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Regional Farm & Food Project January 2008 News If you think the public has a right to know, these 9 news stories should interest you! 9 news stories...
+ C A L E N D A R & C L A S S I F I E D S * * * 1. Regional Farm & Food Project Annual Member Meeting The Annual Meeting of the Regional Farm & Food Project will be held on Monday, January 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm at Java Jazz Café, 318 Delaware Avenue, Main Square Shoppes, Delmar, New York. This meeting is also the quarterly meeting of the Farm & Food Network, our business-to-business network for farm and food entrepreneurs. After a brief business meeting and RFFP board elections, Bill Reinhardt of NYSERDA will make a presentation on the NYSERDA Controlled Environment Agriculture program. All are welcome. Please join us. For more information on NYSERDA's Controlled Environment Agriculture program go to http://www.nyserda.org/programs/industry/CEA.asp 2. New York Farming & Climate Instability New York Farming & Climate Instability This is an educational program for New York State legislators and their staff members presented by Regional Farm & Food Project, Honest Weight Food Co-op and the New York Chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. Members of every level of government—county, town, village— are invited to attend. Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, IPCC/NASA scientist at Columbia University, will speak about climate instability and its impact on agriculture. Following a panel of farmers will discuss the issues and practical solutions. Topics that will be discussed:
For more information, invitations, handouts and e-mail invites, contact RFFP board member, Louise Maher-Johnson, maherjohnson@gmail.com, (518) 234-1942. 3. Where Do You Stand on the North American Union? The North American Union is a plan to unite Canada, the United States, and Mexico into one economic trading area controlled by a central government. It takes the North American Free Trade Agreement one step further in that the plan includes not only eliminating national borders, but uniting our three currencies, and creating a supra-government that would have powers exceeding our three national governments. The North American Union is modeled on the European Union. The currency has already been named the Amero. This may sound far fetched to you if you have not heard about it before, but meetings to plan something that looks a lot like the North American Union have been going on for a couple years under the rubric "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America". Reasonable people can debate whether the Security and Prosperity Partnership will lead to the North American Union, or if the North American Union is fear mongering by the anti-NAFTA contingent. Below are some links where you can learn more about it. In particular, the first YouTube video includes compelling excerpts from the very few newscasts that have even mentioned it, and the second YouTube video includes a CNBC story on the Amero. Once you have informed yourself about what the North American Union is (or could be), here are a few things you can do to promote a constructive dialogue:
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
4. In Pennsylvania Milk Drinkers Don't Have the Right to Know The Philadelphia Inquirer WASHINGTON BORO — Twenty years ago, John Harnish was happy if his cows each yielded 17,000 pounds of milk a year. These days, his 145 black-and-white animals are veritable dairy queens — producing a hefty 27,000 pounds each. He credits most of the increase to breeding, more frequent milking, and better feed. Another factor comes straight from the biotech lab: biweekly injections of synthetic growth hormone. If you don’t like that, you won’t like this: As of Feb. 1 in Pennsylvania, consumers won’t be able to tell the difference between milk from farms that inject their cows and milk from those that don’t. The state Agriculture Department has forbidden dairies that don’t use the hormone from touting that fact on milk-bottle labels, contending it gives the impression that milk like Harnish’s is unsafe. It is the first such move in the nation, and the ensuing debate has spilled from the aisles at Whole Foods to the halls of Harrisburg, where the governor’s office is reviewing the decision. “Every dairy state in the country is watching Pennsylvania. This is huge and they’re waiting to see what’s happening here,” said dairy farmer Ron Reese, of Worth Township. After extensive study, and 14 years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone for use, there is indeed no proof that milk from injected cows is unsafe. But some researchers say questions about the drug’s impacts remain unanswered. And critics say its effects on bovine health — including an increase in mastitis, an udder infection — are reason enough to ban it. That’s a key reason it cannot be used on cows in Europe and Canada. At the very least, farmers should be allowed to say if they don’t inject, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Consumers Union. “Consumers have a basic right to know what’s in the foods they eat, and how they are produced,” Hansen said. Reese said he has been injecting the growth hormone into his herd of about 220 cows since 1994. He figures it helps generate an extra 10 pounds of milk per cow daily. The average cow on his farm produces 75 pounds — above the state average of 60 pounds, but below the 90 pounds some farmers see. Increased production lowers costs for consumers and helps farmers, he said. And, he said, “it has been demonstrated to be utterly safe for cows.” He said the labels that are at the center of the debate just confuse customers and don’t give information about the quality of the project. The use of the labels — which he has not seen in any local supermarkets — seems to be driven by people with an agenda, he said. “They are giving the consumers the idea the product there with this special label is different,” he said. “Consumers are largely unaware.” Bellefonte farmer Dan Ulmer milks about 300 cows. He declined to say whether he uses the growth hormone, instead focusing on the labeling, which he said creates unnecessary concern for consumers. “All the products that are in the store on the shelf have been tested multiple times,” Ulmer said. “You can be assured that they’re safe.” Harnish, who farms 200 acres in western Lancaster County, said some of his competitors’ labels are misleading and said some have been downright inaccurate, making such claims as “hormone-free.” All milk contains hormones, whether the natural or the almost-identical synthetic variety. Harnish said his herd is just as healthy as it was before he started using the synthetic version, made by St. Louis-based Monsanto. He says the product, called Posilac, is one of the success stories of American technology. “We’re just born and bred to find the newest and the best and the fastest whatever way to do something,” he said. “And so in the farming industry, we’ve done that.” Technically called recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), Posilac differs from natural bovine growth hormone by just one amino acid out of 191. At Harnish’s farm, a cow gets a 500-milligram shot two months after she gives birth, then every 14 days thereafter. Harnish said Posilac boosts his milk production by about 10 percent, though about half of the additional revenue is spent on the hormone and on extra feed needed to fuel the higher milk output. Posilac is used on perhaps one-third of U.S. dairy herds, Monsanto officials said. Milk from untreated cows is often a bit more expensive than that from treated animals. But it is cheaper than milk with the full-blown organic designation, which requires farmers to take the additional step of not spraying cattle feed with synthetic pesticides. Pamela Bane, who had just finished shopping recently at a local Whole Foods store, said she would not buy milk if the label said nothing about hormones. “I watch the labels on everything. I don’t want to feed my children all that junk, that man-made garbage,” said Bane. The Pennsylvania labeling changes would not affect the federal organic designation, only wording related to hormones. Monsanto has lobbied for similar changes in other states, so far unsuccessfully; company officials say they’ve played no direct role here. State Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said he ordered the changes after hearing repeatedly from people in the dairy industry. He once used the hormone on his own dairy farm, though his family got out of the business in 1999. Wolff said his move was prompted by several concerns. Among them: the inaccurate “hormone-free” labels that were uncovered in a departmental review, and other labels claiming that the milk came from cows not treated with rBST. Those labels wrongly imply that other milk — from treated cows — is less healthful, he said. And with no commercial test to tell the difference between the two, consumers don’t know if the packaging is accurate, he said. All references to hormones on milk labels were banned in Pennsylvania under the new standards, announced Oct. 22. After the move sparked a heated debate, Wolff delayed the Jan. 1 start date by one month for a review. “Is there labeling that informs the consumer without implying that it’s a safer product?” Wolff said. “That’s what we’re looking at right now, and trying to determine if there is language like that that may be acceptable.” For those who study effects on human health, the main issue is not bovine growth hormone itself. Neither the natural nor the synthetic version is “bioactive” in humans. The research has focused on another protein found in milk: insulin-like growth factor 1. IGF-1 also is naturally present in the blood of cows and humans, in identical form, and at high levels it has been associated with certain human cancers. And people who regularly drink milk have somewhat higher IGF-1 levels in their blood. Yet these increases are very small compared to the natural range of human IGF-1 levels, said oncologist Michael Pollak, director of McGill University’s Division of Cancer Prevention in Montreal. As for a possible cancer link, he said, “there’s no real smoking gun.” But a question remains: In milk from cows treated with synthetic hormones, levels of IGF-1 can be even higher — by 25 percent to 70 percent, according to a 1999 review by a European Union scientific panel. So does milk from hormone-treated cows — with the higher IGF-1 levels — have an even greater impact on the IGF-1 blood levels of people who drink it? The answer is not simple. Scientists disagree on whether any of that IGF-1 in milk survives the human digestive process and ends up in the bloodstream — or whether all the IGF-1 found in people is made by the human body. In one study, researchers placed radioactive markers on IGF-1 and fed it to rats; they later detected the markers in the animals’ blood. The amounts were even higher when the rats also were fed casein, a milk protein. Mike Lormore, a doctor of veterinary medicine at Monsanto, was skeptical of that result. He said that the growth factor might have been digested and the markers continued into the blood on their own. Janet Rich-Edwards, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, called the matter “unsettled.” There is no dispute, however, that Posilac can affect the health of cows. The product label cautions that injected cows are at increased risk of mastitis and “may have reduced pregnancy rates.” A review by Health Canada — that country’s equivalent of the FDA — estimated an 11 percent to 19 percent increase in mastitis, which is treated with antibiotics. Monsanto’s Lormore said the increase was small when compared to other mastitis risks such as poor sanitation. “Just like if you pick up some Tylenol, there’s a label with everything known to man that can possibly ever go wrong with Tylenol,” Lormore said. “The risk of those side effects is deemed to be very low and manageable.” As of now, the new Pennsylvania standards will take effect in February. And Harnish, the Lancaster County farmer, is happy with the change. “There’s something to be said for truth in labeling,” Harnish said. “But I think we have to be real careful that the labeling does not imply something that’s not true.” Centre Daily Times Staff Writer Jennifer Thomas contributed to this report. http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/v-print/story/304516.html 5. Northeast Dairy Leaders to meet January 17-18 in Oneonta, NY Milk labeling and rBST, raw milk sales, and animal well-being standards are on the issues-oriented agenda when the Northeast Dairy Leadership Team meets, from Jan. 17 – 18 in Oneonta. The meeting is open to farmers, agri-service representatives and industry personnel with an interest in the northeast dairy industry. The Northeast Dairy Leadership Team grew from a June 2006 memorandum of understanding signed by the agricultural commissioners from New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, agreeing that the states should work collaboratively to address dairy issues from a regional perspective. The commissioners were invited to re-sign the MOU at 10 a.m. Jan. 18. The Northeast Dairy Leadership Team has hosted a series of forums to identify opportunities and barriers to success in the dairy industry, coordinated educational workshops, and encouraged legislative action favorable to dairy farming and the dairy industry. The January meeting will include presentations on a milk quality initiative, dairy check-off programs, and CAFO regulations. Mark Stephenson of Cornell University’s agricultural economics department will discuss the potential impact of less rBST use on the milk supply. Brad Keating of Dairy Marketing Services will provide an overview of milk marketing policies and issues throughout the country. Raw milk regulations by state will be discussed. For a full agenda and list of speakers, visit www.agriculture.state.pa.us/cde/. Go to ``News and Events,’’ then ``Events and Calendars,’’ then ``Northeast Dairy Leadership Team.’’ To register for the meeting, contact your state’s representative. In New York, contact Mark Kenville at (315) 453-3823. In Vermont, contact Diane Bothfeld (802)828-3835. In Pennsylvania, contact John Frey at (717)346-0849. 6. How Will You Know if You're Eating Meat or Milk from Clones? Cloned Livestock Poised to Receive FDA Clearance Get ready for a food fight over milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring. After more than six years of wrestling with the question of whether meat and milk from them are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to declare as early as next week that they are. The FDA had asked producers of cloned livestock not to sell food products from such animals pending its ruling on their safety. It isn't clear whether the FDA will lift this voluntary hold. While many consumer groups still oppose it, the FDA declaration that cloned animal products are safe would be a milestone for a small cadre of biotech companies that want to make a business out of producing copies of prize dairy cows and other farm animals -- effectively taking the selective breeding practiced on farms for centuries to the cutting edge. Because of the price tag -- cloned cattle cost $15,000 to $20,000 per copy -- most of the cloned animals will be used for breeding, and it will be three to five years before consumers see milk and meat from their offspring. Some animal breeders in the U.S. have already been experimenting with cloning animals. ViaGen Inc., the largest animal-cloning company in the nation, has cloned animals, such as a cow named Peggy Sue. Consumer wariness toward cloned food may lead to a backlash from opponents in Congress and other markets, such as the European Union, who are concerned that not enough data are available for a viable study on the safety of the products. There are also ethical worries because cloned animals tend to have more health problems at birth than conventionally bred animals. The food industry appears to be divided over the issue. Some big food companies say they're not interested in trying to market products from cloned animals or their offspring. "Most consumers do not find this appealing," says Marguerite Copel, vice president of corporate communications at Dean Foods Co., one of the nation's largest milk producers, which says it won't sell any milk from cloned animals. Dean and others in the food industry are also worried that there is no mandatory tracking system in place for products from clones or their progeny. The Food Marketing Institute, which represents food retailers and wholesalers, says its members tend to "strongly believe" that they must be notified if any of their suppliers intend to introduce cloned animals into the food supply. "Whole Foods Market is committed to providing consumers with clone-free products," says Margaret Wittenberg, global vice president of quality standards and public affairs for grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. "The lack of effective governmental oversight and tracking could mean consumers will lose the ability to choose clone-free products." ViaGen and Trans Ova Genetics, another of the three livestock-cloning companies in the U.S., recently announced a voluntary tracking system that will help food makers, slaughterhouses and marketers to prove, if they choose, that they aren't selling such foods. The program doesn't cover the offspring of clones, however. Jeffrey Barach, vice president at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the largest trade group for the food and beverage industry, says that as consumers become more educated, they'll become more accepting of such products, if they even notice them. The meat industry is more bullish on cloned products than the dairy industry. The American Meat Institute Foundation, which represents large meat companies like Smithfield Foods Inc. and Hormel Foods Corp., thinks consumers might even come to appreciate the technology when they find superior products in the grocery-store freezer, like leaner and larger cuts of meat. For producers it might mean cows that have fewer calving problems or greater milk production. "These animals are not some kind of freaks of nature," says James Hodges, president of the group. But Tyson Foods Inc., also a member of the institute and one of the nation's largest producers of beef, says the company "currently has no plans to purchase cloned livestock, especially since it will likely be a long time before such animals" are available for market. The FDA tentatively ruled in 2006 that milk and meat from cloned cattle, swine and goats are no different from healthy, conventionally bred adult animals. The agency has called cloning merely "a more advanced form of" breeding technologies already widely used in the cattle industry, such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization. Consumers, however, have a long history of turning up their noses at technological innovations in food. It took years for consumers to accept pasteurized milk as safe. Some consumers and consumer groups still refer to genetically altered foods, like those that contain genetically modified corn or soybeans, as "Frankenfood" even though such products have been on the market for more than a decade. Many consumer groups and some members of Congress are vehemently opposed to cloned foods reaching grocery shelves. The Senate version of the proposed farm bill contained an amendment from Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D., Md.,) that would mandate that the FDA wait until further studies are done before releasing its final assessment of food from cloned animals. Joseph Mendelson, legal director of Center for Food Safety, a consumer-advocacy group, said his group has filed a petition for the FDA to regulate cloned animals as an animal drug, as it is considering with genetically modified animals. (Clones are genetically identical copies and the sequence of their genes are not modified.) "Once the FDA says these products are safe and that they are out there, it's very hard to turn it back," Mr. Mendelson said. The FDA's decision has been closely watched by regulators around the world. There are already livestock clones in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand, but they have rarely entered the food supply. The European Food Safety Authority, the European Union's version of the FDA, will likely deliver its initial assessment on food from cloned animals next week, but the final decision won't come for several months. In addition, a special commission called the European Group for Ethics is conducting its own studies on the question of whether cloning is inhumane. U.S. food companies could face more trouble from European Union regulators and consumers, who are unlikely to respond favorably to the idea of eating cloned animals or their offspring. According to a recent poll, 55% of Italians think the EU should ban food made from cloned animals. The EU already bans most meat imported from the U.S. because it's often raised using hormones. (It imports only $70 million worth of meat a year from the U.S.) Similarly, trade rules allow the EU to ban the import of cloned animal food if it's for health and safety reasons. Different regulatory approaches across the Atlantic may affect trade, especially in the EU dairy sector. The EU is the world's biggest dairy exporter, at $33 billion a year, and farmers need the best producing cows to stay competitive. Currently, the best breeders are in the U.S., and the EU buys $23 million worth of bull semen from the U.S. every year. European breeders are worried that a ban on any derivatives of cloned animals would limit their access to the world's most productive cows. The European Forum of Farm Animal Breeders is lobbying the EU to make an exception for bull semen, even if it bans other types of cloned animal products. "Product from cloned animals cannot be distinguished from non-cloned," it wrote in a recent letter to the EU Commission. MORE Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved 7. Update on USDA Initiatives from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition USDA's Proposed "Naturally-Raised" Meat Label: Help prevent USDA from developing a new "naturally raised" label that would mislead consumers and undermine the vibrant markets created by sustainable livestock producers! Please submit comments opposing USDA's proposal by the January 28th deadline!! Click here for an action alert with more background and directions for submitting comments (including suggested talking points). If USDA's proposal goes through, livestock producers could label their meat USDA verified "naturally raised" without any concern for animal welfare or environmental stewardship and without the animals ever necessarily stepping foot on pasture. Producers would only be required to certify that their livestock were never given antibiotics, hormones, or animal byproducts. While these proposed requirements address very important concerns, this could more simply and accurately be signaled through "no supplemental hormones added" and "no antibiotic used" labels USDA had previously proposed in conjunction with the recently approved grassfed label, and another label claim under review for "free range" and "pasture raised." Feeding of animal byproducts could be addressed with a "no animal byproducts fed" label claim. We support labels that are easy for consumers to interpret and that producers could use in appropriate combination to communicate with their clientele. However, should USDA's draft proposal for a vague and non-comprehensive "naturally raised" claim proceed, consumers will be confused and consumer confidence in all USDA verified or certified labels would no doubt decline. In addition, the integrity of the markets that took decades for sustainable livestock producers to create, and upon which increasing numbers of consumers rely, would be seriously jeopardized. + USDA Releases New "Business Plan" and User Guide for National Animal ID System: On December 19, USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service issued a "business model" for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the form of a draft Business Plan for Advancing Animal Disease Traceability. The draft business plan is on the web here. The business plan is in response to a cut of NAIS funding in the FY2008 Omnibus Appropriations Act by two-thirds to less than $10 million. Appropriators were concerned about how USDA has spent NAIS funding to date and requested that USDA lay out concrete steps and costs in a "business plan" for moving forward with a voluntary NAIS. USDA is taking public comments on the draft. For information on submitting comments, see the Federal Register Notice. The draft plan includes a breakdown by species and lays out seven strategies that involve state and federally regulated and voluntary animal health programs, industry-administered animal management and marketing programs, as well as various animal identification techniques. USDA says the plan draws on already existing systems and data and reduces the cost, amount of time and effort needed to implement a NAIS. USDA indicated it will continue to review and update the plan which is intended to achieve a goal of tracing back the location of a diseased animal through its life within 48-hours of detecting selected animal diseases. USDA has also released for review and public comment a User Guide for the NAIS which is on the web here. + 2008 NOP Sunset Review Announced: An advanced notice of proposed rulemaking announcing the National Organic Program's 2008 Sunset Review process was published in the Federal Register. The Sunset Review Process refers to the review of exempted (allowed) and prohibited substances for organic production and handling on the National List. Each substance, within 5 years of its inclusion on the National List must be agreed upon to be renewed on the National List, otherwise the substance exemption or prohibition sunsets. This year, 11 exempted substances and 1 prohibited substance added to the National List in 2003 are up for review. This means, unless renewed, agar-agar, carageenan, and Tartaric acid currently allowed for use in organic handling and animal enzymes, calcium sulfate, Glucono delta lactone, and cellulose currently allowed for use in organic handling will no longer be allowed for use after November 3 and 4, 2008, respectively. Similarly, unless renewed, Copper Sulfate, Ozone gas, Peracetic acid, and EPA List 3 Inerts, currently allowed for use in organic crop production will not be allowed for use after November 3, 2008. Additionally, unless its prohibition is renewed, Calcium chloride currently prohibited, except as a foliar spray to treat a physiological disorder associated with calcium uptake, will be allowed after November 3, 2008. Comments on whether to renew these substances exemptions or prohibitions must be submitted by January 28, 2008. These comments will be used by NOSB to provide guidance to the Secretary on issuing a proposed rule, at which point, another opportunity to comment on these substances will be available. The Federal Register notice, which includes guidance on how to submit comments, is here. 8. "The Price of Sugar" Narrated by Paul Newman http://www.thepriceofsugar.com On the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians have toiled under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education or healthcare. "The Price of Sugar" follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere's poorest people, challenging powerful interests profiting from their work. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced. Narrated by Paul Newman, "The Price of Sugar" raises key questions about where the products we consume originate, at what cost they are produced and ultimately, where our responsibility lies. 9. "What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?" by Richard Heinberg EXCERPTS: Our global food system faces a crisis of unprecedented scope. This crisis, which threatens to imperil the lives of hundreds of millions and possibly billions of human beings, consists of four simultaneously colliding dilemmas, all arising from our relatively recent pattern of dependence on depleting fossil fuels. The first dilemma consists of the direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs. The second is an indirect consequence of high oil prices - the increased demand for biofuels, which is resulting in farmland being turned from food production to fuel production, thus making food more costly. The third dilemma consists of the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is the greatest environmental crisis of our time; however, fossil fuel depletion complicates the situation enormously, and if we fail to address either problem properly the consequences will be dire. Finally comes thedegradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy. Each of these problems is developing at a somewhat different pace regionally, and each is exacerbated by the continually expanding size of the human population. As these dilemmas collide, the resulting overall food crisis is likely to be profound and unprecedented in scope. I propose to discuss each of these dilemmas briefly and to show how all are intertwined with our societal reliance on oil and other fossil fuels. I will then argue that the primary solution to the overall crisis of the world food system must be a planned rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels in the growing and delivery of food. As we will see, this strategy, though ultimately unavoidable, will bring enormous problems of its own unless it is applied with forethought and intelligence. But the organic movement is uniquely positioned to guide this inevitable transition of the world's food systems away from reliance on fossil fuels, if leaders and practitioners of the various strands of organic agriculture are willing to work together and with policy makers. ... Today, in the industrialized world, the frequency of famine that our ancestors knew and expected is hard to imagine. Food is so cheap and plentiful that obesity is a far more widespread concern than hunger. The average mega-supermarket stocks an impressive array of exotic foods from across the globe, and even staples are typically trucked or shipped from hundreds of miles away. All of this would be well and good if it were sustainable, but the fact that nearly all of this recent abundance depends on depleting, non-renewable fossil fuels whose burning emits climate-altering carbon dioxide gas means that the current situation is not sustainable. This means that it must and will come to an end. ... During these past two years, as oil prices have soared, food prices have done so as well. Farmers now face steeply increasing costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs. However, the linkage between fuel and food prices is more complicated than this, and there are other factors entirely separate from petroleum costs that have impacted food prices. I will attempt to sort these various linkages and influences out in a moment. First, however, it is worth taking a moment to survey the food price situation. An article by John Vidal published in the Guardian on November 3, titled "Global Food Crisis Looms As Climate Change and Fuel Shortages Bite," began this way: "Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products. Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18 percent food price inflation in China, 13 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10 percent or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50 percent higher than a year ago and rice is 20 percent more expensive. . . . Last week the Kremlin forced Russian companies to freeze the price of milk, bread and other foods until January 31. . . . India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had, or been close to, food riots in the last year. . . . Meanwhile, there are shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as governments try to keep a lid on food price inflation." Jacques Diouf, head of the FAO, said in London early this month, "If you combine the increase of the oil prices and the increase of food prices then you have the elements of a very serious [social] crisis. . . ." FAO statistics show that grain stocks have been declining for more than a decade and now stand at a mere 57 days, the lowest level in a quarter century, threatening what it calls "a very serious crisis." According to Josette Sheeran, director of the UN's World Food Program (WFP), "There are 854 million hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year. We are facing the tightest food supplies in recent history. For the world's most vulnerable, food is simply being priced out of their reach." ... To be sure, higher food prices are good for farmers - assuming that at least some of the increase in price actually translates to higher income for growers. This is indeed the case for the poorest farmers, who have never adopted industrial methods. But for many others, the higher prices paid for food simply reflect higher production costs. Meanwhile, it is the urban poor who are impacted the worst. Impact of Biofuels One factor influencing food prices arises from the increasing incentives for farmers worldwide to grow biofuel crops rather than food crops. Ethanol and biodiesel can be produced from a variety of crops including maize, soy, rapeseed, sunflower, cassava, sugar cane, palm, and jatropha. As the price of oil rises, many farmers are finding that they can produce more income from their efforts by growing these crops and selling them to a biofuels plant, than by growing food crops either for their local community or for export. Already nearly 20 percent of the US maize crop is devoted to making ethanol, and that proportion is expected to rise to one quarter, based solely on existing projects-in-development and government mandates. Last year US farmers grew 14 million tons of maize for vehicles. This took millions of hectares of land out of food production and nearly doubled the price of corn. Both Congress and the White House favor expanding ethanol production even further - to replace 20 percent of gasoline demand by 2017 - in an effort to promote energy security by reducing reliance on oil imports. Other nations including Britain are mandating increased biofuel production or imports as a way of reducing carbon emissions, though most analyses show that the actual net reduction in CO2 will be minor or nonexistent. The US is responsible for 70 percent of world maize exports, and countries such as Mexico, Japan, and Egypt that depend on American corn farmers use maize both as food for people and feed for animals. The ballooning of the US ethanol industry is therefore impacting food availability in other nations both directly and indirectly, raising the price for tortillas in Mexico and disrupting the livestock and poultry industries in Europe and Africa. ... Lester Brown, founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, has said: "The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists, who want to maintain their mobility, and its two billion poorest people, who are simply trying to survive, is emerging as an epic issue." This is an opinion no longer being voiced just by environmentalists. In its twice-yearly report on the world economy, released October 17, the International Monetary Fund noted that, "The use of food as a source of fuel may have serious implications for the demand for food if the expansion of biofuels continues." And earlier this month, Oxfam warned the EU that its policy of substituting ten percent of all auto fuel with biofuels threatened to displace poor farmers. Jean Ziegler, a UN special rapporteur went so far as to call the biofuel trade "a crime against humanity," and echoed journalist George Monbiot's call for a five-year moratorium on government mandates and incentives for biofuel expansion. ... The phrase "global warming" implies only the fact that the world's average temperature increase by a degree or more over the next few decades. The much greater problem for farmers is destabilization of weather patterns. We face not just a warmer climate, but climate chaos: droughts, floods, and stronger storms in general (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, hail storms) - in short, unpredictable weather of all kinds. Farmers depend on relatively consistent seasonal patterns of rain and sun, cold and heat; a climate shift can spell the end of farmers' ability to grow a crop in a given region, and even a single freak storm can destroy an entire year's national production for some crops. Given the fact that modern agriculture has become highly centralized due to cheap transport and economies of scale, the damage from that freak storm is today potentially continental or even global in scale. We have embarked on a century in which, increasingly, freakish weather is normal. ... At the same time, soil erosion undermines food production and water availability, as well as producing 30 percent of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Each year, roughly 100,000 square kilometres of land loses its vegetation and becomes degraded or turns into desert, altering the temperature and energy balance of the planet. Finally, yet another worrisome environmental trend is the increasing scarcity of fresh water. According to United Nations estimates, one third of the world's population lives in areas with water shortages and 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. That situation is expected to worsen dramatically over the next few decades. Climate change has provoked more frequent and intense droughts in sub-tropical areas of Asia and Africa, exacerbating shortages in some of the world's poorest countries. While human population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. According to Bridget Scanlon and colleagues, writing in Water Resources Research this past March 27, in the last 100 years irrigated agriculture expanded globally by 480 percent, and it is projected to increase another 20 percent by 2030 in developing countries. Irrigation is expanding fastest in countries such as China and India. Global irrigated agriculture now accounts for almost 90 percent of global freshwater consumption, despite representing only 18 percent of global cropland. In addition to drawing down aquifers and surface water sources, it also degrades water quality, as salts in soils are mobilized, and as fertilizers and pesticides leach into aquifers and streams.24 These problems all interact and compound one another. For example, soil degradation produces growing shortages of water, since soil and vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water. Soil degradation also worsens climate change as increased evaporation triggers more extreme weather. This month the UN Environment Program concluded that the planet's water, land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks are all in "inexorable decline." Much of this decline is due to agriculture, which constitutes the greatest single source of human impact on the biosphere. ... In addition, there are calls for sweeping changes in how land use decisions are made at all levels of government. Because soil, water, energy, climate, biodiversity, and food production are interconnected, integrated policy-making is essential. Yet policies currently are set by various different governmental departments and agencies that often have little understanding of one another's sectors. Delegates at a soils forum in Iceland this month took up a proposal for a formal agreement on protecting the world's soils. And the World Water Council is promoting a range of programs to ensure the availability of clean water especially to people in poorer countries. All these efforts are laudable; however, they largely fail to address the common sources of the dilemmas we face - human population growth, and society's and agriculture's reliance on fossil fuels. The solution most often promoted by the biggest companies within the agriculture industry - the bioengineering of crops and farm animals - does little or nothing to address these deeper causes. One can fantasize about modifying maize or rice to fix nitrogen in the way that legumes do, but so far efforts in that direction have failed. Meanwhile, and the bio-engineering industry itself consumes fossil fuels, and assumes the continued availability of oil for tractors, transportation, chemicals production, and so on. To get to the heart of the crisis, we need a more fundamental reform of agriculture than anything we have seen in many decades. In essence, we need an agriculture that does not require fossil fuels. The idea is not new. The aim of substantially or entirely removing fossil fuels from agriculture is implicit in organic farming in all its various forms and permutations - including ecological agriculture, Biodynamics, Permaculture, Biointensive farming, and Natural Farming. All also have in common a prescription for the reduction or elimination of tillage, and the reduction or elimination of reliance on mechanized farm equipment. Nearly all of these systems rely on increased amounts of human labor, and on greater application of place-specific knowledge of soils, microorganisms, weather, water, and interactions between plants, animals, and humans. Critics of organic or biological agriculture have always contended that chemical-free and less-mechanized forms of food production are incapable of feeding the burgeoning human population. This view is increasingly being challenged. A recent survey of studies, by Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley, titled "Can Organic Farming Feed the World?", concluded: "From the studies mentioned above and from an increasing body of case studies, it is becoming evident that organic farming does not result in either catastrophic crop losses due to pests nor in dramatically reduced yields. . . ." The most recent publication on the subject, by Perfecto et al., in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, found that "Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as [conventional] methods on the same land. . . ." Moreover, is clear that ecological agriculture could help directly to address the dilemmas we have been discussing. Regarding water, organic production can help by building soil structure, thus reducing the need for irrigation. And with no petrochemical runoff, water quality is not degraded. Soil erosion and land degradation can be halted and even reversed: by careful composting, organic farmers have demonstrated the ability to build humus at many times the natural rate. Climate change can be addressed, by keeping carbon molecules in the soil and in forests and grasslands. Indeed, as much as 20 percent of anticipated net fossil fuel emissions between now and 2050 could be stored in this way, according to Maryam Niamir-Fuller of the U.N. Development Program. Natural gas depletion will mean higher prices and shortages for ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizers. But ecologically sound organic-biological agricultural practices use plant and manure-based fertilizers rather than fossil fuels. And when farmers concentrate on building healthy topsoil rich in beneficial microbes, plants have reduced needs for nitrogen. The impending global shortage of phosphate will be more difficult to address, as there is no substitute for this substance. The only solution here will be to recycle nutrients by returning all animal and humans manures to cultivated soil, as Asian farmers did for many centuries, and as many ecological farmers have long advocated. ... Localization of food systems means moving producers and consumers of food closer together, but it also means relying on the local manufacture and regeneration of all of the elements of the production process - from seeds to tools and machinery. This again would appear to rule out agricultural bioengineering, which favors the centralized production of patented seed varieties, and discourages the free saving of seeds from year to year by farmers. Clearly, we must also minimize indirect chemical inputs to agriculture - such as those introduced in packaging and processing. We will need to re-introduce draft animals in agricultural production. Oxen may be preferable to horses in many instances, because the former can eat straw and stubble, while the latter would compete with humans for grains. We can only bring back working animals to the extent that we can free up land with which to produce food for them. One way to do that would be to reduce the number of farm animals grown for meat. Governments must also provide incentives for people to return to an agricultural life. It would be a mistake to think of this simply in terms of the need for a larger agricultural work force. Successful traditional agriculture requires social networks and intergenerational sharing of skills and knowledge. We need not just more agricultural workers, but a rural culture that makes farming a rewarding way of life capable of attracting young people. Farming requires knowledge and experience, and so we will need education for a new generation of farmers; but only some of this education can be generic - much of it must of necessity be locally appropriate. It will be necessary as well to break up the corporate mega-farms that produce so much of today's cheap food. Industrial agriculture implies an economy of scale that will be utterly inappropriate and unworkable for post-industrial food systems. Thus land reform will be required in order to enable smallholders and farming co-ops to work their own plots. In order for all of this to happen, governments must end subsidies to industrial agriculture and begin subsidizing post-industrial agricultural efforts. There are many ways this could be done. The present regime of subsidies is so harmful that merely stopping it in its tracks might be advantageous; but, given the fact that rapid adaptation is essential, offering subsidies for education, no-interest loans for land purchase, and technical support during the transition from chemical to organic production would be essential. * * * C A L E N D A R & C L A S S I F I E D S Thursday, January 10th - 2:00 to 5:00 pm Saturday, January 12th, 4:00 - 7:30pm Saturday, January 12, 2008, 9 to 11:30 am January 14-16, 2008 January 16, 17, 18, 22 & 23, 2008 Course faculty include respected scientists and experienced organic land care practitioners, who instruct the following classes: Principles and Procedures; Site Analysis, Design, and Maintenance; Rain Gardens/Storm Water Infiltration; Soil Health; the Soil Foodweb; Fertilizer and Soil Amendments; Composting; Lawns; Lawn Alternatives; Planting and Plant Care; Wetlands; Pest Management; Wildlife Management; Disease Control; Weeds; Mulches; Invasive Plants; and Client Relations. Four hands-on case studies are also included in the course. At the end of the course, attendees will be able to incorporate methods and materials that respect natural ecology and the long-term health of the environment into the care of their own landscapes or ones that they manage. Those who pass the optional exam offered at the conclusion of the course can become NOFA Accredited Organic Land Care Professionals, able to use the NOFA Organic Land Care Logo, be listed on the www.organiclandcare.net website, be published annually in the NOFA Guide to Organic Land Care and have the opportunity to represent NOFA at organic land care events. Over 500 land care professionals from nine states have taken NOFA’s course. These professionals include landscapers from large and small firms, landscape architects, garden center employees, municipal groundskeepers and property managers. Small business owners, entrepreneurs, homeowners, land trust and conservation organization staff and many others have also found the course extremely valuable. For more information or to receive registration brochures, contact Kathy Litchfield, NOFA/Mass Organic Land Care Course Coordinator, at (978) 724-0108, kathylitch29@yahoo.com or visit www.organiclandcare.net and register online. Saturday, January 19th - 8:00 am to 4:45 pm Friday and Saturday, January 25th and 26th Friday, January 25, 2008 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, January 25th to 27th Exploring the Small Farm Dream FARM INTERNSHIP AVAILABLE FARM FOR RENT |
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