Chews Wise

The Price of One Penny

In the long and sordid history of farmworkers, a few glaring examples manage to jump out of the background noise and make national news. Such is the case with the decision by Burger King to refuse handing out a one penny price increase to tomato pickers in Florida because it has been so vehemently opposed by conservative growers.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, weighed in in on this issue in the N.Y. Times:

Migrant farm laborers have long been among America’s most impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers — a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. — has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains.

He pointed out that the pay increase was tiny compared with the bonuses reaped by Burger King's equity owners. It would also be tiny in comparison to the amount spent at this season's charity balls, which gather the  wealthiest to raise money for the needy. Were the root of the problem - poverty - addressed head on with decent wages, fewer feel-good band aids would be needed.

I would venture that this decision by Burger King's management - disastrous from a public relations point of view - will not go away soon.

USDA Gives Update on Organic Pasture Rule

A new organic pasture regulation has been fully reviewed by the USDA, bringing it one-step closer to completion, Barbara Robinson, deputy administrator for the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), said Wednesday.

In an update at the National Organic Standards Board meeting underway in Arlington, Virginia, Robinson said the the NOP is working on the supplemental language to the regulation, dealing with the economic impact of the regulation, compliance with the paperwork reduction act, and impact on small producers. "We're going to get this done shortly and then it goes over the OMB (Office of Management and Budget)," she said.

USDA expects to run into some issues with OMB, which has viewed every organic regulation except for materials as a "major rule" that needs extra vetting. That means OMB will likely take another 60 days for review, in which time Congress will also get to look at it. Robinson said she plans to visit with OMB when USDA first sends over the regulation for review to impress the importance of it.

The upshot seems to be that the regulation won't be out of OMB until late first-quarter, which presumably is when it will first be published for comment.

A wide coalition of organic dairy farmers is pushing for a requirement that ruminants receive at least 30 percent of their nutritional needs from fresh grass during the growing season, but not less than 120 days.   Currently, the organic regulations only require "access to pasture," which meant a cow might rarely get a blade of fresh grass and live out its productive life on feedlots. A clear pasture regulation would end that practice, though it is unknown what the final rule will actually say.

Organic dairy farmers have been pushing for a change in this regulation since at least 2000, and the new rule change language has been under review at the USDA since 2005.

Amid Protests, Pennsylvania Shelves Milk Action

Pennsylvania has decided to delay its order drastically limiting what processors can say on milk labels, due to a rising public backlash, the St. Louis Post-Gazette reports. But the stay may only last for one month.

The issue had blindsided Governor Ed Rendell, who received complaints about his Agriculture Secretary's decision. "The governor's office, which was not involved in the initial decision, will participate in reviewing the new rules 'both in the way they were promulgated and their effect,'" Rendell's press secretary said in the press report.

Opponents of the decision are still wary, since the delay is only temporary. The key issue is whether the state will widen the panel reviewing the issue to include legitimate representatives of consumer groups who oppose the state action.

"There was some level of surprise," Chris Ryder, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, said of the opposition to the state's new labeling restrictions. "We weren't anticipating quite this response."

Pennsylvania's Milk Cover-Up

By Samuel Fromartz

If one trend has been clear in recent years it's the desire by consumers to know where their food comes from and how it's produced.

Product labels – whether organic, local, or produced without antibiotics and hormones – provide a way for consumers to get that information and make a choice.

So why is Pennsylvania swimming against the tide? Late last month, the state Department of Agriculture told 19 dairies that they cannot use language such as "Our farmers’ pledge: no artificial growth hormones," or "From cows not treated with the growth hormone rBST," starting January 1, 2008.

Ohio, New Jersey and Indiana are reportedly mulling similar restrictions. If this occurs, consumers will be denied the right to choose the milk they want and farmers banned from describing their practices.

Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said the action was promoted by concerns among "consumer groups," farmers and processors, though the action was entirely in line with the policy position of Monsanto, which makes synthetic bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST).

Surveys clearly show consumers desire more transparency — not less — on milk labels. Lake Research Partners found 80 percent of consumers supported the labeling of rBGH-free milk products. The Natural Marketing Institute found that 53 percent of shoppers look for dairy products free of artificial hormones. And Opinion Research found 81 percent of respondents would prefer to buy dairy products derived from cows that do not receive synthetic hormones, assuming little or no pricing difference.

Critics and scientists have raised questions about a possible link between rBGH and a cancer-promoting hormone in humans -- a link denied by Monsanto and other scientists. What is known is that the drug does increase the risk of animal illness, though it also boosts milk production by about 10 percent, which is the reason it is used. Although the Food and Drug Administration approved rBGH in 1993, it has been banned in the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Wolff argues that since the synthetic bovine growth hormones are indistinguishable from naturally occurring hormones and cannot be detected in milk a label that indicates their absence would be impossible to verify. All milk is also tested to be free of antibiotics, so there's no reason to label their absence either.

But Pennsylvania's action also limits statements about production practices, making it impossible for consumers to identify producers who follow a regime they agree with. Starting in January, a farmer cannot say on a milk label, "I don't use rBGH or antibiotics on my farm" – even though this statement may be factually correct.

Such production claims can be verified. Inspections are required by law for organic farms, for example. Conventional milk producers can issue legal affidavits about their practices under penalty of fraud. But Pennsylvania closed off this avenue by saying that such affidavits were now unacceptable as a basis for label claims.

Organic milk companies have not been exempt from the action. Aurora Organic Dairy and Horizon Organic have gotten letters from the state.

This whole debate isn't new, but it has gained steam as national companies sought out milk produced without rBGH and crimped Monsanto's market for the drug. Dean Foods, the largest milk processor in the nation, has switched some plants to rBGH free milk production. Starbucks, Safeway, and Kroger are going that way too; Chipotle Mexican Grill also plans to convert its entire cheese supply by the end of the year. Many natural food stores have long sold milk produced without synthetic hormones.

By stating they avoid milk produced with rBGH, these companies are following federal directives on the matter. As early as 1994, when the Food and Drug Administration approved Monsanto’s synthetic growth hormone, the FDA allowed production claims, such as "from cows not treated with rBST."

For the past several years, Monsanto has sought to limit these absence claims because they believe they disparage competing milk. In 2003, it sued Oakhurst Dairy in Maine over a label statement that read, "Our farmers' pledge: no artificial growth hormones." The suit was settled out of court, when Oakhurst added the qualifying language: "FDA states: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with artificial growth hormone."

Last year, Monsanto appealed to the FDA to review the approved label wording for rBGH and also sought action from the Federal Trade Commission regarding advertising of rBGH free milk.

The FDA declined to act, noting that it would only intervene in cases where fraudulent claims – as opposed to product descriptions – were made on the milk label. In dismissing Monsanto's complaint, the FTC also found no instance where a national company made false claims about rBST.

Having failed to limit the label in the federal arena, it now appears Monsanto is lobbying state governments to cover up the labels and reduce consumer choice.

Pennsylvania was the first to fall. If other states follow, consumer choice and a farmer's right to free speech will be dealt a blow.

But consumer groups, farmer organizations and milk processors are fighting back, first off with a letter writing campaign to the governor. Expect more action ahead.

First, It Was Organic v. Local

Now it's Organic v. Fair Trade. William G. Moseley points out in the San Francisco Chronicle that tensions are growing acute between these two movements, spurred out by the demand for local food. (Via Lainie's awesome Organic Confidential blog).

If local is the new organic, and demand for imported organic food drops off, then African farmers who depend on organic export markets will have no alternative but to produce conventionally grown food for export. Local activists respond that these farmers should focus on local markets in Africa, but Moseley says they've already done that.

Many farmers in the poorest of African nations - where I do my research - already supply local markets with their grains and produce. While not formally recognized as such, these markets are virtually organic because most poor African farmers restrict pesticide use to traditional export crops such as cotton, cacao and coffee, while local foodstuffs are grown with few or no chemical inputs.

If the local food movements in Europe and North America reduce their demand for organic and fair trade products from afar, the most likely consequence is that African farmers who have entered these niche markets will return to producing their export crops in the conventional, pesticide-intensive manner. While local food markets can provide some income for these farmers, they still are reliant on export opportunities for the bulk of their cash income.

Food miles gives a one-dimensional view of socially responsible food production, though the reality is more complicated. The Soil Association tried to tackle this issue by seeking a fair trade designation for any air shipments of organic food -- a noble step, but one which might still limit these markets.

The question I had after reading Moseley's piece was whether some, all or most exports actually create cash for farmers, or whether these markets follow the plantation model and siphon cash out of the local economy. Again, I would think the answer is not simple.
 

Back From Tahiti!

I wish. Actually I've been up to my eyeballs in other projects. Still, a few things have caught my attention, such as the dictatorial decision by Pennsylvania to ban certain milk labels describing hormone- and antibiotic-free production practices. A flurry of reports have appeared here and here and here. I'm looking into it and hope to post more soon.