Food and Agriculture News: 10/13/22

Food and Agriculture News: 10/13/22

Medical Care Alone Won’t Halt the Spread of Diabetes, Scientists Say - NYTimes 

The clarity with which this article decimates our society and lays bare it’s design to make us all sicker and poorer nearly floored me. Consider the following two paragraphs:

There is no device, no drug powerful enough to counter the effects of poverty, pollution, stress, a broken food system, cities that are hard to navigate on foot and inequitable access to health care, particularly in minority communities.

“Our entire society is perfectly designed to create Type 2 diabetes,” said Dr. Dean Schillinger, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco.

And it doesn’t let up from there. Here’s another banger quote:

“It’s about massive federal subsidies that support producing ingredients that go into low-cost, energy-dense, ultra-processed and sugar-loaded foods, the unfettered marketing of junk food to children, suburban sprawl that demands driving over walking or biking — all the forces in the environment that some of us have the resources to buffer ourselves against, but people with low incomes don’t,” Dr. Schillinger said.

Alright – anymore and I’ll have pilfered the entire article. I highly recommend reading this one in full. 

How John Deere plans to build a world of fully autonomous farming by 2030 - CNBC

It sounds a little strange and conspiratorial to say John Deere is trying to eliminate farmers with their current business practices, so it’s nice to see it written out so plainly here. This is not a drill, people. 

Here’s how full of crap these guys are:  "This comes from our realization that technology is going to drive value creation and increase productivity, profitability and sustainability for farmers."

For farmers, eh? Nothing to do with your bottom line at all I suppose. Just ignore the fact that the number of farmers keeps going down – the handful who remain will see major profits. 

It remains mindblowing to me that there are billions available for fake meat and autonomous tractors but farmers can barely make a living wage. 

U.S. Federal Trade Commission sues pesticide makers, alleging price scheme - Reuters 

More completely shocking news. The short version is that Chinese-owned Syngenta and U.S.-based Corteva paid their distributors NOT to offer generic alternatives to farmers. As a result, farmers paid 20% more or hundreds of millions to these chemical companies. 

With multinational corporations breathing down their necks from all angles, it’s no wonder farmers can’t catch a break. 

Which states have the most chain restaurants? Georgia Tech researchers map it out - GPB 

So I thought this headline was a bit simplistic and it turns out I was totally incorrect. Really interesting interview! For example, did you know that Chick-fil-A, Waffle House, Mellow Mushroom, Moe's Southwest Grill and Applebee's were all founded in Georgia? I know some of them but not the whole list. Fascinating insight to food, culture and politics. 

Here’s the actual map of chain restaurants across America if you’re interested.

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