The price of cheap food

KickAAS (that's Kick All Agricultural Subsidies) points to a good article by George Wuerthner:

Whenever someone criticizes agricultural practices of America’s farmers and ranchers as I often do, supporters of the industry respond with the same old familiar excuses about how farmers and ranchers earn little money (never considering how overproduction fueled by subsidies or loss in productivity due to poor practices are reasons for the low return on investment), are stewards of the land (more like abusers of the land), and whatever other myths and rationales they can marshal to deflect critical examination of the industry’s impacts on the land and people.

At the end of this litany of supposed excuses or rationales, they always deliver their coup de grace to silence critics: Cheap Food. Don’t criticize farmers and ranchers, they tell us, because they are producing America’s cheap food.

But who and what are paying the price for the rationale behind their argument? Let’s look at the facts.

Incidentally, Wuerthner is also a photographer.