A sense that the food system has overall withstood the COVID-19 shock has prevailed, with little or no discussion about lessons learned and possible improvements or interventions. Food in the US remains a private or, at most, a local matter.
As I watch presidential and vice-presidential debates, town halls meetings, and various political declarations flooding the media before the US November elections, I cannot help but notice the lack of substantial interest in food and food politics. Besides the Goya controversy, which was more about the Trumps’ relationship with the business sector and the Hispanic community, and voters’ curiosity about the candidates’ eating habits, which are supposed to tell us something about their personality and their “authenticity,” food has been conspicuously absent from both the Democratic and the Republican campaigns.
At most, indirect references have been made to it as part of broader discussions about the economic consequences of COVID-19. Various reflections were offered about “putting food on American tables” and the problems the unemployed encounter in feeding their families. I am far from surprised. In 2013, it took some effort to get the then candidates for NYC mayor to participate in a public forum at The New School and discuss matters of food security and food systems. The debate was a success, with a packed audience and many New Yorkers following it online, as proof of the interest in the topic.
Although increasingly moving to the center of civic discussions and negotiations about personal and individual identity, food seems to turn into a significant political matter only when it touches jobs and the economy in terms of production, sales, and trade, and when it translates into votes from specific constituencies (the food industry, farmers, cattle owners, fishermen etc.). Other aspects appear to belong to the realms of the private spheres of daily lives of American citizens and their commercial enterprises, or to the duties of local or state-level administrators, as food system plans in New York City or Portland suggest. One of the consequences, for instance, is that system-level food safety is mostly left to the industry’s self-regulation, ostensibly because more controls would raise prices to consumers, but in reality to avoid antagonizing producers, who would see a reduction in their profit margins and more controls from the government and the public. The consequences of this state of affairs are all too familiar.
It is as if food does not fall under presidential powers. Granted, the US food policy is determined by the Farm Bill, which is a responsibility of Congress. Nevertheless, the almost total absence of vision on these matters in the presidential debates is puzzling. Whoever wins will then leave it to various components of the executive branch to take care of concrete food issues. Unfortunately, it is right there that many disasters are likely to take place due to mishandling, negligence, bad faith, and vested interests, as we have seen in the past few years.
It is understandable that the presidential debates are consumed by urgent concerns about the management of the pandemic, the economic recession it has caused, structural racism and white supremacy, as well as “law and order” as an equivalent to substantial justice. However, all of these issues have important connections with food that have not been mentioned. During the first months of the pandemic, the shutdown of slaughterhouses and meat packing plants, the impact on agricultural production of the presence of fewer immigrant workers, and the temporary disappearance of certain food items from supermarkets made consumers aware of the weaknesses in the way food is produced, processed, and sold. However, a sense that the food system has overall withstood the shock has prevailed, with little or no discussion about lessons learned and possible improvements or interventions.
During the presidential debates we have heard questions and answers about wildfires, climate change (or its supposed non-existence), and the management of the environment, especially in terms of energy policy, fracking, and the Green New Deal, but the role that agriculture and food production play in these crises has not been tackled. Even during the most heated exchanges about the pandemic, little reference has been made to the connection between the high number of acute cases and deaths in the US and the incidence of obesity and non-communicable diseases connected with diet and nutrition, such as cardiovascular diseases, some types of cancer, and diabetes. Some remarks about these public health emergencies where made during Trump’s bout with COVID-19, as commentators pointed out that his diet is far from optimal and he is overweight. However, the physical wellbeing of Americans remains a private matter, as all the controversies about Obamacare and pre-existing conditions reveal. What we eat is our own business and our own choice, regardless of external influence and the socioeconomic context.
The indirect impact of many presidential policies and executive orders on the food system has not been explored during the debates, even if such measures were the object of discussion. The new rules on immigration had heavy consequences on the availability of labor, compounded by the abysmal working conditions and low wages of many rural workers. The recent trade wars (amplified by the fear of contagion) and the all-but-declared end of the multilateral trade order that was consecrated by the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1994 have been disastrous on US agriculture. The government has funneled subsidies to farmers in the billions, partly to ensure the survival of the sector (although the subsidies tend to go to large farms), partly to guarantee the support of an all-important political constituency, especially in the South and the Midwest. Moreover, in some area the relaxation of regulations on water usage have been welcome by farmers that resented the limitations imposed by the previous administration.
Overall, the separation between our roles as consumers and citizens is still prevalent and widely accepted. We can vote with our dollars to influence the industry, we can try to improve our diets as individuals, we can donate food to soup kitchen and food banks, or even volunteer in anti-hunger drives, but our impact on the food system through political representation is still quite limited. On the one hand, many voters may not be aware of their entanglement with supply chains, distribution systems, and even food production. On the other hand, politicians may have little incentive to change a comfortable situation in which the food industry lobby can move votes and funding.