George Will: Sustainable-Food Advocate?

It's hard to know what to make of George Will's column on Monday, which quotes, apparently approvingly, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and author Michael Pollan. That's because Will never actually gets around to making any kind of point.

Vilsack says the USDA is the most important federal agency, Will notes. Pollan says our food system is making us all fat and sick, partly because of government policies that date back decades, Will observes, as if Pollan has just started talking about this. Pollan cites petroleum-based fertilizer, industrialized meat production, and corn subsidies as major factors behind the problem.

It's not a surprise that Will is against farm subsidies, though in this column, he doesn't come out and say so. But is Will really in favor of regulating agribusiness away from using petroleum-based fertilizers and nasty pesticides? Would he really like Vilsack to do something about the industrial feedlots he cites here without commenting on them directly?

In the absence of any specific conclusion from Will, we're left wonder whether he has changed his entire worldview, at least when it comes to agricultural policy. But that can't be, can it?

"Vilsack's agency is entwined with an industry that produces a food supply unhealthily simplified by the dominance of a few staples such as corn. This diet, Pollan says, has made many Americans both overfed and undernourished."

Quite true. But what are Will's solutions? Does he agree with Pollan that our agricultural system should be essentially broken up, via heavy regulation and government incentives, into many smaller, more localized parts? Does he, like Pollan, favor subsidies for farmers to pay for solar energy systems and to shift to more natural fertilizers?

He doesn't say.