by Gary Truitt – October 31st, 2008
Just days before farmers will be going to vote, Democratic candidate Barack Obama made a major slip when he criticized American agriculture. In an interview with Time Magazine he said, “I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan 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 meantime, 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 health care costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in health care 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.”
US farm leaders were quick to respond. Ron Litterer, a farmer who is chairman of the National Corn Growers Association, said Obama’s comments in the Time interview were “in conflict with what he’s been saying about agriculture, no question about it.”
A Friday afternoon teleconference was held featuring a number of prominent ag leaders, all responding to the Obama statement They included, Governor Matt Blunt, Missouri, State Representative Randy Demmer, R-Hayfield, Minnesota, McCain-Palin Minnesota Farm & Ranch Team, Steering Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, Iowa, Doug Holtz-Eakin, Policy Adviser, McCain Campaign, Charlie Kruse, fourth generation Missouri farmer and President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, and Mike Yoder, Chair of Indiana Farm and Ranch Coalition.
Listen to this teleconference.
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Obama’s comments came in response to a question about his energy plan. A transcript of the interview was posted on the Time Web site last week. Pollan, who teaches journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, has long criticized the wide-scale cultivation of corn for use as livestock feed. He contends that it would be better for the environment and human health to fatten livestock on grass. In an Oct. 9 New York Times article, styled as a letter to the next president, Pollan called for changing the way livestock are fed and proposed overhauling farm programs.
Obama’s campaign said his “strong record of standing up for farmers and America’s rural communities speaks for itself.” The statement also said Obama would “bring the change rural America needs by increasing investments in renewable energy and giving family farmers the support they need by allowing them to diversify their crops and increase revenue.”
Early in the campaign John McCain was criticized by the ag community, and this blog, for his comments on the ethanol subsidy. Unlike Obama, McCain stuck to his position and explained he was against all subsidies and had nothing against ethanol. Obama, however, has made a major blunder by quoting Pollan, an outspoken critic of agriculture and an environmental radical.
Until now, neither candidate had won the support of much of American agriculture. In my view this incident reveals a true anti-farming slant to the Obama campaign and demonstrates a fundamental lack of support for farmers.
