Pollan Reading Response

Summary

Pollan's article, "Farmer in Chief", he explains that the food system has a problem. He tells us all the problems dealing with food companies. Everyone wants a profit. They way to make a profit might be unsuitable, but there has to be a profit. He explains that food is a commodity. He is writing to his readers and Obama. He explains how these problems can be solved.

Synthesis

Pollan's article relates to Glenn and Baron. He relates to Glenn because she also points out a huge problem with food companies. Pollan's problem is food and profit. He relates to Baron because introduces solutions to his problem with the food system. Baron talks about technologies and how they help, just as porter proposed.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I agree that this is important. I want to eat real, sun grown food.	“This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is untimely the product of photosynthesis – a process based on making food energy from sunshine” (3).
The government only wants high production and profit. Not good.	“Today most government and food programs are designed to prop up the old system of maximizing production from a handful of subsidized commodity crops grown in monocultures” (6).
This is a great thing! The U.S.D.A is doing its job.	“The era of cheap, oil-based food is drawing to a close” (6).
That’s crazy! We need to eat grain too!	“The final point to consider is that 40% of the world’s grain output today is fed to animals” (7).
This is good, we need our farmers back! We need real food, not processed.	“The sun-food agenda must include programs to train a new generation of farmers and then help put them on the land” (8).

Thoughts

I liked the information in this article. I like learning about these types of things. I thought it was a little odd that it was written to/about Obama. It could just be a letter to all American food companies and still have the same impact.