Obama Justice Dept. is investigating Big Ag companies

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice will hold the first of five workshops to determine whether a handful of food and farming companies are exercising monopoly control over the industry. This is a big deal. If the Dept. finds that companies like Monsanto are violating antitrust law, regulators could move to break up the companies in order to protect farmers and consumers from further harm.

Friday’s workshop takes place in Ankeny, IA, near Des Moines. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney will speak on a panel, as will a selection of crop and livestock farmers from around the country. (The farmers were added at the last-minute amidst outcries that a workshop about agriculture didn’t feature any actual farmers.) Other panels will feature a Monsanto Vice President, a former President of the Iowa Soybean Association and a representative from the organization Food & Water Watch.

Farmer and consumer groups who are concerned that the Justice Dept. workshop is bent towards corporate special interests are organizing a People’s Antitrust Hearing in Ankeny on the evening prior. At the event, Iowa farmers and community leaders will share their perspective on how food company monopolies lead to higher food prices and lower farmer profits.

In December, Slow Food USA joined other groups in asking the public to submit comments to the Justice Dept. The DoJ reported receiving over 15,000 comments, and has begun posting them online.

If you’re an Iowa resident who believes in good, clean and fair food, considering joining Slow Food and getting involved in one of our Iowa chapters.

Food News: Bits and Bites

What we’ll be talking about this year: Marion Nestle outlines her predictions for the top food news issues for 2010.

Sustainable chef gets a mainstream nod: Yum Sugar readers name Rick Bayless male chef of the year.

Kill 2 birds with 1 stone--floor cleaner meets lunch? People can’t stop talking about the news that there’s ammonia in hamburgers.  You saw it in Food, Inc. Read more in the NY Times.

One more reason to get involved in our Time for Lunch campaign: A color-coded map of obesity rates in this country--one for adults, one for children. 

Two More Days to Say How you Feel About Corporate Control of the Food Supply

I just wrote the Department of Justice a long email detailing how, as a consumer, I am affected by corporate control of the food supply.  Now it’s your turn.  Your voice absolutely matters: they are looking to hear from “average citizens.” Like you. Like me! This is our chance to tell them what’s wrong.

For more details, click here to see our post from last week.

E-mail your comments to BY DECEMBER 31.  Or you can submit two paper copies of your comments to Legal Policy Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 5th Street, NW, Suite 11700, Washington, D.C. 20001. All comments received will be publicly posted – if you’d like your comment to be anonymous, please note that in your email.

(Many thanks to the US Food Crisis Working Group who have put together sample letters and more topic ideas at www.usfoodcrisisgroup.org)

Do corporations have too much control over our food supply?

Now is our chance to speak up. For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Justice is on a fact-finding mission looking at how big business controls food and farming—and they want to hear from YOU before December 31st.

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

And you probably know consumers having trouble finding good food at affordable prices, as well as farmers having trouble getting good food into mainstream markets. Please reach out to them today: the Department of Justice needs to hear their stories.

They are specifically seeking comments and stories about how corporate control of the food system affects average citizens. If you’re concerned that just a few big businesses have so much power over where your food comes from and how it’s produced, be a citizen: tell the government! Your comments will help to inform a series of workshops on the issue in the coming year.

E-mail your comments to BY DECEMBER 31.  Or you can submit two paper copies of your comments to Legal Policy Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 5th Street, NW, Suite 11700, Washington, D.C. 20001. All comments received will be publicly posted – if you’d like your comment to be anonymous, please note that in your email.

(Many thanks to the US Food Crisis Working Group who have put together sample letters and more topic ideas at www.usfoodcrisisgroup.org)

Food you can believe in

by SFUSA President, Josh Viertel

Jonathan Safran Foer and I hold nearly the same beliefs about eating meat. That said, I have a freezer full of goat necks, marrow bones, and pork belly, and he decidedly does not. You see, I eat meat and Jonathan doesn’t.

There is a simple and true notion underlying Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals: people should eat according to their values. Foer’s argument basically goes like this: Everyone has values. Apply your values to the choices you make about food. Sure, everyone’s values are different, but the truth is anyone’s values will do. The problems with food and farming—in particular farming and eating meat—aren’t caused by people holding the wrong values; they are caused by people not applying the values they hold. I agree with him.

[to read the rest of this article, please go to the Huffington Post, where it was first posted]

Small slaughterhouses may catch a break

by intern Emily Stephenson

The USDA is preparing to implement new legislation soon that will allow slaughterhouses with 25 or fewer employees to ship meat across state lines.  At first the news seem innocuous, but it is in fact very exciting for both small farmers and those who support them.

The groundwork for this bill was laid out under the 2008 Farm Bill, which set aside 5 percent of USDA’s business and industry loan guarantee program for local food production, providing the initial building blocks for the Know Your Farm Know Your Food initiative.  Deputy USDA Secretary Kathleen Merrigan credits Congress with providing the initial impetus for the program, though she herself deserves quite a bit of credit too.

“Restoring the link between consumers and local producers will not only open new income opportunities for small farmers and generate wealth that will stay in rural communities, it will also expand access to healthy, fresh, and locally produced food,” said Merrigan.

Know Your Farmer Know Your Food was launched in September of this year, and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack hopes the $65 million program will “begin a national conversation to help develop local and regional food systems and spur economic opportunity.” By connecting local consumers with their local food producers, local wealth stays in local economies, and rural communities get revitalized.  The money has been available in previous years, but the program aims to create a “one stop shop” for local food issues.  And while the initiative does nothing to address the practices of industrial agriculture, it’s great to see small and local getting such well-deserved attention and support.

The news surrounding state-inspected slaughterhouses is particularly groundbreaking. Currently, 27 states operate meat or poultry inspection programs, and FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Services) confirmed that the state program’s requirements are “at least equal to” those under the federal meat and poultry products inspection acts.  For these programs, FSIS provides up to 50 percent of the state’s operating funds, as well as oversight and enforcement.  State-inspected establishments that are not selected for the voluntary program, including state-inspected establishments with more than 25 employees, will remain eligible only to sell and ship their products within their state.

More after the jump

Watch Food Inc. at home with friends

Food Inc., the movie that caused quite a stir earlier this year by exposing the shocking truth about the food we eat, was released today on DVD and Blu-Ray.  As we previously highlighted on this blog, Slow Food USA and many of its chapters were intimately involved in helping to promote and pre-screen this film to shed light on how our food supply is controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, worker safety and our own environment.

What were the reactions of audience members to this film?  What were your own thoughts as you watched it?  What should we be doing to continue to push big Ag to change their ways? How can we help ensure sustainable farming (and growing, processing, distribution) practices become the norm rather than the exception?  Share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

The DVD release also contains some additional footage and news coverage that you may not have seen around the time the film was released, including:

• Celebrity Public Service Announcements
• Resources
• ABC News Nightline “You Are What You Eat”: Food With Integrity
• “The Amazing Food Detective” and “Snacktown Smackdown”: Stay Active and Eat Health
• Deleted Scenes

Also, n.b.: The Center for Ecoliteracy has published a Food, Inc. Discussion Guide, designed a classroom resource for grades 9 to 12. 

The 102-page guide provides questions and activities about the film’s themes, including health, sustainability, animal welfare, and workers’ rights. It is designed to help high school students make more thoughtful choices about food and participate in a meaningful dialogue about food and food systems. 

You can download the Discussion Guide at the Food, Inc. web site.

Pitting Safe Food Against Healthy Food

by Debbie Lehmann, the editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

I’ve been feeling relatively optimistic about the USDA commodity program lately. Offerings are heavy on the meat and the cheese, but they have gotten much healthier over the years. When it comes to providing nutritious food, it seems like cafeterias face larger obstacles, such as maintaining student participation and keeping within tight budgets.

Well, at least that’s what I thought until this weekend. Now, after reading The New York TimesҠterrifying report about the ground beef inspection system, I am convinced that the commodity program has a critical role to play in changing the school food status quo.

The Times article — a scathing indictment of both the meat processing system and our food safety system — traced the meat from a hamburger that sickened 22-year-old Stephanie Smith and left her paralyzed for life. The ground beef was produced by Cargill under the label “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties,” and it was contaminated with a virulent strain of E. coli.

A number of sickening flaws in the meat processing system led to the E. coli in Stephanie Smith’s hamburger. Notably, the meat in Cargill’s patties was “a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.” The Times goes on:

Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together. The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged them to test ingredients first as a way of increasing the chance of finding contamination.

More after the jump

Meatless Monday

Your mentors (Pollan, Nestle, Lappe) have urged you to eat more plants and less meat, for the health of ourselves and the health of our planet. You have, perhaps, nodded in agreement, then forked in another mouthful of meat.

How to put your money where you mouth is?

Many find that making a declaration or taking a pledge can help firm up their commitment and hold them accountable.  This Monday, I introduce to you the Meatless Monday pledge.  The Meatless Monday campaign is an initiative created in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their goal is to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.

The website dishes up the facts--on personal and environmental health benefits--as well as tips, incentives, recipes etc. and summer is a great time to begin--when farm fresh produce is abundant and delicious.

Take the pledge today; make this Monday your first meatless Monday.

FOOD, Inc. goes nationwide

Food, Inc. did so well in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, that it’s headed to 45 more theatres around the country, everywhere from Washington DC to Portland OR to Ft Lauderdale, FL.

It performed better at the box office this past weekend than all the other independent films in release (based on its per screen average).  This is an amazing achievement for a documentary, and a good sign that the public is hungry for the real story of where their food comes from. 

Head to the theatres this weekend!  Tell your friends and neighbors (and then, you know, invite them over for a home cooked meal afterwards).  Click here to see the expanded list of where the movie will be playing starting June 19th.