With the Trump era dawning, “the most pressing work is to join forces with other progressive groups” to fight for social justice, say four leaders of the loosely aligned food movement in a commentary published by Civil Eats. “This means that important but parochial food issues, such as labeling of GMOs or the formulation of national nutrititional standards, are bound to be overshadowed as the larger fight for social justice becomes more urgent.”
Two years ago, the authors of the commentary — author Michael Pollan, legal scholar Olivier De Schutter, and former New York Time columnist Mark Bittman and Ricardo Salvador of the Union of Concerned Scientists — advocated for an executive order to establish a national policy for food, health and well-being. The proposal led to a campaign to get candidates for president in 2016 to spell out their views on food policy. But agriculture and nutrition got little attention.
“The most important result of the national election [of Republican Donald Trump] is the blow that will be dealt to progressive issues by the new president and his plutocrat allies … The scale and intensity of the extraction and exploitation economy is about to be redoubled,” says the commentary, saying all social justice issues are linked. “We must fight to guarantee that [the 2018 farm bill] serves the interests of all farmers — not just big ones — as well as workers and eaters, especially the working poor and children who receive vital nutrition assistance from programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC) and school lunch.”