Complications Abound When Pairing Nutrition, Agribusiness, and Food Equity

Shortly after finishing this week's readings, I came across two recent NPR articles that also dealt with food politics. "Campbell Soup Switches Sides in the GMO Labeling Fight" and "Uncle Sam Just Told Us to Drink Water, Not Soda. You Might Have Missed It" mirror the Blatt article and Nestle chapters, respectively. Briefly, the Campbell soup article touches upon the importance of a major food company switching its support in favor of GMO labeling, and the Uncle Sam article expresses the difficulty with nutrition images such as the modern "plate" scheme and the food pyramid many of us are familiar with from our childhoods. The Uncle Sam article also reflects Nestle in its exploration of the difficulty in advocating for healthy food and drink options in a political food landscape dominated by agribusiness. What struck me about these articles was that they are so recent, yet deal with the same topics as our assigned readings. To see these same topics explored in a news article published mere days ago underscored their continued relevancy.

So what is this relevancy? Turning back to the readings, it is abundantly clear that the American food intertwines agribusiness, which is concerned with dollars and cents; nutrition experts, who are concerned with health; and food justice and antihunger advocates, who agitate for enough good food for everyone to eat. The problem, as all three authors point out, is that these three faculties are housed within the same department: the USDA. Nestle shows the difficulty that the agency has had since the 1910s with balancing sound nutritional advice and the demands of agribusiness. Blatt tacks on the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which only agribusiness is in full support of. Finally, Gottlieb and Joshi draw a clear distinction between food quantity, the backbone of food assistance, and food quality, the backbone of nutrition. There are clear tensions that exist between the multiple and varied facets of the USDA. This is perhaps best exemplified in Blatt's GMO discussion. On the favorable side, "The genetic engineers who work for the major chemical companies believe that GM is simply a technological extension or refinement of traditional hybridization" (pg. 93), meaning that, although perhaps not "natural," GMOs are not inherently unsafe and simply continue the genetic manipulation humankind has been practicing for centuries. Furthermore, the use of genetic modification has allowed the U.S. to produce large quantities of food, not only fueling a powerful industry, but providing fodder for a global food assistance program. On the unfavorable side, Blatt points out that while no one has been recorded as getting sick from GMOs, we are still uncertain how exactly they work (after all, we don't even understand our own genes). Furthermore, the foundational point of GMOs is to boost profits, not help the needy. Therefore, the food assistance aspect of GMOs holds less weight.

The GMO debate exemplifies the fundamental problem with letting agribusiness dictate nutritional standards and allocate the content of food assistance programs. What's good for agribusiness is not good for nutritional standards, which is not necessarily good for solving hunger. Furthermore, while the Campbell article may give some hope concerning the GMO debate, it is worth pointing out that non-GMO food can be even less nutritious as GMO food. I personally would rather eat a GMO apple that a can of non-GMO Campbell's chicken soup. As the debate continues in Washington over nutritional standards, the provisions of the Farm Bill, food assistance and welfare, and a myriad of other battles, it will be important to continue to parse out the inherent disparities and contradictions in food politics.