Kim 1

Emily Kim

Osman

English 3P, Period 1

April 26, 2019

Food Essay

Farming is An Industry

As big food industries grow bigger, the secrets of how our food are processed are rising

to the surface onto the media. Receiving negative feedback, people should realize that the food

policy makers should find a way to make food more healthier and affordable by having the

government help local farms financially. This will not only be beneficial to one’s health, but also

can be economically beneficial to sale healthy foods. In Michael Pollan’s article he explains the

unnecessary government subsidies on corn, making it become a huge part of the food industry. In

David Barboza’s article, he explains the influence of advertising can affect one’s food choices

the next time they walk through the supermarket aisles. As for Wendell Berry, he explains how

people should get more involved in our daily food choices by knowing the backgrounds of how

each food was processed, while Jay Rayner believes that people have their own personal choices

and how some food choices are to expensive for others to afford. By subsidizing these local

farms it can help them grow to produce healthier foods to be sold in markets knowing that they

will not contain any GMOs during the process.

America has been finding other solutions to obtain healthier foods such as importing

them from other countries who are more self sufficient in agriculture farming methods. In the

Article “Big Agriculture is the Only Option to Stop the World from Going Hungry” by Jay
 Kim 2

Rayner who states, “A country suited to dairy farming is no longer self-sufficient in milk. We’re

importing the stuff” (Rayner 15). The importance of this statement is to show that the country

has the capability to be self sufficient in food by farming, and will not have to depend on other

countries to obtain naturally made healthy foods that can be obtained without importing. Another

statement that supports this is, “we need to abandon the mythologies around agriculture, which

take the wholesome marketing of high-end food brands at face value-farmer in smock, ear of

corn, happy pig- and recognize that farming really is an industry” (Rayner 15). This statement

makes a point that farming is indeed an industry that can make the country a more self sufficient

country, and is also beneficial to one’s health because GMOs would not be needed as much if

local farmers can get the government to help subsidize their farms to grow bigger like how the

corn farms were subsidized. Having the government help our fellow local farmers as they helped

corn farms, will provide us a variety of more healthy foods.

Corn is out largest processed food product being produced as a necessary ingredient in

most food products. The reasoning to how the corn became such a huge deal in the food industry

is because of the government who were the ones subsidizing these corn farms, not just

financially but also implanting GMOs. In the article “When Crop Becomes King” by Michael

Pollan, he states, “ congress has decided instead to subsidize corn bushel, thereby insuring that

zea mays domination over its 125,000 square mile American habit will go unchallenged” (Pollan

6). This proves that the governments have the power to aid these local farms to grow as big as

the corn crops by subsidizing, and will be guaranteed a success to produce healthier foods by

farming. Another claim to support this is mentioned in “The Pleasures of Eating” by Wendell

Berry who states, “but as scale increases diversity declines, as diversity declines, so does health;
 Kim 3

as health declines, the dependence on drug and chemicals increases” (Berry 3). This shows that

one way to help food supplies become healthier is to aid small farms grow bigger to produce

plenty of foods to become more independent rather than relying on chemicals.

Helping farms financially can make our food supply healthier and more self-sufficient. It

is possible to grow our local farms into a bigger industry with the aid of the government who has

the power to subsidize them like how they did with corn, and with this the country can have a

more variety of of healthy foods being sold in supermarkets and being used in other food

facilities. By subsidizing these farms it can help the food industries economically and healthwise.

In order to create healthier foods production, it is essential to help local farmers out, it is even

better if the government helps subsidize them. The government should subsidize these farms

allowing the country to be self-sufficient and not having to rely on GMOs in farming factories.
 Kim 4

Works Cited

Barboza, David. “If You Pitch It, They Will Eat.” ​New York TImes, ​3 Aug. 2003, pp.1-8.

Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating.” ​What Are People For? Essays, ​New York; North

Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp.145-152.

Pollan, Michael. “When a Crop Becomes King.” ​New York Times, 1​ 9 July 2002, pp.6-8.

Rayner, Jay. “Big Agriculture is the Only Option to Stop the World Going Hungry.” ​The

Observer, 1​ 1 Sept. 2010,​ ​riots-farming.