sustainable agriculture – EcoSalon

Your Avocado Toast Habit is (Probably) Unsustainable, But That’s About to Change

Emily Monaco — Wed, 17 May 2017 07:00:56 +0000

iStock/MiMaLeFi

Our obsession with avocado toast has gotten some Latin American populations into a real pickle – but there’s still hope for your favorite high-fat snack.

In the Apurimac region of Peru, villagers have learned to capitalize on our obsession with the fruit to cultivate high-margin, sustainable avocados and eke out a living for themselves in the process.

The Avocado Dilemma

Avocado has usurped kale as the top trendy health food in America – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. In Mexico, where about 40 percent of the world’s avocados are produced, growers have been cutting down acres worth of natural forests (the Independent notes that deforestation is growing at a pace of 2.5 percent per year) to keep up with the demand for avocado toast, avocado boats, and avocado everything else.

It’s no surprise that this mass deforestation has led to a number of problems, including a lack of biodiversity in the region, fumigation that has wrecked havoc on the health of locals, who are experiencing more and more breathing and stomach problems, according to the Independent, and even increased narcoterrorism linked to the money-making crop.

While these issues are certainly dire in Mexico, shoppers who opt for another provenance aren’t necessarily off the hook.

“The fact of the matter is that we know pitifully little about the environmental and working conditions of faceless people in faraway places who grow fruit for our tables,” reports the Guardian.

Some opt, instead, to buy local, but while California is rising to the occasion, producing 164,000 tons of the fruit (over 80 percent of total production in the U.S.), the effect of this crop on the already dry state is not the most environmentally friendly, and recent drought conditions have even led to an avocado shortage.

There are two solutions to this very real problem. The first is to cut back on avocado consumption, for example by subbing a tasty pea mash in for your regular avocado toast.

But cutting back doesn’t mean that we have to say goodbye to avocados forever — it just means that when we do choose the fruit, we need to choose fair trade avocados from reliable sources.

Choosing Sustainable Avocado Toast

Candelaria Pillaca hails from Apurimac, a region of south-central Peru. She had long been cultivating traditional regional crops such as corn, kiwicha, and beans when she learned about World Neighbors, a savings and credit program that not only would allow her to take out small loans to purchase and plant avocado trees but would also provide her with instruction in organic fertilization, water conservation, and basic accounting.

Five years later, Pillaca is supporting her family with her avocado plantation, adding $3,000 to her yearly income, a substantial amount that allows her to help support two of her children who attend university.

By adding avocados to her small, one-and-a-half hectare farm, Pillaca has created a sustainable way to produce the in-demand fruit. She is a strong proponent of agro ecology, incorporating drip irrigation and crop diversification into her farm and using organic fertilizers produced on her own land from animal waste and compost.

Perhaps most importantly, Pillaca is not contributing to widespread deforestation problems, but rather integrating avocados into an already diverse farm.

“The problem of deforestation may happen when practicing large scale of avocado planting and not integrating them with other tropical fruits,” says Pillaca.

“I didn’t have to cut down trees to plant avocados.”

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Australia is Growing Hydroponic Tomatoes with No Fresh Water, Soil, or Fossil Fuels

Emily Monaco — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 07:00:15 +0000

In the desert of Southern Australia, one farm is growing and supplying 15 percent of the country’s tomatoes with no soil, no fresh water, and no fossil fuel.

This miracle of modern science uses solar power to desalinate seawater and grow 15,000 tons of hydroponic tomatoes per year.

“Our concentrated solar tower produces both heat and electricity to maintain the perfect conditions inside the greenhouses to help the plants grow,” Sundrop Farms writes to Al Jazeera. “This heat is also used to desalinate one million liters of seawater a day; the fresh water produced is used to water the plants and cool the greenhouses.”

While no artificial gases are used to ripen the tomatoes, carbon dioxide levels are elevated in the glasshouses to boost crop production by about 30 percent, making this new farm one of the most productive ever.

“This is the future,” Sundrop Farms CEO Philipp Saumweber told The Australian. “Just as the green revolution of the’70s gave us bigger tractors, more seed varieties and better irrigation, I think the next giant leap forward in food production will be the sustainable intensification of farming – doing more with less inputs but on a bigger scale and with greater efficiency.”

Sundrop Farms’ cutting-edge hydroponic technology has been in development for years, but its brand-new 20-hectare complex will avoid about 26,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year — this would coincide with the removal of 500 cars from the roads — as well as the same amount of water as would be contained by 180 Olympic size swimming pools. The farm also saves two million liters of diesel a year and reduces use of pesticides typically applied to conventional produce.

“Sundrop Farm’s innovative protected cropping system utilizes saltwater to ‘scrub’ the air that flows into the company’s greenhouses, minimizing the need for pesticide application,” writes Ag Innovators. “Good” bugs are also introduced to the greenhouse to help control disease and other more serious pests.

Not only does this method allow the farm to save money, it also enables it to guarantee large quantities of fresh produce year-round at a fixed price. It’s no wonder that supermarket chain Coles signed a ten-year contract with Sundrop last year.

So what’s the bad news? The price. The technology took $200 million to install.

That said, the resulting farm has fewer operating costs than a traditional farm, making this technology the ideal choice for countries facing shortages in fresh water and energy supplies, like the harsh, arid area around Spencer Gulf where Sundrop is located, or even parts of the Middle East, Spain, Portugal, the U.S., and Africa.

“If you can farm successfully here, you can farm almost anywhere in the world,” says Saumweber of the rocky, arid area of Australia. “I’m no eco-warrior but I wanted to create a new business model for farming, based on a concept of doing more with less and growing in the most sustainable or restorative manner. This is what we have achieved.”

While the model has yet to be exported — and likely won’t be popping up anywhere with access to fresh water, given the expense — the development of such a program is a harbinger of things to come in the world of sustainable mass food production. And with experts from FAO estimating that there will be one-third more mouths to feed in 2050, this development couldn’t have come at a better time.

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‘Unbroken Ground’: Patagonia Provisions Hails Champions of Regenerative Agriculture

Emily Monaco — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 07:00:53 +0000

What happens when, for just a moment, we focus on the champions of our food world, rather than the villains? That’s what Patagonia Provisions and filmmaker Chris Malloy sought to discover with “Unbroken Ground”; the result is sure to be a rousing success.

In Malloy’s 25-minute film, he details the critical role food will play in solving the environmental crisis, exploring this theme through the work of four pioneers of regenerative agriculture, ranging from land to sea.

The film features Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute and developer of perennial-grain crops designed to save and regenerate soil; Dan and Jill O’Brien, of Cheyenne River Ranch, who are working at the forefront of restorative grazing by transitioning from cattle to native, free-roaming wild buffalo; Stephen Jones of The Bread Lab, developing diversity with locally grown organic grains; and Ian Kirouac, Keith Carpenter, and Riley Starks of Lummi Island Wild, who target specific fish species using reef-netting, a technique that has been used for thousands of years by the First Nations people of Lummi Island.

“Everybody in this film has been doing what they’re doing for decades,” says Malloy. “It’s a real commitment and it’s a way of life. The blood, sweat, and tears that you see with all of them is something that’s just super inspiring.”

This inspiration is something that Malloy clearly exhibits in the film, from his insightful interviews with the four pioneers and other experts to his in-depth visual exploration of their work. In a mere 25 minutes, the viewer gets a keen sense of what it is to raise buffalo on the plains of South Dakota or fish for salmon in the Pacific Northwest, and not only that; the viewer also begins to understand just why each of these endeavors is so important.

“Steve Jones says we can fight the big bad guys, the conventional farming and the GMO and Monsanto — we can do that, and that’s important, but at some point, it’s not fun anymore,” explains Malloy. “He said, in his life, that rather than fighting the system, he needed to go out and just change it. That’s what all of these folks are doing. You could talk about what’s wrong with Ag in the world, but they’re all a lot more excited to talk about what the hope is, out there.”

While each of these groups contributes in some way to Patagonia Provisions, the artistry in the film is such that the viewer doesn’t feel he’s being sold to.

“I sort of wrestled with that in the film,” Malloy explains, crediting Patagonia with the artistic license needed to render the film resolutely uncommercial. “I really set out to give the audience just an informative, inspiring experience.”

And he does. The individuals featured in the film are both inspired and inspiring, and by the end of the 25 minutes, the viewer is left with a palpable feeling of, “What next? What can I do to help?”

Despite the clear removal from Patagonia in the film, it’s hard not to equate the steps taken by these four distinct groups of people with what Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard sought to do, twenty years ago, with organic cotton. Even when it seemed no one was selling – or buying – organic cotton, Chouinard sought to fill this niche in the market, due to his own beliefs in the product; two decades later, he has succeeded.

“Revolutions start from the bottom,” Chouinard says in the film. “They never start from the top. At the bottom are these people who are willing to break the paradigm. Putting a small group together, all believing in the same thing, all going in the same direction… you can’t believe what we could accomplish with that.”

And it’s far from over, at least, as far as Malloy is concerned.

“I wanted this film to feel like the tip of the spear,” says Malloy. “I didn’t want at the end of the film for this to be like this big sight of relief, and ‘Oh, thank God, they fixed it.’ This isn’t a victory, this film, this is more of a — I don’t want to say battle cry, but I wanted to inspire people to start on a journey.”

A journey of discovery, a journey of education; with one or all of these individuals as a guide, anyone, from the accomplished activist to the uninitiated interested party can discover the merit of the work of these food revolutionaries and begin to uncover the steps that he or she can take to continue the fight.

Image care of Patagonia Provisions

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Sustainable Liquor Every Green Booze Hound Needs

Abbie Stutzer — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:00:36 +0000

It’s the unofficial start of drinking season. (Because when college sports and professional football begin, America seems to go booze crazy – and that trend seems to go strong until January 1st…)

We want to help you stock your liquor cabinet before the main event (aka, Thanksgiving), so we’ve rounded up some sustainable liquor you should consider buying.

Vodka

Image from American Harvest’s Facebook page

American Harvest Vodka

American Harvest’s vodka is filled with organic winter wheat that’s grown on a sustainable farm. The company gets its water from aquifers under the Snake River Plain. This USDA certified organic vodka brand also is dedicated to sustainable agriculture, wind power, and using sustainable and recycled packaging.

Tequila

Image of 4 Copas from its Facebook page

4 Copas Tequila

4 Copas Tequila is made of 100 percent organic blue agave. The company uses sustainable plants for a simple reason: because it’s dedicated to improving the well-being of the Earth and its soil. The company produces six different types of tequila.

Bourbon

Image of Koval from its Facebook page

Koval Bourbon Whiskey

Koval boasts a “grain-to-bottle mentality” and monitors the entire “spirit-making process.” The company uses local farmers to grow its grain, mills, and mashes on-site, and distills, bottles, and packages its product, too. It can track all of its spirits’ raw materials to the organic farmers it uses. This bourbon is organic and made of 51-percent corn. Be sure to check out the brand’s other sustainable liquors, too.

Whiskey

Image from Whistle Pig’s Facebook page

Whistle Pig Straight Rye Whiskey

Whistle Pig has operated in an old barn since 2010. It wasn’t until 2013 that the company harvested its first rye crop, but once it did, the company’s rye whiskey was well received. The company is based in Shoreham, Vermont, and its farm, which produces the whiskey’s rye, is sustainably maintained. Whistle Pig’s rye grows densely, which keeps weeds at bay and makes the farm’s need for herbicides quite small. Rye also enjoys soil-based nitrogen, which makes “heavy fertilization unnecessary.” The company currently carries three whiskies.

Brandy

Image of brandy from company’s Facebook page

Catoctin Creek Fruit Brandies

The company makes a pear, peach, and apple brandy. All of the brandies are made with 100 percent local fruits that are sourced from farms and orchards throughout Virginia. The small batches are made in copper pot stills and aged in white-oak casks. In 2013, Creek installed a 41kWh solar array from Prospect Solar, which allows the distillery to offset 85 percent of it electrical usage. All of the company’s products are vegan and organic, too.

Gin

Facebook image from Peak Spirits’ page

CapRock Colorado Organic Gin

This gin features a complex blend of 12 different fruits, flowers, spices, and seeds. The “base spirit” of this concoction features certified organic Jonathan apples that are grown at a local farm (Ela Family Farms) and a “certified organic Romanian winter wheat distillate.” This gin benefits from the use of dry botanicals. The company also makes vodka and brandies.

Rum

Image from Don Q’s Facebook page

Don Q Rum

Don Q Rum boasts a clean finish and a clean production process. The company has an environmentally friendly distillery, which features include a waste reclamation program. The program is dedicated to maximize production capacity while providing “valuable energy return and cost reductions in the form of Biogas, electricity, service water, and industrial products that we can sell to other businesses.” The company carries eight different rums.

Ginever

Image of Ginever from the Wigle’s Facebook page

Wigle Organic Ginever

This Dutch-style gin is the “original gin.” According to Wigle Whiskey, “For the first 600 years of gin making, Gin was made from whiskey in a copper pot still.” This Genever is made from a grain mash of rye, wheat, malted barley, and botanicals. This handcrafted spirit is a small-batch creation and is made with organic ingredients and local, heirloom grains.

Mezcal

Image from the company’s Facebook page

Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal

Del Maguey is dedicated to creating product that’s organic. In fact, the company is so dedicated to that, it became one of the first mezcal producers to achieve OCIA and USDA certification. And its tagline is: “Made by farmers, not factories.” While the company produces great product, it’s also dedicated to the biodiversity and cultural heritage of Oaxaca. The company considers the sustainability of each village the company produces in. The company offers nine Mezcals.

Aperitive, Liqueur

Image from the company’s website

Grand Poppy Organic Aperitive

Greenbar Craft Distillery makes a lot of sustainable liquors, but it’s its aperitive that caught our eye. The company’s Grand Poppy aperitive is a “California-inspired take on classic European aperitives.” It’s made from citrus that hails from southern California farms, coastal herbs and berries, and the California poppy. The company practices sustainability by using certified organic ingredients and reducing packaging. It also plants one tree per bottle sold, and allows third parties to examine the company’s internal doings.

Related on EcoSalon

Ugly Produce Turns Into Delicious Booze Courtesy of Forward-Thinking Distilleries

7 Summer Cocktail Recipes to Beat the Heat

Are You Growing a Lush Cocktail Garden Yet?

Liquor image from Shutterstock

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How Women Farmers Use Potlucks to Come Together

Abbie Stutzer — Thu, 14 May 2015 08:00:38 +0000

Women farmers are everywhere. They own the local dairy farm outside of town, operate the hydroponic greenhouse down the street, and tend to and sell the organic produce you buy at your local farmers market.

But while the fields are full of women farmers, sometimes life in the country can get a little lonely. To combat that occasional loneliness, the innovative female farmers of Wisconsin have cooked up a way to connect with each other. According to Civil Eats, women farmers in Wisconsin are throwing potlucks to gab, network, and just kick back.

The concept, now called the Southeast Wisconsin Women in Sustainable Agriculture, was recently thought up by Christine Welcher, and organic farmer. (Although, the potluck movement, overall, started in its grassroots form in Wisconsin about five years ago.) “In December, she [Welcher] began sending out emails to a handful of local women, suggesting that a grassroots movement fueled by simple potlucks would form a needed network. The idea traveled by word-of-mouth. Slowly, the farmers learned of one another, even if they were miles apart,” reports Civil Eats.

The women cook and serve the food they grow and raise at each potluck. While all the women in attendance consider this gathering a lifeline, they also use the potluck as a venue to share information. The farmers discuss where to buy farm equipment, farms that have gone up for sale, and other items of farming business.

Every potluck is held at a different farm. “Each potluck includes a tour of the hosting farm, formal introductions, and requests and offers of help and resources. Throughout the year, guests stay in contact through a listserv,” reports Civil Eats. And in addition to helping connect women, the potlucks can also be quite lucrative. Sometimes a business partnership can be born. According to Civil Eats, that’s what happened when Anna Landmark, a cheesemaker and goat farmer, met Anna Thomas Bates, at a potluck. The two now run the Landmark Creamery near Albany, Wis.

What do you think about the farming potluck movement? Are there any similar groups in your city?

Related on EcoSalon

Organic Farming Increasing Globally

So You Want to Live in a Tiny House and Be a Farmer? Our Obsession with Lifestyles Most of Us Will Never Commit To

Farmers Markets, Food, Placemaking and Smarter, Stronger Communities: Foodie Underground

Woman farming image via Shutterstock

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Ben Taylor Launches a New Album While Still Supporting Sustainable Agriculture

Amy DuFault — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:07:18 +0000

Ben Taylor launches a new album and sounds off about sustainable agriculture.

Listening is Ben Taylor’s first album in four years, and it’s a tribute to the actual art of shutting up and taking in rather than constantly talking to and singing at. Out onSun Pedal Recordings/ILG in August,Taylor, son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, has carved out his own niche as an eclectic musician but also as a supporter of farm to table and local education.

“Listening is all about taking the time to listen so that you have something bigger to promote. It’s something to get better at as a performer…I want to be able to listen better,” Taylor tells EcoSalon.

He seems pretty good at opening his ears when it comes to the place he calls home.

A huge proponent of sustainable agriculture, Taylor uses his celebrity status to raise awareness of this supporting local agriculture. “Getting local communities to become autonomous is so important. I would rather eat at a locally run business than a place like your typical big supermarket chain if given the choice,” says Taylor who walks the talk supporting the Island Grown Initiative on Martha’s Vineyard where he lives.

Taylor says he feels strongly about the benefit of locally produced foods and wants to educate people about not importing foods from far away. That said, he spends his time outside of the music world raising funds for the Island Grown Initiative, a non-profit organization on the island that works to grow community through sustainable agriculture, local food advocacy and education.

The group strives “to increase both the supply and demand of locally grown food for the health of the environment and community” through five core programs: Island Grown Schools, farm-to-school program; Island Grown Meat; Island Grown Poultry; Island Grown Bees; and Island Grown Gleaning.

Island Grown Initiative’s Beekeeping

“I need to make a difference locally because that’s where it all starts and I have knowledge to share and important opinions when it comes to music and food,” says Taylor, who adds that most of our change starts with youth.

“We just need to start with kids and educating them on how to eat better and what good food tastes like. I feel like they’re just the last shot we’ve got to making anything better,” he says.

With a profession that forces him to spend a good deal of his own eating time on the road, Taylor says that he feels he actually has a leg up.

“The nice thing about being a tour veteran, is that you start to know the places you return to so when you’ve got a total of 30 hours to spend in a city you’re not shit out of luck when it comes to finding what you want,” he says about finding good food in transit.

“There are always special cases though and I’d be a liar if I didn’t say I have spent 30 hours just eating jelly candy.”

But back to that new album, Listening, the one that took four years to make and serves as “little windows” into the past few years of Taylor’s life. After all, Taylor is a musician first and foremost despite his penchant for a greener life.

An admitted harsh critic on his own work, Ben is quite happy with the end result of Listening.

“I hope people like it. I am immensely self-critical, and almost always want to start from scratch when I finish an album. The hardest thing about being a member of my family is the expectations I put on myself. The best thing about it has been my ability to overcome that in order to be the best performer and musician I can be. My wish would be that any one who spends time with Listening just digs the songs.”

Want to win a copy of Listening? We’ve got three to give away!! Leave a comment below and you’ll be in the running to win one.

Good luck!

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Slow Going at Slow Food (And That’s the Point)

Vanessa Barrington — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:18:19 +0000

A rift in slow food reveals big growing pains.

The foodiverse was all atwitter over this article from Chow last week. A rift has been forming between two factions within Slow Food USA, a non-profit organization that promotes the pleasures of the table, artisanal food production methods, sustainable agriculture, and direct connections between producers and consumers.

On one side is what we’ll call the Alice Waters faction that thinks food is too cheap to keep farmers who are doing the right thing in business and that people should prioritize food over consumer goods – and pay more for it. On the other side is some of the newer leadership of Slow Food that seeks to counter the charges of elitism that have continued to dog the organization, and to broaden its appeal to a younger, broker, and less well-connected demographic.

Think $20 pasture-raised chickens compared to Slow Food’s Recent $5 meal challenge. In some ways, switching its focus to value, rather than preciousness has helped Slow Food. Membership is up. But, according to the Chow article, donations are down from well-heeled donors who are unhappy with the organization’s new direction.

Critics insist that Slow Food must reach more people or risk being irrelevant to most of the population. Anna Smith Clark, The San Francisco Bay Area Governor of Slow Food agrees, but also thinks the laser-like focus in the media on higher profile elements around Slow Food do the organization a disservice. She points out that ordinary members within the organization are continually finding ways to disseminate the ideals behind Slow Food to different groups. “There’s nothing written about the people who volunteer hours of their time planting the seeds of change in their communities among their friends and family members, or working with like-minded organizations,” says Smith Clark.

Discussions about Slow Food tend to focus on the need of reaching two specific groups: low income people and well-off foodies. For low income people the message is that it doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming to cook local, organic, real food, while the message for foodies is that when they fetishize taste, no matter the cost, they leave out a huge proportion of the population, for whom their message is useless.

As Slow Food grows up and the focus shifts away from its famous founders, there’s a third group that it will be crucial to reach: The enormous swath of the population with plenty of money to pay for good food, but who simply doesn’t care. This group doesn’t care about farmers, doesn’t care where food comes from, doesn’t care if it has additives, doesn’t care if it has too much packaging. Some probably doubt that organic is even healthier. Let’s call them the honey badgers of the consumer food market. They really don’t give a sh*t.

If you’re a foodie living in a foodie bubble, you might forget these people exist. To remind yourself of the reality, go to a high-end conventional grocery store in any town in America, look at the cars in the parking lot, and watch what people put in their carts. It’s not a rarity to spot someone walking to a late model Mercedes or $70,000 Escalade with a grocery cart full of hundreds of dollars’ worth of processed, packaged food. Stacks of hot pockets, multiple giant boxes of Froot Loops, cases of Coca-Cola, jars of cheese dip, enormous bags of chips, and nary a fresh (or even frozen) vegetable in sight. Now go hang out around the parking lot of a fast food outlet in any well-off suburb, and notice how busy the drive-thru is.

So how does Slow Food reach those people? Smith Clark says people gravitate to the ideas of Slow Food around any number of issues, from concern for farm workers to childhood obesity. They get little tidbits of knowledge from community, news, friends, and family members, and at some point, the flashbulb lights up: “What are you going to do with the money in your pocket?” I ask if there isn’t some way to reach these people more quickly than these myriad individual conversations.

“I think that’s why it’s called Slow Food,” replies Smith Clark.

The honey badgers of the consumer food market vote. Changing the food system so that it is fair for both farmers and eaters is going to mean breaking the stranglehold the food industry has on food policy. Good food advocates need to reach the honey badgers and convince them that organic, sustainable food is not only better, but it’s also worth paying for, spending time cooking, and going to the polls for. Until then, you can pay all you want for chicken and heirloom vegetables at the farmers’ market, but the fast majority of food will still be processed, a lot of family farmers will still be impoverished, and those $20 chickens will continue to reach only a niche market. It’s going to take time. That’s why it’s a movement, not a revolution.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

Be Still my Beeping Crackberry: In Defense of Slow

Slow Fashion Alchemy

Slow, Meet Furniture. Furniture, Meet Your Maker.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Lifesupercharger

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The Green Plate: Flare-Ups In Frankenfood

Vanessa Barrington — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:59:02 +0000

The GMO industry is like an out-of-control forest fire. Just when you think one section is tamped down, another spark is fanned into flames.

Just like a forest fire, there are many fronts in this fight, making it difficult to keep track of current developments.

Then there are the weapons at the fighters’ disposal. On one side of the battle, we have the equivalent of 5 gallon water buckets in the form of activist group petitions, email newsletters, and calls to Congressional representatives. On the other side, there are air tankers in the form of money and the influence it can buy (even to the point of influencing foreign governments). Increasingly, there’s something much more insidious than that on the side of GMOs – I’m going to go ahead and call it espionage.

Earlier this month, The Guardian reported that recently released WikiLeaks cables documented how diplomats in the Bush Administration had attempted to influence The Vatican to voice its support for biotech crops. Other leaks showed how embassy officials in France had urged the U.S government to retaliate, through unfavorable trade policies, against countries in the EU that refused to approve GMO crops.

Equally shocking, an article in The Nation last fall about Blackwater (the private security firm that has come under fire for its role in Iraq regarding massacres of innocent civilians, and has since rebranded) detailed how Monsanto hired Total Intelligence Solutions (a firm owned by Blackwater founder and owner Erik Prince) to infiltrate and spy on anti-GMO groups. The article states that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008-09 to act as an intelligence arm of Monsanto to survey the Internet activity of activist groups and protect the Monsanto brand. Internal emails obtained by The Nation talked about how individuals from Total Intelligence could join activist groups (especially animal rights activists) and report back on group activities.

Now that we know what we’re up against weapon-wise, here’s a rundown of current hot spots in GMOs:

GE Alfalfa: The most urgent issue right now is the imminent approval of GE alfalfa by the USDA. Read about how GE alfalfa will jeopardize organic food and farmers here. Take Action here. You have until February 16^th.

GE Salmon: The FDA decision on GE salmon is stalled so the fight has moved to California. With the feds unwilling to listen to consumer groups, these issues are increasingly up to the states. In the event that GE salmon is approved, California has a bill that would require any GE salmon sold in California to be labeled. Take action here.

GE Sugar Beets: In early December, Judge Jeffrey White, a Federal Judge in Northern California ordered genetically modified sugar beets to be pulled from the ground and destroyed after determining that the beets were approved by the Agriculture Department and planted illegally without proper environmental review. Now the USDA and the sugar industry are predicting a shortage of sugar, but it’s a shortage they manufactured . When Judge White originally ruled that the USDA had violated environmental laws by not conducting a full review before approving the crop in 2005 he warned that future beet harvests would likely need to rely on conventional seed. According to the New York Times, the judge expressed irritation that the USDA and Monsanto waited almost a year after his ruling to enact interim measures to ensure farmers would have enough conventional seed. No action to take on this one right now, but definitely an issue to watch.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Olibac

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The 10 Biggest Issues With the Global Food System

Vanessa Barrington — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:01:32 +0000

If you ask food experts like Michael Pollan, Marian Nestle, Gary Nabhan, Vandana Shiva, and numerous other writers and scholars what the biggest problems in our global, industrialized food system are, you’ll end up with a lot to chew on.

It’s difficult to separate the problems into discrete categories because everything is connected. Big problems lead to seemingly smaller problems, that, when allowed to fester, become open wounds – much like the foul waste lagoons on industrial pig farms that dot our landscape, or the actual wounds on human flesh caused by antibiotic resistant staph infections, which are a direct result of the overuse of antibiotics in livestock operations.

Most of the problems in the system stem from one giant problem: Concentration of power, land, wealth, and political influence in the hands of a few large players who have gamed the system for their benefit. Here are the biggest issues, as we see them, followed by suggestions for what you can do about them.

1. Food Safety

Big players in the meat, dairy, eggs, and bagged greens industries are unsafe at any speed. Nobody paying attention to the news over the past few years could have missed the biggest food recall stories, nor the very real harm and deaths that have resulted from many of them. E-coli in beef has sickened many, killed some, and ruined lives. Recently, salmonella tainted pasteurized milk was pulled from shelves. Nobody could have missed the recent recall of about a half a billion eggs, and there have been numerous recalls of bagged greens – the most recent in June. These stories are becoming nearly every day occurrences, leaving us to wonder if our food system is DESIGNED to kill us. The problem is a direct result of lax food safety enforcement laws and lack of inspectors. This is at least partially because industry lobbies make sure that inconvenient regulations are not passed. Concentration in the industry also leads to over-crowded, sadistic farm operations requiring the use of massive doses of non-therapeutic antibiotics and grown hormones, and resulting in air and water pollution that contribute to a host of environmental and public health nightmares, and misery for the animals trapped in the system.

What can you do about it?

Know your farmers, ask about their practices and support what they are doing. You’ll eat better, you’ll worry less and you’ll support a better food system. When bagged spinach was first recalled a few years ago, I knew that the spinach in my CSA box was fine. Likewise, during the recent egg recall, I worried not a whit about the pastured eggs I buy at the farmers’ market.

2. Declining Wild Fish Stocks

As Taras Grescoe pointed out in Bottomfeeder and Paul Greenberg most recently outlined in Four Fish, we eat too many of a very few species of wild fish – mostly the ones that are higher on the food chain. Continuing in this vein will cause the eventual decimation of our oceans.

What can you do about it?

Branch out and try something new. Eat bait, or smaller fish, like anchovies, sardines, and small Spanish mackerel. These fish are more sustainable, more plentiful, more resilient, and healthier for you than the larger predators.

3. Poor Aquaculture Practices

Aquaculture may be an important food source in the future (see above) but much of it is practiced in ways that are unhealthy for eaters, native species and the environment. If GMO salmon is approved, (still pending at press time) it will only add to the list of everything that is wrong with farming carnivorous fish in the open ocean. Don’t replace that salmon on your plate with shrimp. Ever wonder why the shrimp is so cheapat restaurants like Red Lobster?

What can you do about it?

Educate yourself on sustainable aquaculture. In general, only eat farmed fish that are natural vegetarians and only buy from suppliers that are transparent about the origins of their fish.

4. Genetically Modified Crops

Besides being untested for their effects on human health, genetically modified seeds don’t necessarily produce greater yields, and can lead to over-application of pesticides that in turn can cause super weeds which have the potential to threaten overall biodiversity, and to contaminate non-gmo crops with their genetic material. The most recent case involving GMOS ended badly when the USDA issued permits allowing GMO sugar beets to be planted in defiance of a federal judge. The judge had issued a decision to stop the planting of GMO sugar beets on the grounds that they may cross-pollinate table beets and Swiss chard. Despite the fact that most other countries have laws outlawing or requiring the labeling of GMO foods, our government continues to bow down to industry.

What can you do about it?

Educate yourself about which crops are commonly genetically modified and only buy organic versions. Better yet, support the companies involved in the non-GMO project. These are the companies willing to go out on a limb and actually test their organic ingredients to make sure they are not contaminated. Also, raise your voice and let the USDA and our legislators know that you don’t want GMOS!

5. Exploitation of Workers

From actual documented slavery in Florida’s tomato fields, to daily pesticide exposure in farming communities, to the fact that America’s lowest paying jobs are in fast food restaurants – our food system crushes workers, ruins their health, and keeps them in poverty so that they need the cheap, processed, industrialized food to survive.

What can you do about it?

This is a tough one, because buying from local, organic farms isn’t necessarily the answer. Even the nicest local, organic farms don’t pay their workers much and require long hours of backbreaking work. The farmers often work just as hard and can’t even afford health insurance for themselves or their families, so even if they want to do better by their workers, they can’t. This is where raising your voice for a more fair government policy that benefits small farmers equally can help. The new USDA is doing a better job clamping down on the big guys and supporting small-scale farmers than ever before, but we’ve got a ways to go.
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6. Lack of Equal Access

You’ve no doubt heard the term food desert. Our food system is unjust because it does not provide healthy, affordable food to everyone. People in urban areas often have no access to any fresh food at all because there are no grocery stores. Likewise, rural residents in the heart of agricultural areas sometimes cannot afford to buy the very food they may help to harvest. According to a survey of farm workers in Fresno, county – conducted by The California Institute of Rural Studies – in 2007, 45 percent faced food insecurity. Also, children who are hungry at home are more likely to depend on school lunch programs for most of their nourishment. Even the kids know what a disaster that is. A society that allows such a large percentage of its citizens to go hungry or rely on unhealthy foods that make them sick is shameful.

What can you do about it?

It’s not enough to vote with your fork. Volunteer with and give money to organizations that work on food access issues. There are many. A good place to start is The Community Food Security Coalition.

7. Not Enough People Engaged in Agriculture

Somebody’s got to grow all that food, but farmers are getting older and farming has long been in decline as a career choice. That’s because the system favors machine over man and profits over everything. This means lack of opportunities for farmers to earn a living wage that allows them to buy food and health insurance (see point five from last week). And it’s also unsustainable. (See point number 9 below). If we want to continue to eat, we’re going to have to get more people engaged in farming and we’re going to need to integrate agriculture into society.

What can you do about it?

One way is to grow your own, support neighborhood and school gardens, and urban agriculture. But the real change has to happen at the policy level, so speak up. Now is the time to start working with groups engaged in guiding policy for the next farm bill, such as The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

8. Monocrops

Monocropping is bad for the environment because it’s chemical dependent, harmful to wildlife and ecosystems, and kills the soil. It also increases the chances of famine due to lack of crop diversity. It makes communities dependent on imports of other needed crops, instead of fostering self-reliance. Processed packaged foods depend on monocrops, like palm oil, that cause deforestation and push indigenous people off their land, and soy, which is often genetically modified. (See point 4 from last week). In particular, soy monocropping is causing tensions in Argentina, as it displaces other types of farms.

What can you do about it?

Don’t buy packaged, processed food. Buy fresh, local foods grown by farmers with diverse operations. Cook real food from scratch in your own kitchen.

9. Finite Resources

Our modern, industrialized food system is dependent on fossil fuel based inputs and an unlimited supply of water and soil. All of these things are finite. Add to that that the food system is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, and it’s clear that we cannot continue the way we are going. We have to find a better way.

What can you do about it?

This problem is bigger than all of us but you can keep voting with your fork for the food system you want. And if you get into an argument with your uncle about how we can possibly feed the world with organic agriculture, say what Michael Pollan has said, “how do we know? We’ve never tried.” (paraphrased)

10. Biofuel Production

Of course it would be easier to simply continue doing things the way we have been and just find another way to fuel our wasteful ways, but that’s not going to work. Replacing fossil fuels with biofuels made from virgin agricultural crops (as opposed to recycled vegetable oil) could devastate our food system and environment. Biofuels, which are made from corn, palm oil, sugar cane and other agricultural products, are monocrops (see point eight) so they have the same potential to cause deforestation and other environmental problems. They also displace people and cause the price of basic commodities to rise, which is devastating to poor people who spend a large proportion of their income on food.

What can you do about it?

This is another bigger-than-all-of-us problem, but you can do your small part by reducing energy use, driving less, and speaking up for sane urban and suburban planning and smart energy policies.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: chronos-tachyon, Danielle Scott, Muffet, Jonathan Assink, avlxyz, unanoslucror, lucianvenutian, ebruli, Jeffrey Beall, Daisy Double Oh, MSVG, Calc-Tufa, 91RS

The post The 10 Biggest Issues With the Global Food System appeared first on EcoSalon.

The 10 Biggest Issues With the Global Food System: Part 1 of 2

Vanessa Barrington — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:35:24 +0000

1. Food Safety

What can you do about it?

2. Declining Wild Fish Stocks

What can you do about it?

3. Poor Aquaculture Practices

What can you do about it?

Educate yourself on sustainable aquaculture. In general, only eat farmed fish that are natural vegetarians and only buy from suppliers that are transparent about the origins of their fish.

4. Genetically Modified Crops

What can you do about it?

5. Exploitation of Workers

What can you do about it?

Be sure to come back next week for parts 5 – 10!

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Danielle Scott, Muffet, Jonathan Assink, avlxyz, unanoslucror, lucianvenutian

The post The 10 Biggest Issues With the Global Food System: Part 1 of 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.