We can't make Indiana healthy again until we fix our food supply

Indianapolis Star

12 hours ago

Unhealthy food is addictive, cheap and takes up the majority of our grocery stores. To make things worse, the federal and local governments are largely to blame.
Indiana, for its part, ranks ninth worst in the nation for obesity and 14th worst in overall public health. Thankfully, state legislators are starting to address this, inspired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to 'Make Indiana Healthy Again.'
As a result, the state recently banned certain unhealthy foods from the food stamps program. Indiana also has several agricultural programs meant to develop a healthier overall food supply.
The root causes of Indiana's nutritional public health crisis, however, extend much deeper.
The Farm Bill of 1973 introduced a policy that set a target price for crops and paid farmers for deficiencies with the actual price. This policy evolved into the Price Loss Coverage Program, which pays farmers if the market price of their crop drops below a reference point set by the government.
This program allowed larger agricultural operations to overproduce certain crops while still reaping significant profits. As a result, it incentivized some farmers to take on debt to expand their operations and led others to consolidate.
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By one estimate, total farm debt increased from $52.8 billion in 1970 to $178.7 billion in 1980, according to a study by the University of Illinois. Meanwhile, since 2010, 345,000 acres of farmland and over 3,050 farms have disappeared in Indiana.
The supply of corn, soybean and wheat products, which make up the basis of ultraprocessed food, subsequently skyrocketed. Corn production alone more than doubled from 1969 to 2022 in Indiana. Corn syrup became the most common sweetener found in food at the grocery store.
'There is a huge disconnect between an agriculture that is extremely efficient and productive, but is no where close to the best we could do if vibrant rural communities and a healthy population was the goal,' Greg Gunthorp told me. He runs an independent family farm in LaGrange.
Whole Farm Revenue Protection, created in 2014, is a better alternative to the PLC program. This government-subsidized insurance program reduces income volatility for farmers without subsidizing the overproduction of certain crops or disproportionately benefitting larger producers.
It can cover up to $17 million in revenue and pays out if the farm's overall income is less than its insured amount due to issues like low prices, low yields or natural disasters. Replacing the PLC and similar programs would remove some of the incentives that make ultra-processed, unhealthy foods so common and give smaller farms a better shot at competing with large producers.
This would also reduce the need for Indiana's Speciality Crop Block Grant, intended to level the playing field for crops like fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and dried fruits.
Many local governments in Indiana have also needlessly made organic, small-scale farming initiatives difficult.
One example: Cities and towns surrounding Indianapolis, including Greenwood, Brownsburg, Anderson, Lawrence, Franklin and Danville, ban backyard chickens. Others have arbitrary regulations that are nearly impossible to satisfy. Plainfield, for example, requires homeowners to have two acres of land to keep chickens at a time when farmland prices have reached record highs, while Shelbyville requires coops to be 200 feet away from neighbors.
Other cities including Beech Grove, Southport and Carmel arbitrarily limit homeowners to six backyard chickens, regardless of the size of their property.
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With farmland values rapidly rising, it is often difficult for people and organizations prioritizing healthy food, sustainability and self-sufficiency to afford acreage outside of their homes and outside of city limits.
One piece of state legislation addressed these issues. An early version of Senate Enrolled Act 14 would have given Indiana residents the 'right to grow, raise, produce, harvest, and consume the food that the individual chooses for the individual's own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health, and well-being."
In effect, it would have superced local regulations that make small-scale farming impossible, while allowing localities to maintain evidence-based regulations to preserve public health. In its final form, however, the legislation only protected the right of homeowners to grow a vegetable garden.
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, whose role involves supporting innovation in agriculture, told me his office tried to rally support for House Bill 1562, which would have banned local governments from enacting stricter regulations on small farm and home-based vendors than the federal government.
'I don't think anyone is arguing for no regulation, no common sense regulatory authority,' Beckwith said. 'I think it's just sometimes, we know in government … regulations just grow upon each other.'
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The bill passed the House of Representatives but did not receive a hearing in the Senate Committee on Agriculture.
A spokesperson for State Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, said she did not give it a hearing due to 'food safety concerns expressed by many in the agricultural industry.'
One has to wonder if those same agricultural industry lobbyists are as concerned about food safety when it comes to the negative health impact of ultra-processed foods and unsustainable farming practices.
If these arbitrary local regulations on small farms and home-based vendors were removed, the availability of locally sourced, healthier, organic food would likely increase.
State programs focused on increasing the accessibility of healthy, locally sourced food, including the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Grant and the Farm to School program, would also likely become more efficient.
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Clearly, there is a growing interest in locally sourced, healthier food, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. 18.3 million people started gardening and there was a 5% increase in backyard chicken owners around that time. Local governments need to recognize this and get out of the way.
Nationally, the Make America Healthy Again movement has focused on small changes, like convincing Coca-Cola to use cane sugar and banning some artificial dyes. It has largely avoided making substantive changes to the root causes that incentivized unhealthy food to take over our grocery stores and our diets in the first place.
One root cause is long-term changes in our food supply, which have helped make Indiana one of the unhealthiest states in one of the unhealthiest developed nations in the world.
If we really want to make Indiana healthy again, we need to fundamentally change the agricultural policies that kicked off those changes.