Food Safety In The 21st Century

   This article make a great argument for food safety. It is obviously written by someone in government and not agriculture because it focuses on government agencies, seems to blindly accept the factory farming practices that make food-bourne issues huge problems, and no where suggests that how we manufacture food be changed.

   In the last paragraph, Dr. Blumenthal writes, "Greater attention to reducing food-related infections would save lives and contribute to reducing health care costs as well. The report underscores that today's world of agricultural practices in a global food supply chain require a modern system of food safety inspection."

   I contend that we can reduce food-related infections by moving from industrial food manufacturing where these pathogens thrive and spread, to a more diverse, small-scale, locally-focused agricultural system. Such systems are better for the environment, better for the soil, have the potential to produce better food, would create more jobs in real farming, has reduced incidents of food-borne pathogens, and affects fewer people when there is an issue.

   Of course, there are no lobbyists in Washington for real agriculture.

   Here's the article:

Food Safety In The 21st Century
Susan Blumenthal, M.D.Public Health Editor at HuffPost and Former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General
Written in Collaboration with Alison Gocke

It sounds like a story right out of science fiction: A microscopic killer that shuts down the food supply, cripples a nation's exports, and leaves scores of people dead and thousands more ill. Such an event would seem unthinkable in the modern world of advanced agriculture and medical practice. But it did unfortunately occur several months ago as a result of an outbreak in Germany caused by a deadly, rare strain of E. coli bacteria that sickened more than 4,000 people and killed more than 50.

The strain, whose genome was just recently sequenced by scientists at the University of Maryland, is particularly virulent, carrying a combination of both Shiga toxin (which causes severe gastrointestinal illness like bloody vomiting, diarrhea, and sometimes, kidney failure) and a unique ability to adhere to the intestinal wall. The bacteria -- part of the serotype 0104:H4 -- is thus one of the most rare, deadly E. coli lines in existence. [1]

Over the past five years, from the E. coli scare found in California spinach to the recent outbreak of salmonella in ground turkey, serious and sometimes fatal illnesses resulting from contaminated food have occurred more frequently than expected. Since 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued 39 warnings of multi-state foodborne illness occurrences. [2]

It is estimated that 48 million people are infected by foodborne diseases in the United States each year [3], resulting in $152 billion in medical costs annually. [4] And these outbreaks show no sign of abating; the incidence of salmonella infections alone has increased 20 percent since 1997. [5] With 170 countries exporting food to the U.S., and more than 70,000 food safety violations on food that is imported into America reported from 1998 to 2004 alone, the E. coli outbreak in Germany -- with additional cases reported in France and the U.S. -- shines a spotlight on why the issue of food safety is an international concern. [6]

According to the World Bank, more than two-thirds of countries globally are net importers (i.e., imports exceed exports) of food. [7] The devastating European E. coli outbreak that began in Germany in May illustrates the interconnectedness of the global food supply. From the beginning, the E. coli incident created an international chain reaction: Confusion early on in the investigation of the source of the outbreak led to erroneous warnings about Spanish cucumbers, tomatoe, and leafy greens as the source of infection. [8] As a result, Russia suspended food imports from all member countries of the European Union. [9]

However, upon further investigation, public health officials from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) now believe the source of infection to be sprouted seeds (a category of germinated seeds that includes fenugreek, lentil and bean sprouts) imported from Egypt and purchased by a German company. [10] The infected seeds were then sold to Britain, which in turn sold them in France, where reports of infections from the same strain of E. coli as that found in Germany surfaced a month ago. [11] The outbreak even reached the United States, with six confirmed cases of Americans infected by the German strain. [12] According to the European Food Safety Authority, the Egyptian seeds -- more than 11 tons in total -- were shipped around the world, purchased by 54 companies in Germany and disseminated among at least a dozen other European countries. [13] Investigators are now working to locate the remaining shipments of Egyptian seeds to prevent further disease outbreaks.

This incident highlights the fact that agriculture in the 21st century involves industrial-sized farms and corporations harvesting their products from all corners of the earth, and selling them across the globe, crossing national borders. This makes the issue of food safety much more complex. The good news is that many serious foodborne illness outbreaks are preventable; an efficient and effective food safety agency that monitors farms and factories, maintains an effective epidemiological and emergency response team, and provides up-to-date, accurate information to the public in the face of an outbreak can go a long way in reducing the spread of disease and its related costs. Unfortunately, this type of agency is the exception rather than the rule, including in America.

Until recently, the food safety mission of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was focused on response rather than prevention. The FDA had little authority to inspect food production at all levels of the supply chain, issue guidelines for proper cultivation of produce (thus reducing outbreaks at their source) or verify that food imports came from reliable growers. The agency could only suggest that infected foods be recalled -- it had no powers to require companies to remove their products, even if they were found to carry diseases. [14] And for three years now the FDA has been requesting additional funds to increase inspections of foreign foods, claiming that the agency does not have the resources to meet the demand. [15]

Furthermore, the creation of a seamless system of food safety programs is impeded by the split functions between the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the inspection of meat, eggs and poultry under the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), has had its own issues with implementation of food safety procedures. Approval of regulations for the inspection of six strains of E. coli found in beef -- known as the "Big Six" -- have stalled in the White House Office of Management and Budget, leaving some experts wondering whether the U.S. meat industry is vulnerable to E. coli outbreaks. Consequently, a number of ground beef businesses have begun testing for E. coli at their plants. This is possible because tests created and used by the USDA have recently become commercially available. Scientists are now working to develop a new kit that would test for the German E. coli strain as well. [16]

The FDA does not have procedures in place to test regularly for the Big Six strains of E. coli either, which can also be found in produce. [17] The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the USDA and the FDA often overlap in their duties. For instance, although the USDA's mission is confined to inspecting meat, poultry and some eggs, with the FDA regulating all other foods and drugs in the U.S., a simple frozen pepperoni pizza would fall under the jurisdiction of both agencies. As a result, almost 1,500 food establishments are inspected by both the USDA and the FDA. The overlap creates inefficiencies in the system and could delay responses in the case of a serious foodborne illness outbreak. [18]

Fortunately, steps forward in fixing life-threatening problems in food safety prevention and response in America were taken this year with the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in January of 2011. The legislation, the first serious reform for U.S. food safety since 1938, brings the FDA's food safety authorities into the 21st century [19], with new powers for the agency to require prevention-based checks across the food supply; standardize inspections for food producers; mandate food recalls in the case of an outbreak; and improve coordination among the FDA and other government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the CDC. [20]

The FSMA also addresses the international component of food safety: Under the FSMA, the FDA is given the authority to require importers to verify the quality standards of their suppliers, to refuse admission to imported food if the foreign facility refuses to allow an FDA inspection and to require certification that imported food is in compliance with food safety requirements. The legislation also mandates more frequent inspections of foreign food suppliers, with inspection quotas increasing each year after the FSMA is implemented. [21]

Additionally, the FSMA aims to harmonize some of the shared responsibilities between the FDA and the USDA. The legislation calls for increased coordination between the two agencies under the categories of food vulnerability assessments, private sector coordinating councils for agriculture and food defense, laboratory networks and data sharing, and decontamination and disposal standards. Although the legislation does not change the jurisdiction of either agency, it requires that the USDA and FDA, along with other agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), collaborate on a National Agriculture and Food Defense Strategy. [22] The FSMA is a much-needed step forward in protecting Americans from foodborne illnesses and, hopefully, reducing the costs of outbreaks in terms of productivity loss and economic impact.

But now the FSMA faces a whole new hurdle: the movement in Washington to tighten the reins on federal spending. This year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut the 2012 FDA budget by $87 million dollars -- that's $87 million less than the FDA received last year, and $226 million short of what's needed to enact FSMA. [23] The House also proposed cuts to the Food Safety Inspection Service of the USDA, which is responsible for the inspection of meat, poultry and eggs. [24] The proposed cuts mean that the FDA will struggle to keep up with its inspections as well as maintain a coordinated and speedy response system in the case of an outbreak. It also reduces the likelihood that the FDA will have the resources to establish the new FSMA system to inspect imported foods. That means that foreign suppliers may not have to meet the same food safety standards as do domestic farmers. [25]

The FDA is not the only agency involved with food safety to face budget reductions this year. The House of Representatives has also proposed cuts to the Food Safety Inspection Service of the USDA, which is responsible for the inspection of meat, poultry and eggs. [26] In addition, all funds were cut for the national foodborne pathogen monitoring program overseen by the USDA, known as the Microbiological Data Program. This program is considered by many public health officials as one of the first lines of defense against foodborne illnesses in the United States, because it screens fruits and vegetables for common pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. [27] The Microbiological Data Program has regularly screened around 15,000 produce samples a year for the past ten years, as compared to the 1,000 samples spot-checked annually by the FDA. In the past two years alone, the program's screenings have led to 19 product recalls. [28]

The looming budget cuts have prompted a warning from the FDA. Recently, the agency released a special report entitled Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality. The document underscores that the current food safety infrastructure is simply unable to support the inspections required to keep contaminated foods from entering the U.S. market. This is in part due to the fact that imports of food and drugs to the United States have increased six-fold over the last ten years. Almost 80 percent of medication ingredients,75 percent of seafood, and 60 percent of fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States come from other countries. And though FSMA takes these statistics into account -- requiring the FDA to inspect at least 600 foreign food suppliers over the course of a year -- the report says implementing the task will be impossible without additional funding. [29]

The FDA report also emphasizes that food-borne illnesses result in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually in the United States alone. [30] A recent nationwide outbreak of Salmonella sickness (resulting in the recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey produced in an Arkansas meat plant) underscores the seriousness of food poisoning as a public health threat in America.

Greater attention to reducing food-related infections would save lives and contribute to reducing health care costs as well. The report underscores that today's world of agricultural practices in a global food supply chain require a modern system of food safety inspection. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is a long-awaited step towards improving our country's food safety system. The recent E. coli outbreak in Europe, the high incidence of food-borne illnesses in the United States as illustrated by the latest Salmonella outbreak and the FDA's report highlight why adequate resources are urgently needed to fully implement the FSMA, and why food safety must be made a national priority in the United States and around the world.

For more information, visit foodsafety.gov.

Rear Admiral Susan Blumenthal, M.D. (ret.) is the Public Health Editor of the Huffington Post. She serves as Director of the Health and Medicine Program at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, D.C., a Clinical Professor at Georgetown and Tufts University Schools of Medicine, and Chair of the Global Health Program at the Meridian International Center. She served for more than 20 years in health leadership positions in the Federal government in the Administrations of four U.S. Presidents, including as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States, the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Women's Health, as a White House Advisor on Health, and as Chief of the Behavioral Medicine and Basic Prevention Research Branch at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Blumenthal has received numerous awards including honorary doctorates and has been decorated with the highest medals of the U.S. Public Health Service for her pioneering leadership and significant contributions to advancing health in the United States and worldwide and was the recipient of the 2009 Health Leader of the Year Award from the Commissioned Officers Association. Admiral Blumenthal has been named by the National Library of Medicine, The New York Times and the Medical Herald as one of the most influential women in medicine and as a Rock Star of Science by GQ by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation.


Alison Gocke, an undergraduate at Princeton University, serves as a Health Policy Intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington D.C.


[1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1106920#t=article
[2] http://www.cdc.gov/outbreaknet/outbreaks.html
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/food-safety-funding-battle-looms-as-obama-prepares-to-sign-reform-bill.html
[4] http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-03-03-food-borne-illness_N.htm
[5] http://dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-111-2-55.html
[6] http://dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-111-2-55.html
[7] http://www.google.com/url?
[8] http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/64d387da-912e-11e0-9668-00144feab49a.html#axzz1P6QnmIE4
[9] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960846-5/fulltext?rss=yes#
[10] http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/07/naming-names-in-eu-e-coli-outbreak-fair-game/
[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/world/europe/27ecoli.html?scp=2&sq=e.%20coli&st=cse
[12] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5irpE8YEZQLrnnhmdwxTN-VWlZuqg?docId=41ebabe49fe243e1a4331b5ccd2ac0b0
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/business/06seeds.html?_r=1&hpw
[14] http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FSMA/ucm247559.htm
[15] http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080115/us-food-safety-the-import-alarm-keeps-sounding.htm
[16] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/business/food-companies-act-to-protect-consumers-from-e-coli-illness.html
[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/opinion/05Benedict.html
[18] http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-213
[19] http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/safety/2010-12-03-foodsafetyQA03_ST_N.htm
[20] http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FSMA/ucm247559.htm#records1
[21] http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FSMA/ucm237934.htm
[22] http://dpc.senate.gov/docs/lb-111-2-57.html
[23] http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/06/02/as-europe-reels-from-e-coli-problems-with-food-safety-in-the-u-s/
[24] http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/06/02/as-europe-reels-from-e-coli-problems-with-food-safety-in-the-u-s/
[25] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/food-safety-advocates-decry-fda-cuts/2011/05/27/AGzY7yEH_story.html
[26] http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/06/02/as-europe-reels-from-e-coli-problems-with-food-safety-in-the-u-s/
[27] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/microbiological-data-program-e-coli-screening_n_890165.html
[28] http://www.latimes.com/health/ct-met-pathogen-program-20110704,0,2683563.story
[29] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/health/policy/21food.html?scp=2&sq=fda&st=cse
[30] http://dpc.senate.gov/docs/fs-111-2-55.html

[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]

New Research Shows Factory Farms are NOT the Way to Feed the World

   I saw this article last week and haven't had a chance to share it until now. The article mentions the video here (which plainly says "unauthorized use or distribution prohibited", but I'm going to assume that, since it's up on You Tube, it's safe to embed alongside an article promoting it.)

Here's the article, by pollywog on My Auburn California:


Farmageddon...The Unseen War on American Family Farms, produced and directed by Kristin Canty (Google this or go to Mercola doc com to watch the video. Just search for the title of this article)

Conventional opinion is that feeding the world by 2050 will necessitate a massive, global ramp-up of industrial-scale, corporate-led agriculture. But this is not always the opinion of scientists whose work takes them out of the laboratory and into farm fields and ecosystems, such as soil experts, ecologists, and development specialists.

One recently published scientific paper urges a fundamental rethinking of the U.S. agricultural-research system, which it calls "narrowly focused on productivity and efficiency" at the expense of public health and ecological resilience. It also calls for a revamping of the Farm Bill, which it argues uses subsidies to "mask market, social, and environmental factors associated with conventional production systems."

According to Grist:

"While conventional wisdom holds that scientists who study agriculture think only lots of GMOs and agrichemicals can feed us going forward, [this research] team has quite a different set of recommendations in mind: 'organic farming, alternative livestock production (e.g., grass-fed), mixed crop and livestock systems, and perennial grains.' They are by no means the only high-level researchers to reach such conclusions."

Sources:

Grist May 11, 2011

Science May 6, 2011 (PDF)

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

From a purely financial perspective, factory farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) make loads of economic sense. Large numbers of animals, typically 1,000 or more, are raised in a small area, fed cheap, typically grain-based, genetically modified food, and supplemented with hormones and antibiotics to maximize their growth potential in the shortest amount of time possible.

"Indulgences" like access to pasture or natural foods, sunlight and fresh air are not a part of the equation as they don't positively impact profits.

As it stands, Time magazine reported that 2 percent of U.S. livestock facilities produce 40 percent of farm animals, and these CAFOs have been highly promoted as the best way to produce food for the masses.

But thankfully a ray of hope has emerged.

New Policy Reform Paper Urges Transition to Sustainable Agriculture Systems

A very bright, forward-thinking paper from a group of researchers led by Washington State University soil scientist John P. Reganold, published in Science, has summed up problems with CAFOs and the need for transformative farming approaches that address long-term sustainability.

They say:

"Achieving sustainable agricultural systems will require transformative changes in markets, policy, and science."

To realize this change will involve a transition away from CAFOs and toward innovative farming practices that:

" … integrate production, environmental, and socioeconomic objectives; reflect greater awareness of ecosystem services; and capitalize on synergies between complementary farm enterprises, such as between crop and livestock production."

The paper builds on a National Research Council report released last year – Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century – that reported in 2007 the largest 2 percent of U.S. farms were responsible for 59 percent of total farm sales.

What are the Consequences of Relying on CAFOs for Food?

The trend of large corporate-controlled CAFOs making up the lion's share of U.S. food production has lead to an abundance of cheap food, but not without consequence.

As the report noted:

"Many modern agricultural practices have unintended negative consequences, or externalized costs of production, that are mostly unaccounted for in agricultural productivity measurements or by farm enterprise budgets."

This includes:

Loss of water quality through nitrogen and phosphorus contamination in rivers, streams and ground water (which contributes to "dramatic shifts in aquatic ecosystems and hypoxic zones")

Agricultural pesticide contamination to streams, ground water and wells, and safety concerns to agricultural workers who use them

A decline in nutrient density of 43 garden crops (primarily vegetables), which suggests "possible tradeoffs between yield and nutrient content)

Large emission of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide

Negative impact on soil quality through such factors as erosion, compaction, pesticide application and excessive fertilization

Industrial agriculture also raises concerns about the welfare of farm animals and the farmers themselves. Net farm income received by farmers has remained stagnant for the last four decades, and more than 50 percent of U.S. farmers must supplement their income with additional jobs during the off-season.

A large number of these farmers are slated to retire in the next decade, which means there may be a vast shortage of farmers in the United States, and corporate agriculture could continue to reign supreme.

This is a problem for another glaring reason as well – namely that this system directly contributes to Americans' increasing reliance on processed junk foods – the very same foods that are making us fat and riddled with chronic disease. This is in large part due to the fatally flawed Farm Bill, which is slated to be renewed in 2012.

What's the Farm Bill Got to do With It?

The Farm Bill is renewed every four years. The last version was revamped in 2008, and at that time it set aside $2.3 billion to subsidize small farmers' specialty crops, which sounds promising until you hear that $290 billion was given to big business in the form of corn, soybean and cotton subsidies.

By subsidizing these, particularly corn and soy, the U.S. government is actively supporting a diet that consists of these grains in their processed form, namely high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), soybean oil, and grain-fed cattle – all of which are now well-known contributors to obesity and chronic diseases.

In a nutshell, the American agricultural system promotes and produces junk food, which is the precise opposite of what we all need in order to be healthy.

Take HFCS, for example. It's actually quite difficult to find a processed food product that does NOT include HFCS, and oftentimes it's one of the top three ingredients. With everything we now know about how HFCS and other sugars create obesity and chronic disease, is it any wonder we have a health care crisis on our hands?

The breakdown of government farm subsidies is really quite eye-opening and clearly correlates with which foods are heavily consumed in the United States:

Meat/Dairy -- 73.8 percent

Grains -- 13.2 percent

Sugar/Oil/Starch/Alcohol -- 10.7 percent

Nuts/Legumes -- 1.9 percent

Vegetables/Fruits -- 0.4 percent

Notice that less than half a percent of food subsidies is for fruits and vegetables! This is precisely why families have trouble affording green peppers, leafy greens and tomatoes, but can get a fast-food cheeseburger for a buck.

The bad news is that the foods receiving the greatest subsidies are the very foods you should avoid or limit, according to federal nutrition guidelines. It's a perfect example of saying one thing but doing another, and then blaming the ill effects on human nature.

The Science report, which is calling for a reform of the Farm Bill, further notes:

"Most elements of the Farm Bill were not designed to promote sustainability. Subsidies are commonly criticized for distorting market incentives and making our food system overly dependent on a few grain crops mainly used for animal feed and highly processed food, with deleterious effects on the environment and human health."

A Better Way to Raise Our Food

The video above is the trailer from a full-length documentary called Farmageddon...The Unseen War on American Family Farms, produced and directed by Kristin Canty. It offers an in-depth look into the escalating fight for food rights in the United States, including the right to purchase raw milk from small family farms.

The growing demand for raw milk is one sign that people are increasingly looking for fresh, whole foods that come from sustainable sources.

Partly in response to this consumer demand, researchers are now calling for both incremental and transformative approaches to make U.S. agriculture sustainable. This includes not only short-term goals like two-year crop rotations and reduced (or no) tillage but also a long-term transformative approach that:

" … builds on an understanding of agriculture as a complex socioecological system. Transformative change looks to whole-system redesign rather than single technological improvements. Examples of such innovative systems make up a modest, but growing, component of U.S. agriculture and include organic farming, alternative livestock production (e.g., grass-fed), mixed crop and livestock systems, and perennial grains.

Such systems integrate production, environmental, and socioeconomic objectives; reflect greater awareness of ecosystem services; and capitalize on synergies between complementary farm enterprises, such as between crop and livestock production."

This sounds very much like one emerging type of farming known as permaculture. The Permaculture Institute defines permaculture as an "ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor."

The word itself comes from "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture," and at its foundation is developing agricultural and other systems that are interconnected and dependent on one another. In other words, they mimic the natural ecologies found in nature. The focus is not on any one element of the system, rather the focus is on the relationships between animals, plants, insects, soil, water and habitat -- and how to use these relationships to create synergistic, self-supporting ecosystems.

How to Help Support Sustainable Agriculture

If you want to optimize your health, you simply must return to the basics of healthy food choices and typically this includes buying your food from responsible, high-quality, sustainable sources.

This is why I encourage you to support the small family farms in your area. This includes not only visiting the farm directly, if you have one nearby, but also taking part in farmer's markets and community-supported agriculture programs.

Now that summer is almost here in the United States, fresh produce and other wonderful whole foods are available in abundance. Not only is the food so much tastier and healthier when you get it from sustainable, non-CAFO sources, but there is something about shopping for fresh foods in an open-air, social environment that just feels right. An artificially lit, dreary supermarket -- home to virtually every CAFO food made -- just can't compete.

If you want to experience some of these benefits first-hand, here are some great resources to obtain wholesome food that supports not only you but also the environment:

Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Farmers' Markets -- A national listing of farmers' markets.

Local Harvest -- This Web site will help you find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals -- The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) -- CISA is dedicated to sustaining agriculture and promoting the products of small farms.

FoodRoutes -- The FoodRoutes “Find Good Food” map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA's, and markets near you.


[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]

My Letter to President Obama

Mr. President (and administration),

Twelve days ago I received an email with the subject line of Gas Prices that told of your goal to reduce oil imports. I missed the deadline for the Advise the Advisor feedback, but I wanted to share this with you.

It seems clear to me that we have focused too much on consolidation of resources and activities with catastrophic results like "too big to fail". It seems to me business models need to look more like the internet, which is lots of small computers connected to a large network. With businesses growing larger and larger and becoming more and more consolidated, we are creating more and bigger problems.

Two examples of this are directly connected to this energy policy.

1) Solar farms. Why do we feel we must create large solar farms that take up real estate? The sun shines in different areas at different times and we currently have networks of buildings already connected to the power grid all across the country.

Why don't we let the people build new jobs in solar energy and a new "solar internet" of power by creating incentives to make solar affordable to individuals, families, and businesses in the current market and make requirements for new construction to include solar collection? This would reduce power consumption and feed any extra solar power back into the grid.

2) Agriculture. Right now our industrial model of agriculture uses an unbelievable amount of energy that goes into growing, fertilizing, pesticides, packaging, processing, storing, and distribution from a small number of industrial sources to all over the world. This practice is both unsustainable and unsafe (how many eggs had to be recalled last August?). Concentrated agriculture has proven to be an environmental hazard as well.

Why do we not encourage networks of smaller and more diverse farms that are not a burden on nature, closer to the people they feed, and thereby more sustainable? This model can drastically reduce agricultural energy dependence.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sustainable Farming Can Feed the World?

   Great article by Mark Bittman in the New York Times:

The oldest and most common dig against organic agriculture is that it cannot feed the world’s citizens; this, however, is a supposition, not a fact. And industrial agriculture isn’t working perfectly, either: the global food price index is at a record high, and our agricultural system is wreaking havoc with the health not only of humans but of the earth. There are around a billion undernourished people; we can also thank the current system for the billion who are overweight or obese.

Yet there is good news: increasing numbers of scientists, policy panels and experts (not hippies!) are suggesting that agricultural practices pretty close to organic — perhaps best called “sustainable” — can feed more poor people sooner, begin to repair the damage caused by industrial production and, in the long term, become the norm.

On Tuesday, Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the Right to Food, presented a report entitled “Agro-ecology and the Right to Food.” (Agro-ecology, he said in a telephone interview last Friday, has “lots” in common with both “sustainable” and “organic.”) Chief among de Schutter’s recommendations is this: “Agriculture should be fundamentally redirected towards modes of production that are more environmentally sustainable and socially just.”

Agro-ecology, he said, immediately helps “small farmers who must be able to farm in ways that are less expensive and more productive. But it benefits all of us, because it decelerates global warming and ecological destruction.” Further, by decentralizing production, floods in Southeast Asia, for example, might not mean huge shortfalls in the world’s rice crop; smaller scale farming makes the system less susceptible to climate shocks. (Calling it a system is a convention; it’s actually quite anarchic, what with all these starving and overweight people canceling each other out.)

Industrial (or “conventional”) agriculture requires a great deal of resources, including disproportionate amounts of water and the fossil fuel that’s needed to make chemical fertilizer, mechanize working the land and its crops, running irrigation sources, heat buildings and crop dryers and, of course, transportation. This means it needs more in the way of resources than the earth can replenish. (Fun/depressing fact: It takes the earth 18 months to replenish the amount of resources we use each year. Looked at another way, we’d need 1.5 earths to be sustainable at our current rate of consumption.)

Agro-ecology and related methods are going to require resources too, but they’re more in the form of labor, both intellectual — much research remains to be done — and physical: the world will need more farmers, and quite possibly less mechanization. Many adherents rule out nothing, including in their recommendations even GMOs and chemical fertilizers where justifiable. Meanwhile, those working towards improving conventional agriculture are borrowing more from organic methods. (Many of these hybrid systems were discussed convincingly in Andrew Revkin’s DotEarth blog last week.)

Currently, however, it’s difficult to see progress in a country where, for example, nearly 90 percent of the corn crop is used for either ethanol (40 percent) or animal feed (50 percent). And most of the diehard adherents of industrial agriculture — sadly, this usually includes Congress, which largely ignores these issues — act as if we’ll somehow “fix” global warming and the resulting climate change. (The small percentage of climate-change deniers are still arguing with Copernicus.) Their assumption is that by increasing supply, we’ll eventually figure out how to feed everyone on earth, even though we don’t do that now, our population is going to be nine billion by 2050, and more supply of the wrong things — oil, corn, beef — only worsens things. Many seem to naively believe that we won’t run out of the resources we need to keep this system going.

There is more than a bit of silver-bullet thinking here. Yet anyone who opens his or her eyes sees a natural world so threatened by industrial agriculture that it’s tempting to drop off the grid and raise a few chickens.

   READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE

First Alfalfa, Now Beets

   As if this bit of bad news was not enough:

   "Experts: Contamination from GM alfalfa certain

Contamination of organic and traditional crops by recently deregulated, genetically modified alfalfa is inevitable, agriculture experts said, despite Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's recent assurances the federal government would take steps to prevent such a problem.

By MICHAEL J. CRUMB
Associated Press Writer
DES MOINES, Iowa —

Contamination of organic and traditional crops by recently deregulated, genetically modified alfalfa is inevitable, agriculture experts said, despite Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's recent assurances the federal government would take steps to prevent such a problem.
...
"Opponents, many of them organic farmers, say widespread planting of genetically modified alfalfa will result in pollen from those plants contaminating organic and traditional crops, destroying their value. While alfalfa is mostly used as hay for cattle, some consumers don't want to eat foods, such as milk or beef, from animals that have consumed genetically modified plants.
...
"In announcing the agency's decision, Vilsack said steps would be taken to ensure genetically modified alfalfa wouldn't cross-pollinate with organic and unmodified crops. USDA officials declined to answer questions about what those steps would entail, pointing to a document posted on the agency's website.

The text of Vilsack's announcement says the agency plans include expanding a program in Washington state to produce more unmodified alfalfa seed and maintain a pure supply.

It also says crop geneticists have been told to identify ways to protect unmodified alfalfa from genetically engineered varieties, like they are doing for corn. And, Vilsack has proposed research to improve detection of modified genes in alfalfa and hay. He also promised $1 million for research on the flow of pollen to better determine how big buffer zones between modified and unmodified fields must be to prevent contamination.

None of that will be enough to prevent contamination, said Jeff Wolt, an agronomist with Iowa State University's Seed Science Center.

'Some degree of cross-pollination will occur regardless of what mechanism is going to be put in place,' he predicted."

   [READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE]

   Then this news comes along:

Friday, the USDA quietly announced deregulation of Monsanto’s GMO sugarbeets

   "The US Department of Agriculture continues its unprecedented give-away to big agriculture monster Monsanto and its Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds. On Friday, while the media was preoccupied with the Superbowl and Egypt’s rioting, the USDA quietly announced it was deregulating Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets – despite a court order.

This move comes just a week after the agency had gone back on its own plan to regulate GMO alfalfa to at least attempt to keep it from contaminating organic farms. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had been floating a plan to limit the area where the GMO crop could be planted, but caved to a storm of pressure from industry, Congressional Republicans (and Monsanto pals like Montana Democrat Max Baucus), and the Obama White House."

   The article includes this timeline:

    * 2005 – the USDA allows the planting of GMO sugar beets. As the Wall Street Journal notes, “Until now, the USDA has always allowed the unrestricted planting of a genetically modified crop once it had passed its regulatory review, a process that largely hinges on the narrow question of whether a genetically modified crop could somehow become a plant pest” – not other issues like consumer health or impact on organic farming.

    * 2008 – Various groups sue, stating that the USDA should have studied the environmental impact BEFORE releasing these genes into America’s farms, rather than after.
    * August 2010 – U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White rules in favor of the organics groups, saying an Environmental Impact Statement must be conducted and banning planting of GMO sugar beets until the completion – which probably won’t happen before 2012

    * 2010 – Farmers panic – Monsanto has so dominated the market that there aren’t enough non-GMO seeds available for them to buy and plant. They appeal to the USDA.

    * 2010 – In a separate case, Monsanto argues that the USDA should be able to partially de-regulate a GMO crop (in this case, alfalfa) while it conducts its studies, and the judge agrees.

    * 2011 – The USDA appeals Judge White’s ruling, which would have required currently planted seedlings to be plowed under – hearing set for February 15.

    * 2011 – The USDA, in compliance with the second ruling (but not the first) says “go ahead and plant the Monsanto seeds – with a few restrictions”. (And how will that fly next week in the appeal hearing?)

    * 2011 – The environmental groups, including Earth Justice and the Center for Food Safety say they’ll return to court to block this ruling, which after all, is technically in contempt of court. But with the alfalfa ruling allowing partial de-regulation, Judge White’s hands may be tied.

   [READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]

   Monsanto's friends in Washington seem to be busy. It won't be long before organic is meaningless and even buying local will be a crap shoot. Even your own home garden might have the potential of being cross-pollinated over the next few years.

   Thank you to the corporate lobby and the geniuses in Washington who could not be more far removed from the source! Thank you for selling out our food and farmland!

Feed The World

   The United States imports about 20% of it's food (by volume, according to the USDA in 2008). In 2007, the U.S. exported over $11 billion in corn alone. With figures like that in mind, Timothy W. Jones' 2004 study should be pretty clear evidence that, if seed-patenting and genetically modified food corporations are truly interested in feeding the world, they need new management.

   The problem is not that there is not enough food. The problem is that we don't want to share unless there's a profit margin.

   From UA News:


Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, has spent the last 10 years measuring food loss, including the last eight under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jones started in the farms and orchards, went on through the warehouses, retail outlets and dining rooms, and to landfills.

What he found was that not only is edible food discarded that could feed people who need it, but the rate of loss, even partially corrected, could save U.S. consumers and corporations tens of billions of dollars each year. Jones says these losses also can be framed in terms of environmental degradation and national security.

Jones' research evolved from and builds on earlier work done at the University of Arizona. Archaeologists there began measuring garbage in the 1970s to see what was being thrown away and discovered that people were not fully aware of what they were using and discarding. Those earlier studies evolved into more sophisticated research using contemporary archaeology and ethnography to understand not only the path food travels from farms and orchards to landfills, but also the culture and psychology behind the process.

A certain amount of waste in the food stream simply can't be helped. Little can be done, for instance, about weather and crop deterioration. The apple industry, for instance, loses on average about 12 percent of its crop on the way to market.

Apples in the U.S. are harvested over a two-month period and then stored and sold year-round. People in the apple business use aggressive methods to maintain their crop, with fresh apples hitting the supermarkets on a regular basis and marginal ones sent to be made into applesauce and other products.

The goal of apple growers is to provide a nutritious product, all year long, at fairly constant prices. Jones says they've adopted a conservative business plan that forgoes the boom-and-bust cycles that other fruit and vegetable growers aim for and opts instead for a steady income stream.
Fresh fruit and vegetable growers, in contrast, often behave like riverboat gamblers. They will roam their fields while on their cell phones to the commodity markets in Chicago, play the odds and even dance a jig or flip a coin if they think it will help them make a financial killing. A bad bet often means an entire crop is left in the field to be plowed under.
Jones' research also shows that by measuring how much food is actually being brought into households, a clearer picture of that end of the food stream is beginning to emerge.

On average, households waste 14 percent of their food purchases. Fifteen percent of that includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.
Jones says there are three simple ways most people can significantly reduce their own food waste. One is careful purchase planning: devise menus and make up grocery lists accordingly.

Another is knowing what lurks in the refrigerator and pantry that needs to be used while it is still useable.

And understand that many kinds of food can be refrigerated or frozen and eaten later.

Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion, making it a serious economic problem. (In addition to farms and households, Jones also is currently researching retail food waste, again a sector where annual losses run in the tens of billions of dollars.)

Cutting food waste would also go a long way toward reducing serious environmental problems. Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.


Go to UA News.

Elk, Mayo, and Potato Salad

   Elk season opened this past Saturday. One person in our party spotted several cows over the course of the weekend. I saw a buck Sunday and with a quick call I was able to give him to pause and present me with a perfect target; too bad it wasn't deer season. On Monday we did not see or hear anything but other hunters and logging in the distance. Tuesday morning I decided to try a new area and heard a cow calling repeatedly. I adjusted my position just in time to see a herd of elk parade into the trees. I followed their trail for about a mile into the woods, but never saw them again. Still, I know where I'm going this weekend.

   In lieu of packing the freezer with elk, today I decided to make potato salad. I was inspired recently during our visit to the east coast by tales of a friend in Alabama who has taken to making everything from scratch. I did can some relish this season, but the idea of making almost everything from scratch captured my imagination and I started looking into canning recipes for things like mustard and catsup. What I discovered is that homemade mayonnaise cannot be preserved -- it can only be made fresh and refrigerated for use over a few days. Seriously makes me wonder what's in commercial mayo that can sit on a grocery store shelf.

   Anyway, this afternoon I made potato salad with local potatoes, eggs from the chickens, last season's pickles, and homemade mayo. It took me a while to get the proportions worked out with the mayo, so I ended up with more than I intended.

   I guess I'll have plenty for sandwiches while I'm out trying to get one of those elk!

Chuck Palazzo

   I dig this cat.

   From Veterans Today:

   Chuck Palazzo: "Marine Combat Veteran, served with 1st and 3rd FORCERECON. RVN 1970-1971. Currently living, writing and working in Da Nang, Vietnam. Agent Orange and Unexploded Ordinance activist and researcher."

   Chuck is paying attention to the chemical industries and is trying to get the word out.

The Most Difficult Time Of The Year

   I imagine seasons go by for some folks as little more than a change in the weather. Some have yard work, some have professional challenges that change with the season. When I lived on the SE coast, fall was the beginning of the end of tourist season and the start of college season, meaning a significant shift in material as an entertainer. In the NW, it means the end of the outdoor season and more business for entertainment.

   Trying to eat locally and live sustainably, it's a whole new world. This is the time of year when the ant and the grasshopper begin to haunt a person. This year's growing season was not great and optimists like myself were caught off-guard as September passed. Fortunately we had access to local produce. We were able to use our garden to supplement canning projects as we had no real excess of our own. We also made a point to stock up on basics like beans, rice, flour, pasta, sugar, and salt for a few bucks.

   Still, there is much to be done. I harvested a couple cords of hardwood for the woodstove, but we still need more -- preferably some seasoned fir or other softwood for kindling. Onions and carrots in the garden need to be harvested for beef stew to be canned. Egg production has dropped off dramatically with the hens as the days grow shorter and darker. The maple tree will continue to dump leaves for the compost pile for a while. The freezer needs re-stocked either from the butcher shop (and the cushion fund was spent on vacation earlier this month) or by elk or late deer season. The latter, of course, just requires a serious time commitment (and a bit of luck). At this moment, I don't really care about Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. I just want to stock the pantry.

   Of course, by January it will all be out of my hands. We'll take stock of what we have and live accordingly because there's really nothing else we an do until spring.

   That is when I'll be able to relax.

Negotiators agree on international accord on damage from GM crops

From The Mainichi Daily News:

NAGOYA (Kyodo) -- Negotiators at biological diversity talks in the central Japan city of Nagoya have agreed on a supplement to the biosafety protocol that would address compensation for damage caused to ecosystems by genetically modified crops, officials involved in the talks said Tuesday.

A group of experts is currently working out a final draft for adoption by member countries on Friday, the final day of the fifth meeting on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which began Monday as the official start of three weeks of international talks on the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The "Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress" would set new rules for allowing importing countries to call on business operators who brought in genetically modified organisms that caused damage to implement necessary restorative measures or pay for the costs of such measures.

At a working group meeting on Tuesday, participants discussed various issues faced by developing countries in ensuring biosafety, including capacity-building by countries with little know-how on the handling of living modified organisms and without relevant domestic laws.

They also discussed the importance of creating common standards to assess the environmental impact of such organisms.

Talks on compensatory measures for damage caused to ecosystems by genetically modified crops began in 2004 as the potential damage to biological diversity was unknown.

(Mainichi Japan) October 13, 2010 -- READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Ten Days on the East Coast

   Today I find myself back home across the Sound from Seattle after ten days on the coast of North Carolina. From sunny, humid mid-80's to overcast, drizzly mid-50's -- a stark reminder that I do not yet have enough firewood for the winter. The storm windows have been closed over the screens for winter and the woodstove has been slowly bringing the house back up to a comfortable 68 degrees. Someone stole several pumpkins from the garden while we were away, leaving us with only one small pumpkin. I believe we are missing some squash as well. As I've said before, it's been a disappointing year in the garden, but we were still able to harvest carrots, cabbage, and onions for tonight's dinner. The chickens seem to be doing fine, though they were very happy to be moved out from behind the shed and back onto the now overgrown lawn. I am perfectly fine letting them handle the mowing for the time being. The neighbor's maple tree has started to blanket the side yard with leaves that will become the foundation of next year's compost pile while this year's pile continues to break down for use as winter mulch and later for spring planting. It seems the summer -- such as it was -- is conclusively over. Despite all efforts to prepare before leaving home, I find that I have returned to a backlog of projects.

   It's been two years since I've been back to coastal Carolina. While I have several good friends there and it is great to be able to spend time with them once again, my trip reminds me of the reasons I jumped at the opportunity to return to the Pacific Northwest. During our ten-day visit just about everyone commented on how lucky we were to be there after the summer heat had finally let up. I was still uncomfortable any time I had to be outside except for the afternoon we spent at the beach, swimming in the ocean. It's just hot there and I have never been comfortable in the heat.

   Besides the heat and humidity, I find it very difficult to eat responsibly in the south eastern United States. It took a while living in North Carolina for me to understand that part of this is because of pigs. Pork production, processing, and packing make up a huge chunk of North Carolina's industry. In fact, North Carolina is the largest pork producer in the U.S. (according to the EPA). As a result, big business has had big influence on state agriculture and, ultimately, on consumer options.

   Just a quick comparison of Washington State and North Carolina: in 2008, Washington had 697 certified organic operations totaling 96,166 acres. NC had 156 certified organic operations totaling 5,243 acres. Washington had 39,500 farms while NC had 52,500. Washington's total agricultural area in 2007 was approximately 42,540,079 acres while North Carolina's was 31,113,828 acres. Possibly the most staggering figure is that of those total agricultural acres, 4,775,287 were pastureland in Washington while only 941,609 were pastureland in NC. Read those numbers again and then realize that chickens and hogs are North Carolina's top commodities and second only to tobacco in exports while Washington's top commodity is apples. Meat ranks fifth in the state's exports behind fruits, vegetables, "other" (most likely hops), and wheat. In general, Washington and North Carolina go about producing food very differently. (All of these stats come from the USDA)

   When we lived in North Carolina, we were members of a local food co-op where we shopped regularly. We were also lucky to have a farmer's market where we could get fresh, local food. When one is traveling it is not as easy to avail one's self of these options. Traveling on a budget presents another hurdle as the worst food is almost always the cheapest and easiest. We were fortunate to have hosts with which to stay during most of our trip and thereby have the capacity for food storage and prep, but we were also dependent one the good will of said hosts to get around the sprawl of town. Since the co-op was on the far side of town and we were not in town on Saturday during the farmer's market, we had to make due with what we could find in the grocery stores. I soon I found I just had to let it go, make the best of it, and be thankful to the good friends we have for putting us up, driving us around, and opening their homes and kitchens to us. We tried to spend what little money we had in a direction to support healthy and responsible food systems.

   Today I am glad to be home with the chickens, the garden, the produce markets, and the local butcher. I do miss my friends back east. I hope they can come visit soon.

Industrial Agriculture and Human Survival: The Road Beyond 10/10/10

This is an excellent article by Ronnie Cummins about why we must change the system. It was originally published by Organic Consumers Association, October 7, 2010. :

Despite decades of deception and mystification, a critical mass at the grassroots is waking up. A new generation of food and climate activists understands that greenhouse gas-belching fossil fuels, industrial food and farming, and our entire global economy pose a mortal threat, not just to our present health and well being, but also to human survival. Given the severity of the Crisis, we have little choice but to step up our efforts. As 35,000 climate activists at the historic global climate summit in April of 2010 in Cochabamba, Bolivia shouted, “We must change the System, not the climate.”

“Changing the System,” means defending our selves, the future generations, and the biological carrying capacity of the planet from the ravages of “profit at any cost” capitalism. “Changing the System,” means safeguarding our delicately balanced climate, soils, oceans, and atmosphere from the fatal consequences of fossil fuel-induced climate change. “Changing the System” means exposing, dismantling, and replacing, not just individual out-of-control corporations like Monsanto, Halliburton, and British Petroleum, and out-of-control technologies like gene-altered crops and mountaintop removal; but our entire chemical and energy-intensive industrial economy, starting, at least for many of us, with Food Inc.’s destructive system of industrial food and farming. “Changing the system,” means going on the offensive and dismantling the most controversial and vulnerable flanks of our suicide economy: coal plants, gas guzzlers, the military-industrial complex, and industrial agriculture’s Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and factory farms.

Frankenfoods and Industrial Agriculture

Highly subsidized GM crops - comprising 40% of U.S. cropland, and 10% of global crops - and the junk food and unhealthy processed foods and beverages derived from them, are the most profitable and strategically important components of industrial agriculture. Taxpayer subsidized GMOs and factory farms allow Food Inc. (corporate agribusiness) to poison the public and pollute the atmosphere and environment. Subsidized GM and monoculture crops - along with cheap soy, corn, and chemical additives - allow the McDonald’s, Cargills and Wal-Marts of the world to sell junk food, meat, and beverages at much lower prices than healthy, non-chemical foods. GMO crops and their companion pesticides and chemical fertilizers are the cash cows and vanguard of a global farming and food distribution system that consumes prodigious amounts of fossil fuels and emits tremendous amount of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases. GMOs provide the ideological and technological foundation for the factory farms and mono-crop plantations that are destroying the climate, the soils, and the planet. Either we bring them down, or they will bring us down.

According to Monsanto and the global war on bugs,war on biodiversity, chemical farming lobby, patented GMO seeds, crops, biofuels, animals, and trees can miraculously kill pests, reduce pesticide use, boost yields, alleviate world hunger, reduce petroleum use, and help farmers adapt to drought, pestilence, and global warming. As a growing "Millions Against Monsanto" corps understand, the Biotech Bullies are dangerous liars. Industrial agriculture, GMOs, and so-called cheap food have destroyed public health and wrecked the environment. Genetically Modified (GM) crops have neither reduced pesticide use, nor chemical fertilizer use. They kill pests, but they also give rise to superweeds and superpests. GM crops, like all industrial monoculture crops, use vast amounts of fossil fuel and water. GMO and their companion chemicals (pesticides and chemical fertilizers) destroy the greenhouse gas sequestering capacity of living soils and kill off non-patented plants, trees, and animals. Most GM crops, 90% of which are derived from Monsanto’s patented seeds, are genetically engineered to boost the sales of toxic pesticides such as Roundup, and thereby increase toxic pesticide residues in foods. GM crops do not produce higher yields, nor provide more nutritious foods. GM soybeans, the most important industrial agriculture crop, along with corn, consistently have lower yields, while chemical-intensive GM food crops contain far fewer vitamins and essential trace minerals than organic foods. Nor has gene-splicing (unlike organic farming) produced plant or tree varieties that can adapt to global warming. Nonetheless GM crops remain Food Inc.’s propaganda “poster child.”

The unfortunate bottom line is that 65 years of chemical and GM agriculture, a literal World War Three on public health, rural communities, and the environment, have nearly killed us. Humans and our living environment have been poisoned, not only by pesticides, nitrate fertilizers, greenhouse gas pollution, and contaminated factory-farmed food, but also by the mutant organisms and patented chemical residues that accompany these genetically modified foods and crops. Either we make the Great Transition to a relocalized economy whose foundation is renewable energy and solar-based (as opposed to GMO and petroleum-based) organic food and fiber production, or else we are destined to burn up the planet and destroy ourselves.

Despite mass media brainwashing (“Better living through chemistry… Monsanto can feed the world… GMO crops and trees can reduce fossil fuel use and climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases…”), consumers and farmers are seeing through the lies. Defying the efforts of the powerful industrial agriculture/biotech lobby, a growing number of activists and concerned citizens are connecting the dots and taking action. As a consequence Monsanto has become one of the most hated corporations on earth.

A critical mass of research reveals that genetically engineered crops, now covering almost 40% of U.S. cropland (173 million acres of GM crops) and 10% of global farm acreage (321 million acres), pollute the environment, kill essential soil micro-organisms, generate superweeds and pests, decrease biodiversity, aid and abet seed monopolization, encourage massive use of toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizer, spew out massive amounts of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases, and seriously damage animal and human health.

Injecting genetically engineered hormones into dairy cows to force them to give more milk is reckless and dangerous. Monsanto’s genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone rBGH, now marketed by Eli Lilly, increases the risks of breast, prostate, and colon cancer for those who consume the milk. It also severely damages the health of the cows. Residue levels of Monsanto’s toxic herbicide, Roundup, found routinely in non-organic foods, destroy animal and human reproductive systems.

Haphazardly ramming indeterminate amounts of patented foreign DNA, bacteria, and antibiotic-resistant genes into the genomes of already non-sustainable energy and pesticide-intensive crops and foods (corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugar beets, alfalfa) in order to increase the sales of Monsanto or Bayer's GMO companion herbicides or to facilitate monopoly control over seeds by the Gene Giants is not only non-sustainable, but criminal.

Rejection of this out-of-control GM technology is a major driving force in the rapid growth of organic food and farming, as well as the growing demand for mandatory safety testing and labeling of GMOs. In the EU, where GM-tainted foods must be labeled, GMO crops are almost non-existent (although large quantities of GM animal feed are still being imported into the EU from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina).

Local and organic food production is now growing faster than GMO/industrial food and farming; improving public health and nutrition, reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas pollution, sequestering billions of tons of CO2 in the soil (up to seven tons of CO2 per acre per year), and providing economic survival for a growing number of the world’s 2.8 billion small farmers and rural villagers. The growth of organic agriculture and relocalized food and farming systems are encouraging, but obviously organics are still the alternative, rather than the norm.

As we enter into the Brave New World of global warming and climate chaos, many organic advocates are starting to realize that we need to put more emphasis, not just on the health and pollution hazards of GMOs; but rather we need to broaden our efforts and mobilize to abolish the entire system of industrial food and farming. As we are now learning, industrial agriculture and factory farming are in fact a primary (if not the primary) cause of global warming and deforestation. Even if were able to rip up all of Monsanto’s GMO crops tomorrow, business as usual, chemical-intensive, energy-intensive industrial agriculture is enough to kill us all. On the other hand, if we’re going to take down industrial agriculture, one of the best ways to leverage our efforts is to target the most hated corporation in the world, Monsanto.

Besides contaminating our food, destroying the environment and moving, by any means necessary, to gain monopoly control over seeds and biodiversity, Monsanto and their Food Inc. collaborators are guilty of major “climate crimes.” These crimes include: confusing the public about the real causes of (and solutions to) global warming; killing the soil’s ability to sequester greenhouse gases; releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide) into the atmosphere; promoting bogus industrial corn and soy-derived biofuels (which use just as many fossil fuel, and release just as many greenhouse gases as conventional fuels); monopolizing seed stocks and taking climate-friendly varieties off the market; promoting genetically engineered trees; and last but not least, advocating dangerous geoengineering schemes such as massive GM plantations of trees or plants than reflect sunlight.

The negotiators and heads of state at the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate negotiations abandoned the summit with literally no binding agreement on meaningful greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and black carbon) reduction, and little or no acknowledgement of the major role that industrial food and farming practices play in global warming. Lulled by the world’s leaders vague promises to reduce global warming, and still believing that new technological breakthroughs can save us, the average citizen has no idea how serious the present climate crisis actually is. A close look at present (non-legally binding) pledges by the Obama Administration and other governments to reduce GHG pollution shows that their proposed, slightly modified “business as usual” practices will still result in a disastrous global average temperature increase of 3.5 to 3.9 C by 2100, according to recent studies. This will not only burn up the Amazon, the lungs of the planet, but also transform the Arctic into a region that is 10 to 16 degrees C warmer, releasing most of the region’s permafrost carbon and methane and unknown quantities of methane hydrates, in the process basically putting an end to human beings’ ability to live on the planet.

We are literally staring disaster in the face. In the follow up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit this year, which is to be held in Cancun, Mexico (Nov. 29-Dec. 10) we, as members of global civil society, must raise our voices loud and clear. We must make it clear that we are years, not decades away, from detonating runaway feedback mechanisms (heating up and burning up the Amazon and melting the Arctic permafrost) that can doom us all.

Industrial Food and Farming: A Deadly Root of Global Warming

Although transportation, industry, and energy producers are obviously major fossil fuel users and greenhouse gas polluters, not enough people understand that the worst U.S. and global greenhouse gas emitter is “Food Incorporated,” transnational industrial food and farming, of which Monsanto and GMOs constitute a major part. Industrial farming, including 173 million acres of GE soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, and sugar beets, accounts for at least 35% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (EPA’s ridiculously low estimates range from 7% to 12%, while some climate scientists feel the figure could be as high as 50% or more).

Industrial agriculture, biofuels, and non-sustainable cattle grazing - including cutting down the last remaining tropical rainforests in Latin America and Asia for GMO and chemical-intensive animal feed and biofuels - are also the main driving forces in global deforestation and wetlands destruction, which generate an additional 20% of all climate destabilizing GHGs.

In other words the direct (food, fiber, and biofuels production, food processing, food distribution) and indirect damage (deforestation and destruction of wetlands) of industrial agriculture, GMOs, and the food industry are the major cause of global warming. Unless we take down Monsanto and Food Inc. and make the Great Transition to a relocalized system of organic food and farming, we and our children are doomed to reside in Climate Hell.

Overall 78% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases come from CO2, while the remainder come from methane, nitrous oxide, and black carbon or soot. To stabilize the climate we will need to drastically reduce all of these greenhouse gas emissions, not just CO2, and sequester twice as much carbon matter in the soil (through organic farming and ranching, and forest and wetlands restoration) as we are doing presently.

Currently GMO and industrial/factory farms (energy and chemical-intensive) farms emit at least 25% of the carbon dioxide (mostly from tractors, trucks, combines, transportation, cooling, freezing, and heating); 40% of the methane (mostly from massive herds of animals belching and farting, and manure ponds); and 96% of nitrous oxide (mostly from synthetic fertilizer manufacture and use, the millions of tons of animal manure from factory-farmed cattle herds, pig and poultry flocks, and millions of tons of sewage sludge spread on farms). Black carbon or soot comes primarily from older diesel engines, slash and burn agriculture, and wood cook stoves.

Per ton, methane is 21 times more damaging, and nitrous oxide 310 times more damaging, as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, when measured over a one hundred year period. Damage is even worse if you look at the impact on global warming over the next crucial 20-year period. Many climate scientists admit that they have previously drastically underestimated the dangers of the non-CO2 GHGs, including methane, soot, and nitrous oxide, which are responsible for at least 22% of global warming.

Almost all U.S. food and farm-derived methane comes from factory farms, huge herds of confined cows, hogs, and poultry operations, in turn made possible by heavily subsidized ($15 billion per year) GMO soybeans, corn, cottonseed, and canola; as well as rotting food waste thrown into landfills instead of being separated out of the solid waste stream and properly composted. To drastically reduce C02, methane, and nitrous oxide releases we need an immediate consumer boycott, followed by a government ban on factory farms, dairies, and feedlots. To reduce black carbon or soot emissions we will need to upgrade old diesel engines, and provide farmers and rural villagers in the developing world with alternatives to slash and burn agriculture (compost, compost tea, biochar) and non-polluting cook stoves and home heating.

We also need to implement mandatory separation and recycling of food wastes and “green garbage” (yard waste, tree branches, etc.) at the municipal level, so that that we can reduce methane emissions from landfills. Mandatory composting will also enable us to produce large quantities of high quality organic compost to replace the billions of pounds of chemical fertilizer and sewage sludge, which are releasing GHGs, destroying soil fertility, polluting our waters, and undermining public health.

Nearly all nitrous oxide pollution comes from dumping billions of pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and sewage sludge on farmland (chemical fertilizers and sludge are banned on organic farms and ranches), mainly to grow GMO crops and animal feed. Since about 80% of U.S. agriculture is devoted to producing non-organic, non-grass fed meat, dairy, and animal products, reducing agriculture GHGs means eliminating the overproduction and over-consumption of GMO crops, factory-farmed meat, and animal products. It also means creating massive consumer demand for organic foods, including pasture-raised, grass-fed animal products.

The fact that climate change is now metastasizing into climate chaos is indisputable: massive flooding in Pakistan, unprecedented forest fires in Russia and the Amazon, melting of the glaciers that supply water for crops and drinking water of a billion people in Asia and South America, crop failures in regions all over the globe, record heat waves in the U.S. and Europe, methane leaking from the Arctic tundra and coastlines, killer hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and Central America, and steadily spreading pestilence, crop failures, and disease. The realization that every time we eat non-organic processed food, we are ingesting unlabeled, hazardous GMO foods and pesticides is indeed alarming. But the impending threat of industrial food and farming detonating runaway climate change (i.e. moving from our current .8 degree Centigrade average global rise in temperature to 2-6 degrees) is terrifying. Either we rein in industrial food and farming and GMOs, out-of-control politicians and corporations, and make the transition to an organic and green economy or we will perish.

The hour is late. Leading climate scientists such as Dr. James Hansen of NASA and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have delivered the final warning. “Business as usual” equals unimaginable disaster.

Leading greenhouse gas polluters (namely the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, India, and China) must slash CO2, methane, soot, and nitrous oxide emissions by 20-40% as soon as possible, 50% by 2010, and 80-90% by the year 2050. Continued business as usual, especially in the strategic GM and industrial food and farming sector, means we will inevitably burn up the Amazon and remaining tropical forests; acidify and kill the oceans; generate mega-drought, violent floods, crop failures, endless resource wars, melt the polar icecaps, precipitate a disastrous rise in ocean levels, and finally bring about the coup de grace that will kill us all, releasing massive amount of methane from the frozen tundra and shallow ocean floors of the Arctic.

Of course dismantling industrial agriculture and transitioning our food and farming system to one which is local and organic is not the only thing global civil society must do (since this will only take care of 50% of global greenhouse gas pollution), but it is the most crucial and effective measure we can take as food consumers and farmers. While we retool industrial food and farming, the global grassroots must also step-up our struggles in the other energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) sectors: stopping the construction of coal plants; stopping the deforestation in the Amazon, Indonesia, and Malaysia; changing the electrical grid from being powered predominately by coal to solar, wind, and geothermal; drastically reducing oil consumption in the transportation and housing sectors; and last but not least, dismantling the trillion dollar military-industrial complex. Let me repeat this last point. Until the U.S. and EU get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and drastically slash U.S. and world military spending, we will never be able to free up sufficient resources to build an organic and green economy.

Either we radically reduce CO2, as well as methane, nitrous oxide, and soot pollution (the so-called C02e--carbon dioxide equivalents) to 350 ppm (currently at 390 parts per million and rising 2 ppm per year) or there is no future. As scientists warned at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, “business as usual” and a corresponding 2-6 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures means that the carrying capacity of the Earth in 2100 will collapse to one billion people. Under these conditions, billions will die of thirst, cold, heat, disease, war, and starvation. Those who don’t die may wish that they had.

Organic Farming and Ranching Can Reverse Global Warming

The currently catastrophic, but largely unrecognized, GHG damage from GMO crops and industrial food production and distribution must be reversed. This will involve wholesale changes in farming practices, government subsidies, food processing and handling. In the U.S. it will require the conversion of a million chemical farms and ranches to organic production. It will require the establishment of millions of urban backyard and community gardens, and the restoration of prairielands, forests, and wetlands.

If consumer rebellion and grassroots mobilization cannot force U.S. factory farmers to change the way they farm, process, and ship their products it will be almost impossible to deal with catastrophic U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

On a very hopeful note, however, if farmers do change, stop planting GMOs, and make the transition to organic farming, farm and ranch land can become a significant sink or sequestration pool for greenhouse gasses, literally sucking excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and the ozone layer and sequestering them safely in the soil, where they belong. The overly saturated global atmosphere now contains 800 billion tons of carbon. (For climate stability purposes it should only contain 700 billion tons or less or carbon). This is why the weather is changing. This is why we are experiencing a climate crisis. If we are to survive, we not only need to keep the remaining 3.2 trillion tons of carbon in the soil, where it is now (instead of allowing it to be released into the atmosphere as collateral damage from industrial agriculture), but we must also capture and sequester (through organic soil and land management) at least 100 billions tons of excess carbon that are currently over-saturating the atmosphere.

Before the onslaught of industrial agriculture in the 1940s, U.S. farm and forest soils contained and sequestered twice as much climate-destabilizing carbon organic matter as they do today. Instead of the one or two percent organic carbon matter of industrial agriculture’s farmland or rangeland today, traditional farm and ranch lands often had two to four percent or more. With organically managed farms and ranches, a green urban landscape, and nationwide reforestation we can literally suck excess greenhouse gas pollution out of the sky and put it back where it belongs, in the living soil.

Planet Earth has five pools or repositories where greenhouse gases are absorbed and stored: the oceans (which contain 40 trillion tons of carbon), the atmosphere (800 billion tons), the soils (3.2 trillion tons), plants and forests (650 billion tons), and hydrocarbon/fossil fuel deposits (4 trillion tons). Obviously we are doomed if we burn up the remaining fossil fuels on the Earth and release the prodigious amounts of greenhouse gases currently stored in the soil, oceans, plants, and forests.

Because U.S farm and forest soils are so degraded from chemical-intensive, mono-crop farming practices and over-logging they are only able to absorb and store half (or less) of the carbon matter than they would be capable of if they were organically managed. As a result of this reckless mismanagement, the atmosphere and the oceans are absorbing the bulk of the greenhouse gases that normally would be absorbed by farmland, rangeland, and forests. This has led to a catastrophic excess of GHGs in both the oceans and the atmosphere. This excess has caused changes in climate and extreme fluctuations in weather; including droughts and torrential flooding. It also causes oceanic acidification, oceanic dead zones, and dramatic declines in fish and crustacean populations.

Unfortunately, when they evaluate agricultural pollutants, pro-industrial farming, pro-biotech government bureaucrats in the EPA and USDA do not include many of the greenhouse gas emissions. They do not take into account the transportation, cooling, freezing, and heating of farm products as agricultural GHG emissions, even though our food travels an average of 1500-2000 miles to our tables and is routinely frozen and cooled to ensure its deliverability. They don’t count the CO2 and “black carbon” particle emissions from trucks, tractors, combines, and other equipment used on farms. They don’t count the emissions from fertilizer manufacture or use, wasteful packaging, sewage sludge spread on farm and range land, or the methane emitted from factory farms and the billions of tons of rotting, non-composted food in our landfills and garbage dumps. Instead, they lump--and thereby conceal--all these farm and food related GHG emissions under the categories of industrial manufacture, transportation, or electrical use. As a result, the public spotlight never shines on mounting agricultural, food, garbage, and sludge pollution.

Because government officials deliberately fail to evaluate the real farm and food-derived greenhouse gas emissions, they are free to act as if the emissions coming from GMO crops and industrial food and farming are not significant compared to the U.S. total, even though they represent more than one-third of the total pollutants. Consequently, most lawmakers and the public don’t realize how urgent it is to regulate and drastically curtail factory farm and Food Inc.’s emissions.

But for those of us who do understand all this, it’s time to move beyond polite discussion and say it out loud: we must take down and dismantle Monsanto and Food Inc. We must get political and get organized. We must declare our independence from the Food-Biotech-Industrial Complex and build a new, relocalized, organic, and sustainable society.

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Europe Stands Up Against Genetically Modified Potatoes

From Bikyamasr:

"Following a decision by the European Commission to authorize the cultivation of BASF’s antibiotic-resistance genetically modified potato, Hungary, Austria and Luxembourg launched a legal challenge to the European Court of Justice. The three countries have now been joined by France and Poland."

"The Commission authorized the GM potato in March. The product is intended for the paper industry and to be used as animal feed, although the application also said it would be impossible to keep Amflora out of the human food chain. The Commission granted BASF permission to contaminate human food by up to 0.9%. Trouble flared during BASF’s first Amflora growing season: the company accidentally mixed in seed from an untested GM potato known as Amadea, raising more doubts as to how controllable GM crops are."

The article says that, despite the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency stating that these potatoes are important for fighting disease, over one million Europeans have petitioned to put an end to GM foods.

The United States could take a cue from Europe on this.

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SIGN THE PETITION HERE