What if…

Sometimes the appalling food and agri situation in the world in general and in the USD in particular gets just too heavy. Then one must crawl into one’s cave for a bit or the opposite; indulge in a flight on the wings of fantasy. This week I’m opting for the latter.

First, let’s imagine that blueberries, nuts, sweet potatoes and kidney beans were subsidized in the US instead of corn and soybeans. We can start with the certainties, such as the fact that fast food and convenience food, meat and the hundreds of products made from corn would become more expensive.

Then one can let the imagination have free rein:

  Iowa might become known as the fruit and veggie belt instead of the Corn Belt.

  The Brazilian rainforest might be saved from being turned into soybean farms

  Toasted nuts might become the snack of choice. Dense in healthy fats, they also teem with valuable minerals.

  Chocolate-coated blueberries might replace chocolate-covered potato chips as another snack.

  Thai veggie soup and Pad Thai with lots of added veggies might replace pizza at the local fast-food restaurant

  Convenience food might mean precut and peeled veggies – fresh or frozen - in combination to make easy, inexpensive one-dish meals. Grocery stores already have a hot soup pot and a salad bar; surely they could add an inexpensive one-dish healthy meal pot? I’m thinking of chili sin carne or with a little carne, ratatouille and the like. Corner stores, at which many of the poor shop, could sell precut mixed veggies for stir-fries etc. Friday might be pizza day, with a bag containing a roll of pizza dough, the aforementioned pre-cut veggies and herbs, a small tub of tomato sauce and a ball of mozzarella. Customers could bring their own bags or tubs.

The certain results of all this? A healthier population, a decrease in medical costs, a reversal in the present shocking life expectancy trend, which is that the youth of today have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Are such subsidies realistic? Not at present, with the enormous power of big aggie behind the present subsidies. More realistic, perhaps, would be a tax on fast food and sugar, like the tax on alcohol and tobacco.  

And now let’s suppose that fossil fuel subsidies were given instead to alternative energy projects. Some ensuing situations seem pretty certain:

  There would be political repercussions, as relations with states from which we import oil would change.

  Coal mining and fracking would slow down and then stop, as coal and oil would no longer be economically competitive.

  Solar panels might sprout on every roof.

  Air quality would improve and global warming would be slowed.

  Electric cars and bikes would become much more popular and less expensive. Those solar panels would be necessary to provide the juice for the batteries.

  There would have to be more and better public transport, company mini-bus solutions and the like.

 Once again, let’s imagine:

I have a picture of the following: very small electric carts – two-seaters and four-seaters – are stationed here and there throughout the community. One can call up one of these carts on the computer, whereupon it arrives automatically at one’s front door, perhaps on tracks laid in the street like tram tracks. Once aboard, one programs in one’s destination and is ferried there, again automatically. The system includes automatic braking in case of threatened collision. One pays via credit card. These systems would function mostly in the suburbs and countryside. One can dream…

  Big oil might become big energy, featuring a broad band of alternative technologies. The oil companies have money, clout, international presence and experience with marketing, all of which could be put to good use in the alternative energy field. As I say, one can dream.