say what?

Food must be cheaper, it costs less

Except for that part where we're all paying for it with taxes so the government can buy it, pay people not to produce it, and generally manipulate the price of food (upward usually, especially obvious with sugar prices and the subsequent invention of corn syrup).

"But of course you know the Agriculture Department has long been criticized by some activists for emphasizing the interests of farmers and growers over the interests of consumers, particularly by subsidizing certain foodstuffs which aren't necessarily the most healthy and disadvantaging locally grown food, organic food and things of that sort.

So I just wanted to ask you about that. Do you think that that's true, first of all, and do you plan to address that balance?

Sec. VILSACK: I really don't think it's true. I think that the reality in America is that we need both, because there's a demand and need for both. I would say consumers do benefit from the way in which we structured our farm programs, at least as of today, because of the fact that our food is less expensive than it is any place else in the world. Folks in America have a great deal more discretion of what to do with their paycheck."

- Yes, the part of the paycheck they get to keep. The part that they had to hand over to the government however then goes to make food "cheaper", by which I mean that some foods are cheaper and some foods are not, based on which foods can buy off the relevant political agencies. There was a chart that shows the cost of foods purchased by an average American in various major cities. Detroit, long regarded as one of the least healthy cities in the country, pays the least for its food, and much of it is groceries rather than people eating out. "Cheaper" food is therefore hardly better in terms of discretionary income being spent on food , at least as it relates to health outcomes. Simply making food cheaper isn't really going to help people who have no experience cooking with fresh ingredients or vegetables anyway, but moving the prices of meat or corn or sugar upward by removing the underlying subsidies (and trade tariffs/barriers) would result in people spending MORE money on food, which I think based on what people spending more money on food shows is not necessarily less healthy an outcome for consumers. You could then worry about people who don't have enough money for meat and corn syrup in some other more productive way than making that kind of food really cheap relative to things that go unsubsidized (most vegetables for instance) and instead of doing things like any of the following:
1) subsidizing fresh vegetables (which is just a vicious cycle of people with their hands out asking for money from the public instead of competing for it with their efficient production of goods and services in the open market)
2) taxing soft drinks (which essentially means we'd be taxing our own subsidies)
3) imposing more government controls over water use or the production of agriculture generally

Pretty much any economic or independent policy advice on the entire structure of food subsidies is to end them because they are horribly inefficient, introduce massive distortions in prices and markets, not to mention unfriendly to other countries (for instance a number of countries which we send food aid toward which could, if we had unsupported prices, compete to grow their own food to sell to us or anywhere they pleased). And yet we have these politicians, indeed, the very politicians in charge of agricultural policy, who exhort the great blessings of agricultural subsidies so skillfully that the public at large (at least in Ohio's recent election as an example) was entirely willing to extend greater magnificence upon this decaying edifice and seek to arm these government boards with ever more price configurations and controls. It is not often that the world seems sane, but this is one instance where I can think of nothing more demonstrative of its tendencies toward insanity.

I also don't understand the importance of "buy local". That may be true if local produce is cheap or superior in some way (taste for example). But what if buying it from a thousand miles away is cheaper because they have more efficient farmland? Or it's a better product? Or a product that cannot be grown where you live, like say, a pineapple? What if the local farmers rely on subsidized water prices that are price controlled to be artificially low and are draining the aquifers in order to irrigate crops (and raising your own water prices)? What if the local farmers are employing illegal immigrants, or types of pesticides, or genetically modified crops that people seem to disapprove of abstractly (until they have to pay more for goods at the checkout). I figure if buying local is so important, people will do it on their own.