Organic Controversy in Britain

There was a good segment on the BBC's Food Programme a couple of weeks ago on organic food in Britain, which is facing some of the same challenges and controversies over scale that have roiled the industry in the U.S. It also explores what consumers are doing in a world of higher prices and lower incomes. So if you've got  25 minutes and an interest in the organic food industry, check out this link for the Real Audio file.   

Organic Middlemen on a Mission

Did you ever wonder where your organic, local food might come from when it appears in a supermarket or restaurant?

In this article I wrote for Edible Portland, I highlighted a couple of wholesalers who are proving vital to the local and organic foods movement. Toooften, middlemen are derided in sustainable agriculture circles, where the emphasis is usually on buying direct from farmers markets and the like. But selling wholesale works for a lot of farmers, as the article points out. A shout out to Portland's EcoTrust for requesting this story!

Here's the lede:

It might be hard to believe that this cold, dank, 27,000-square-foot warehouse in Eugene, Oregon, across the road from several natural gas storage tanks and a giant commercial composting operation, represents a distant ideal of food distribution. But it just might. The cement loading docks of Organically Grown Company are quiet at 8 a.m., but earlier in the morning, well before dawn, workers here and at another facility twice as big in Portland were pushing pallets of organic produce into waiting trucks. Some are stamped with the LADYBUG label, indicating produce grown on farms in the Pacific Northwest. (read on...)

Farmers and Politics and Obama

If you look at those electoral maps of the United States, you often see a big red swath going right through farm country from the Dakotas to Texas. In the organic sector, my impression is that the biggest political force is libertarianism, because these are people who went off on their own, who didn't trust the dominant ideology, whatever it was, and who wanted to do their own thing on the farm.

But they still vote. And in that regard, I'll say two things. First I was encouraged that Obama had actually read and thought about Michael Pollan's Letter to the Next President in the New York Times magazine. Secondly, I thought of farmers when I viewed this video from People in the Middle for Obama (which I first saw on Andrew Sullivan's blog).

- Samuel Fromartz

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rBg_tFkjE0&hl=en&fs=1]

Organic Animals Must Graze, USDA Rules

Resolving a longstanding dispute, the USDA published a proposed pasture regulation that sets new grazing requirements for organic livestock and bans confined feedlots from the industry.

Dairy farmers had been pushing for this rule for at least three years, though variations had been proposed since at least 2000. According to the USDA's document on the regulation, published in the Federal Register, more than 85,000 people sent in letters in support of a stricter pasture requirement (pdf).

Advocates say the USDA actually got the new pasture regulation right. In a press release from the National Organic Coalition, Kathie Arnold, a New York State organic dairy farmer, said: “This draft rule provides specific language needed for enforcement of one of the central tenets of organically produced livestock—that organic livestock spend a considerable part of their lives in their natural pasture habitat and receive a significant portion of their food from fresh, green, growing pasture.”

Previously, the USDA required organic livestock to have "access to pasture," a term that was so loosely interpreted that  several prominent organic CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) arose in the industry, housing thousands of cows with little or no grazing on pasture. The pasture loophole undermined the purpose and intent of organic livestock agriculture.

Now, "Dry lots and feedlots are prohibited," the proposed regulation says.

Animals must graze throughout the growing season, which in some regions may be for the entire year. The bare minimum nationally would be 120 days. In the document, the USDA explains:

In the United States, growing seasons range from 121 days to 365 days, depending on location. By using the growing season as the minimum time period for grazing, the regulations ensure that ruminants raised in areas with longer grazing periods are not denied the opportunity to graze for more than the minimum of 120 days.

In addition 30% of a cow's nutritional needs must be met by pasture, which means they must be eating fresh grass.

If this rule is adopted, as expected, after the 60 day comment period, it will undo the disturbing rise of organic CAFOs and require that organic livestock graze on pasture, as consumers and farmers overwhelmingly expect.

In short, the regulation looks like a big win for organic integrity.

- Samuel Fromartz

The After-Shock of Contaminated Spinach

If you're interested in what happened after contaminated spinach sickened people across the country two years ago, hop over to this must read by my friend Barry Estabrook at Gourmet magazine.

I've covered aspects of the spinach crisis before, but Barry goes further and looks into the environmental aftershock that has occurred from farmers seeking to put a protective shield around their fields, with no evidence that they're addressing the root cause of the problem.

In the name of food safety, they have scraped 30-foot-wide borders ofbare dirt around the edges of fields, set up poison-bait stations for ground squirrels and mice, installed eight-foot-high fences to exclude deer and other wildlife, ripped vegetation from creeks and ditches, and drained ponds and lakes or treated them with chemicals that kill every living thing in them. Creeks flowing into the Salinas River run brown with silty water polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. Piles of bleached, bonelike tree trunks and roots have replaced wooded groves.

“The science isn’t there to prove that deer are a factor, but farmers are being required to moonscape the habitat around their fields in the name of food safety,” says Bob Martin, general manager of Rio Farms, a 6,000-acre operation. “That’s amputating a person’s leg because they have a hangnail.”

I'd heard about these draconian measures from wildlife and small farm groups and knew it was ripe for a deeper look. Luckily, Barry did too. His article makes you think twice about what "food safety" really means, when it's regulated with a bulldozer.  Here's another observation:

Of the 12 recorded E. coli outbreaks attributed to California leafy greens since 1999, 10 have been traced to mechanically harvested greens bagged in large production facilities. The source of two outbreaks has yet to be determined. None have been linked to small farms selling to local markets.

After the jump are Barry's tips for avoiding pathogens:

Think Outside the Bag

· Cooking is the only way to kill bacteria in greens for certain, but there are some less drastic steps you can take to protect yourself.

· You’ve heard it a thousand times: Buy local; buy small. Packaged produce in the supermarket can be more than two weeks old. Produce from a CSA or farmers market packed in ordinary, unsealed plastic bags is most likely picked a day or two before you buy it.

· Buy whole heads or bunches of intact plants; precut edges provide a particularly easy point of entry for bacteria.

· Washing won’t get all the bugs out of contaminated bagged greens, but it can remove some surface bacteria.

· If you do buy prewashed, factory-bagged produce, look at the “use before” date. If it’s getting close, avoid the product. The longer it has been in the bag, the more opportunities for pathogens to grow.

· Never, ever eat uncooked greens from bags whose expiration date has passed, no matter how fresh they appear.

What's the Cost of Depleted Fisheries?

It's clear that the world’s fishstocks are in trouble, but what's the cost of decades of mismanagement?  A new World Bank/FAO study puts the price tag at $50 billion dollars a year, or $2 trillion over the last three decades.

This isn’t just another doom and gloom study; the report's actually hopeful that the “economic hemorrhage” in this “underperforming global asset” can be transformed into one that creates “an economic surplus and….a driver of economic growth.”

So how do we get there? Catch shares, a fisheries management system that has picked up a lot of momentum recently as people recognize how well they work.

A study in Science magazine last month was the most authoritative validation to date of this approach. After examining 11,000 fisheries around the world, researchers found that those with catch share were much healthier, fishermen were at less risk from accidents, and the impact on other species was significantly reduced. Catch shares go beyond just keeping a good fishery healthy. They can even rebuild depleted fish stocks.

Catch shares work by allotting shares of the overall catch to individual fishermen, boats or fishing groups. Shares can be sold or rented, which gives fishermen a direct stake in the future of the fishery. The better the fish stock, the more valuable the fishermen’s shares.

For decades, scientists have shown how overfishing was killing off wild fish populations at a huge environmental and social cost. Now economists have put a price tag on the problem. And recently yet more scientists have shown us how catch shares can solve the problem. We know what’s at stake, we know what it’s costing us and we know how to fix it. So can we get on with it already?

- Tim Fitzgerald, Environmental Defense Fund

A Chicken in Every Yard

Image source: Bright Green Blog

Now, I know urban farming is the rage (hey I'm one of those urban farmers, I mean gardeners), but if you ever thought about raising chickens out back, check out this post on the Illicit urban chicken movement over at Bright Green Blog.

There's a wealth of info there, tied to a report from the Worldwatch Institute, as well as links to other "how to" sites.

I don't want to raise chickens here in D.C. Tending plots in two community gardens, and keeping the basil going in the backyard, is more than enough. And nevermind the cat. But if you like your eggs fresh, this post's for you.

Fertilizer Cartel Driving Up Food Prices?

An interesting post by IATP's Think Forward blog points to a law suit filed in Minnesotacharging a global fertilizer cartel is driving up prices.

So farmers are paying more for fertilzer, or planting less (in developing countries) because they can't afford the stuff. Either way, it contributes to higher food prices. Here's what happened:

A small Minnesota-based company, Minn-Chem Inc., charges that seven companies in the United States, Canada, Russia and Belarus conspired to fix global prices for the fertilizer potash.

Potash includes mineral and chemical salts that contain potassium, and is widely used around the world as a fertilizer to increase crop yields. Over half of the world’s global capacity is located in just two regions: Canada and the former Soviet Union (Russia and Belarus).

So maybe there is an OPEC for fertilizers, but energy prices are a big factor too, since natural gas is used to make synthetic fertilizer. Put that together - with higher fuel prices in the whole food chain - and you get a pop in food prices that will likely last.

Nevermind the way biofuels are also eating away at supply and pushing food higher -- an increasingly controversial issue among multinationals.

Can Corporations Save the Fish?

I know, a few sustainability advocates can already feel their hair raising from that headline. But consider this article by Nicholas Day at Yale's Environment 360.

Worried about the reliability of future supplies, major corporations —including Wal-Mart, Unilever, and McDonald’s — are increasingly using their economic clout to bring about change in an industry that has a long history of decimating the very resource on which its business has been built.

He makes the point that I've been hoping to make for some time. That is, "it is far easier to improve fisheries management by involving a few dozen companies and conservation groups than by targeting millions of shoppers in consumer campaigns."

Consumer campaigns help, but they are costly to wage and hard to get people aboard. Now, that doesn't mean they should be avoided but rather seen as part of a larger campaign of putting pressure on companies and coming up with solutions, like sustainable seafood.

Mark Powell, vice president for fish conservation at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, says that by using economic clout to push fisheries toward sustainability, corporations are helping achieve "the Holy Grail, which is actual, on-the-water improvement."

"It's true there's a limit—the ocean is not infinite,” says Powell. “But we could have as much sustainable seafood as we have total seafood right now.”

Hummm... Mark's a friend of mine, but I wonder. It might require making mackerel and sardines into a delicacy. Chefs, get busy.

Clare Whacks a Chef with a Fish

Dear Chef-You-Know-Who-You-Are,

I figured our telephone conversation the other day might be awkward. Confrontation usually isn’t my thing. That’s why I’m a food-writer and not an investigative journalist. Believe me, no one was more surprised than me to discover you have bluefin tuna on the menu so brazenly, nestled right between the locally farmed oysters and beautiful organic greens from a nearby farm. I could have accidentally thought you were into sustainable ingredients. Silly me. So when I called you to ask “Why do you have bluefin tuna on the menu?” Uh, it wasn’t to chat with you about the fat content and deliciousness of the fish like you assumed.  It’s because everyone – including my 80-year old mother in the middle of Iowa – is aware of the demise of this spectacular fish.

I’d like to give you a pass because you simply didn’t know, but frankly? You’re in the industry. You talk to your fish purveyor frequently. And telling me that you only sell four pounds a week didn’t really make me feel better about spotting it on your list of offerings. Worse? You shared with me -- an identified reporter -- that half the time, you can’t get bluefin and that you’re substituting yellowfin. I was just wondering, Chef, if your customers aware of that? Or in addition to serving an extremely overfished species, you’re duping your diners as well? Because you see, when you said, “Well, it’s delicious, and that can win over my conscience,” that sorta sealed the deal for me on whether or not I’ll ever be calling you for a source in one of my stories, or if I’ll bring a group of friends to your place. The chances are pretty slim, you know, just so you know.

And if you’re wondering how I found out about your menu item in the first place? I came across this chill website called FoodieBytes. Have you heard of it? It’s got a cool feature where I can just go to “food search” and type in things like bluefin tuna, monkfish or shark’s fin and find restaurants in cities like Chicago, Washington DC and San Francisco that boast about them on the menu.

So, hey. Thanks for your time, but I’ve got few other calls to make.

–Clare Leschin-Hoar

Sustainable Sushi? Coming Soon...

Three heavyweights in Ocean Conservation - Monterey Bay Aquarium, Blue Oceans Institute, and Environmental Defense Fund - have joined forces to come to the aid of sushi lovers with sustainable seafood guides.

It's a good move considering that bluefin tuna is one of the most prized sushi delicacies but amounts to eating an endangered species.

Given that reality and confusion about other overfished species, a sushi lover with a conscience may be inclined to give in and order the gyoza, edamame, and chicken teriyaki and call it a night. But let's face it, that's not why you went out to eat.

Well, no longer! The guides, which will be officially launched on October 22, make the point that there are a lot of sustainable seafood options. In tuna alone, it gives a cautious "good alternative" to bigeye and yellowfin tuna if troll or pole caught. But if the fish are caught on a longline (that ensnares sea turtles and other bycatch) it's listed under the "avoid" category.

Here's a "green" list of "best choices" from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch sushi guide:

Aji/Sawara/Spanish mackerel*
Amaebi/Spot prawn (BC)
Awabi/Abalone (US farmed)
Gindara/Sablefish/Black cod (AK+, BC)
Hirame/Pacific halibut+
Hotate/Bay scallops (farmed)
Ikura/Salmon roe (AK wild)+
Iwana/Arctic char (farmed)
Iwashi/Sardine (US)
Izumidai/Tilapia (US farmed)
Kaki/Oysters (farmed)
Kanikama/Surimi/Imitation crab
(AK pollock+)
Katsuo/Bonito/Skipjack tuna
(troll/pole)
Masago/Smelt roe (Iceland)
Mirugai/Giant clam/Geoduck (wild)
Murugai/Mussels (farmed)
Sake/Salmon (AK wild)+
Shiro Maguro/Albacore tuna (troll/pole, BC or US+)
Suzuki/Striped bass (farmed or wild*)
Uni/Sea urchin roe (Canada)

Here's the list of good alternatives:

Amaebi/Spot prawn (US)
Ebi/Shrimp (US, farmed or wild)
Gindara/Sablefish/Black cod (CA, OR, WA)
Hamachi/Yellowtail (US farmed)
Hirame/Flounders, Soles (Pacific)
Hotate/Sea scallops (Canada, US)
Ika/Squid
Kani/Crab: Blue*, King (US), Snow
Kanikama/Surimi/Imitation crab (except AK pollock+)
Katsuo/Bonito/Skipjack tuna (Hawaii)
Maguro/Tuna: Bigeye, Yellowfin (troll/pole)
Masago/Smelt roe (Canada)
Sake/Salmon (WA wild)*
Shiro Maguro/Albacore tuna (Hawaii) *
Tai/Red porgy (US)
Toro/Tuna Belly: Bigeye, Yellowfin (troll/pole)
Uni/Sea urchin roe (CA)

Now here's the "red" avoid list:

Ankimo/Monkfish liver
Ankoh/Monkfish
Ebi/Shrimp (imported, farmed or wild)
Hamachi/Yellowtail (Australia or Japan, farmed)
Hirame/Flounders, Soles, Halibut (Atlantic)
Hon Maguro/Bluefin tuna*
Ikura/Salmon roe (farmed, including Atlantic)
Kani/Crab: King (imported)
Maguro/Tuna: Bigeye*, Yellowfin*
Sake/Salmon (farmed, including Atlantic)*
Shiro Maguro/Albacore tuna (imported) *
Tai/Red snapper
Tako/Octopus
Toro/Tuna Belly: Bigeye *, Bluefin*, Yellowfin*
Unagi/Freshwater eel
Uni/Sea urchin roe (Maine)

* indicates that consumption should be limited because of toxicity concerns.
+ means some or all of this fishery is certified as sustainable to the Marine Stewardship Council standard.

Looking at this list, I'd say it's a good start. But the impetus should really fall to the chef or restaurant so you don't have to ask whether the uni is from Maine, California or Canada. But come to think of it, I usually ask chefs where the fish is from -- and they are inclined to tell you if you're interested. At least, that's been my experience.

Farm Aid, Farmers and Fires

We don’t have vast thousand-acre farms in New England, but of the farms that we do have, 85 percent are family-owned. New England is home to vibrant farmers markets. There's  an active localvore community. And our small farms grow everything from tomatoes, sweet corn, apples and cranberries, to a budding viniculture segment.

So it was gratifying that Farm Aid, which is actually based here in Massachusetts,  held its first concert in New England in its 23-year history this weekend. I was a guest blogger for the folks at Farm Aid, offering my impressions of the event here and here.

But on Saturday, right about the time Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders was rocking the sold-out crowd of 20,000 concert-goers, a farm tragedy was unfolding nearby. Thick clouds of black smoke enveloped the farm stand, offices and kitchen of one the area’s most vital farms – Verrill Farms - and it took local firemen nearly four hours to extinguish the blaze, leaving only the building’s blackened ribs.

Steve Verrill and his family have been on their land in Concord since 1918. The farm was started by Steve’s father. Verrill himself was a dairy farmer for years, but traded that in for vegetable farming when the dairy industry got downright unprofitable. He was one of the first local farmers to connect directly with Boston’s best chefs, and his produce is regularly listed on menus by name. His name. I hear he’s even got a hefty waiting list of chefs with produce-envy.

The Verrill family likes a party. They hold a strawberry festival, an asparagus festival, a blueberry pancake breakfast and pie eating contest; a tomato and corn festival and half-a-dozen more events every year. Thanks to them, this farm is where thousands of children and their parents very likely connected with their food for the first time, and have continued to doing so for generations. And that tomato contest I judged last month? Steve was the one that got the state to include heirlooms as a category. Before that, there wasn’t one.

I feel confident Verrill will rebuild and thrive. His impact on people in the region is huge, and his customers understand that it is crucial that Verrill and his farm survive. He’s fortunate, despite the fire.

While I applaud Farm Aid’s longevity and efforts to raise awareness of the critical role farmers play in our country, I can’t help but feel discouraged that there have been 23 years of Farm Aid concerts and fundraising, and yet things are still dire for so many of our nation’s farms. Still, at least one in-tune group is fighting the fires -- as well as the floods and failures of our farmers.
– Clare Leschin-Hoar

Image: Willie Nelson at Farm Aid, photo by Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve Inc. 2008