I Am Not Hamlet

I'm reading Gary Holthaus' (mostly) excellent From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know About Agriculture and find myself burning with anger at stuff I already kinda sorta knew.  "Studies show that each year of rising agricultural exports has shown a corresponding net decline in U.S and Canadian farm prosperity" and "The traders and the corporations make more from it [farming] than the farmer does" (128-29). That, of course, is only the beginning, he goes in to treatment of migrant workers, GMOs, and the joke that is NAFTA, WTO, and other puppet master organizations.  "Of all the grain that goes down the Mississippi on barges from the Midwest, only a tiny fraction goes to least developed countries, where hunger is the greatest...These grains are shipped to those who can best afford them, not to those most in need" (158). "What can a layperson make of all this?  At least this: as farmers or consumers, we have to take with ...