Budget cuts could be a recipe for change or disaster

Congress is planning dramatic cuts to the American budget and anything and everything is on the chopping block. The agricultural sector is likely to take a big hit but will the special Congressional “super committee” make positive change or keep pandering to Big Ag?

Behind closed doors, lobbyists for food system giants are pressing lawmakers to continue the status quo or make cuts elsewhere. Whose belts do they think should be tightened?

• NUTRITION: nutrition programs that provide critical access to food in this time of economic crisis. These programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called “food stamps”), the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, and affordable school lunch. When nearly 50 million people in the U.S. live in constant threat of hunger, cutting the budget for these programs is an outrage.
• JOB CREATION: programs that support family farms, create jobs, and keep money in rural communities. In a recent letter to the co-chairs of the “super committee,” House Agricultural Committee Chair, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D, ME) wrote “While efforts to reduce the federal deficit remain paramount, we must place an equal if not greater emphasis on policy changes that will put Americans to work and boost economic growth. Local food systems can yield significant benefits to the economy and create thousands of jobs. According to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a modest amount of funding or 100-500 farmers markets could create as many as 13,500 jobs over a five-year period.”
• SUPPORT FOR FARMERS AND FARMLAND: a hodgepodge of programs to address environmental quality and to provide essential support to vegetable farmers, beginning farmers, and socially-disadvantaged farmers. One of the most puzzling parts of the Food and Farm bill is that the majority of the foods that we eat (things like vegetables, fruits, and beef) are referred to as “specialty crops.” Cutting the already meager portion of Food and Farm Bill funding that goes to producers that make real food- not corn for ethanol and animal feed- is egregious. As the average age of US farmers steadily reaches retirement age (the majority of farmers today are in their 60s) it’s critical to the future of our food and agricultural economy that we continue to support the next generation of farmers, especially those from diverse communities. Related to that is ensuring that developed farmland continues to be used to grow food instead of being developed and thus saying goodbye to the investments that generations of farmers have made to the soil and surrounding terrain. And yet programs for supporting new farmers and farmland conservation are instead treated like an ATM for subsidies for Big Ag. Under a Senate Ag committee proposal, these programs could lose up to $4 billion. That’s nearly 20% of their current budget.
• FOOD SAFETY: FDA funding which goes towards (already underfunded) farm inspectors who we need more of to keep us safe from outbreaks of food-borne illness. Unless the “super committee” comes up with a better plan, FDA funding could be reduced by nearly $200 million from the 2011 level. This would lead to fewer FDA staff, including those who inspect our domestic and imported foods. Large food facilities are already sorely under-inspected- just look to recent deadly food-borne illnesses in eggs, cantaloupe, and spinach.

That’s no way to balance a budget: that’s a recipe for disaster.

Click here to tell the super committee to follow our recipe for change.

More after the jump

The EPA received our bees, here’s their response.

Earlier this year, we called for immediate action on a pesticide that scientists believe is contributing to massive honeybee die-offs — and today we heard the EPA’s response.

Earlier this year, tens of thousands of Slow Food supporters came together to demand that the EPA keep its promise to investigate the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder. Their actions helped make a buzz about the devastating future that lies ahead if we don’t act now to save the bees that bring us one in every four bites of our food. They invited friends to sign a petition supported by a “swarm” of hundreds of handmade bees (see left), each representing 100 bee petition signatures. They shared the fact sheet we created about bees and food. And dozens organized screenings of the documentary “Vanishing of the Bees” in libraries and living rooms all around the country. We called for immediate action on a kind of pesticide that scientists believe is contributing to massive honeybee die-offs — and today we heard the EPA’s response. According to a spokesperson from the Office of Pesticide Programs:

More after the jump

Recent GE approvals face wide-ranging criticisms

Earlier this year the USDA stunned the food and farming community by unexpectedly approving three new genetically engineered (GE) foods. Here’s a recap of some of the main concerns around these additions to our food system.

by Emily Vaughn

Earlier this year the USDA stunned the food and farming community by unexpectedly approving three new genetically engineered (GE) foods. Here’s a recap of some of the main concerns around these additions to our food system.

The green-lighted foods are herbicide-resistant sugar beets and alfalfa and a type of corn tailor-made for ethanol production. While the latter two are not intended for human consumption, they’ll still impact people-food.  The corn and alfalfa are extremely likely to cross-pollinate with their organic or non-GE relatives.  Cross-pollination would render nearby fields of sweet corn unsuitable for human consumption, and disqualify milk or dairy products from receiving the organic label if the cows are accidentally fed GE-tainted alfalfa.  The proposed buffer zones that could be required to surround GE alfalfa plots aren’t enough to put organic farmers at ease.

The sugar beets have yet to pass an environmental safety test, but were given the go-ahead for planting this season in order to avoid a shortage of sugar (50% of table sugar in the US is beet-derived).  As if that’s not bad enough, the herbicide that the beets (and the alfalfa) are engineered to tolerate is becoming less effective as surrounding weeds are developing a resistance to the chemical. Agribusiness’s claim that this generation of GE crops is reducing our reliance on chemical inputs is looking thin.

On top of gene drift concerns, it’s looking like corn-based ethanol isn’t the green energy solution we were hoping for; ethanol faces increasing criticism for being energetically inefficient and for driving up food prices worldwide.

More after the jump

Yet Another S 510 Food Safety Update

Slow Food USA’s position on the current food safety legislation recently passed by the Senate (again) and headed for a House vote.

UPDATE: After hanging briefly in legal limbo because of tax provisions in the bill, the Food Safety and Modernization Act (S 510) was passed by the Senate late last night. You can read about it in The Washington Post by clicking here.

It is expected to be voted on by the House this week. 

For a blow by blow of what is covered by the bill, you can read Bill Marler’s recap by clicking here.

In light of recent large-scale food recalls—such as this summer’s recall of half a billion eggs—such corporate food safety legislation is necessary.  However, it is very important that while this regulation needs to crack down on large-scale industrial/corporate bad actors, it must not hurt small scale producers and processors. That’s why we—with our allies including the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition—supported this bill with the inclusion of the Manager’s Amendment (which includes the Tester amendment).

Speak up about corporate control of the food supply

On December 8th, in Washington DC, the Dept of Justice and the USDA will be holding a workshop (kind of like a town hall) to hear from farmers and consumers. Join us!

On December 8th, in Washington DC, the Dept of Justice and the USDA will be holding a workshop (kind of like a town hall) to hear from farmers and consumers. Would you like to go and share your experience of how, as a consumer and/or food producer you are affected by the consolidation of our food system?

Maybe you’ve noticed prices rising at the supermarket even while most big food companies made record profits this year.

Maybe you know consumers having trouble finding good food at affordable prices, as well as farmers having trouble getting good food into mainstream markets.

To join Slow Food members and staff in Washington DC next week, please email Angelines at angelines[at]slowfoodusa.org

To read more about the anti-trust workshops, click here.

S 510 Food Safety Update

Slow Food USA’s position on the current food safety legislation recently passed by the Senate (again) and headed for a House vote.

UPDATE: After hanging briefly in legal limbo because of tax provisions in the bill, the Food Safety and Modernization Act (S 510) was passed by the Senate late last night. You can read about it in The Washington Post by clicking here. It is expected to be voted on byt the House this week.  For a blow by blow of what is covered by the bill, you can read Bill Marler’s recap by clicking here.

Many of you in the network have been asking about Slow Food USA"s position on S 510, the Food Safety and Modernization bill that is moving—slowwwwwly—through the Senate. In light of recent large-scale food recalls—such as this summer’s recall of half a billion eggs—such corporate food safety legislation is necessary.  However, it is very important that while this regulation needs to crack down on large-scale industrial/corporate bad actors, it must not hurt small scale producers and processors.

That’s why we—with our allies including the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition—support the Manager’s Amendment (which as of last night will include the Tester amendment, which makes it more likely to be part of the final bill). To read more about these two amendments and how they can help protect small farms and processors from onerous regulations, click here.

After vigorous debate yesterday, the bill is now on hold until after Thanksgiving. Marion Nestle offers her thoughts/recap here.

Now is a great time to contact your Senator to wish them a safe and delicious Thanksgiving AND pass food safety legislation that includes the Manager’s Amendment. You can add: “We need a food safety bill that cracks down on corporate bad actors without erecting new barriers to more local and regional food sourcing.  Size and practice appropriate food safety regulation for small and mid-sized farms and processors is vital to economic recovery, public health, and nutritional wellbeing.”

Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code.  Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number.  You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.

Killer Coke

Michael Blanding’s book aims to tell the real story behind that happy global picture of people who speak different languages and have different color skin but sway arm in arm singing songs and drinking Coke.

A version of this piece first appeared on Civil Eats

My dirty truth is that I have a collection of Coke bottles from around the world: one from Mexico, one with Arabic script, one covered in unrecognizable lettering and filled with Yugoslavian beach glass (a present from a friend who traveled there with her family in 1990 and brought it back as a present for me).  And on and on. I was a teenager when I gathered them, and totally oblivious to the implications behind this international menagerie of emptied glass.  This drink was everywhere, tailored slightly through variations in local water and variations in bottle size, but ultimately the same.  I loved that I could find it anywhere: the great unifier.

Michael Blanding’s book, The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink, aims to tell the real story behind that happy global picture of people who speak different languages and have different color skin but sway arm in arm singing songs and drinking Coke.  He tells Coke’s story from the beginning, starting with the beverage’s origins in 1886 as a snake oil tonic and extending all the way up to its present incarnation as a multinational beverage corporation.

It’s a measure of my tremendous cynicism about corporations that more of this book didn’t shock the pants off of me. The story of the company’s early days, carving out an identity and working to convince the public that this refreshing leisure drink was a necessity, was captivatingly told and a great example of how iconic brands are built. In Coke’s case it was built aggressively with a focus on growth and led by unprecedentedly well-funded advertising campaigns.

Market growth is It for Coke, and Blanding chronicles how the company’s desire for growth eventually led them to bottle tap water, add some secret minerals and corner a whole new market.  After all, there is a limit to how much soda one person can drink, right?  Actually, that limit might be higher than you expect.  One of the more troubling accounts in the book is of a town in Mexico called San Juan de Chamula, where newborns are fed Coke in their bottles, and locals worship their Saints by downing ritual glasses of Coca-Cola and leaving cola offerings at church altars. As one local guide explains it “Here Coca-Cola is cash, poison, magic, passion, pleasure, torture, love and medicine.”  But not everyone has welcomed Coke’s presence.

More after the jump

The Story Behind Your Food: Learning from Salmonella

Watch our latest video telling the story behind the egg scandal, and sign the petition calling for food safety.

by Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel
This article was first posted on The Atlantic Monthly’s Food Channel

Sign the petition calling for food safety here.

When I speak to groups of people, I urge them to know the story behind their food, and for that story to be one they can be proud of.  Last month’s recall of nearly a half a billion eggs has pulled back the curtain on industrial egg production and shown many Americans the story they never knew about how their eggs get onto their plates.  It’s not a story eaters can be proud of, nor is it one the farmer can be proud of, nor is it one our food regulatory agencies can be proud of.

In fact, there are so many unpleasant realities in this story, that we still don’t know exactly which elements contributed to the presence of salmonella—cramped cages, mouse droppings, dead insects, chicken feed containing chicken bone meal.  But it’s not just a story about eggs, of course.

Over the past year the USDA and the Department of Justice have been holding anti-trust workshops all over the country, examining how consolidation is affecting our agricultural system.  They have listened to hog farmers, cattle producers, dairy farmers in an attempt to understand what this means for small-mid sized farmers and ranchers, and what this ultimately means for the consumer.

When half a billion eggs get recalled, consumers are rightfully scared and wonder what their alternatives are.  For most people, there isn’t one; when only a handful of companies control the majority of the market, it means that when disease strikes, and spreads, there aren’t many places to turn. People in all 50 states eat eggs, but 50% of our eggs are produced in only 5 states. The same week that the egg recall was announced, there was a beef recall.  And we all remember recent widespread spinach and peanut recalls. 

IIn each story there have been similar narrative elements: large companies trying to get away with as much as they can, even if it means selling consumers product they know is contaminated; ineffective communication about violations between FDA and USDA; repeated bad actors allowed to stay in business; rapid and far-reaching spread of the product, making it challenging to recall all of it effectively; sick consumers and sometimes, tragically, dead ones.

The Department of Justice is starting to learn the story, and consumers are starting to learn too. The next step will be for government and individuals alike to demand a system that respects farmers, respects the environment, and respects the health and safety of consumers. A great starting point is communication—let’s demand that the FDA and the USDA talk to each other to make sure that bad actors are held accountable and forced to clean up their act before contaminated food makes its way to our tables.

Join our campaign to demand better control of and more accountability from our food industry to ensure the health of all Americans.

Animals: a dystopic glimpse of our future as eaters?

by Patrick Keeler

“You are what you eat.” It’s a trite aphorism amongst us sustainable food advocates, but never so literally has this adage been applied than in the new novel Animals by Don LePan.

We don’t often get the opportunity to digest fiction books about the food system at the SFUSA office, and one of my favorite genres is the utopian* or dystopian story, so with great enthusiasm I leapt at the chance to be among the first to read Animals.

Set in the 22nd century the premise of the novel is this: we’ve so terribly screwed up the food system due to our dependence on factory farming for the source of meats and proteins, that the result is mass extinction of our feedstocks. Pandemic disease and genetic engineering have wiped out all traditional sources of meat (and many vegetable products) in a matter of decades. Panic follows; there’s a deepening gap between the rich who can afford better alternative food and healthcare and those who cannot; there’s economic collapse along the entire supply chain of the meat-processing sector. Not to mention that genetic engineering (amongst other environmental ills) has led to a dramatic increase in the number of birth defects.

Panic about how the human race will survive sans meat in their diets, coupled with a crippled healthcare system now burdened with a 1 in 5 severe birth defect rate, leads to a deterioration of morality. Those with any birth defects or handicaps are classified as “mongrels,” and are kept either as family pets or are sent to “chattel pens.” You guessed it – those who can afford it eat human flesh. And with a new product to market, the former meat industry’s infrastructure is revived by demand for factory farmed human animals.

More after the jump

Eat Gulf seafood

by Poppy Tooker, former chapter leader of Slow Food New Orleans and emeritus member of the Biodiversity Committee

The oil situation in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening an entire culture on Louisiana’s coastline.  Along every step of the food chain—from fisherman to chef to impassioned eaters like me—there is fear of the unknown.  Until the oil gusher is stopped, none of us can tell what the future holds. 
 
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Slow Food Ark of Taste committee made an emergency boarding of Gulf seafood that seemed the most threatened at that time.  Louisiana oysters and wild-caught Gulf shrimp were welcomed onto the Ark of Taste along with the New Orleans poor boy bread that they are so often served on. 
 
Today, countless varieties of Gulf fin fish are hugely threatened, including lynchpins of our local menus like speckled trout and redfish.  Our gumbo crab, the Louisiana blue crab, which is found both in the Gulf and in our brackish waterbodies like Lake Pontchartrain, could be wiped out by the intrusion of oil into our estuary marshes.
 
Since the oil disaster began, I have heard from Slow Food friends across the United States who ask, “How can we help?”  The single best way to assist your food friends of the Gulf is to EAT GULF SEAFOOD. 
 

More after the jump