Here's what it's like to catch a Yellowfin tuna on a bamboo pole off Ascension island in the South Atlantic. Most fish, of course, are not caught this way. (The tuna strikes just after minute 2 in the video, but watch the whole thing, you'll get the build up).
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/13073967 w=500&h=283]
When measuring the productivity of farming, yield -- or output per acre of land -- is the metric that is often trotted out. And when this measure is used, organic farming usually falls short since it can’t match the yields of conventional agriculture. From there, it’s a short jump to conclude, as my friend Marc Gunther does, that organic methods will take more land to produce an equivalent amount of food, especially when population is increasing. The upshot, “organic food is not as green as you think.”
The problem with this argument is not that the yield calculations are wrong. The problem is that yield studies are inappropriate by themselves in measuring what’s “sustainable,” in determining what might “feed the world,” and which methods actually end up using more land in a particular situation. That’s because farming does not occur in a vacuum where yield is the sole measure of success.
Consider that the conventional farming methods that achieve higher yield require costly fossil fuel inputs in fertilizers and pesticides (the environmental impacts of which fall outside of yield studies), that they require highly mechanized tools that replace labor, and may rely on intensive irrigation from increasingly scarce water resources. Measured against the methods in most of the world -- 80% of the world’s workers are still farmers -- I have no doubt that the highly intensive model would produce a higher yield. But are those methods available or even appropriate to farmers in areas where food is most scarce and population growth the highest?
In some cases, those methods have proved disastrous, beause the technnology can’t be easily transposed from Iowa to Africa. One person who has looked closely at the issue, and who is also a conventional farmer in Illinois, the philantropist Howard Buffett, writes (pdf):
Commercial investment often focuses on increasing crop yields while governments emphasize expanded trade. The ultimate key to food security, however, is affordability and access to the proper food—neither approach has effectively addressed these issues in developing countries. The current situation mandates looking beyond crop productivity.
A narrow focus has dictated global agricultural policy over the past 30 years—it has failed, leaving millions hungry. Productivity in one part of the world cannot address land tenure, infrastructure, governance, investment protocol, culture, human capacity, research and development, gender disparity and a myriad other regional issues. Decisions and investments specific to individual countries—not the yields of another country half a world away—will always be the primary drivers of food security. (Emphasis added).
As others have pointed out -- including the authors of the Nature study on which Gunther's post was based -- yield studies ignore two other imporant parameters: farmer livelihood and environmental impact, or the downstream effect of agriculture. If intensive agriculture pushes farmers off the land or leaves them indebted, what does that mean to livelihood? Of course, higher yields may produce more farm income -- except in situations where it does not.
I would add another consideration: that is, how appropriate and accessible are farming methods, especially when considering feeding the world. If the methods that produce the highest yield in Iowa are irrelevant in Zambia, does measuring relative yield even make sense?
As just one small example, deforestation in Africa is a huge issue, since more land is cleared to plant crops. But as soil is depleted, fertilizers are used in ever larger amounts, contributing to even more intensive mining of the soil, loss of fertility and the burning of forests in the race for continued yields. In this situation, the question of which yield is higher, organic or conventional, is not even relevant. The question how can you achieve the highest yield without denuding the soil given methods that are accessible. Organic methods -- such as crop rotations, adding compost to the soil and even non-organic ones, such as judicious use of fertilizer -- might be best. But how does this fit into the what’s-the-highest-yield debate? It doesn’t, which shows the limitations of the question, even when considering the impact of farming on land use.
Indeed, this sole focus on yield takes on an almost religious ferver that drives attention from other issues that might raise yield far higher, such as addressing pre- and post-harvest food waste, which cuts productivity by up to 40%. Crack that nut and you will achieve more gains in efficiency and productivity than any improvement in farming could ever hope to offer -- and with technology that's currently available (think decent grain storage facilities, roads and transport). Yield by iself is too often relied upon as the sole yardstick to determine whether farming is "sustainable," will "feed the world," and is, in fact, green. To base decisions on that metric alone is myopic.
Recently, writing about ancient grains, I serendipitously got an email from Mary-Howell Martens offering to hook me up with some of the grains she and her husband Klaas grow in New York for Lakeview Organic Grain. Rather than shipping the wheat, they brought it to the winter meeting of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture in State College, where my friend Bernie Prince (the now celebrated co-founder of FreshFarm Market) put it in her trunk and brought it to Capitol Hill. Now that's what I call networking.
There were bags of whole oats, spelt, a red winter wheat and a beautiful white wheat, some heritage corn, toasted green spelt, known as frikeh, used in savory dishes from the Middle East (great post on it here by Anissa Helou), and then the ancient grain closely associated with the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, emmer wheat.
Now emmer is genetically distinct from bread wheat and was the ancient forerunner of durum, used to make pasta and semolina flour. It's more commonly called farro and makes a wonderful risotto, as do many whole grains.
Flatbread with chickpea stew
The grains sat around in a big mason jar for awhile, a bit intimidating, since I had to grind it, but then I went to work with a stone mill I recently bought. I made a simple flat bread, using this recipe (I mean, it can hardly be called a recipe since it is simply flour, oil, water and salt) and then a method where you cook it on a cast iron griddle (about 30 seconds a side), then put it directly, and I mean directly, on the flame. Wheat may puff up into a ball when you do so, but emmer is weaker in terms of its gluten structure, so it only puffed up in places. Now charring here and there, because you keep turning and flipping it on the flame, I spread a bit of butter over it -- and that was lunch with somes beans and salad.
Then, inspired by the work of another baker over at the blog Stir the Pots, I tried making the bread. (His emmer came from Cayuga Pure Organics but is probably the same as mine). This was a difficult enterprise for the dough lacked what bakers call "tolerance," which is a very different concept from the even-handed and thoughtful qualities we associate with the word. For bakers, tolerance means the ability of the dough to rise and hold its shape, which in turn reflects the quality of gluten proteins in the flour. When gluten is weak, the acids in sourdough sometimes help the loaf to strengthen and hold its shape, but no such luck this time. The dough, which was also too moist (frankly, I was winging it), kept spreading out. Not wanting to make another flat bread, I instead loosely shaped the dough and plopped it in a loaf pan. The second piece of dough was even less amenable to shaping, so I simply mixed in an equal amount of white flour and water, so that I had a dough that was half emmer, half white. That worked out and resulted in the loaf pictured above.
Though the 100% emmer loaf (not pictured) was a bit tight in the crumb, it was also quite soft. Both loaves also had a remarkable taste, which as I thought about it, reminded me of smoldering oak bark, or roasting acorns, but without the bitter overtones you sometimes find in whole wheat. The flavor stuck on the tongue long after I had eaten the bread and was also much more pronounced than in the flat bread I made, which I'd attribute to the emmer sourdough leaven I used. The lactobacillus culture brought out the flavor of the grain, which was delicious. No wonder if was so popular 10,000 years ago.
- Samuel Fromartz
Here's the lead-in to a brief interview about the Food & Environment Reporting Network at CJR:
Even as interest in all things food-related skyrockets, space devoted to serious food issues continues to lose out to the gastroporn of hot restaurants and hotter chefs. So last year, a group of fed-up food writers launched the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN), a nonprofit that funds investigative journalism on matters of food, agriculture, and environmental health. Its first piece, on New Mexico’s dairy industry, was published last fall in High Country News; a second story, published on msnbc.com in January, explained how a drug designed to keep pigs lean is hurting US pork exports. CJR’s Brent Cunningham spoke with Sam Fromartz, FERN’s editor in chief.
I spent a wonderful couple of days last May with Mike Zakowski, a baker in Sonoma who graciously took me into his backyard bakery where he was making loaves. I was curious about him, because he worked entirely by hand and was also in training to compete in the world cup of baking. These seemed like polar opposite pursuits.
I will see him again next week when he's competing in Paris, where he's baking with Team USA in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. Here's the opening of the story I wrote about him on Gilt Taste, which begins:
The world of baking seems to attract free spirits, but Mike Zakowski—who calls himself The Bejkr—stands out even among them. Few bakers, even the most committed artisans, mix their dough by hand, because of the demands of production. Nor do they work in a converted shipping container plopped in their backyard. Nor do they often bake with a wood fire, because the heat and oven can be as fickle to master as the bread itself. Zakowski does all of this. And then he drives to the farmers’ market in Sonoma, smoke billowing out of an oven hitched on the back of his vintage delivery truck with bright green hub caps.
If I left the image there—stellar artisan baker in California wine country, selling loaves that feature local ingredients, ancient grains, organic flours and hemp seeds—you would nod. You would get it. But it’s not the whole story, because Zakowski has been attempting another feat: representing the United States in Paris next week at the world cup of baking – the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. In short, the Bejkr is also an Olympian.
- Samuel Fromartz
In what would have been unimaginable even two years ago, a former organic farmer who once headed California's largest organic certification organization was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown as head of the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation.
Brian Leahy was assistant director in the California Department of Conservation. He now enters a department that has long been viewed as accommodative to pesticide interests.
I first came across DPR when I wrote about a powerful soil fumigant known as methyl bromide in my book Organic Inc. Looking over publicly available documents, it was clear that the department interpreted its own toxicity findings in a liberal manner in order to let the spraying of this neurotoxin continue. Only subsequent law suits forced it to retreat and revise its fumigation protocal.
But as methyl bromide was phased out under a UN treaty, one of the substances proposed to replace it -- methyl iodide -- was even more toxic. California DPR approved the cancer-causing substance in December 2010 against the concerns of its own scientists and those on an independent panel, prompting a ferocious uproar by environmental and consumer groups.
Whether Leahy's appointment by Brown proves a game-changer on the future of methyl iodide remains to be seen. But it's clear that with the growth of organic farming in the state, what was unimaginable has now come to pass. And California -- at least when it comes to pesticide regulation -- is highly influential nationally.
So it will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.
Leahy, by the way, served as executive director of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) from 2000 to 2004. His appointment requires state senate confirmation.
- Samuel Fromartz
Last week, the non-profit journalism venture where I serve as editor, the Food & Environment Reporting Network, rolled out its second story on a little known livestock drug called ractopamine that has caused more illnesses or deaths than any other livestock drug on the market.
Fed to animals right up to slaughter, traces of the drug have been found in meat, although not at levels the FDA is worried about. But questions about the drug from foreign trade partners concerned about the health effects of the drug have percolated into a trade spat, with the European Union and China, among others, banning the use of the substance. That, in turn, has cut into US exports of meat produced with the drug.
This was just the sort of story our organization was invented to report. First, because hardly anyone outside the livestock industry had heard of it; second, because its use was so widespread in 60-80% of pigs in the U.S. (and also in cattle and turkeys); and third because it was the subject of an international controversy.
This was a months-long investigation, involving documents from the FDA that our reporter -- Helena Bottemiller -- obtained under Freedom of Information Act Requests. Among the documents were the numerous files from the FDA of animal illnesses related to the drug. When I asked to look over these reports, Bottemiller said the combined file was too big to send as an email attachment.
While the story first appeared on msnbc.com, it got picked up on blogs and in papers as far away as Taiwan. Here's a sample of the coverage as summerized in our blog over at the fern.org.
The story has been recommended by a number of other news sources, including The New York Times and CNN, and has inspired reporting in Mother Jones, Grist, Huffington Post, SF Weekly, theTaipei Times and Food Safety News. Reporter Helena Bottemiller appeared on New York Public Radio to discuss the story on Thursday. And we’ve had a good showing via social media: The story has generated 184 comments, been recommended on Facebook over 1,000 times, and shared 971 times through other sources. We’ve had some high profile tweeters share our news, including @RuthReichl (a member of our editorial board); Rep. @LouiseSlaughter, a microbiologist who has authored a bill that ends the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animal agriculture; and @SlowFoodUSA. In addition, @ProPublica’s #muckreads highlighted the story on its Web site and on Slate.
In addition Mark Bittman over at the New York Times mentioned it and the writer Michael Pollan highlighted our organization in his twitter feed, @michaelpollan.
In the future, FERN will produce more stories to the same high journalistic standards. To remain in the loop, get on our email list over at thefern.org.
- Samuel Fromartz
Sourdough is basically fermented flour and water, fed with more flour and water on a regular schedule. I came cross this video which explains the process.
At this time of year, make sure your water is warm, around 80-85 F (26-29 C), and it will kickstart the process.
Another trick: rise the starter in a microwave oven or other enclosed space and place a cup of just-boiled water inside. Don't turn on the microwave: you just want to create a "proofing box" (enclosed space) that keeps the starter warm.
You can also use whole wheat flour in place of the rye, or all rye or all whole wheat, or spike the starter with a tablespoon of honey. I've tried any number of methods. But whole grain flours tend to be much more active (which is why they're used), so keep an eye on the stuff every 12 hours or so. Another general rule: the warmer it is, the faster it ferments, unless it's so hot that the natural yeast and bacteria are killed. If the water feels warm to the touch, it should be fine.
To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.
- Excerpt from Pablo Neruda's "And Because Love Battles"
Just a quick note. On Sunday, I did an interview with the Heritage Radio Network talking about the new non-profit journalism venture I'm involved with, FERN. This might give you a better idea of what we're trying to accomplish and the type of stories we're doing.
At the link above, you can listen to the whole 30-minute interview or digest it in segments. The host, Katy Keiffer, was a pleasure to talk to -- and she mentioned she actually read this blog. OK, so I know someone is out there!
- Samuel Fromartz
I've been reading a lot of bread books lately -- a lot -- and each year brings more. What follows is a brief list of books that would help any aspiring baker as well as a couple of other cookbooks that have caught my eye.
*
Inside the Jewish Bakery, Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg
For anyone interested in classic Jewish American baking, this book shouldn't be missed. It has all the recipes you'd want, but what makes the book stand out are the essays about Jewish baking. Who knew, for instance, that marble rye may have evolved out of an Eastern European practice of adding light rye flour to dark loaves in an attempt to make them look less impoverished? Plus, everyone has a challah recipe, but this book has a whole chapter of them -- and nearly 15 pages of pictures on braiding, including the "eight-dollar challah" (a five-strand braid topped by a four-strand topped by a three-strand). Now that's a challah!
*
The Italian Baker Revisted, by Carol Field
When this book first appeared in 1985, it caused quite a stir. In fact, many professional bakers refer to it as inspiration, including Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery and Kathleen Webber of Della Fattoria. This revised edition is still chock-full of recipes, including standards such as ciabatta, but she also has unusual ones such as segale con pancetta (rye with pancetta) or pane di altamura, a famous bread from the south made with durum flour. Enriched doughs such as colomba pasquale, a panettone type bread for Easter studded with almonds and candied orange peel, are intriguing. More advanced bakers might be frustrated that Field hasn't included a true biga naturale (sourdough), instead relying on one kick-started with yeast. But in recipes that call for it, you can easily substitute your own natural leaven.
*
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread Baking, the French Culinary Institute
This is kind of baking 101 in a well-designed, gorgeously photograhed volume. It reads a bit like a textbook, but that's okay, because you'll find the classic preparations of classic breads. As a bonus, it includes a number of recipes from Didier Rosada, the unsung force behind a lot of artisan bread baking in this country. On my list to try, his buckwheat apple walnut bread.
*
Ruhlman's Twenty, By Michael Ruhlman
OK, you've got a dog-eared copy of Bittman's How to Cook Everything, just like me -- now it's time to graduate. Michael Ruhlman has done a lot to make culinary school techniques accessible to the home cook and he does so again in this clever volume focused on 20 key techniques. Some of them are less obvious (with chapters including "Think" or "Salt" or "Water") but he elaborates on his point in the recipes. Many are the culinary standards that might have faded, such as "simple butter sauce," but then there are standbys that every omnivore needs, such as "perfect roast chicken." His argument here -- truss the bird to prevent hot air from drying out the breast meat. Point taken.
*
All About Roasting, by Molly Stevens
Do we need a book about roasting, especially when Ruhlman has given you the perfect chicken? I was skeptical until I started reading this book, admitting and accepting that I've overcooked or flubbed one too many roasts. Now the reason for this is that I hardy every roast, because it's the sort of thing you do a couple of times a year, usually around the holidays. In this book, Stevens dissects the technique and offers up recipes for all cuts of meat cooked at various temperatures. For the ambitious, I recommend the oven-roasted porchetta, made with a rolled pork loin and pork belly. Needless to say, this book will be put to use this holiday season.
- Samuel Fromartz
I harvested a bunch of Asian greens and lettuce last Saturday, having planted them in September and October. This bounty was the result of a lot of potent compost I added in the early fall and an extremely mild winter in Washington D.C. The result -- a now 10-month garden this year. (I had a light row cover over everything except the cabbage). If we don't get a serious cold snap I should continue to get lettuce and spinach through the holidays. That big cabbage (over 7-1/2 pounds) will make a lot of kimchi!
Pictured below (clockwise from left): Bok choi, mizuna, napa cabbage and red romaine lettuce.
