USDA – EcoSalon

Sorry, Folks: We Can’t Say ‘Climate Change’ Anymore

Emily Monaco — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 08:00:51 +0000

iStock/sarkophoto

When we swapped out the term “global warming” for “climate change,” it was in an effort to be more precise with what exactly was happening with the planet. The same can’t be said for the USDA’s new directive to scrap mention of climate change in favor of “weather extremes.”

This new tendency, uncovered by The Guardian via a series of staff emails at the National Resources Conservation Service, is a clear departure from (correctly) placing blame on humans and the agriculture industry for changes in the world’s climate.

It all began in January, when Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, wrote in an email to senior employees, “It has become clear one of the previous administration’s priority is not consistent with that of the incoming administration. Namely, that priority is climate change. Please visit with your staff and make them aware of this shift in perspective within the executive branch.”

Just a few weeks after, in mid-February, Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, listed several terms to be avoided in an email: not only was “climate change” to be replaced by “weather extremes,” but “climate change adaption” was to be swapped out for “resilience to weather extremes” and “reduce greenhouse gases” changed to “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency.”

Not everyone was happy about the change. One NRCS employee wrote in a July 5 email that they would “prefer to keep the language as is” to maintain the “scientific integrity of the work,” and the NRDC, reporting on these changes, noted that the new euphemisms forced scientists to “lose any reference to a changing climate, greenhouse gases, and carbon pollution (and heat, it appears) and substitute them with fuzzy language that doesn’t convey the urgency of a global environmental, health, and social threat, nor agriculture’s role in it.”

Senators were also reasonably upset about the change, including Michigan Senator Debbie Stabelow, ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“Censoring the agency’s scientists and natural resource professionals as they try to communicate these risks and help producers adapt to a changing climate does a great disservice to the men and women who grow the food, fuel, and fiber that drive our economy, not to mention the agency’s civil servants themselves,” Stabenow wrote to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. “This censorship makes the United States less competitive, less food secure, and puts our rural families and their communities at risk.”

Reports of these changes with regard to language concerning climate change drew immediate repudiation from the USDA. Spokesman Tim Murtaugh denied the existence of such a directive, and for now, the NRCS website confirms this, retaining several mentions of climate change.

But this is only the latest way in which governmental talk of climate change has been dumbed down. Mentions of the dangers of climate change have been removed from government websites including those of the White House, the Department of the Interior, and the EPA. The government also announced in June that it would be withdrawing from the Paris agreement, due to the fact that the climate accord, which has been ratified by 159 parties around the world, is a “bad deal” for the United States.

Whatever we call it, climate change is a reality, as a recently leaked federal report drafted by scientists from 13 federal agencies confirms. The report, run by the New York Times earlier this month, places human activity at the center of these environmental issues, noting that the average temperatures in the United States have risen rapidly and drastically over the past 40 years to such an extent that even if changes are made now, the damage is irreversible.

“It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited,” reports the Times.

“It’s a fraught situation,” says Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”

Of course, to handle it, we need to be able to talk about it. This is the impetus behind the suit of several government agencies, including the EPA, by the Center for Biological Diversity, in order to force them to release information on the “censoring” of climate change verbiage. According to Center open government attorney Meg Townsend, these modifications are tantamount to “active censorship of science” and “appalling and dangerous for America and the greater global community.”

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Soil: the Most Important Piece of the Organic Puzzle

Emily Monaco — Fri, 26 May 2017 07:00:44 +0000

iStock/themacx

There’s been quite a bit of debate about what organic really means, of late. The biggest issue: can an ethical farmer grow hydroponically or in pots and realistically sport the USDA organic label? The simple answer is – and must always be – no… for the very simple reason that these operations do not protect one of our most limited and valuable agricultural resources: our soil.

The phrase “dirt cheap” is quickly becoming a contradiction in terms: dirt – at least if it’s good dirt – is becoming rarer and rarer. Only 25 percent of the earth’s surface is made up of soil; of that, only 10 percent can be used to grow food, and much of that is currently in distress.

Soil, at its best, is made up of a complex ecosystem of bugs, bacteria, and fungi, all of which work in symbiosis: healthy soil creates a safe living environment for these organisms which, in turn, make the soil richer and stronger, with nutrients that plants can soak up, therefore becoming healthier themselves.

But in recent years, our soil has become inundated with chemicals like insecticides and herbicides that can create imbalances. Add to that our modern farming love for monocultures that seep nutrients from the soil and give nothing back. Adding nutrients back to the soil with compost is a good solution, but only if this compost comes from healthy sources, which is usually not the case.

Perhaps the most surprising thing of all: these issues are not just stemming from big, bad, Big Ag, but also from USDA organic operations.

The History of the USDA Organic Label and Soil

There was a time when the organic label focused on soil. There is even language in the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990 (section 6513 b-1) – requiring organic farmers to foster soil fertility, “primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.”

But while the National Organic Standards Board, which advises the USDA on organic rules and regulations, has no qualms about outlawing dangerous pesticides like glyphosate or harmful additives like carrageenan, it seems that the Board has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to soil – not just by refusing to enforce these soil-building measures, but by considering the possibility that hydroponics and container growing systems could be considered organic.

“There is a dilution,” explains Ryland Engelhart, founder of the soil-focused non-profit Kiss the Ground, “Based on more and more people’s interests and how to monetize organic, scale it really big, and make it mechanical and not ecological. The organic standard has turned more into just a list of what you can’t use, as opposed to practices and philosophies to use to make a resilient environmental, ecological soil health system.”

“They make the argument that they want to grow organics, and at any cost,” says Linley Dixon, PhD, Food and Farm Policy Analyst at the organic watchdog group the Cornucopia Institute, of some current members of the NOSB. “And in order to do that, they’re saying that the law is mainly about inputs.”

While large-scale organic farms, for the most part, follow rules about these “inputs” – which pesticides they can and cannot use, what they can and cannot feed animals – they also tend to produce monocultures or focus only on raising livestock, thus divorcing the farm from the land: livestock farmers are left with more manure than they know what to do with, and crop farmers need to till far too much and outsource manure from other operations to build rapidly depleting soil.

“We end up with 25 Band-Aids stacked on top of each other,” says Engelhart of this approach. “Not a healthy nature, not a healthy farm, not a healthy soil.”

How to Grow Soil Health and Organics

Some experts claim that the best way to resolve this issue is to create a whole new label. “Regenerative agriculture” is a term that’s being bandied about in some circles, highlighting farms that, for example, may spray with an herbicide a few times a year, but are building soil resources at epic speeds through no-till methods.

“The pure and organic folks are like, no, we can’t allow that in, because that will just allow the whole conventional industry to co-opt the whole thing,” says Engelhart.

It seems an impasse has been reached: while it would be a shame to turn our backs on farmers growing soil health, even if they are occasionally adding unapproved chemicals to their land, so too would it be a shame to focus time, energy, and resources on creating a new label, when the USDA organic label finally has so much integrity and meaning to consumers.

“To just move on to something else is a tragedy, and we’ll basically lose ground – literally and figuratively,” explains Engelhart. “Regenerative agriculture will just turn into the new natural or the new sustainable, which means nothing.”

The answer, then, is to help the USDA organic label and the regenerative mindset find one another.

In Engelhart’s mind, this would require the NOSB to take note of existing provisions for soil health, with mandates requiring no or low tilling, no bare soil, no hydroponics, and no monocultures. Even farms devoted to producing only one crop can and should use multi-species cover-cropping methods to avoid the erosion caused by bare ground and to reinforce the health of the soil.

Of course, for any of these things to happen, there has to be soil, first and foremost. As the debate over hydroponics continues, a clear answer – and a clear first step towards rebuilding soil health – has emerged.

“Soilless systems are not organic systems, because they are removed from the regenerative organic practices that capture carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil,” the Cornucopia Institute wrote to the NOSB on this subject. “Soilless, hydroponic/container growing is not necessarily ‘bad,’ it simply isn’t organic by law.”

In the meantime, consumers would do well to stay conscious of where their food comes from. Choose small, diverse farmers using best practices for crop rotation and no to low tilling… and continue to demand more from the USDA organic label.

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Yes, Lesbian Farmers are Redefining Rural America

Emily Monaco — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 08:00:40 +0000

Earlier this summer, Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Fund and the Drake Law School united with the USDA to support a subset of the rural population that has often found itself erased: lesbian farmers.

Just one of a series of events designed to reach queer farmers and other LGBT people in rural areas, the event, which took place mid-August, inadvertently drew the nation’s attention to the incredible women working in agriculture today.

The event, for which Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was the keynote speaker, originally sought to help LGBT people to sign up for USDA programs like food stamps and housing loans, with “programs and services that exist to protect, promote, and strengthen LGBT members of rural communities,” according to a pamphlet provided by the USDA.

The summit sought to support the members of this subset of the rural community, who are often unaware that they have a right to these services.

“Contrary to widely held myths that the LGBT community is largely living in affluent metropolitan areas, studies show a very different and more realistic picture of the LGBT community,” the USDA said. “For a number of reasons, many people in the LGBT community choose to live, work, and raise their families in the rural communities that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proud to serve.”

When he got wind of the summit, right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh came back with a mind-boggling response, calling the program an “attack” on what he has deemed the last conservative bastion: rural America.

“Here comes the Obama regime with a bunch of federal money and they’re waving it around, and all you gotta do to get it is be a lesbian and want to be a farmer and they’ll set you up,” Limbaugh ranted on the air. “I’m like you; I never before in my life knew that lesbians wanted to be farmers. I never knew that lesbians wanted to get behind the horse and the plow and start burrowing. I never knew it. … The objective here is to attack rural states.”

But Limbaugh’s view of rural areas is completely misguided, according to NBC News. Setting aside for a moment that most modern farmers have long since forgone the horse and plow, the USDA is not handing out subsidies to queer farmers, but rather guiding them toward programs already in existence to which they have a right. And to top it all off, no one is encouraging LGBT people to move to rural areas: they are already there.

“We have this perception that LGBT people leave rural areas and I think that’s not actually true,” said Naomi Goldberg, policy director for the Movement Advancement Project and a speaker at the Iowa LGBT Rural Summit. “Breaking the stereotype that LGBT people don’t live outside of cities is really important.”

Her research shows that 96 out of 99 Iowa counties are home to gay couples who are raising children. The largest proportional increase in same-sex couples in the 2000 census occurred in rural areas.

Limbaugh’s narrow view of the truth has set off an assortment of tributes to lesbian farmers, from a musical theater response created by Kathryn Lounsbery to “America Needs Lesbian Farmers” t-shirts.

Inadvertently, his tirade brought increased visibility, not only to this event, but to rural members of the LGBT community, bringing about the very reality that Limbaugh sought to criticize: members of the LGBT community who thought that the door to rural living was closed to them can now see the truth.

“It’s not just about acknowledging LGBT farmers,” Professor Colin R. Johnson, author of “Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America,” told NBC. “Its also about communicating to a generation of rural youth … of saying to people who are demonstrably leaving, that you can remain. You can remain and not be boxed into a kind of way of life before you have the opportunity to shape it.”

Female farmer image via Shutterstock

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USDA Allows China To Process Chicken For U.S. Consumers

Sara Novak — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:00:06 +0000

The USDA approved four Chinese plants to process chicken that will be sold in the U.S. without any country of origin labeling. Prior to this decision chicken sourced from China was not approved for human consumption in the U.S., only for animal consumption. The fact that 2,200 animals became ill and nearly 360 died as a result of eating tainted jerky treats made with chicken sourced from China didn’t seem to phase the USDA. Are humans next?

Though the USDA claims there is equivalent food quality standard at Chinese plants, no USDA inspector will be present to make sure it’s being enforced.

“Given the well-documented shortcoming of the Chinese food safety system, we shouldn’t allow unmarked meat into our markets that is processed in Chinese facilities that are not subject to food safety inspections,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, reports Food Safety News. “This action could endanger the health and safety of American consumers and potentially undermines confidence in our nation’s food safety standards.”

Did USDA Officials Cut a Deal?

Chicken sourced from China had formerly been blocked by lawmakers because of that country’s troubles with avian flu. Despite questions about quality standards, some feel that U.S. officials are willing to look the other way on chicken imports so that China will lift restrictions on U.S. beef. Of course, U.S. officials deny such a motivation. China currently imports its beef primarily from Australia, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Canada because of concerns about mad cow disease in U.S. beef.

It’s important to note that the chicken imported from China will only have been processed there–it will be raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or elsewhere. This only calls into question the dark underbelly of chicken production in the U.S.

According to Salon.com, “The vast majority of the almost 300 million egg-laying hens raised in the U.S. every year are kept in cages too small for them to spread their wings, and this practice is beginning to take hold in raising our 8 billion broilers (the ones we eat) as well. The broilers are fed a diet laden with arsenic and antibiotics.” Additionally, a 2009 USDA study found that 87 percent of chicken cadavers were laden with e. coli [PDF].

Antibiotics and Environmental Devastation

Chickens forced to live in horrific conditions can only be kept healthy with inordinate amounts of antibiotics. It’s these antibiotics, used to both fend off disease and to fatten up chickens prematurely, that are causing antibiotic resistance. Each year, more than two million people are infected by drug-resistant germs and 23,000 die of their infections. Overtime, the constant use of low doses of antibiotics allow the surviving bacteria to become resistant, which creates the superbugs that are making us sicker and sicker each year.

And we haven’t even started to discuss the environmental pollution caused by chicken production in the U.S. Producers dispose of manure by spreading it on open fields or cropland. It’s over applied and dangerously managed, contaminating soil and creating water-quality problems.

“In just over 50 years, the broiler industry has been transformed from more than one million small farms spread across the country to a limited number of massive factory-style operations concentrated in 15 states,” said Karen Steuer, who directs Pew’s efforts to reform industrial animal agriculture, in a 2011 statement. “This growth has harmed the environment, particularly water, because management programs for chicken waste have not kept pace with output.”

The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. Though U.S. chicken production is the devil we do know, it shouldn’t be a beacon of hope either. Chicken newly sourced from China as well as an already problematic industrial chicken complex are all the more reasons to buy organic and even better, buy from small, local producers whenever possible.

Image: qmnonic

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5 Reasons Why Privatizing Poultry Inspection is a Really Bad Idea

Vanessa Barrington — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:03:06 +0000

Why placing fewer inspectors in poultry plants isn’t likely to result in safer food.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing what they’re calling a modernization of chicken and turkey inspection at slaughtering plants. In the world of government regulation, the term “modernization” usually means simplification. Sometimes modernization is a good thing when it truly untangles layers of complicated and confusing regulations. Other times it just means less regulation.

The proposed changes would remove government inspectors from the processing line and concentrate them offline, ostensibly to allow them to focus only on inspection tasks related to food safety. The inspection and sorting duties once performed by FSIS inspectors on the processing line would be given to employees of the plant. The rule also allows poultry lines to speed up from a maximum of 70 to 140 birds per minute to a maximum of 175 birds per minute. If this sounds like more of a gift to the poultry processing industry, than a boon to food safety, it is. Here’s how the new rule could affect consumers and workers.

1. Lack of Training + Faster Line Speeds=More Worker Injuries

The proposed rule does not prescribe specific training for the establishment employees that are taking over the duties of the online inspectors. The USDA will provide their training materials to the plant, but there is no mechanism to ensure that those materials are used, or that they are made available in a language understood by the workers.

In addition to inspecting birds and removing deformed and visibly diseased birds, line workers will also be expected to perform trimming duties – all while the line is moving faster. It’s hard to imagine that this won’t in itself result in more defected and possibly diseased birds getting through, and it’s a given that it won’t be a boon to workers.

The proposed rule would allow some plants to increase line speeds from a maximum of 70 to 140 birds per minute to a maximum of 175 birds per minute. Poultry plant jobs are already among the most dangerous in the nation, with under-reporting of injuries common, and little recourse for the workers, many of who are undocumented.

2. More Dirty, Diseased Chickens Coming to a Plate Near You

A pilot of the proposed program has been up and running in two-dozen plants since 1998. Consumer group Food & Water Watch examined 5,000 pages of documents pertaining to the pilot, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and found troubling levels of non-compliance with current regulations. Among the reports were high rates of carcasses contaminated with feathers, bile, scabs, organ bits, and visible feces. According to Food & Water Watch, The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2001 critical of the privatization scheme, which has languished in these pilot plants before being proposed again in early 2012.

3. Poultry Plants Will Make Up Their Own Process Control Rules With No Government Oversight

In the Summary of Issues raised during the initial comment period, FSIS states that “establishments operating under the proposed new inspection system would have the flexibility to implement the process controls that they have determined would best allow them to produce RTC (ready to cook) poultry.” Not only that, but “there would be no pre-approval of an establishment’s procedures… establishments are responsible for ensuring their procedures for preventing contamination are effective.” As far as taking tissue samples, according to the rule, “establishments would need to determine the frequency and type of sampling that would be sufficient to demonstrate that they are maintaining process control.” In other words, the plants get to determine their own safety practices across the board. After seeing Food Inc., Fast Food Nation, and numerous other documentaries about the industrial food system, we might want to question if self-regulation is such a good idea here.

4. USDA Inspectors Will Look at More Plant Data and Fewer Chickens

Instead of being placed throughout the line, inspectors would be placed at one point pre-chill to visually inspect carcasses for fecal contamination. Their other duties would be offline performing duties such as reviewing plant records and test results to make sure the plant maintains process control for food safety and sanitation and taking samples for salmonella and campylobacter.

5. What They Don’t See Can Hurt You

The sorters employed by the plant who will be doing the work formerly done by trained FSIS inspectors will be required to look for carcasses with seticemia/toxemia (blood infection) while trimming the birds, but will not be required to look inside the birds. When this practice was questioned during the initial comment period for the new program, the FSIS responded that these diseases are identifiable from examination of the outside of the carcass alone. But, this guide to identifying poultry diseases notes that there are several signs to look for when identifying a bird infected with septicemia at slaughter time. In addition to looking at the outside of the carcass for discoloration, these include hemorrhages on the heart, liver, kidneys, muscles, and membranes; and swollen liver, spleen, and kidneys.

USDA has three stated reasons for the “modernizing” poultry inspections: saving taxpayer dollars, improving food safety, and increasing efficiency. Fewer paid inspectors will obviously save money, faster line speeds will increase efficiency (at the expense of workers) but there is no way we can be sure that replacing food safety inspectors with untrained workers, and allowing the industry to make up its own rules will make the poultry we buy any safer.

If you agree, you have until May 29 to leave a comment.

Image: USDA.gov

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Walking Away From Wool

Amy DuFault — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:14:00 +0000

My mother is a knitter and my closet is full of her chain link necklaces, soft cloche hats and chunky cowls. I love wool, but since reading an article recently sent to me, I’m reminded again of the environmental and ethical complexities of this natural fiber we so adore.

When we think of wool, it’s hard for many to think it could be anything but sustainable, growing off the back of a sweet little sheep. According to the Organic Trade Association, “In order for wool to be certified as ‘organic,’ it must be produced in accordance with federal standards for organic livestock production.”

That means no cruelty, no genetic engineering and as you might imagine, no being dipped in parasiticides (insecticides) to control external parasites. In Australia, super-soft Merino wool rules and mulesling, a painful wool shearing technique, is used on the majority of the sheep to hide-trim strips of “excess” flesh thereby maximizing wool output. This process eliminates the risk of Blowflies launching a full “flystrike,” a process by which flies nest in the folds of an animal’s skin. Feel free to feel ill. PETA narrated by singer Pink which, in traditional PETA fashion, is enough to make anyone think twice about eating lunch, much less buying a sweater.

You may have to do a little investigating to find out if the wool you are buying is mulesed or not as it’s atypical to have it appear on labels, but it will be well worth your time.

Jocelyn Tunney, of O-Wool and Tunney Wool Company, says investing in certified organic wool is comparable to how one should approach organic food.

“One would want to purchase organic wool for the same reasons as one would want to purchase organic food,” she says. “It’s a more sustainable farming solution, is kinder to the animals and is healthier for the consumer. Conventional wool is grown like conventional food – the land and sheep are sprayed and dipped in pesticides as a cheap means to increase salable product. The land organic wool comes from has to go through the same transition and certification process as the land organic food comes from.”

She’s quick to add that she’s talking about “certified” organic.

“A lot of people will label things organic (particularly wool) but organic holds very little meaning unless it is listed as certified organic, which has gone through a governmental certification process,” she says. “Here in the U.S. this is through the NOP (National Organic Program), which is how food receives the green USDA certified organic label. Wool itself can be USDA certified organic, but currently there is no certification process for textiles (yarn, fabric, etc.) in the USA, so a textile product cannot be certified. If you are purchasing something that does not say ‘made from certified organic wool,’ you are getting conventional wool.”

Donna Oakes, owner of vegan boutique Cow Jones Industrials says that because of the lack of accountability when it comes to verifying sustainable standards with animal-based products like wool and leather, she’s been a vegan consumer for 22 years.

“I am not comfortable selling items made from animals for a number of reasons – the most obvious products I wouldn’t sell would be those made from fur, next comes leather items – I don’t eat animals, so why would I wear them and if I don’t wear them, I wouldn’t sell items made from them,” Oakes says. “Wool is the area that doesn’t seem clear for a number of people who come into my shop. I could go on in detail but it really comes down to a very simple issue for most vegans: do we feel comfortable using animals for our own purposes? For me, this is not only an animal ethics question but one that I respond to as a feminist, and that answer is no.”

The Organic Trade Association advises that if you want to buy wool, consider this when you balk at higher prices:

1) Organic wool producers receive a higher price at the farm gate as their costs of production are higher, primarily associated with higher labor, management, and certification costs;
2) The organic wool industry is very small relative to the overall wool industry and does not have the economies of scale and resulting efficiencies of its conventional counterpart, and
3) Federal organic standards for livestock production prohibit overgrazing. If the price of wool is low, the difference cannot be made up by simply increasing production per unit of land, as is commonly practiced by many livestock producers.

Image: Law_Keven

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Anatomy of a Food Stamp: 5 Facts You Didn’t Know

Kim Derby — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:28:15 +0000

You know when your friends tell you, “Don’t worry, it will get better, just give it some time?” Well, that’s good and kind and well-intentioned, but actually, and I’m sorry to be the one to burst the bubble, a lot of things don’t get better. In fact, sometimes things get worse – certainly right now, for many people.

I’m thinking specifically right now about food and hunger. And even if we keep our conversation local, the facts are not good. 14 percent of the U.S. population is on food stamps today. That’s 1 in 7 Americans. It is also an increase of 16 percent from last year. That’s significant.

Given that such a significant number of people are on them, I decided to take a look at the food stamp system. First, I learned that since October of 2008, the program has been officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). I also learned that the average recipient gets $133 in stamps per month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

It seems logical that the system would help low income and unemployed people buy nutritious foods. Right?

Sadly, no. Do some digging, and you soon learn the entire system is depressingly vague. There are no guidelines around the types of food one can purchase with the stamps, other than the exclusion of tobacco, alcohol and hot foods. A person can take their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card to CVS and spend their monthly stipend on Halloween candy or potato chips or Pop Tarts. Or all three.

It’s quick and painless to apply for food stamps, which may come as a surprise. You don’t have to be homeless or unemployed. You can own a car and get food stamps. You don’t even have to stand in a long line at a government agency to get food stamps. You can even be hip, young and broke and fill your belly with food stamp food.

It seems any middle class, employed person can qualify if they just take the time to apply. Some universities are even encouraging their students to apply for food stamps. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.) Rules are rules, and if a person meets the eligibility requirements, they can receive food stamps.

Image: WPS

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The 10 Biggest Issues With the Global Food System

Vanessa Barrington — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:01:33 +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.

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

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

6. Lack of Equal Access

What can you do about it?

7. Not Enough People Engaged in Agriculture

What can you do about it?

8. Monocrops

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

What can you do about it?

10. Biofuel Production

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.