Paul Krugman on Food Economics

Paul Krugman doesn't typically write about food, so I was a little surprised to see this.  Still, I think he got most things right, at least by my way of thinking.  Among the interesting things he discussed.



1. The importance of behavioral economics in healthy food choices
2. That it's hard to know how many actual farmers are out there, but it's a very small number.
3. That we could clean up farming a lot by pricing externalities [also see], or out-right banning of the most heinous practices, but that doesn't mean we're going to go back to the small farms of the pre-industrial era, or anything close to it.
4. Food labels probably don't do all that we might like them to do (see point 1.)
5. How food issues seem to align with Red/Blue politics just a little too much

There's enough to offend and ingratiate most everyones preconceived ideas in some small way, but mostly on the mark, I think.