A while back, I posted a portion of Dan Barber’s editorial on the Farm Bill.

Now plans for the new bill are getting a little more concrete, and the editorials are a bit more frequent. First, Michael Pollan wrote a sensible, succinct piece for the New York Times Magazine, last Sunday, “You Are What You Grow.” As usual, he cuts to the essential problem in a very tidy way: Twinkies, calorie for calorie, are cheaper than carrots, which makes no sense. Produce prices have risen 40 percent over 15 years, while soda prices have dropped 23 percent. This is all due to the Farm Bill’s support of large-scale commodities farmers, rather than farmers who actually grow immediately edible food.

The Albuquerque Tribune also has a nice editorial, “Food Fight,” by Daniel Imhoff, which gets into the politics of the bill a bit more. It also points out (I didn’t know this) that about half the money from the bill goes to food stamps, school lunches and similar programs.

So there’s this nasty irony that if the antihunger people want to preserve food stamps, they have to get together with the large-scale farmers–who are getting a grossly disproportionate amount of the money, and who then produce soy, corn, etc. to make the super-cheap food that makes people on food stamps fat and diabetic.

Now is the time for cranky letters suggesting that Farm Bill money be used to encourage food crops, rather than commodities crops. Contact Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer and (if you’re in Queens) Carolyn Maloney.

Here’s a suggested outline for a letter you could send (just scroll past Bono at the top).