Farm fresh, organic, anti-GMO. These are all key words that pop out to any consumer when they are shopping in the grocery store. But how natural and safe is the food we eat? For some, it is shocking that here in the US, with all of our regulations and restrictions that food is produced the way it is. Think the government has control over the food industry? Wrong. Follow the money. It will lead right to multinational corporations who are the ones controlling food production. Several authors have articulated their own views on food production in their own publications, with arguments varying from whether organic or conventional farming is better and food borne illnesses, but all noting somewhere that these problems come from a lack of government control.

One of the biggest issues with food production in the US is where the power lies, and it does not lie in the government’s hands. Marion Nestle, an author and NYU professor argues in her publication, “Resisting Food Safety”, that the government needs to intervene more in the food production process. In the 1970’s the CDC began conducting studies about food borne illnesses to find out how big of a problem they really are. Their results, not enough evidence to warrant any major policy changes. One of the biggest reasons for their results is many people do not report when they get food poisoning, they think it is just something that happens from time to time. Are you kidding me? The fact that people accept that is why the food industry continues to have problems with quality control. People seem to be assuming that they were the only one who got sick from eating that food, whereas in reality thousands of others could have gotten sick too, because an entire line of food that was produced could have been infected with a food borne illness. Now granted, this study was done 40 years ago, more people today could realize how big of an issue food borne illnesses are. However, it should not be solely up to consumers to make reports, the FDA should be cracking down on food producers. But as Nestle states, this is another area where problems lie. The FDA only has about 700 food inspectors nation wide and are tasked with overseeing 30,000 food producers, 128,000 grocery stores, 785,000, 1.5 million vending machines, and oh yeah, all the food imported into the US. What lamebrain in Washington said, yeah that’s humanly possible. All of these places are supposed to be inspected annually, and with the nearly nonexistent number of inspectors, the FDA is only able to check about 2% of these places annually. Fantastic! In fact, in another article, “You Are What they Eat”, by Consumer Reports “loopholes still allowed certain risky feedstuffs to be fed to cattle and their ruminants…‘the FDA does not know the full extent of industry compliance’” (CR 29). This quotation shows that the FDA does not have a great handle on what goes on in the food industry and neither does the government because food manufacturers are able to get away with giving potentially disease infested feed to animals and if the FDA is not able to inspect producers, then people will continue to get sick and the government still will not be able to do much without sufficient evidence. These articles and statistics are dated so when looking at an article written in 2009, the picture of control in the food industry becomes a little nicer. In a 2009 article written by Common Dreams, it says that the Obama administration is in the process of investigating Monsanto, a seed company that provides seed to nearly all farmers in the US, for anticompetitive activity. Basically, this means that Monsanto has become a monopoly in the seed market. Finally, after years of bowing down to the food industry the government is taking action. The only question is how long will this last?

In addition to the government not a firm grasp on the activities of multinational food companies, they also do not have any way of testing organic foods. In an article written by Blake Hurst, he claims that no testing is done on foods with organic labels to see if they are in fact organic and the producer followed all the guidelines. Now, Hurst’s article needs to be taken with a grain of salt because the man has no sources, he just sort of rambles on about his own beliefs about the food industry, while once or twice mentioning some Stanford study, but never giving real data. However, if Hurst’s claim if true, then lack of testing is a major issue. Hurst claims that the reason for organic food’s success is due to marketing and people view organic food as healthier for them. The major issue here is if people think that what they are buying is better for them, but no testing is being done, and then consumers are being misled. If government testing is required on organic, foods, not all because that would be impossible, but testing of certain batches of food produced, then food companies will not be able to get away with selling something misleading. While some argue that organic food offers no real health benefits, according to farmer Joel Salatin in the documentary Food Inc., the food he produces contains considerably less bacteria and chemicals than food produced by major companies. And he was almost shut down because all of his food production takes place in the open air, instead of a much healthier disease infested factory. In Salatin’s case, the government is actually trying to shut down the wrong person, because of his methods. Another prime example of the government believing the way major food companies produce is the safest and best way. If the government can start taking control over the food industry rather than just seemingly letting companies do what they want and not really having consequences, then food may actually become safer.

Ultimately, government control is necessary for safer and better food. As shown by the authors and documentary, the government does not have the control over the food industry that it needs to. From lack of FDA employment to allowing producers to give potentially bacteria infested feed to their animals and not testing organic foods. This lack of involvement means more consumers could get sick and food producers can continue to do what they do without consequence. Government involvement is just the first step in producing safer food.