Dear RFK,
- Amy Lore
- Jun 13
- 2 min read
If I had five minutes with RFK, and he asked my opinion on the best way to Make America Healthy Again, my answer would be simple.
Reform agricultural subsidies.
After years of marriage to an economics teacher and time spent in the bowels of health care operations in a rural community, I see a clear causal effect between the government’s promotion of specific crops and the propagation of terrible nutrition in our country.
We are what we eat. We eat corn and soybeans in everything, and we feed same to our meat sources to fatten them up. Why would we expect to be hale and hearty with such perverse incentives? We have left moderation far behind, when these foods were mostly beneficial to us.
Instead, the interference in the agriculture industry and the food market has led most Americans unwittingly to excess. They have had a disastrous and costly effect on our health outcomes. Processed foods abound with corn and soy, and summers in my Midwest state are marked by the endless farmland full of these two crops. (But let’s not forget wheat, rice, and sugar.)
My observations are not unique. A quick visit to Google or your AI chatbot of choice will reveal a great deal of research and sound policy solutions. They have done good work, and I’ve included a (completely non-exhaustive) list of some of them at the end of this post.
My point is not to introduce a new concept, but to tie it to this rare, disruptive time we are in with the Trump Administration. There seems to be limitless energy to take on massive projects, to move quickly and reconstruct from what is left in the wake. Why not this behemoth of economic burden?
Getting these crops back to a normal level of production and allowing our food supply to diversify according to demand while the farms that produce them regain semblance of free market operations might do more for our national health crisis than anything else.
A Few Resources:
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