In the State of the Union address in January, President Barack Obama “should announce an executive order establishing a national policy for food, health and well-being,” write Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Richardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter in an essay in the Washington Post. They propose a new White House council to develop and implement the policy – “a few simple principles on which most Americans agree” – and coordinate action among USDA, Health and other departments dealing with food and public health.
“The very act of elevating food among the issues the White House addresses would build public support for reforms. And once the government embraces a goal such as ‘We guarantee the right of every American to eat food that is healthy, green, fair and affordable” – it becomes farm more difficult to sign a farm bill that erodes those guarantees,” they write. Bittman is a food writer for the New York Times, Pollan is author of books on the food system, Salvador is director of the food and environment program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and De Schutter is the former UN special rapporteur on the right to food.