I spent Wednesday and Thursday of last week at Zeitgeist, the annual meeting that Google hosts for its partners and a few invited guests. On Wednesday afternoon, during the “Serious Sustainability” session, the award-winning author and journalism professor Michael Pollan talked about the American food system, whose dysfunction he has deftly exposed to the public in several of his books.

In addition to its common-sensibility, Pollan’s talk was an poignant example of why it is so difficult to effect the kinds of changes that might actually do what this blog suggests; that is, to save the world.

Framing the talk as an open letter to the incumbent U.S. president, Pollan detailed a persuasive argument showing how industrial agriculture is now hurting us — in terms of energy consumption, food costs, climate change and health concerns — more than it’s helping.

Once considered a jewel in the crown of American ingenuity for its ability to produce an (over)abundance of cheap food, mechanized food production focuses on huge monoculture crops like soy and corn. As a direct result, Pollan explained, the process consumes a tremendous amounts of fossil fuel, linking rising oil prices to food prices. As Jamais Cascio also noted in an earlier post here, industrial agriculture contributes more to greenhouse gas production than any other industry.

Pollan cited statistics from an ecologist at Cornell University who calculated that in 1940, each calorie of fossil fuel energy invested in agriculture yielded 2.3 calories of food. Today, that ratio at the farm level has been reduced to 1 food calorie per 1 fuel calorie. And by the time that food gets to the supermarket, after processing and transportation, the ratio has fallen to 1 food calorie for a whopping 10 fuel calories. It’s even worse for beef, which takes 50 (or so) fuel calories to produce a single calorie of food.

But there is a solution, and to conclude his talk, Pollan presented the new president with a plan to “wean the food system off fossil fuel and back to contemporary sunshine.”

In Iowa, he noted, between October and April, fields lie fallow before being replanted with the same monoculture. Fallow fields are more than just a “spectacular waste of solar energy,” as Pollan said. Planting the same crop over and over again is also devastating to soil health and fertility. In order to restore the soil and get the highest yields from corn and soy monocultures, industrial farmers must use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, many of which are derived from fossil fuels or require them in the production process.

By contrast, 50 years ago, those Iowa fields were green year-round, home to “polycultures” of occupants — a variety of plants and farm animals — that were chosen for their ability to restore the fertility of the soil and that needed only the sun to thrive.

Pollan declared that it is time for a “post-industrial agriculture,” where these cleverly designed polycultures are deployed to naturally control pests and boost soil fertility . Not incidentally, he noted, polycultures can produce greater yields than industrial crops do today.

“Smart crop rotation is as ingenious as genetically modified seed,” he declared. What’s more, a food system based on this process would return more farmers to the land. These “complex farmers,” as he calls them, represent the ultimate green economy jobs.

Great idea! What’s not to like?

Well, as Pollan knows, this kind of ingenuity is rarely recognized by the Powers That Be as true innovation. Why? Because “a new process doesn’t make as much money as a new product,” as he put it, no matter how much benefit it might bring to the world at large. And politicians are most influenced (that is, financed) by the commercial interests that invent new products — like genetically modified seed, and virtually all of the innovations associated with industrial agriculture — for commercial markets.

America’s failure to recognize the importance of changing how things are done is one that I’ve explored at length, both in my book on biotech and in articles and papers I’ve written about the methods by which government regulators assess the risks and benefits of technological innovations.

Pollan’s description of post-industrial agriculture and the barriers to its implementation are the perfect case study and opportunity for correcting this failure, and providing a great boon for the planet in the process. He will explore this subject in great detail in an upcoming New York Times Magazine piece, to be published on Sunday, October 12th. Let’s hope that the politicians read it, and take heed.