This article touches on reform of our food industries and even references the farmer in chief piece that we read in class. It opens with the quote stating that if we ever hope to reform out health care system we must first repair our severely damaged and perverse food industry. Because as long as our current system is in place and chronic disease caused by our daily diets remains in tact reform is but a dream. It is essentially a very weak breakdown of farmer in chief but it does bring up a few of the more interesting statistics such as the us health care system spending 147 billion dollars to treat obesity annually and another 116 billion for diabetes.
"America Must Reform Its Food Industry or Go Broke With Health Care Costs: Michael Pollan." Organic Consumers Association. 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. .

This article entails information on a study done on two feedlots, one of them natural in which no antimicrobials are used, the second being commercial where the antimicrobials are present. Tests are run on the cattle's water for E. Coli and Enterobacteria and figures show that the pathogens were significantly higher in the commercial feedlot's water supply. Though they do have increased resistance to these foreign bodies the use of antimicrobials in farm animals can lead to unusually resilient bacteria, and these cultures could eventually mutate to infect humans. Though these tests are merely preliminary their results are rather chilling and until further researched cannot be dealt with.

The Medical News. 20 Feb. 2008. 22 Jan. 2010 .

The article opens with a reference to "The Jungle" and how our current food situation is a parallel to it, a "Jungle 2.0" if you will. Because of the recent peanut butter salmonella incident our country is neared a record high of food recall for 2009. Food safety also effects trade with over 3000 products recaled and the cost impact of all this came up to near 1 billion dollars. Infact the recall of peanut butter resulted in sales dropping over 25% for the entire industry losing roughly 500 million dollars. It hurts not only the large conglomerates but the small family bussinesses which are unable to bounce back from such losses. The article states that to reform food we must reform agriculture.

Murphy, Dave. "We need to reform Americas food safety system from the farm up | Grist." Grist | Environmental News, Commentary, Advice. 12 Mar. 2009. Web. 22 Jan. 2010. .