In 1973, Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, put forth his magnum opus. The Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 radically shifted American agriculture towards massive-monoculture, commodity farms. With a motto of "get big, or get out," Butz envisioned an idyll of a single crop planted "from fence row to fence row." By shifting the method of subsidization from a loan system, where the farmers were still tied to the market and would vary their yield to attain the most beneficial price for themselves, to a flat fee per bushel, which separated the farmers from the actual price of their crop, the ACPA '73, encouraged farmers to produce the highest yield possible. This resulted in rock bottom commodity prices for corn, and eventually soy, to create a massively cheap food supply for both Americans and livestock, paid for by taxpayers.
I propose a shift of subsidization away from commodity crops, which have had a large contributing factor of the rise in obesity and Type II diabetes, towards healthier crops such as vegetables and select fruits.
