Last week’s issue of Time Magazine features a cover story titled Getting Real about the High Price of Cheap Food. The author, Bryan Walsh hits the nail on sustainable agriculture’s head. I applaud his article, which ties in the small effects of conventional agriculture to the larger picture of our current destructive food system. He illustrated each facet of the system that endangers our health, the health of our planet and the well-being of the animals that feed us. It is not just CO₂ emissions that frighten us, but the rights of the worker, increasing antibiotic resistance, taste and nutrition degradation, water pollution and monetary cost among other things.

The way Walsh pieces together each part of the puzzle intermixed with brilliant Time Magazine photo essays that highlight the human face of food quantity and food quality deserves applause. The conclusion, though a combination of optimism and realism, is one we have heard before: “ultimately it’s going to be consumer demand that will cause change,” and until enough consumers are informed and drawn to move on this subject little progress will be made. Hopefully the high profile nature of the Time article will take us one step closer to our goals.

- Aliza Fishbein

By afishbein.Filed under: Agriculture, Diet, Environment, Equity, Food Production, Food and Farm Policy, Industrial Food Animal Production, Public Health.