Farm Bill Update

You are never going to believe this. We may finally have a Farm Bill. Slow Food USA has been tracking this piece of legislation since the beginning and here is where it is ending up…

By: Richard McCarthy, Executive Director of Slow Food USA

You are never going to believe this. We may finally have a Farm Bill.

Slow Food USA has been tracking this piece of legislation since the beginning and here is where it is ending up….

The GOOD news: The bill contains important commitments that grow the alternative:

• $100 million for SNAP incentives;
• $20 million for the Farmers Market Promotion Program;
• Senior/Farmers Market Nutrition Program;
• SARE; value-added and risk management funds for farmers to navigate uncertainty
• Community Food Projects that place community at the center of our agricultural strategies

The BAD news: There is much that is bad, including the House version’s $21 billion ten-year cut to SNAP. It represents half of the overall $40 billion cut. This negatively affects 2.5 million hungry people in the U.S. who depend on SNAP to feed their families.

We care about the good, clean AND fair; and this is simply NOT FAIR.

There is still a narrow sliver of time to make your voice heard. Contact your House Representative today. »

The House has stalled progress in the past. Though imperfect, this Farm Bill is better than no Farm Bill. I would encourage House members to restore SNAP funding and to pass a Farm Bill.

We applaud those of you who have rolled up your sleeves to help shape national policy. It’s no picnic. At this critical juncture, consider and share with us on Facebook...

• Why has this Farm Bill taken so long? Is the consensus that once shepherded Farm Bills of the past now eroding?
• From where are good, clean and fair food policies born? In think tanks or through creative action at the local level?
• Where are existing policies preventing you from growing a new world within the shell of the old? And how will you respond?

Once this hurdle is crossed, let’s get back to our farms, boats, dinner tables, markets, gardens, and kitchens to create the conditions that make the Slow Food choice possible.

A Father’s Day Resolution: 10 Things I Want to Teach My Son About Food

I’ve decided that my gift to my one-year-old son this Father’s Day will be to come up with ten resolutions: ten things I want to teach him about food.

By: Andrew Fippinger, Slow Food USA member and volunteer

Food was not particularly central to our family when I was a child. We did gather for dinner regularly, but we rarely discussed our food and, in fact, rarely cooked it ourselves. This was largely because I had two very busy working parents. It may also be because we were typical New Yorkers of that time, ordering in or microwaving many of our meals. And, now that I come to think of it, perhaps there was a gender dynamic: I had two brothers and no sisters, and I wonder if my mom would have felt an obligation to pass on some sort of kitchen smarts to a daughter. (Apologies to my Dad who did, admittedly, teach me how to light a grill and mix spices into burger meat.)

And now I have a child. My wife and I both work. We live in New York City. And my child is a boy. Same setup, more or less. So I’ve decided that my gift to him this Father’s Day will be to come up with ten resolutions — ten things I want to teach my son about food.

I’m going to post these on the fridge, and hopefully they’ll hang there for some time. He’s a little over one year old now, but I’ve already started talking through what it is I’m doing when he stares at me in wonderment as I brandish a knife over a cutting board full of Brussels sprouts.

Oh, and these apply to any other sons or daughters I may be blessed to have. (I should mention that the lessons have already begun. We’re currently working on the concept that you don’t need to put all the food on the plate into your mouth at once. And also that when you’re done drinking your water, you don’t throw your sippy cup on the ground.)

1. Don’t be afraid of the kitchen. It’s not as complex as most cookbooks and TV shows make it out to be.
2. Grow something. Start simple with an herb in a window box, but dream big. Maybe you’ll have a garden someday. Make that connection from a seed to a meal.
3. Buy yourself a skillet and keep it seasoned. (I’ll show you how.) I didn’t learn about this until I was thirty and — trust me — it really does change the game.
4. Develop one specialty, something that’s a little different. Maybe it’s pickling or making your own beer, or making bitters and extracts from scratch. You don’t need to be an expert at cooking if you aren’t a chef, but it’s really fun to feel like you’re approaching mastery of one little niche of the culinary world.
5. Try everything. Don’t like it? Try it again. Still don’t like it? Try it in a year. Tastes develop, and some of my favorite foods now are things I used to hate.
6. Talk to farmers. Go to farmers markets, visit farms, hey, go work on a farm! There’s nothing more valuable when it comes to food than learning how your meal fits into the long chain from seed to plate. And every meal is different, so this can be an endlessly rewarding experience.
7. Don’t let gender dictate your food interests. Learn how to bake pastries if that excites you. I’ll tell your sister, if you ever have one, to learn how to grill meat. These archaic gender distinctions are ridiculous.
8. Learn some meals that you can make in large batches and reheat. When I get busy or stressed, I find it so easy to drop the ball on cooking. That’s where a giant couscous salad or frozen lasagna that you made over the weekend can save you.
9. Buy a silly apron. Or five. Wear goofy stuff when you cook, and then you can’t take yourself or your cooking too seriously. Cooking shouldn’t have to stress you out.
10. Have the courage of your convictions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to make some sort of food commitments (becoming vegetarian; only eating meat that I know was humanely raised and slaughtered; not going to cheap fast food restaurants, the list goes on…) and caved either because I didn’t want to be a nuisance to other people or because I was too darned lazy. Stand up for what you believe in; people will respect that. (This does not include standing up for your right to eat at McDonalds more. Actually, if that’s what you want to stand up for, then go for it. That’s how lively debates get started.)

What is the Food and Farm Bill and why does Slow Food care?

Why do we care about the outcome of the current debate? Put starkly, the Food and Farm Bills of the past several decades subsidize farming and ranching that is not good, clean, or fair. The eventual bill will also affect whether some 45 million Americans eat because the largest program — up to 70% of Food and Farm Bill spending — is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps. The current House version of the bill would cut $20 billion out of SNAP and continue subsidies that, as proposed, go disproportionately to a few very wealthy corporations.

By: Charity Kenyon and Ed Yowell, Slow Food USA Regional Governors

Mark Bittman’s recent opinion blog on the Farm Bill inspired us to give the Slow Food perspective on this massive piece of legislation working its way through Congress.

Why do we care about the outcome of the current debate?

Put starkly, the Food and Farm Bills of the past several decades subsidize farming and ranching that is not good, clean, or fair. The eventual bill will also affect whether some 45 million Americans eat because the largest program — up to 70% of Food and Farm Bill spending — is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps. The current House version of the bill would cut $20 billion out of SNAP and continue subsidies that, as proposed, go disproportionately to a few very wealthy corporations.

The best citizen’s guide to this complex legislation may be Food Fight, the Citizens Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill.

In the current debate, Slow Food USA has taken support positions in favor of amendments to the Food and Farm Bill that would:

• reform the subsidy programs
• support conservation
• support beginning and disadvantaged farmers
• support specialty crops (fruits and vegetables, not commodity corn and soy)
• promote rural development programs

Slow Food USA has opposed amendments that would:

• make drastic cuts to SNAP and other nutrition programs for the very young and elderly
• pre-empt states from requiring labeling of foods containing GE (genetically engineered) ingredients
• subsidize practices that pollute our shared air, soil, and water resources

We know that our individual, informed choices can support a good, clean, and fair food — essentially “voting with our forks.”

We also know that public policy at the federal level — spending billions of dollars — greatly influences what and how food is produced and how it impacts the environment, farmers and ranchers, farmworkers and ranch hands, food chain workers, and eaters. With our food and farm change allies, Slow Food USA advocates for Joy + Justice.

Charity Kenyon, Slow Food USA Governor, Central Valley Region of Californiaand Ed Yowell, Slow Food USA Governor, Northeast (NY, NJ, CT)

Ocean Grabbing: Plundering a Common Resource

With 60% of the world’s population living in coastal areas, communities around the world are finding themselves caught between increasing pressure from the land and depleting marine and coastal resources.

By: Michéle Mesmain, Slow Food International

With 60% of the world’s population living in coastal areas, communities around the world are finding themselves caught between increasing pressure from the land and depleting marine and coastal resources. These resources are being subjected to ocean grabbing, affecting food security in developing countries. The privatization of marine resources, another form of ocean grabbing, often touted as an environmentally friendly option, is also impacting negatively on small‑scale fishers, other coastal communities and the ecosystem.

Seafood is being massively harvested in the global south by foreign fleets and exported, leaving local fleets unable to catch enough to feed local populations. According to Olivier de Schutter, Special Rapporteur for the United Nations on the Right to Food, “‘Ocean‑grabbing’ can be as serious a threat as ‘land‑grabbing.’”

Even when fishing is legal and documented, most fleets are heavily subsidized and externalize the costs of overfishing and resource degradation, making fishing a highly profitable industry that threatens the right to food of millions. Attempts by European regulations and bilateral trade agreements to address this imbalance are almost completely ineffectual.

Fisheries privatization is often touted as an environmentally friendly management model. It involves redefining access rights to open, common or state‑owned fisheries by increasing the level of private allocation of, and control over, public resources. The phenomenon, often called “rationalization” or “catch share management” rather than privatization, is coming to dominate many policy discussions and implementations all over the world.

There is no clear link between privatization and conservation. Privatization encourages speculation, rewarding those who have invested in fisheries financially, rather than with their labor. It leads to property rights migrating from rural to urban owners, and to leasing practices where those who fish are not those who own the rights.

“Up to 80% of the landed value of my fish goes to lease the fishing right,” explains Dan Edwards, a fisherman from Vancouver Island, where catch share programs have been in place for more than a decade. “There is no economic margin left to invest in modernizing your own boat, let alone in local infrastructure. The money goes to someone who doesn’t fish any more, and might be living on the other side of the planet.”

Ocean grabbing does not stop with the privatization of fisheries, which is just the first step of a systematic attempt to control the whole marine ecosystem and benefit numerous other industries, like tourism, oil and gas extraction, aquaculture, pharmaceutical extraction, marine transportation and bioenergy, among others, and in some cases, military activities.

Most communication over these issues has been framed so that resisting privatization does not sound like resisting a dominant economic logic that promotes the commodification of fishing rights and marine resources in general, to maximize profit, but sounds more like resisting the fight for a better marine environment and management of resources. The logic of privatization also obscures the many examples of successfully managed commons worldwide, like the prud’homies in the French Mediterranean, local institutions with over a millennium of history.

Olivier de Schutter has called on governments to rethink what fishery models they support, highlighting the fact that small‑scale fishers actually catch more fish per gallon of fuel than industrial fleets, and discard fewer fish. A new model must put the emphasis on local co‑management of ocean resources, in ways that involve the small‑scale fishers and other local stakeholders who depend on the oceans, helping them participate fully in the value chain while refraining from undertaking large‑scale development projects that adversely affect their livelihoods. Fisheries and small‑scale fishers must also be made an integral part of national right‑to‑food strategies.

In the hopeful words of the Special Rapporteur: “It is possible, and necessary, to turn these resources away from over‑exploitation, and towards the benefit of local communities.”

Chefs Collaborative: 20 Years Later

We chefs are blessed with the capacity to influence the public’s food choices. And our purchasing power is equally as influential among producers and purveyors. We will continue to push for ingredients produced and harvested with a passion for quality that matches our own; and we will continue to share the stories behind these ingredients with our customers, schoolchildren, public health professionals, the media—anyone, in fact, who will listen.

By: Michael Leviton, chef/owner of Lumière (Newton, MA) and chef/partner of Area Four (Cambridge, MA)

In the late 1980s, I was a cook at Square One in San Francisco, California, where the food revolution was already under way. While the word “sustainability” did not exist in our vocabulary as chefs, there was an overarching belief that to be the best chef—and to make the best meals—you needed to start with great ingredients. It was not uncommon for chefs in that area to search out the best farmers, ranchers, bread bakers and cheesemakers because we knew that they put just as much care into their work as we did.

When I returned to New England in 1996, I found a much different culture. The area was not as robust with farmers, fishers, and other food artisans who shared a commitment to grow and produce great food, and it was a struggle to find the caliber of ingredients I was used to working with.

By then, Chefs Collaborative had a presence in Boston, and the organization connected me to like-minded chefs and food producers. Through my participation in Chefs Collaborative, I had an epiphany that flavor, healthfulness, and quality of ingredients are intricately linked to the care that is shown to the environment during production.

We chefs are blessed with the capacity to influence the public’s food choices. And our purchasing power is equally as influential among producers and purveyors. We will continue to push for ingredients produced and harvested with a passion for quality that matches our own; and we will continue to share the stories behind these ingredients with our customers, schoolchildren, public health professionals, the media—anyone, in fact, who will listen. With these and other efforts, we hope to keep this conversation—this movement—progressing.

With The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook: Local, Sustainable, Delicious: Recipes from America’s Great Chefs, we start where we always have—with a mixture of flavor and community. These two values have anchored us to our mission and principles since we began our work 20 years ago, and we have no doubt they will carry us into the decades to come. The community at our core is reflected in it—from the chefs who have provided recipes and information about our food to the farmers, ranchers, fishers, cheesemakers, foragers, and others who have brought the food into our kitchens and given us the tools and the context to understand how great flavor is created.

This cookbook is a blueprint for cooking like a sustainably minded chef. You’ll find delicious dishes that feature less familiar cuts of meat, like Beef Shin and Farro Soup, Pork Heart and Sausage Ragoût over Pasta. Lesser-known seafood species show up in Whey-Poached Triggerfish with Asparagus and Coconut Black Drum Seviche. And seasonal showpieces like Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Spring Peas and Tarragon and Autumn Pear “Ravioli” with Chanterelle and Shaved Pear Salad will inspire you to cook in the rhythm of the seasons. The recipes will make you want to head straight to the kitchen (with a quick stop at the farmer’s market first, of course).

Sustainable cuisine is about an approach to sourcing and cooking predicated on flavor, quality, and sharing our passion and knowledge. The pleasures of the table—that mix of flavor and community—enrich us in mind, body, and soul and inspire us to do our best work.

Dogs Need Slow Food, Too

We need to hold our pet food to the same standard as our own. Sure, Fido doesn’t need to feast on filet mignon every day. But with the amount of chemicals, low-grade fillers and artificial colors in many commercial dog foods, he could be eating much better.

By: Emma Rachel, co-founder of FidoDogTreats.com, an online natural dog supply shop

Simply put, pets are a part of the family. We need to hold our pet food to the same standard as our own. Sure, Fido doesn’t need to feast on filet mignon every day. But with the amount of chemicals, low-grade fillers and artificial colors in many commercial dog foods, he could be eating much better.

Products like corn and corncobs, meat by-products, feathers, soy, cottonseed hulls, peanut hulls, citrus pulp, weeds, and straw are often added to dog food as fillers and low-grade fiber and protein content.

As you can imagine, these additives can lead to health problems in your pup. Along with the preservatives and artificial colors that are added to many dog foods, they can cause food allergies, digestive issues and glucose intolerance.

Adding cheap fillers to dog food is increasingly convenient for manufacturers as they compete with other low-priced foods while their manufacturing, marketing and shipping costs simultaneously rise. This kind of irresponsible pet food manufacturing can have serious consequences, as we’ve seen over the years with the increase in dog food recalls.

Keep your dog safe by buying and/or making high-quality, natural dog foods.

If you buy your dog food, read the label first. Look for natural fiber sources like flax seed, real fruits and unprocessed vegetables. These ingredients will keep your dog healthy and help improve his skin and coat.

If you’re making your dog’s food, know that healthy human foods are not necessarily dog friendly. While many tropical fruits are nutritious for dogs, common fruits and vegetables like grapes and onions can be toxic for them.

So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and explore this new frontier of slow food! Fido will pay his thanks in kisses and exhausting games of fetch for years to come.

Slow Food, Slow Money

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Carlo Petrini speak at the Slow Money National Gathering at the beautiful Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado. Always charismatic, his remarks were engaging, electric, challenging, and inspiring.

By: Abbe Turner, co-leader of Slow Food Northern Ohio

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Carlo Petrini speak at the Slow Money National Gathering at the beautiful Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado. Always charismatic, his remarks were engaging, electric, challenging, and inspiring.

His keynote address united Slow Food and Slow Money as important institutions charged with leading the efforts to reverse the effects of a broken “criminalized” food system. As we know, the focus of Slow Food is protecting and promoting food that is good, clean and fair; the focus of Slow Money is to bring money “back down to earth” by encouraging investment in food and farm entrepreneurs. The Slow Money network has had a hand in shifting over $24 million into over 190 small food enterprises over the past few years.

Petrini spoke of the importance of a new way of doing politics at this historical moment where change really matters and we must show strength in this new economy. Citing the challenges of soil fertility, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, climate change and landscape destruction, Petrini stated we need to understand the central role that food has as a vehicle for change.

He went on to say that food is the energy of our lives and for this reason our vision of food must be holistic; respect for nature, love of landscape, music, spirituality, knowledge of family and agricultural traditions, and knowledge of other cultures. “We must respect food because it is the very essence of life — Food is not just economic and political, it sustains life, and to do this we must return money to the soil. As Americans you do this through reciprocity and the exchange of resources at farmers markets, CSA’s, and more… You have started a revolution with your money!”

Because of important organizations such as Slow Food and Slow Money the opportunity to join this revolution has never been so ripe. The local food scene throughout the world is being invigorated with an entrepreneurial spirit that needs to be supported, rewarded, and nurtured. At Lucky Penny we are proud to be a part of this revolution. Come join us; make change.

The Price of Perfection

It’s tough not being perfect. Everyone who has ever had a bad hair day knows that. And that’s no more true than for those misshapen, oddly sized fruits and vegetables that Mother Nature inevitably produces.

Originally posted by JoAnne Berkenkamp for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

It’s tough not being perfect. Everyone who has ever had a bad hair day knows that. And that’s no more true than for those misshapen, oddly sized fruits and vegetables that Mother Nature inevitably produces. For them, the price of being imperfect is being consigned to a slow death, rotting in the farm field or the landfill, while their cosmetically perfect brothers and sisters head off to a grocery store near you.

Two fascinating reports from the Natural Resources Defense Council do a deft job of explaining why we should all care about “crop waste”—the widespread loss of otherwise edible fresh and vegetables that never make it past the farm gate or the landfill. One report, Wasted by Dana Gunders, looks at food waste across our food system. The other, Left-Out, looks specifically at fruit and vegetable losses on the farm.

The numbers reported by NRDC are astounding. For instance, from farm to fork, about 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States goes uneaten. That amounts to $165 billion of wasted food every year (a figure which, notably, is in the same ballpark as the annual cost of obesity). More than 6 billion pounds of fresh produce go unharvested or unsold each year, and preliminary data from a cluster of fruit and vegetable growers in California suggests that losses on the farm and in the packing stage range as high as 14–60 percent for a variety of common crops.

Why are losses on the farm so high? There are many contributing factors, but a big one that you and I play a part in is consumer demand for cosmetic perfection—for perfectly shaped peppers and uniform, bright red strawberries that seem to get bigger every year. The whole supply chain, from the farm to the grocery store. is geared toward meeting that expectation. From apples to zucchini, produce has to fit within very specific ranges for size, shape, color and other parameters. Some produce that doesn’t make it goes to a processor for juicing or other uses, but many of the imperfect fruit and vegetables never make it out of the field.

Other factors contribute to high waste rates as well. Contracting practices that are common in the produce industry, as well as the threat of bad weather, pests and price volatility, encourage growers to overplant. Labor shortages that are exacerbated by the sorry state of U.S. immigration policy are a factor too.

What’s more, when prices at the time of harvest are below the cost of getting the crop to market, it can make economic sense for farmers to leave some or all of their production in the field unharvested. Product specifications are also set by entities with enormous market power—such as major retail chains—while most of the risk associated with bad weather, supply gluts that force down prices, and Nature’s imperfections land in the laps of farmers.

And what else is wrong with this picture?

Let’s begin with the waste of food itself. As NRDC points out, reducing overall food waste by just 15 percent would provide enough food to feed more than 25 million Americans every year. Even though “the marketplace” may not want the crops that go to waste every day, current waste levels make no sense when looked at in the context of hunger, obesity, food justice and the impact of poor health on our economy.

Environmentally, crops that don’t make it to market involve significant uses of water, fertilizer, pesticides and other inputs. For instance, NRDC estimated that the unsold broccoli grown in just one county (Monterey County, California) required 2.5 billion gallons of water to grow (yes, that billions with a “b”, in a state where the water wars will only intensify as water becomes more scarce). Chemical fertilizers and pesticides impact farmworkers and the environment whether the product makes it to market or not.

Wasted crops also hold “imbedded carbon.” Carbon is released into the atmosphere when soil is tilled. Diesel fuel powers farm equipment and many agricultural chemicals start out life as crude oil. Further, only 3 percent of the food that is wasted between the farm and the fork is composted. When unsold crops end up in the landfill, they emit methane gas, a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

And as noted above, farmers pay the price when they grow a crop only to plow it under or leave the edible-but-imperfect to rot. Farmer incomes are adversely impacted even though our fruit and vegetable producers grow the healthy foods that are needed by an increasingly unhealthy country. The irony is hard to beat.

Fortunately, a number of initiatives hold hope for addressing these issues. For instance, the Los Angeles Food Policy Council recently put out new food procurement guidelines calling on restaurants and institutional buyers to “buy lower on the beauty chain” by purchasing smaller and less aesthetically perfect produce. A commitment by colleges, schools, hospitals and other institutions to purchase such “seconds” could make a real difference back on the farm. Several states in the West provide tax credits to farmers who donate crops to state food banks (providing a more effective incentive than charitable donation deductions). The California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family program uses paid, skilled farm labor to harvest unmarketable produce that is then made available to food banks at greatly discounted prices. The European Parliament has even set the aggressive goal of reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2020.

These are steps in the right direction, but overall, food waste largely remains a hidden problem in the U.S., shrouded in a belief that we can afford to be wasteful and that waste doesn’t have real consequences. Alas, we all pay the price for perfection.

Know Your GMOs: The “Monsanto Rider”

While Section 733, called the “Monsanto Rider” by some, did not make it into the Ag Appropriations Bill, similar provisions were included in the 2012 Food and Farm Bill, which was not debated nor adopted by the House of Representatives.

By Ed Yowell, Slow Food USA Regional Governor, NY, NJ, CT

GMO foods are a source of continuing controversy about long-term effects on humans, wildlife, and our food chain. GMO (Genetically Modified Organism), GE (Genetically Engineered), GM (Genetically Modified), or “transgenic” foods are meats and plants that are changed through genetic engineering.

Although we have genetically modified animals and plants for thousands of years, we did it through selective breeding over decades and even centuries. Now, technology enables the transfer of genetic material from one organism to another to create different, theoretically desirable, variations.

According to the February 12, 2012 New York Times article, “Modified Crops Tap a Wellspring of Protest,” by Julia Moskin, “...about 90 percent of all soybeans, corn, canola and sugar beets raised in the United States were grown from…transgenic seed. Most processed foods (staples like breakfast cereal, granola bars, chicken nuggets and salad dressing) contain one or more transgenic ingredients according to estimates from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, though the labels don’t reveal that. (Some, like tortilla chips, can contain dozens.) Common ingredients like corn, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, soy protein, lecithin, monosodium glutamate, cornstarch, yeast extract, sugar and corn syrup are almost always produced from transgenic crops.”

Moskin continues, “...consumer resistance to transgenic food remains high. In a nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it should say so on its label — a number that has been consistent since genetically modified crops were introduced. F.D.A. guidelines say that food that contains genetically modified organisms, or GMO’s, don’t have to say so and can still be labeled ‘all natural’.”

The GMO Food Fight in DC

The House of Representatives FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations Bill almost contained a rider (Section 733), innocently and strangely, entitled the “farmer assurance provision.” According to the Center for Food Safety, if adopted, the rider would have stripped “federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of illegal, potentially hazardous genetically engineered (GE) crops while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses potential hazards. It also would inexplicably force USDA to allow continued planting of a GE crop even if a court of law identifies previously unrecognized risks. In addition, Section 733 (would) target vital judiciary oversight over USDA approvals by barring courts from compelling USDA to take action against agriculture policies that may harm farmers and the environment.”

While Section 733, called the “Monsanto Rider” by some, did not make it into the Ag Appropriations Bill, similar provisions were included in the 2012 Food and Farm Bill, which was not debated nor adopted by the House of Representatives.

According to Colin O’Neill, of the Center for Food Safety, “...these (biotech industry-friendly) riders have the potential to completely eliminate the critical role played by our most important environmental laws. They unreasonably pressure USDA with impossible deadlines for analysis and decision, while at the same time withhold funds to conduct necessary environmental reviews and limit the regulatory authority of other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These riders create multiple backdoor approval mechanisms that would allow for the premature commercialization of untested biotech traits to enter our food system. Insulated from pushback, the industry riders also force USDA to adopt a controversial policy that would for the first time set allowable levels of GE contamination in crops and foods. It’s an unprecedented and dangerous path that is being carved out.”

The GMO Food Fight in CA

In November, 2012, California voters had the opportunity to vote on mandatory GMO food labeling. In an August 22, 2012 Forbes article, “Monsanto, DuPont Spending Millions to Oppose California’s GMO Labeling Law,” Amy Westervelt writes, “(Proposition 37)...could have broad implications for food producers throughout the country: whether or not to require labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food. Other states have tried to pass similar measures and failed, but California is taking the issue directly to voters, who have largely been in favor of labeling. Prior to the vote, the supporters of Proposition 37 were polling far ahead of the opposition…but that doesn’t mean the vote is all sewn up.”

Westervelt’s premonition was correct. Despite seemingly overwhelming popular support, Proposition 37 was narrowly defeated.

A group called the “No on 37: Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme,” was formed to stop the measure. The group’s major donors of the $25 million effort included Monsanto, DuPont and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing the interests of PepsiCo, General Mills, and Kellogg and several other large food and beverage companies.

According to the Forbes article, “The primary arguments against Prop 37…(were) that it would cost food producers money – both to re-label products and in the form of lost business due to customers who are scared off by the label – and thus raise food prices for consumers, and that it could lead to frivolous lawsuits.”

Monsanto Rides Again

While the “Monsanto Rider” did not prevail, as many opponents anticipated, it didn’t go away. On March 21, the House adopted the Senate-passed appropriations continuing resolution (CR), which will fund federal programs through the end of the federal 2013 fiscal year.

According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), despite efforts to the contrary led by Senators Jon Tester (D-MI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), in addition to other regressive agricultural policy roll-backs, “The bill… (included) a… rider benefiting the biotech industry and undermining judicial review of transgenic (GMO) crops. The rider permits USDA to deregulate genetically modified crops even in the case of a court ruling invalidating or vacating such a deregulation. This is a clear violation of the separation of powers and judicial review. Conventional (non-biotech) and organic farmers have suffered economic losses due to contamination from biotechnology products, and this policy rider likely makes that situation worse in the future.”

It is expected that Congress will get back to the Food and Farm Bill in April or May 2013. Marker Bills and platforms, pointing the way to a 2013 Food and Farm Bill process, are being written and revived. There will be opportunity for us to demand that the “Monsanto Rider” does not ride again, thereby retaining federal courts’ authority to halt the sale or planting of biotechnology products that have not been reviewed adequately for environmental and economic impact.

Success Through School Food and Beyond

On the edge of San Francisco’s Mission District is Sanchez College Preparatory School, an elementary school that is working to address issues of hunger, poor nutrition, and deteriorating health within one of the city’s most affected populations.

Originally posted by Raymond Isola and John & Lolita Casazza for EdibleSchoolYard.org in March 2013.

On the edge of San Francisco’s Mission District is Sanchez College Preparatory School, an elementary school that is working to address issues of hunger, poor nutrition, and deteriorating health within one of the city’s most affected populations. The school has a child development center that has established a unique community-based program to improve nutrition and health habits for its 300 students and their families.

Sanchez School reflects the make-up of its neighborhood with a diverse population of students: 80 percent are Latino, with the remaining 20 percent of Filipino, other Asian, African-American, and European decent. Of the 82 percent of the students who qualify for the school lunch program, many of their families are considered low-income. What we are learning is that better diets equate to improved health, which can be correlated to more regular school attendance and increased learning.

A study in 2010 entitled Hunger In America found that “children from food insecure households are likely to be behind in their academic development compared to children from food secure families.” Given these findings and a deep understanding of the student population at Sanchez School, leaders of the school community sought to create a community education center to offer a proactive strategy for improving student and family nutritional knowledge and habits, while also improving student academic performance.

This vision deepened during a visit to Sanchez School by Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food International. Mr. Petrini and Dr. Isola, the former principal of Sanchez College Preparatory School, developed a School Community Development tool that incorporated three main goals:

1. Create a more natural environment so that students can play, exercise, and learn. This space would include an edible instructional garden where students learn to grow and prepare their own food.
2. Provide increased family and student access to seasonal, healthy food on a daily basis.
3. Engage key community members (chefs, local farmers, school staff, artists, parents, businesses, neighborhood associations, and non-profit or community-based organizations) in the development and execution of this project.

One of the first actions taken was to develop a Green Schoolyard Master Plan as part of a voter-approved, bond-funded project where parents, students, staff, and the community at large would help to design a hands-on learning model. This model would offer more open space and an outdoor learning environment for all children at school.

With the help of organizations like Slow Food San Francisco, INKA Biospheric Systems, Bi-Rite Market, Education Outside and others, the once underutilized areas on campus became active areas with a school garden and greenhouse. The landscape included multiple beds of greens, herbs, flowers, and vegetables; a compost bin; an earth bed to play in and explore for insects and worms; and a state of the art vertical garden. Based on the school master plan, a large section of asphalt was taken out and two obsolete portable classrooms were removed to make room for a teaching garden and natural outdoor play environment.

A full-time green schoolyard specialist was hired through a grant. This specialist co-taught with the science teacher to incorporate the students’ garden learning into the science curriculum being taught by classroom teachers. The students also learned about recycling and composting. These combined learning experiences helped students develop environmentally responsible stewardship behaviors that are connected to ecological values within the context of the school’s daily operation. As students worked on building beds, they were visited by Apolinar Yerena, a local strawberry farmer and Mexican immigrant who shared his knowledge of strawberries as he planted them with students. Eventually these strawberries became a popular fruit for the students to eat and make sorbet with.

Soon the larger school community started to take interest in the greening project. Mothers who grew up in the Mexican and El Salvadoran countryside commented that their children, who live in the city, had the opportunity to experience what they had lived growing up in their far away countries. In the spirit of continuing to build community, Sanchez School constructed an outdoor meeting space and peace garden right in the middle of the playground that included native plants, a cobb bench, tiled murals, and large rocks where the students could play and relax. This collaboration was an effort between the school staff, the Sanchez Neighborhood Association, and the student council. There is also a sculpture garden on the west side of the school building that community members can see on a walk through the neighborhood.

To complete the garden project, Sanchez School formed a partnership with the San Francisco Food Bank in 2008. By then, Sanchez School had built a learning space and enacted a curriculum, but still desired more structured participation from parents and the community as a whole. This partnership with the food bank would allow students and families to have greater access to healthy food directly at the school. A weekly food pantry of seasonal food would be provided for 80 families along with nutritional snacks for the students during the school day. Parents would be responsible for organizing an equitable distribution system at the pantry — a responsibility they continue to oversee to this day. The staff from the San Francisco Food Bank also continues to be active partners by providing parents weekly cooking classes and bilingual recipes.

These classes and recipes help parents become familiar with foods they are sometimes unaccustomed to preparing. They also have the opportunity to learn how to cook these foods at home — knowledge that increases their cooking confidence and provides their families with a balanced and nutritious diet every day.

Has this community development tool been successful?

Only time will tell as it continues to evolve, but we are clearly seeing stronger school community relationships amongst people living and working in the neighborhood, an increased awareness about the school garden project, and improvements made to eating habits and student performance.

In the spring of 2012, the California Department of Education’s learning goal was a five-point academic performance index growth on the California Standards Test. Sanchez students exceeded this goal with 68 points academic progress, more than 13 times the expectation. In science, taking the most recent three-year average, fifth graders at Sanchez performed at the 59 percent proficiency level, just below the average for their peers in SF Unified School District, demonstrating a 62 percent proficiency, just above the state average of 58 percent. Comparing Sanchez School to several elementary schools with similar student populations, the average science proficiency levels at these schools hovered around 25 percent.

Sanchez School’s level of science proficiency is impressive given that it is a high-poverty school with a dramatic over representation of students learning English as second language with identified learning disabilities. Sanchez School parents are very supportive of the hands-on approach to learning in an outdoor classroom and view this education as a way for their children to develop science knowledge and healthy eating habits. Our hope is that other school communities adopt a similar tool to raise awareness about the important place that outside education has in the learning process and students’ ability to thrive, because a nutritious and healthy lifestyle is certainly connected to academic learning within green, vibrant spaces.

Dr. Raymond R. Isola is the former principal at Sanchez School Elementary for thirteen years. Currently, Dr. Isola is writing a book with Jim Cummins, who is professor and lead researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in Canada. John and Lolita Casazza are current San Francisco Slow Food Board members.