Michael Pollan, writer and activist, has some words of wisdom for venture capitalists: The big money is in food.
"It's the biggest industry in the country," said Pollan, while speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. "And right now, the food industry is a game written by the government and industrial corporations."
Pollan thinks government food policy is ripe for a rewrite. Part of the problem, he says, is the lack of transparency in the food industry -- few people know how the foods they eat are made. He envisions a future in which consumers carry portable devices that can be used to, for example, to see how the chickens they want to buy are actually raised.
[Coincidentally, GoodGuide.com, the start-up that won Best in Show at the conference's Launch Pad event, aims to provide a service along those lines. The company lets consumers look up the environmental, social and health ratings of thousands of household products.]
But it will take more than money and brute force to successfully navigate the food business, Pollan warns.
"I encourage anyone moving into this space to have people along side them that know how to think ecologically. As people in the internet world get interested in food, it's important to remember that you're moving from silicon to organic biological systems. Biological systems are really complex and they need to be approached with great care."
*Photo: *Courtesy MichaelPollan.com
