“What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?”  That was the question posed by the folks at Blog Action Day. 

The idea is simple and profound: one topic, thousand of different voices across the blogosphere.  Well, the day is here and the topic is the environment.  Considering The Jew & The Carrot is about food, Jewish life, and sustainability, that shouldn’t be too difficult to handle.  Then again, food lies at the core of many aspects of life, so if next year’s topic is business (or family, books, politics, vacations…) we’ll be ready.

To get things started: check out the fascinating op-ed in The New York Times today, where the former president of the American Farm Bureau, Dean Kleckner blasts the US’s continued addiction farm subsidies.  Kleckner writes:

“By promising to cover losses [through subsidies], the government insulates farmers from market signals that normally would encourage sensible, long-term decisions about what to grow and where to grow it. There’s something fundamentally perverse about a system that has farmers hoping for low prices at harvest time — it’s like praying for bad weather. But that’s precisely what happens, because those low prices mean bigger checks from Washington.” 

With the Senate’s Farm Bill vote looming, it was heartening to see support for a smarter Farm Bill coming not just from well-meaning activists, but from the farmers themselves.