Today: Live Chat with USDA Official on Farm to School Program
Published November 05, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Sign on to the USDA's live-chat Website at 3 p.m. EST today to join the conversation with US Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan about the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative. According to an agency press release, in this, her second chat, she will be addressing the topic of "farm to school," a program centered around serving fresh local produce and other farm products in schools.
The program connects local agriculturalists with new markets for their goods while simultaneously teaching children about regional food systems and healthy eating. "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food," which has a neat Website I previously raved about on this blog, is an effort by the USDA to repair the alienating disconnect between food producers and consumers. The effort is a result of the 2008 farm bill's increasing the agency's ability to promote local food.
You can submit a question or comment in advance of the chat on the Website www.usda.gov/live. Or, if you just want to give the agency a shout-out for all these great local-food-supporting efforts, friend USDA on Facebook at www.facebook.com/USDA.
Photo courtesy of stock.xchng
Tests Reveal Poison in Nearly All Campbell's Soup
Published November 04, 2009 @ 01:16PM PT
The food processing world is reeling right now one day after a shocking new series of tests released by Consumer Reports revealed that many leading brands of canned foods contain Bisphenol A (BPA)—a toxic chemical linked to health risks including reproductive abnormalities, neurological effects, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other serious health problems.
BPA is used in the lining of cans and the toxin leaches from the lining into the food. According to Consumer Reports just a couple of servings of canned food can exceed scientific limits on daily exposure for children.
The federal government is currently studying the dangers of BPA and advocates are calling on the FDA to ban the use of BPA in food and beverage packaging by the end of the year. Companies in other industries, including Wal-Mart, Target, Nalgene, and Babies R Us have already made commitments to stop using BPA.
The food industry, however, is fighting hard to stop any government regulation. They say it is too logistically complicated to move away from BPA-lined cans. And it is true that right now there isn’t a good way to produce cans without BPA. But alternative packaging does exist. You may have heard of glass, to take just one example. Or, given how much mind-blowing chemical science goes into the production of most packaged foods, with a shift in research spending the manufacturers could probably devise a technological solution.
Are SUVs More Eco-Friendly Than Dogs?
Published November 04, 2009 @ 12:50PM PT
Is it time to chew on the chihuahua? Robert and Brenda Vale think it might be in their new book "Time To Eat The Dog." They consider the eco-impact of pets, and determine that when you look at the emissions data of an animal's consumption of both cereals and meats, it show that an SUV is twice as eco-friendly as owning a dog. This is largely down to the amount of meat that dogs eat; you'd need to feed your dog a vegetarian diet to be absolved of some of your sins, but the eco-pawprint is still a big one.
Michael Pollan weighed it to a similar debate recently, explaining that "A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius." He later retracted that statement, but it's a statement that, like "Time to eat the dog," questions how much we are prepared to change our lives, and how many sacreds cows we will slaughter in order to cut the damaging and unsustainable aspects of our lifestyle.
Local Food Initiatives Earn Accolades
Published November 04, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Everyone likes a winner (except, perhaps, the losers), so it is wonderful to see that some local-food efforts have been recognized with prizes in non-food-oriented competitions. The more friends and admirers the local food movement accrues, the more attention local food systems will receive and the more progress we can make in encouraging local consumption and developing the infrastructure to enable it.
I bring news of three exciting victories:
- Urban Farming, a Detroit-based NGO that commandeers unused urban land to grow food, has received second place in the Drucker Awards for Nonprofit Innovation. This plucky, green-thumbed organization plants things in unlikely places such as rooftops and in vertical gardens on "edible green walls." The group also won a MySpace IMPACT AWARD, and founder Taja Sevelle was named Grand Prize winner in the 2009 Garden Crusaders Awards from Gardener's Supply Company.
- Tim Will, 61, a retired telecommunications executive from Rutherfordton, North Carolina, was named one of the winners of the 2009 Purpose Prize, which recognizes the efforts of seniors who use the second chapters of their lives to help their communities in inspiring and ambitious ways. Will is honored for establishing a Web-based service that allows local farmers to sell produce directly to the restaurants of Charlotte.
- Joel Salatin of Omnivore's Dilemma fame has been named a winner of the prestigious Heinz Award in recognition of his success in demonstrating to the nation that sustainable, organic farming practices can be effective and lucrative. His 550-acre Polyface Farm in Virginia employs a complex rotational system involving beef, sheep, chickens, pigs, rabbits, turkeys and, most importantly, grass.
Farming is Back
Published November 03, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
As I mentioned, Bill Gates is investing in farmers around the world, aiming to empower them after decades of neglect from domestic policies and measly international aid. Some assert that he's going about it all wrong, but the fact remains: the spotlight is focused on farmers.
Apparently, according to an article in Time Magazine, Gates is at the head of a new trend: the international community and national governments are again focusing on supporting agriculture. The article's author, Michael Shuman, describes how farmers came to be so ignored:
Governments equated economic progress with steel mills and shoe factories. While urban centers thrived and city dwellers got rich, hundreds of millions of farmers remained mired in poverty. Agriculture in many developing nations stagnated.
"Now," he writes, "the farm is back."
Science Front and Center at USDA
Published November 02, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Change is in the air at the USDA; the agency has taken it upon itself, in the words of President Obama, "to restore science to its rightful place" with the creation of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), according to a USDA press release.
The new Institute, a product of the 2008 farm bill, replaces the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), and is intended, in the words of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, to "be the Department's extramural research enterprise."
While science should indeed be incorporated back into the fold in all aspects of life, its application to agriculture is a particularly hot-button tonic, as I discussed on Friday. For those concerned with the advancement of the use of genetically modified organisms, the formation of this new Institute should hold kernels of concern.
Industry Disavows Smart Choices Campaign
Published October 30, 2009 @ 12:57PM PT
The Smart Choices campaign is heaving its dying breaths. The writing has been on the wall since last week when the campaign that had decided to label some unhealthy processed food as wise eating decisions called a temporary halt in the face of FDA scrutiny. I wrote "I think this is one 'postponement' that might well end up lasting forever," and now that looks all the more likely that will be true.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is planning his own investigation of the campaign, announced yesterday that all eight of the industry giants involved in the campaign have decided to stop using the Smart Choices logo on their packaging. Smart Choices officials suspended the program during the investigations but left it up to companies whether to keep using the logo on their packaging.
Raise your hand if you think there's any chance that these companies will ever again slap this hot-potato of a logo on their boxes. Thanks to alert citizens like those here at change.org, who demanded accountability on this issue, the public stink has become even less appealing to these corporations than the nasty smell of their own false advertising.
Image courtesy of √oхέƒx™ via flickr
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