“With only 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes 1/4 of the natural resources. Meanwhile humanity uses 30% more of the earth’s bio-capacity than can be sustained. At this rate, we’ll need two planets to meet everyone’s needs by 2030. We know the catastrophes that could result from global warming. The only answer, short of total disaster, is to make a rapid transition to full sustainability.” - from the proposal
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer warns us that there is a thriving new business in smuggled honey. As bee populations crash worldwide, honey becomes scarce and therefore more valuable, which inevitably leads to a black market.
Truly worrisome is that big shipments from China that have been laundered by transhipping them through other countries are often tainted. Some smuggled honey contains pesticides or antibiotics not authorized for use in the United States, and many shipments are then diluted with “sugar water or corn syrup.”
Reporter Andrew Schneider also makes it clear that cheap smuggled honey undercuts U.S. growers and that the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (click on their links to complain) are not doing enough to deal with this troubling new situation.
A sweet way to solve your own honey problem is to become a beekeeper yourself. I live in Michigan, and The Michigan Beekeepers Association has information to help fledgling honey producers.
That may be a bit ambitious for many of you, but the good news in Michigan is that Googling will help you find a trusted local beekeeper.
Confusion clouds precisely what happened when sheriff’s deputies arrived at the Manna Storehouse, a food cooperative in rural Lorain County, Ohio, on December 1. As you can see in the video, Jacqueline and John Stowers say that law enforcement officers with guns herded them and their 10 children into one room in the house. Then officers executing a warrant not only confiscated Manna Storehouse food supplies but also the family’s personal store of food for the upcoming year, as well as a computer used for home schooling the children.
A Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter recently outlined the underlying dispute. The Stowers insist they are running a coop, not a retail food store, so they have steadfastly refused to apply for a retail license. The family reportedly asks people who purchase retail beef from them to sign a waiver saying that the purchasers take responsibility for any health risks.
The Plain Dealer quotes Assistant County Prosecutor Scott Serazin as saying, “You just can’t have that. There has to be some kind of regulation and inspection of food.”
Though the Stowers don’t discuss it in the video, there was apparently an incident in 2007 when a health department official was turned away from inspecting the property. Mrs. Stowers then wrote government officials that she felt their farm operation did not require a license and government inspections. The Plain Dealer story says that the health department then sent in an undercover officer who purchased some eggs from the family, and that sale provided the justification for the search warrant.
Since the raid, bloggers of all political stripes, from the left and the right, have taken up the Stowers’ cause. The Constitutional rights group the Buckeye Institute in Ohio is providing legal assistance, and the group helped the couple produce the YouTube video.
Peace Chicken’s blog contains the allegation that the raid was conducted by SWAT teams with weapons drawn. In the Plain Dealer article, the law enforcement authorities involved say they don’t even own any automatic weapons, but they do admit to carrying a shotgun.
The incident reminds me of the clashes between government and the militia groups years ago. Before and after the Oklahoma City bombing years ago, I was assistant director of the Critical Incident Analysis Group (CIAG) at Michigan State University. Our mission was to foster dialogue between the so-called “patriot” groups and the FBI, in the hope that dialogue would help them avert bloodshed such as horrible loss of life at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.
Among the principles we promoted was that maintaining the peace was more easily accomplished when both sides worked hard to avoid displaying any weapons. Last I knew, police did not burst into commercial food wholesalers with guns drawn when tracking down suspects who sold tainted spinach that actually killed people. So I cannot understand why such heavy-handed tactics were required to deal with a family with 10 children living at home.
Clashes between government and farmers involved in direct retailing to consumers are on the rise. The Daily News reported last May an incident where an Amish farmer from Pennsylvania was handcuffed and arrested for transporting raw milk over state lines into Delaware and New York. Incidents in other states underscore rising tensions.
I fondly remember the “egg man” who used to stop at our house every week when I was a kid. We always bought at least two dozen brown-shelled eggs that tasted better than any I have ever had since. While I recognize that eggs can contain dangerous strains of salmonella, the issue is whether the egg man is more or less likely to give sell me eggs that will make me sick compared to the commercial egg produced who cram de-beaked chickens together in cages that never let their feet touch the ground.
Before we find ourselves facing future incidents that turn violent, it would seem wise for USDA, state departments of agriculture and state health departments to invest in listening tours. Maybe the new sustainable ag movement requires policy changes that allow small-scale growers more flexibility in selling direct. And maybe small-scale growers need to understand the benefits of complying with appropriate regulations.
And law enforcement should definitely re-think using strong-arm tactics against farm families with no apparent provocation. Community policing provides some excellent models for bringing groups together in problem-solving sessions that might well result in wiser policies and practices for all.
ABC’s Jake Tapper is reporting that President-Elect Barack Obama will name former Iowa Governor Tom (Mr. Monsanto) Vilsack as the new secretary of agriculture. As recently as the Monday before Thanksgiving, the Des Moines Register reported that Vilsack felt he was out of the running, but it appears he will now be named soon.
Sustainable and organic groups had urged Obama to pass over the pro-biotechnology and pro-ethanol governor for a more enlightened choice. The Organic Consumers Association recently published Six Reasons why appointing Vilack would be a “terrible idea,” with the former governor’s support for genetically engineered pharmaceutical corn at the top of the list, followed by his eagerness to see cloning of dairy cows.
Those of us who were encouraged by Obama’s choice of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy are truly disappointed to see Vilsack chosen as the person in charge of protecting our food. Perhaps the best we can hope for now is that the in-coming ag secretary will take the time to read Michael Pollan’s Letter to the Farmer-in-Chief, in which the author of Omnivore’s Dilemma argues for a “sun-food” agenda where Washington leaders take the lead in promoting fresh, healthy, local food.
Can pressure from organic and sustainable groups help Vilsack grow if he does take office? Blog for Rural America recently asked Vilsack to name his top priorities for the job. “”There will be an opportunity next year with the re-authorization of child nutrition programs to address that need first. The Conservation Stewardship Program must be more adequately funded than in the past to preserve our most precious resources - our soil and water. And rural entrepreneurial development, next generation biofuels, expanded wind/solar/geo-thermal uses for land, specialty crops, local foods efforts and rural, high-speed broadband internet access need investment,” Vilsack added.
While there is much to applaud in support for feeding children, promoting “specialty crops” and extending broadband into rural areas, it is Vilsack’s unrelenting cheerleading for GMO foods and for ethanol that make him such a poor choice. (For concerns about the global impact of patented GMO seed produced by companies such as Monsanto, watch this YouTube video about the 1300 suicides among cotton farmers in India in 2006.) If President Obama is serious about dealing with issues such as climate change and food security for all people, he should have reached outside the circle of people like Vilsack who do not offer change we can believe in.
Gus Schumacher, Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
Mark Ritchie, current Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.
Two images symbolize for me what we should be thankful for today.
In his famous lecture "An Inconvenient Truth," Former Vice President Al Gore uses the image of NASA’s Earthrise to remind us that we are just a pale blue dot swimming in an ocean of black and uncaring space. It’s a vivid reminder that we had better take good care of that fragile blue speck we live on.
The second image, Moon Landscape, is a pencil drawing done by young Petr Ginz, who tried to imagine what the earth would look like from space. Petr was a precocious Czechoslovakian boy who created this image to illustrate a science fiction novel called "Visit from Prehistory" that he wrote in 1940 at age 12.
Petr’s father was Jewish, so, two years later, at age 14, Petr was deported to Terezin, a concentration camp for children of "mixed" marriages. Even there, Petr served as editor of a magazine called Vedem, produced with other boys his age.
Petr was transferred to Auschwitz Birkenau when he was 15. According to Leo Lowy, who worked on the magazine with Petr, when they were sent together to Auschwitz, Petr was told to go left, directly to his death in the gas chamber, while Leo was told to go right into the camp.
Petr’s sister survived Terezin and was able to save Petr’s work. A copy of this drawing was later carried into space by the space shuttle Columbia. His image reminds me why we need to make good choices.
While some might see that as a grim story for a Thanksgiving day, I am old enough to remember seeing Holocaust in my neighborhood with those telling numbers on their arms. And so I am thankful that this country has a history of turning toward the light, away from dead-ended darkness.
We are undoubtedly entering tough times, so I am especially thankful for the signs the country is coming together to find common ground in solving our problems. We should be proud that we have elected a new president with the apparent intelligence and maturity to keep us moving forward. We have more than enough evidence of the dangers of giving in to our fears. Let’s be thankful that we now seem to be heading in the right direction. And let’s make sure to take care of each other.
An op/ed by Texas A&M professor James E. McWilliams in the New York Times says that at least some of our problem with melamine in food comes from industrial ag practices. He writes that fertilizer companies “commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck.” McWilliams also says that melamine is regularly used in other industrial practices, which means it often ends up in our soil, as so many chemical compounds do.
This is in addition to the worldwide trade in wheat gluten, often a source of melamine contamination. As McWilliams rightly notes, global trade means such products whiz around the world, so no one knows precisely where the contamination comes from.
It is also interesting to note how many more people are being diagnosed with celiac disease, where the intestines become inflamed from eating wheat gluten. I know that I have felt tremendously better now that I am eliminating all wheat gluten from my diet. But is it wheat gluten itself or wheat gluten tainted by melamine (or both) that is the real culprit?
Bottom line is that McWilliams says that we need a major revision in our ag policies if we have any hope of keeping these toxins out of our diet. At the rate that poisonous chemicals flow toward our fields, even organic practices may not be enough to save us from polluting ourselves as we eat the good we need to stay alive.
This Cuban dairy cow is standing in front of a pasture dotted with “los pedestales,” rows of tent-like wire structures with protein-rich legumes growing inside. The five-foot-tall hedges of Glycenia supplement the cows’ traditional diet of grass which results in higher milk production.
There is growing interest in the United States in grazing dairy cattle on pasture. However, the challenge is providing the animals enough protein to maintain acceptable levels of milk production. While the output from these Cuban cows is a fifth or less what U.S. dairy cows typically produce, the inputs are far less, and the practices are far more sustainable.
An article published last summer in the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association summer issue discusses a new Canadian-Cuban project to boost dairy production in Cuba. Like all food production, milk production plummeted in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Cuba’s entire industrial food production system was dependent on imported fuel and fertilizer from the USSR, and when those supplies stopped flowing, Cuba faced an agricultural Armageddon.
During the period that Fidel Castro dubbed the “special” time, Cuban adults typically lost between 20 to 30 pounds as a result of the food shortages. A Canadian TV series called The Nature of Things featured an hour-long show, “Cuba: The Accidental Revolution (Part 1), that focused on the progress that Cuba has made in rebuilding its food system using sustainable, organic farming practices, including the use of these novel pedestals, which were reportedly invented by Fidel’s brother Raul, who now runs the country.
According to an article by Canadian agrologist Wendy Holm, the system relies on using solar-powered fences to rotate the cows through pastures filled with the legume-covered trellises. The wire structures protect the growing plants from the cows, while allowing the plants to grow vertically, which means that they take up less space.
“Three hectares of pedestals offer 52 micropastures per hectare for five or six cows per micropasture on a 52-day rotation. Rotational pastures without pedestals are 1/4 hectare in size, are separated by single-wire, solar-powered electrical fences, and have 12 to 15 cows per hectare. Cows involved in the year-long demonstration project had triple the milk output of cows on pasture alone.” - Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
The “Holm Team” article also noted that Holm encouraged separating calves from their mothers at birth and hand-rearing them to prepare their rumens for earlier milk production. Future plans include a three-year project in droughty Bayamo, Cuba, where sewage from homes will be run through wetlands before being used to irrigate pasture.
The Canadian researchers are on record saying that pedestals would not work well back home. Yet it would seem that there is a kernel of an idea here worth pursuing, even in colder climes. One of the drawbacks to pasturing dairy cattle is that U.S. farmland prices remain high. A system that makes the most of each acre of land seems worth exploring further.
More information on pedestals and the Canadian/Cuban dairy project:
The Center for Food Safety urges a moratorium on selling crops produced from GMO (genetically modified organisms) seed because a new study from Austria shows a possible link to infertility in mice. Research conducted by Dr. Jürgen Zentek, Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Vienna, showed that mice fed GMO corn raised from Monsanto seed had fewer offspring than mice fed conventional corn.
“This study should serve as a wake-up call to governments around the world that genetically engineered foods could cause long-term health damage,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety.
The research reportedly not only showed statistically significant increases in infertility in the mice fed the GMO grain, but the mice with the highest rates of infertility were the mice who had eaten the GMO foods the longest. The variety used in the study was Monsanto’s popular YieldGard (Plus)/Roundup Ready that produces corn that often ends up being fed to cattle or used to produce the high-fructose corn syrup that is added to thousands of food products nationwide. (Click here to download the English translation of the full study as a PDF.)
Scientists around the world continue to question whether the process of genetic engineering contains hidden dangers. The British Institute of Science in Society published a study by researcher Dr. Mae-Wan Ho that raises concerns that a by-product of genetically altering the seeds used to raise foodstuffs could unintentionally increase problems of antibiotic resistance.
Hungarian-born scientist Dr. Arpad Pusztai conducted a $1.2 million two-year study on GMO potatoes at the Rowett Research Center in Scotland that raised questions about whether mice fed these potatoes suffered damage to their intestinal tracts. (Click here for an the study later published in The Lancet.)
An article in the Australian newspaper the Herald-Sun argues that scientists who pursue research on possible dangers associated with GMO foods often find their careers in jeopardy. The resulting chill on researchers raises the concern that the only “news” we receive about GMO foods is corporate spin from the agri-giants who are heavily invested in this technology’s future success.
As President-Elect Barack Obama assembles his new team, let’s hope superstar chef Gordon Ramsay makes the shortlist to head USDA.
Ramsay’s show Kitchen Nightmares began on the BBC years ago. Fortunately for our in-coming president, the bombastic Scot has moved to Fox in time to lend his formidable culinary and management skills to Obama’s new “kitchen” cabinet. Faithful viewers know that Gordo’s shows follow a three-point formula that could serve as the foundation for welcome reforms to U. S. food policy:
Keep it clean - With Chef Ramsay running USDA, you would never have to worry about e coli, salmonella, listeria, botulinum or any other creepy crawly food poison. A staple of the show involves an opening scene where Gordo dines alone on the restaurant’s specialties (and mutters into the camera about how dreadful they are). Then Chef Ramsey inevitably discovers a kitchen so filthy that eating off the floor might be preferable to ingesting anything from the cooler.
In a recent episode, at Jack’s Waterfront just down the road from me in St. Clair Shores, MI, Chef Ramsay (as always) shrieked “I ate here!” while waving a pan of beige goo that no longer bore any resemblance to an edible foodstuff. (OT - Don’t any of these restaurant owners watch the other episodes? Don’t they know that Chef Ramsay will inevitably stick his potato-like nose into every crook, cranny and crevice? Or do Ramsay’s producer-elves sneak in before his visit armed with trays of putrifying foodstuffs and congealed-grease gobbets to trowel under the grill?)
In any event, a USDA run by Chef Ramsay would undoubtedly implement and enforce rules that would keep our food clean, fresh and healthy from farm to fork.
Support local food - Another staple in Chef Ramsay’s entertainment pantry are the scenes where he discovers delectable and nourishing local foods that the clearly clueless restaurant owners have ignored in favor serving frozen or canned crap. The local produce is not only fresher and tastier, but global warming reminds us why we can no longer afford to waste fuel hauling food across the country when there are healthier and equally affordable options nearby.
Kudos to Ramsay for showcasing locally produced Michigan apples in last week’s episode (he gingered them as an accompaniment to roast pork). But Ramsay’s fondness for local fare may have been stretched a bit too far on that same show when he made a stew from the fish caught by a man ice fishing outside the restaurant. The Great Lakes remain enough of a toxic soup that the 2008 Michigan Family Fish Consumption Guide warns people not to eat those yellow perch more than once a week - once a month for kids and pregnant women. I will cut Scotsman Ramsay some slack, since he may not know that fish from the Great Lakes come pre-seasoned with mercury and PCBs. (Did that red fox eat too many perch and then curl up on die on that fisherman’s hat?)
No slackers allowed - Food schmood. The real reason that people tune in to Chef Ramsay’s show is to watch him whip the snivelers, the slackers, the whiners and the crazies into shape during his week-long visit. (Is everyone who opens a restaurant a borderline whack job or do they just play them on TV?)
Like every other celebrity broadcast bully (Dr. Laura and Sean Hannity quickly come to mind), Chef Ramsay pummels and kneads people until they rise to the task. However, cruel and profane as the hatchet-faced Ramsay may be, those of us who remember, “Good job, Brownie,” secretly long for someone like him to take charge of our faltering food system. Use a banned pesticide? Abuse animals at the slaughterhouse? Cut corners on food labeling? With Chef Ramsay in charge, the miscreants would only do it once.
Kudos to Ramsay for showcasing locally produced Michigan apples in last week’s episode (he gingered them as an accompaniment to roast pork). But Ramsay’s fondness for local fare may have been stretched a bit too far on that same show when he made a stew from the fish caught by a man ice fishing outside the restaurant. The Great Lakes remain enough of a toxic soup that the 
