Is U.S. farm policy feeding the obesity epidemic?

KCUR | By Frank Morris

Published September 6, 2011 at 11:18 AM CDT

By Frank Morris, KCUR/Harvest Public Media

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –

These days, U.S. farm policy is blamed for a lot of things - even the nation's obesity epidemic.The idea is that the roughly $15 billion in annual subsidies that the federal government gives to farmers encourages them to grow too much grain. As a result, the theory goes, prices drop, food gets cheaper and we end up eating too much. Seems like a simple equation. But as KCUR's Frank Morris reports, it's not.

-----------------

For more news from Harvest Public Media, click here.

-----------------

Find more Health Coverage on KCUR.

Follow KCUR health news on Twitter.

-----------------

Agriculture

Frank Morris

I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.

See stories by Frank Morris

Dreading the paywall? Not on KCUR.

KCUR serves the Kansas City region with breaking news and award-winning podcasts.
Your donation helps keep nonprofit journalism free and available for everyone.

Donate Now