Our national obesity
epidemic didn't just happen. The people who study the statistics agree
with Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School
that before the early 1970s, the prevalence of obesity was relatively
constant in the United States. As he told the 63rd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association since then there has been a dramatic
increase.
What
could have triggered it? Other people have pointed the finger at
several different possibilities. But one primary factor stands out:
Your tax dollars at work.
The
beginning of the obesity epidemic coincides too close for comfort with
what looked at the time like enlightened legislation. The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 established target
prices and deficiency payments to replace former price support payments.
Before that time, our government paid our farmers not to grow crops, as unbelievable as it sounds today. When farmers took
some of their land out of production, the reduced supply kept prices up.
The 1973 law instead paid farmers to grow crops. When we
put it that way, the change sure sounds sensible. One consequence is
that Americans now have perhaps the cheapest food in the world at the
same time that food prices in the developing world are rising so fast
that more people than ever are starving to death.
Americans now spend just 16-17 percent of our income for food, Earl Butz proudly stated in the new documentary film, "King Corn." Butz,
who died this year at age 98, was the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in
1973. He revolutionized American agriculture policy and urged farmers
to plant commodity crops like corn "from fence-row to fence-row."
Butz had a lot to be proud of -- as well as a few things to be ashamed of (that the movie tactfully didn't mention), including a horrible
anti-black remark that led to his resignation as well as going to
prison for income tax evasion.
America's
farmers listened to his advice because the more corn they grow the more
money they make. The fact that farming has become big business never
seemed to bother Butz. He always said "get big or get out," and that's what they did.
The
farmers in the Midwest who plant two trillion corn plants each year
would lose money on every acre of corn were it not for our benevolent
government. The "King Corn" movie shows us the small picture to help us
better understand.
"King Corn" is about
two friends, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, and one acre of corn that they
grow near the town of Greene, Iowa. Their acre produced a typical 180
bushels of corn -- about 10,000 pounds -- in a record national harvest.
Like other farmers they would have lost money, however, had they not
received government payments of $28 per acre, their portion of the $9.4
billion in federal crop subsidies.
Our
grain elevators are full. The movie shows what looks like literal
mountains of corn stored in the open. What tremendous success Butz achieved in increasing America's crop production!

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