals required to grow genetically engineered foods, devoted to feeding our country, some opting out and using technology that does not require the use of RoundUp Ready chemicals. I thought about the daughters of farmers that I have met, the science writers that are moms, the food entrepreneurs, the teachers, the attorneys and all of the moms that I have had the privilege of connecting with in this work.
And I thought about how all of us, regardless of whether we feed our kids genetically engineered food from large scale farms or food from our own gardens, want the same thing: happy, healthy kids and a strong country.
But that is not where we stand. Too many of us have friends with children who have diabetes, allergies, asthma, autism, pediatric cancer and so much more. And we’re all trying our best to feed our kids healthy food on the budgets that we have.
As I watched the ad, the words of a food industry executive (a “big food” industry executive) came to mind. He’d shared them at a policy meeting: “No one would choose the food system we have today.”
These words had come to mind again last week, while working with two obese moms, struggling to feed their families healthy food on a restricted budget. As one shared her frustration, her eyes welled with tears. ”Why is the food that is so full of artificial ingredients and chemicals so cheap,” she asked, “while the food that is free from all of these additives and labeled organic so expensive?”
Clean and safe food, free from all of these additives, should be affordable to all Americans, especially in light of our escalating rates of diseases and the associated burden that health care costs are putting on our economy.
The entire article is here:Farmers and Moms: Tackling Our Broken Food System | Inspired Bites
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