Food! Glorious Food!

Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times article, entitled “Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?,” affirmed much of my own thinking about the future of our food source.  As part of my responsibility as chairwoman of my local municipality’s Open Space-Farmland Preservation Committee, I am to ensure we enable sustainable agriculture and help improve the economy of farming in town.  We have experienced first hand how challenging this can be.  Some neighbors don’t like the smell or noise farms make.  Others think a farm stand at the side of the road is tacky and want it moved “elsewhere.”  Many are supportive, but simply do not understand “keeping NJ green” means they actually need to buy at the local farm stands before going to the big box stores.  Regardless, changing behaviors will always be difficult and we soldier on in the hopes that a new, more reform-minded Secretary of Food is appointed to straigten this mess out.

What really showed me just how important fixing our food system is, was an inteview of Michael Pollan by John Battelle at the November Web 2.0 Summit.  The interview centers on Pollan’s recent New York Times article, entitled “Farmer in Chief,” where he lays out how dealing with our food problem will also be the way for President-elect Obama to address climate change, oil independence and healthcare costs as promised.

Think about it…we currently drive production for the cheapest but worst kind of food–high fructose corn syrup (think sugar) and hydrogenated soy oils (think fast food and trans-fats).  By doing so, poor farming habits occur like mass feed lots, high pesticide (petroleum) and fertilizer (natural gas) use and increases in processing and transportation.  Keeping this kind of system prevents making any dent in oil independence or significant climate change and significantly reduces the quality of the end product in terms of its nutrition.  Those end products have proven to be the leading causes of cancers, diabetes, stroke and heart attack.  Other than being cheap in the short term, there is little good or inexpensive about our current food system.

In town, we are striving to create a series of community gardens for those without large backyards, farm stands for local farmers to sell and outreach programs to show residents how to create a backyard garden which will feed them well, compost their green wastes and even keep farm animals, like chickens, on a small scale. I personally believe, as Pollan suggests, we need to look to the old-world farmer to help us adjust to more appropriate farming practices.  Few family farmers wanted the Monsanto’s and agriculture lobbyists of the world and they were right! Pollan is far more eloquent in his interview than I am here.  Eat sunshine!

Rising from the ashes

Reading Calacanis’ popular and excellent post on “The Future of Startups,” and more and more announcements like the one Zappos’ CEO, Tony Hsieh, gave to his employees last week, has given me the feeling we still have not yet seen the bottom of this particular barrel.  Thus, I do not envy President-elect Obama.  Though I doubt it is ever easy to lead a large organization or country, to lead the U.S. right now is most likely the hardest job on the planet given the death spiral we are in.

There are so many important issues to address, how does one choose and make sure one’s actions are successful.  Looking at the list of “agenda” items on Change.gov, it is a daunting task.  My guess would be the economy and the war are top of everyone’s list given their far reaching causes and effects. (As a sidenote, I see here, that someone is finally making some sense on the proposed automakers’ bailout.)

Two issues close to my heart and, in my opinion, the most important to our future success as a viable country, are the Environment and Technology.

During this week’s Governor’s Global Climate Summit, Obama sent along an inspiring vidcast of his objectives for this agenda item, the highlights of which include:

• Federal cap and trade system
• Target 1990 emissions levels by 2020, 80% reduction by 2050
• $15b/year investment
• Create 5 million green jobs

Given the response at the conference, these kinds of far-reaching, specific targets are just what we need to make a difference.  His environmental team is also saying the right things, especially by seeing the need to work across traditional government silo’s in order for programs to work.

As for technology, Obama will be the first U.S. president to understand the power of “being digital,” and how it can return power to the people and trust in government.  It is my sincere hope that rather than giving up his Blackberry, he instead pulls our government into the 21st century by making the necessary changes to antiquated rules and regulations, appointing a cabinet-level CTO and driving an appropriately open technology platform upon which we are all able to make our voices heard and be effective in fixing all that is broken together.  The BBC has a nice summary of the issues and great comments from some of the visionaries in the field, like O’Reilly and Battelle.

In order to rise from the ashes, we must make significant progress on these fronts.  They are the source of new jobs, new ideas and a sustainable way for us to exist.  The question is how…