FOOD AND EMPIRE

American food system founded on stolen lands

Read this article by Chris Newman of Sylvanaqua Farms for democracy in food and agriculture. An excerpt with some of the nitty gritty:

While other nations adopt quotas and other imperfect systems to moderate the supply of food with something more humane than unregulated free markets, the U.S. is still stuck in a Butzian hellscape of planting fencerow to fencerow just because we have the land for it. Amid chronic oversupply, during national/global emergencies or complete calm, we continue to bail out farmers, most of whom are near-millionaires (including our vaunted “small family farmers”), year after year after year. Agriculture and Defense are the only industries in America that enjoy a perennial, unconditional bailout. And they get it because they are, together, the foundation of American Imperialism.

Chris Newman is an ehakihet (farmer/land-protector) in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Acts of kindness to continue this work are always appreciated on Venmo @sylvanaquafarms

For more on the issue, listen to this episode of 1619 from the New York Times:

Episode 2: The Economy That Slavery Built

In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.

Hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, produced by Annie Brown, Adizah Eghan and Kelly Prime, with help from Jazmín Aguilera, and edited by Lisa Tobin and Lisa Chow from Friday, August 30th, 2019.