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Unfortunately, the population grows but the amount of land we have to growfood doesnt. Food producers must create more food with the same amountof land. Oh yea, and regardless of the fact that labor, fuel, and otheroperational costs rise every year, food staples must be produced at a price

point that allows access to all income levels.

Big food companies arent merely plotting and mincing their fingers whilestaring out at the throngs buying their low quality products. Its a supply anddemand economy. The demand is for high volume, low cost, reliable food.They supply it.

In order to offer a supply with the above demands, they are incentivized tofind the highest producing (reckless farming methods), most reliable (geneticmodification), and cheap (high volume, low quality, questionable laborpractices) farming methods available.

Its important to address that in America, businesses are allowed to make aprofit. They are actually free to make as much profit as they want. Thatswhat a free market/capitalism is. Regardless of what we thinkis a fair profitmargin, unless we decide to banish the capitalist system that has made usan economic superpower, big companies will continue to make big profitsand small companies will aim to make big profits.

Im not defending big food companies; Im just stating the reality of thecurrent situation. THESE are the problems we need to address.

The low quality food produced is undoubtedly causing long- term problemsassociated with obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and the list could goon. However, 100% of our population has to eat today, including the half thathas under two bucks for a meal.

Diabetes in 15 years, or feed my family today? Hunger rests in a much morepowerful part of our brain than long term planning.

So, health and wellness troops, what do we do? Whether we want to admit itor not, we are currently preaching to the choir. Unfortunately even if wereach 100% of them, we are only dealing with half of the problem. We need

to continue our mission to educate, but if we truly want to make an impactwe have to venture closer to the core issues.

How do we create sustainable farming methods that are cost effective,scalable, appropriately yielding, high quality, reliable, and capable ofproducing goods accessible by a constantly growing number of consumerswithin a free market economy?

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Do we put pressure on the government to get more involved? Create foodquality initiatives, subsidies for high quality farming practices to bringproduction costs down, increased economic regulations on big foodcompanies? Should we demand they cleave their backroom relationshipswith large food producers (aka, subsidies, protective legislation)? How would

the legislation for the above initiatives be structured within a free market?

Government involvement is usually synonymous with higher taxes andmarket regulation. Neither of these are popular in the free market.Changing the food subsidy structure would directly impact tens of thousandsof farmers in Americas breadbasket, possibly adding to the 48% number.

Do we address population control (dont want to touch that with a 10-footpole, personally) to control the balance between population growth andavailable resources?

Do we as professionals need to step up and create non-profit organizationsthat focus on providing low economic status populations nutrition educationin addition to creating relationships with local farmers sympathetic to thecause? It sounds great, but we need to be willing to whip out thecheckbooks and commit to getting others to do the same. We may be ableto use our voice to spread current initiatives like this.

Do we need to include more nutrition education in our schools, includinginformation on urban farming? Obviously, this would have my vote.However, adding core curriculum nationwide is a grand undertakingrequiring an investment into public education. A great investment, but an

investment (taxes) all the same.

Do we focus primarily on shifting the low-income numbers so that attainingquality nutrition is a matter of education and understanding, not merelyeconomic accessibility? Obviously, America would like to retain theirhistorically robust middle class. However, as one can see from the partisanpolarity in our political system, we cant seem to agree on how to do it.

As warned, more questions than answers. However, proposing realisticanswers to the above questions is how we can arrive at a solution. We havesome work to do.