Brian Lehrer of the Brain Lehrer Show on WNYC Radio spoke with author and activist Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food) about government agricultural policy.
What can we do?
There is an online petition to encourage President-elect Barack Obama to choose Mr. Pollan as the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
To: President-Elect Barack Obama
We citizens of The United States of America request the appointment of Michael Pollan to the Office of Secretary of Agriculture of the United States of America.
Through his academic lectures and papers, published books and articles Mr. Pollan has proven capable of gathering wide-ranging research, organizing it into a coherent whole and reaching non-biased conclusions. This research has provided him a unique understanding of the history, development, and contemporary practices of U.S. Agriculture and its relationship to the health of the citizens of The United States. He is singularly qualified to identify inefficiencies and present improvements in production, nutrition, and our problematic reliance on petroleum and petro-chemical based fertilizers, for the benefit of food producers and consumers both. As an academic and journalist, Mr. Pollan is free of the type of conflicts of interest rampant in the current administration which have led to abysmal performance and deficient oversight of industry at the expense of the people.
It is our belief that this scholarly approach coupled with his unique ability to synergize and coherently communicate to a wide audience makes Mr. Pollan the best choice for Secretary of Agriculture in an administration whose stated goals include affordable health and healthcare for the citizens of this nation and wholesale change from the practices of the Bush administration.
Please refer to http://www.michaelpollan.com/speak.htm for Mr. Pollan’s full biography and Curriculum Vitae.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Michael Pollan is a fabulous writer and academic. However, I would suggest we nominate a man with decades of experience farming, writing and speaking about agriculture and rural America. I would nominate Wendell Berry, author of “The Unsettling of America”, “What Are People For”, as well as countless fiction novels and farm poems.
I don’t really care whether Pollan becomes Agriculture Secretary. I think it is good enough just to get his name and ideas out into more of the public dialogue.
I was ready to sign the “Michael Pollan for Sec of AG” letter, until I read it and found that the author of the letter is blaming all our current problems on the Bush administration. Wake up – look at history – we have had this problem long before George W. entered office. Get your letter straight and I will be happy to sign it.