yearofplenty

How Federal Food Subsidies Turn the Food Pyramid Upside Down

The chart above is careening around the internet today. I think it originated here where they describe the Farm Bill in the following terms;

The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products—the same products that contribute to our growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.

As the chart highlights, no wonder a big mac is cheaper than a salad and no wonder the rate of obesity is skyrocketing.

Whitworth Theatre Group Plans Michael Pollan Inspired Play

As I reported yesterday I spent some time with the Community Based Theatre class (pictured above) at Whitworth University, sharing about our family's year long experiment of consuming everything local, used, homegrown or homemade. They are in research mode, meeting with local folks like Fred Fleming of Shepherd's Grain and the Mike and Trish Vieira of Spokane's Family Farm, and reading Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma." 

They've started a blog called "What's In a Meal" where instructor Brooke Kiener explains the project;

As a class, we are reading a book together (The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan), conducting interviews, watching films, and going on field trips. We are examining our own beliefs as well as the ideas and opinions of others. We are talking to our family members, our good friends, and to complete strangers. And we will use all of this information and experience to create a play, that we will perform on Saturday, May 8th (time and place TBA). We are by no means experts on this subject, and our play won't be a final conclusion on these issues. Rather we see ourselves as engaged citizen-artists, using our intellectual and artistic abilities to connect with our community, to re-frame a problem, and to imagine potential solutions. We'll keep you updated on our progress through this blog, and we hope you'll share your thoughts, questions and comments with us...but beware, we might just put you in our show!

Stop by their blog and give them a shout out. It's a fun project. The food/local consumption conversation needs more artists, poets and playwrights. Thanks to Brooke for inviting me to participate.

"Fresh" Movie Now Showing at the Magic Lantern

"Fresh," a new movie about food, is playing at the Magic Lantern in downtown Spokane tonight, Feb 18 at 7pm. The site indicates it will be playing through Feb. 21.

Here's the synopsis;

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Why "Too Big to Fail" Doesn't Work in Agriculture Either

We hear a lot these days about the dangers of "Too Big to Fail" banks, but we should probably be hearing more about "Too Big to Fail" agricultural companies who have dominant positions in the marketplace.

This article at the Daily Yonder is the best survey of the consequences of Monsanto's stranglehold on corn and soy crops in the U.S. It presents what I think is an even handed well researched perspective on the issue. It is a selection of excerpts from a report titled, "Out of Hand: Farmers Face the Consequences of a Consolidated Seed Industry." Take note that this is a report from farmers to farmers. 

Here are some key excerpts:

...four firms control more than 80 percent of beef packing; three firms control about 70 percent of soybean crushing; and three firms handle 55 percent of flour milling...

The prevailing leader, the Monsanto Company, accounts for about 60 percent of both the U.S. corn and soybean seed market through subsidiaries and technology (i.e., genetically engineered traits, such as Roundup Ready and Bt) licensing agreements with smaller companies. When looking specifically at genetically engineered traits in the U.S., more than 90 percent of the soybean and cotton acreage, and more than  80 percent of corn acreage, is planted with one or more of Monsanto’s traits.

Monsanto manufactures glysophosphate (Round Up) and the portions of the article dealing with this chemical were the most eye opening.

If you are a corn, cotton, or soybean producer in the Southeast or Mid-South, effects of glyphosate’s prolific use is seen in fields and felt in pocketbooks. (Glyphosate is Round-up.) Glyphosate-resistant weeds are now established in 19 states and deemed a serious economic problem, at times adding more than $20 per acre.  Weed specialists refer to resistant weeds as a “train wreck” making their way across the country...

Some of the worst resistance is found in pigweed (Palmer amaranth). Resistant pigweed now infests hundreds of thousands of acres in the Southeast. For example, 70 to 80 percent of Macon County, Georgia, dubbed the “epicenter” of glyphosate-resistant Pigweed, is infested with the weed, and farmers were forced to abandon 10,000 acres in 2007.151

Here are the recommendations from the report:

What Should Change

1. The Department of Justice should closely examine anti-competitive conduct in the industry.

Biotechnology firms have merged with or acquired a significant number of competitors, and though some have drawn antitrust scrutiny, no meaningful action has been taken to deal with anti-competitive players. Farm commodity prices are falling and will not sustain escalating seed prices, which continue to put these firms’ primary customers – American farmers – at a disadvantage. Independent seed companies say that the licensing agreements they sign to access GE traits unreasonably restrain competition. Because independent seed companies are important distribution channels for new seed varieties, this market needs to be protected from predatory practices. 

2. Change patent law and establish Plant Variety Protection Act as sole protection.

By establishing the PVPA as the sole means of intellectual property protection over plants, farmers could regain the right to save seed and the right to choice, as plant breeders would have better access to plant genetics that are currently off limits to innovation because of patents.

3. Change the Bayh-Dole Act (Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act). 

The Bayh-Dole Act as applied to seed patenting and agricultural innovations should be re-evaluated and reformed to prohibit mandates for seed patenting and exclusive licenses relating to technologies and innovations developed through publicly funded research, because such patents and exclusive licenses are reducing farmer choice, reducing researcher access and directly contributing to this increasing trend of monopoly power, higher prices and/or other anti-competitive practices.

Michael Pollan, Oprah and #Agchat

I missed Michael Pollan's appearance on Oprah today. The clip above with John Stewart probably gives you the gist of what he had to say. Even more interesting to me than what Pollan had to say is my growing awareness of how the farming community, at least a significant portion of it, really resents that Michael Pollan is so prominent in telling the story of agriculture. There is a growing sentiment that farmers should be the one's to tell their own story. See the Twitter response below for a sense of how some farmers feel about it.

@RadicalOmnivore No one said farmers are good communicators, that is the problem, we don't talk about what we do, we just do it.

Don't believe evrythng u hear @Oprah about food & how it's produced. Talk 2 a farmer 2 hear the real story, we live it evryday. #agchat #mom

@Oprah, please invite farmers on to tell your viewers how we raise food & protect our livestock, Pollan doesn't raise food, we do. #agchat

DayAngus Dear @Oprah I am going out to help my daughter feed a balanced diet of grain & hay to her cattle. #agchat #meatcamp

I was introduced last week to the #agchat hashtag on Twitter when my recent posts on the American Farm Bureau and farmers (here and here) caught the attention of people in that conversation. I was surprised to find the following headline ricocheting all over Twitter and Facebook linking to my blog;

@Chrischinn: After the suicide of a dairy farmer, critic of #ag now understands "it's hard to be a farmer." http://bit.ly/84zpi3 #agchat

I'd never really thought of myself as a "critic" of the agricultural community but there it was, I was the repentant critic. I prefer to think of myself as an ag advocate but, oh well.

I do think they are on to something when those on #agchat talk about the importance of telling the story. In general us consumers live in the midst of fragmentation and part of what is happening in the local food movement is that we are seeking to recover the story of our food. In the midst of powerful forces at work in the marketplace that rely on storyless efficiencies and disconnected commodities, we're choosing to live into a new story of connection in relationships with the people that produce our food and consumer goods. We're peeling back the veneer of pastoral scenes on our food packages dreamed up by marketing departments, and we don't like some of what we're seeing. We want to know the stories of our farmers.

I was talking to a farmer friend yesterday, and he said the problem isn't the farmers, but rather the large corporations that are controlling the food supply. It's not the ranchers, but the massive feedlots scattered across the country owned by a few corporations. It's not the growers but the few corporations that have a stranglehold on the seed supply. I think he's on to something. Between the farmers who want to tell their story and the consumers who long to reweave the story of their consumer lives are corporations that want to control the story on both sides of the equation. I think I should stop here lest my blog ends up on #evilglobalcorporationchat on twitter. :)

Ultimately businesses will adapt to the demands of the consumers. We want to hear the stories of our farmers, and we want our farmers to hear our stories, why we want good clean healthy food. Let's get to work telling and listening and the corporations will follow.

Wendell Berry: Orientation of Agriculture to Local Needs, Possibilities, and Limits Indispensable

In "Another Turn of the Crank" Wendell Berry argues that the place to begin the work of restoring communities strung out on the global economy is the development of local food systems.

...In many places, the obvious way to begin the work I am talking about is with the development of a local food economy. Such a start is attractive because it does not have to be big or costly, it requires nobody's permission, and it can ultimately involve everybody...By "local food economy" I mean simply an economy in which local consumers buy as much of their food as possible from local producers and in which local producers produce as much as they can for the local market.

...Of course, no food economy can be, or ought to be, only local. But the orientation of agriculture to local needs, local possibilities, and local limits is indispensable to the health of both land an people, and undoubtedly to the health of democratic liberties as well.

He gives some specific recommendations worth considering. I wonder how we're doing in the Spokane region in these areas of development.

If the members of a local community want their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, these are some things they would do:

...Develop small scale industries and business to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

...Strive to produce as much of the community's own energy as possible.

...Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community for as long as possible before it is paid out.

...A sustainable rural economy will be dependent on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

...It's an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance.

...Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of the national or global economy.

Michael Pollan's WSU Visit Debrief

It worked out for me to attend the Michael Pollan event at Washington State University last night. It was well attended with a couple thousand people in the stands of WSU's basketball arena. He acknowledged the controversy of the visit at the beginning of his remarks but didn't go into detail. In a moment of diminished inhibitions I actually emailed him last week to see if I could interview him over the phone and get his perspective on the hubbub. His assistant was very kind in the way she told me that he was too busy.

I hate to say it but his presentation was kind of boring, at least for me. I was familiar with most of the material he covered. The advantage of an in-person presentation, just like a live music concert, is that you get something more raw and unfiltered, more improvised and personal. It felt like less of a live performance and more like a synopsis of his writings on food. Oh well.

The crowd was subdued for most of the talk with occasional applause for certain parts of his presentation. The largest applause related to his comments about private corporations having a stranglehold on the research going on at institutions like WSU. I guess that comment hit close to home.

The most fascinating part of the evening for me was that on the way out there were students lined up handing out brochures from the National Cattleman's Beef Association. I confirmed today that it was the Washington State Beef Board that provided the brochures and organized the distribution. I did a little poking around and discovered that both the national and the Washington organization are funded by a $1 per head of cattle sold fee ($79 million in 2007). This "checkoff" program is overseen by the USDA. Assuming those costs are passed on to the consumer, not only are we buying industrial beef, we are paying for the industrial beef interests to market that beef to us and tell us it's not as bad as Michael Pollan would have you think. I have a call into the state board and the office explained that they were traveling back from Pullman today. If I hear back from them I'll let you know what their perspective is on the event.

California chicken farmers may move to Idaho and other states to continue "cruel confinement" practices

The Wall Street Journal is out with an important article on the repercussions of new laws in California that prohibit "cruel confinement" of farm animals. Here's the key excerpt:

The movement comes after California voters in November 2008 passed a ballot initiative called Proposition 2 designed to prevent "cruel confinement" of farm animals in cramped conditions, like small "battery cages" for egg-laying chickens, or "gestation crates" for pregnant pigs.

Such measures have grown more popular nationwide as the Humane Society of the United States and other groups have pushed to raise awareness of how animals are treated in the food-production system. Since 2002, similar provisions have passed in Florida, Arizona, Oregon and Colorado.

I was intrigued by this comment in the article:

On Sunday, Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the nation's largest farm groups, implored farmers at an annual convention in Seattle to "aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule."

It's interesting to hear him frame the debate in that way, as if those who are concerned with animal farming practices are extremists or that the goal is to go back to 40 acres and a mule. Those on the food activist side are just as prone to making such straw man arguments, as if big ag folks are evil exploiters of mother earth. More constructive engagement would be helpful.

Toward that end I'll be going to the Spokane Ag Bureau on Friday and Ag Expo in a couple of weeks. One of my good friends is member of the Bureau and is actually president of this year's Expo. I hope to offer some conventional farmers' perspectives on local/slow food.

Also, remember that Michael Pollan is speaking at WSU tonight, January 13 at 7pm. That should be some constructive engagement.

Lettuce Farmer Quote of the Day: "My new year's resolution is to feed people, not cows."

We're doing a food distribution today in Millwood with 2nd Harvest. Stewart, the owner of C&S Hydro Huts, brought over 200 gorgeous heads of lettuce from his hydroponic lettuce growing operation in Spokane Valley to be distributed to people in need. Every week he has 800 heads of lettuce that either need to get into a grocery store or wholesaler's supply lines or they go to waste. He has been giving many of the leftovers to a farmer friend who has cows. As we bagged the lettuce for people instead of dumping it in a cow trough he joked, "My new year's resolution is to feed people, not cows."

It's a great example of the tensions that exist between farmers, consumers and the marketplace. A recent University of Arizona study found that we waste nearly half of the food in our country. From farmers throwing the fruits of their hard work into the compost or cow trough and consumers dumping the leftovers, we're wasting a lot of food.

I'm glad that, at least today, one small farmers' food is feeding people, not cows, or worse yet a dumpster.

British Government Unveils Food Policy, Warns Consumers Against Buying Local Food

Great Britain unveiled their 20 year food security plan which includes heavy handed warnings against the rise in popularity of sourcing foods locally. How does making your country more reliant on food imports make you more secure? I'm a bit baffled by the whole thing, but my guess is that there are some rather large industrial agriculture interests behind much of this. Here's an excerpt from the Globe and Mail article;

It warns consumers that an overzealous dedication to buying local – and avoiding imported foods – will have a negative economic impact on often poorer exporting countries if the trend continues. The report also takes aim at an over-reliance on “food miles.” For years, laws have mandated that British-sold products be labelled with indicators of their carbon footprint.

However, continuing to use food miles as a main means of calculating the environmental impact of certain foods is not sustainable in the food regime of the future, according to the report, because transport accounts for so little (9 per cent) of the food chain's greenhouse-gas emissions.

Phil Bloomer, a policy director for Oxfam in Great Britain who attended the announcement, said the strategy is by no means a perfect blueprint for food security. However, he applauded the British government for taking the initiative.

“It's good governments are talking about these things … and not in an inward-looking fashion,” he said. “It's becoming increasingly fashionable to talk about local food production and food miles, none of which guarantees that you're going to create low-carbon agriculture,” he said. On the contrary, the buy-local philosophy could lead to a desire to “erect walls around countries instead of seeing ourselves as having a shared destiny.”

“We are far more mutually dependent than we've ever been in the past,” Mr. Bloomer said. “We need to make sure that we're not creating Fortress Canada or Fortress Europe and leaving everybody else out. That is definitely unsustainable … Not trading with developing countries would lead to far greater levels of international tension and conflict.”

h/t Rod Dreher