La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto's third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.
Here's where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.
Stephen Breyer
Charles Breyer, the judge who ruled in the original decision of 2007 which is being appealed, is Stephen Breyer's brother, who apparently views this as a conflict of interest and has recused himself.
Clarence Thomas
From the years 1976 - 1979, Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. Thomas apparently does not see this as a conflict of interest and has not recused himself.
"Modern and conventional biotechnologies provide potent tools for the agriculture sector, including fisheries and forestry," said FAO Assistant Director-General Modibo Traore.
"But biotechnologies are not yet making a significant impact in the lives of people in most developing countries," Mr. Traore told the FAO-sponsored conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries in Guadalajara, Mexico.
He told participants at the four-day gathering, co-hosted by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), that most poor nations currently lack appropriate and useful technologies, policies, technical capacities, and the necessary infrastructure for the development, evaluation and deployment of biotechnologies. [emphasis mine]
However, the agency noted that there is often an emphasis on genetically modified organisms only, underscoring the need for a new approach to agricultural research and development which supports a wider use of biodiversity to promote development and improve food security.
It's nice to see the UN using words like "biodiversity." Now if they could just graduate to using the word "agroecological" I'd be really happy!
You may have seen an action alert going around by Food Democracy Now about Monsanto's GM Alfalfa. The introduction of genetically modified alfalfa will contaminate organic alfalfa and that will cause significant economic harm to small conventional and organic family farmers.
Food Democracy Now says:
During the Bush administration, Monsanto illegally won USDA approval for its GMO alfalfa by convincing USDA regulators to bypass a mandatory environmental review. In 2007, a court reversed this decision, ordering the USDA to complete the legally required environmental impact statement (EIS).
Shockingly, the Obama Administration's recent review would approve Monsanto's GMO alfalfa.
The draft USDA EIS was issued in December 2009 and is poised to allow Monsanto's GMO alfalfa on the market, despite the fact that the USDA admits that these seeds will contaminate organic feed that organic dairy farmers rely on to produce organic milk.
According to the CEO of the largest farmer-owned organic dairy coop in the U.S., GMO alfalfa "threatens the very fabric of the organic industry." We can't allow this to happen.
Despite massive public outcry in the past, the USDA's environmental review went so far as to say that U.S. organic consumers don't care about GMO contamination.
Tell Secretary Vilsack that you care about organic contamination and that you want him to stand up for the organic industry and organic consumers.
What you can do BY END OF DAY TODAY:
1) Calling is absolutely the best, and the hold time is not onerous:
White House Comments: 202-456-1111
La Via Campesina, an international organization representing "organizations of peasants, family farmers, indigenous peoples, farm workers, women and rural youth from some 70 countries worldwide" said in a press release: "It is an Act of Aggression for the FAO to Meet in Mexico to Promote GMOs."
They say:
We take it as an act of aggression, as a profound lack of respect, and as an affront, that the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has decided to meet in Mexico with governments and the private sector, under the false argument that "biotechnology can benefit peasants in poor countries"
They use the word "biotechnology," an intentionally vague and broad term, when we all know that the real purpose is to promote genetically modified (GM) crops, which have never benefited farmer families, and never will. It is an act of aggression against, and a provocation of, the Mexican people and the peasant and indigenous families of the world, to come to Mexico to promote GMOs, when it is precisely in Mexico that there is an intense struggle to stop the contamination of our ancestral maize varieties with GM pollen. This contamination puts the center of origin and center of biodiversity of a crop that is so important to our culture and to humanity, at risk.
Wow. I've posted the entire press release below and I will continue to provide updates on the FAO meeting and responses to it as I receive them.
This March 1-4, the UN's FAO is meeting in Mexico to discuss biotech. As a response, Peru held a meeting in Cusco and published a declaration opposing biotech and asking the UN to implement the recommendations of the IAASTD report (a report commissioned by the UN and World Bank in which 400 scientists from around the world recommended organics as the best way to feed the world and specifically rejected biotechnology). You can see an unofficial English translation of the declaration below, or you can see the Spanish version here. You can also see a video of the event.
Here's a new version of a stupid idea that goes around every now and again (growing meat in a vat to avoid killing animals). Let's genetically engineer animals so they don't feel pain! And the author admits that this idea is specifically intended to allow for the continuation of factory farming:
We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume. But it is still possible to reduce the animals' discomfort - through neuroscience. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to genetically engineer livestock so that they suffer much less.
If you're so concerned about animal pain, don't eat them. Every living thing feels pain, and every living thing dies. Either they die via slaughter or of disease, injury, or predation. Death is not fun no matter what. But all of LIFE doesn't have to be suffering too, hence the widespread opposition to factory farms. According to this idea, we would bypass that by rending the animals insensitive to that pain. I'm sorry but that's not enough. You've still got the environmental problems associated with factory farms, not to mention the unfairness to anyone living near factory farms who suffers from health problems or sees their property value decline (or just has to live with the constant smell of shit) as a result of the pollution and smell.
The Association for the Advancement of Science is converging in San Diego this week, including a Monsanto Vice President who will be speaking. The San Diego Union-Tribune printed a (mostly) rah-rah biotech piece called "Bioengineering to crop up when science group meets." It's impossible to say all that needs to be said in one 150-word Letter to the Editor, but here's what I came up with:
The "titans of agribusiness" have delivered up decades of diet-related illness and unprecedented environmental destruction, not to mention a record number of hungry people (despite a simultaneous increase in the per capita amount of food produced), so why would we trust what they say now? We've had 30 years of biotech promises with little to show for it besides herbicide-tolerant and insecticide-producing traits that result in an overall increase in pesticide spraying and don't even increase crop yield. A 2008 UN/World Bank sponsored report written by over 400 scientists (the IAASTD report) found that biotech was incompatible with the needs of smallholder farmers who make up the majority of the world's hungry. Their recommendation for feeding the world was going organic, which would increase developing world crop yields by an estimated 80 percent. Yet, for some reason, even the U.S. government continues to listen only to the biotech industry and not to independent scientists who raise concerns about biotechnology.
I'd also like to rebut the idea in the article that we need a soybean with extra omega-3s. Our problem is not a lack of plants with omega-3s. Flax seed has plenty. But omega-3s are not very shelf-stable. Flax oil has to be kept in a dark bottle in the fridge and it still has a short shelf-life. THAT is why we don't get enough omega-3s in our diet. A GM soybean won't solve the problem, as any omega-3 added to a crop will make the crop less shelf-stable and thus less attractive to food manufacturers. Of course, omega-3's and shelflife are trade offs with one another that must be balanced, but there's nothing a GMO will accomplish that existing plants don't already do.
If other folks in San Diego want to submit letters to Letters at Uniontrib dot com, please CC me and I will publish them on this blog in a future post. Remember to keep your letters under 150 words and include your full name, address, and phone.
With a few exceptions, every single plant-based food you eat comes from a seed. And the animal products you eat came from animals that ate plants that came from seeds. In fact, the only foods you eat that don't come from seeds are fungi or ferns. Those come from spores. The average American might not give a lot of thought to seeds, but seeds play a pretty big role in his or her life nonetheless. As a sustainable food activist and writer over the past several years, I've had to learn quite a bit about seeds. But it didn't really hit home until I started gardening.
The Obama administration's competing agricultural policies could prompt a bad case of indigestion - or whiplash.
Longtime food policy observers are having a difficult time squaring the Department of Agriculture's entrenched preference for high-tech industrial agriculture that emphasizes biotechnology and genetically engineered crops with its newfound interest in helping those who favor low-tech ag: small farmers, advocates of organic and local food and champions of sustainability.
Margaret Mellon, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, describes the USDA as schizophrenic. "It wants to promote both organic and sustainable local," she said. "It is also committed to promotion of biotech here and around the world. So far, there has not been collision between those two priorities, but I'm not sure that situation will last much longer."
She's got it soooo right. I think this idiotic contradictory policy is due to a fundamental lack of understanding of agriculture... and a very good understanding of politics. Obama's doing very well to try and please two very disparate constituencies - the biotech/pesticide lobby and health & environmentally conscious citizens. You can't have it both ways, but they sure are trying.
Great news! India put a hold on Bt eggplant (which they call brinjal) due to safety concerns. This one has been on my radar for about a year, ever since I met an Indian woman who was quite upset about the impending destruction of the genetics of India's 4000 varieties of eggplant. The decision sounds like it was made due to public outcry, as government scientists gave Bt brinjal the okay in 2009.
"Public sentiment is negative. It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach," Mr Ramesh said.
He said the moratorium on growing BT brinjal - as the variety of aubergine is known in India - would remain in place until tests were carried out "to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals".
The minister said "independent scientific studies" were needed to establish "the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment".
Imagine that. Using the precautionary principle and obtaining independent studies. Hooray!
I just finished reading The War on Bugs by Will Allen (not the Will Allen of Growing Power - a different Will Allen) and I can't recommend it highly enough! This was a book that Allen was uniquely qualified to write. He grew up on a farm, and then went into the Marines where he was an atomic, biological, and chemical warfare paramedic. Following his years in the Marines, he went to college and - as part of his education - did research in the tropical forests of Peru, living among forest farmers. He says, "The ability of these [Peruvian] farmers to produce surpluses without chemicals in an environment ravaged by pests started me thinking that maybe the miracle chemicals that the sales men pushed were not so necessary after all." After college, Allen went back to farming. Upon taking a pesticide and fertilizer applicator's course at a local college, he found out that the chemicals commonly sprayed on farms were "modified versions of the nerve poisons and antipersonnel weapons that I learned about when studying chemical warfare in the Marine Corps."
So - with his firsthand observations of food grown without chemicals and his knowledge of the toxicity of common farm chemicals - Allen went to work finding out where our dependence and trust of pesticides came from in the first place. His findings actually surprised me. I knew part of the picture, which I wrote about in my own book. I don't think my book was inaccurate, but Allen fills in a lot of details and really makes it clear what happened and how.
The biggest question for me is: Are the American people a population of lab rats? Apparently so. These varieties are legal in the U.S. MON810 goes by the trade name YieldGard Corn Borer and MON863 goes by the trade name YieldGard Rootworm Corn in the U.S. and Canada. NK603 sells under the name Roundup Ready corn. If I understand things right, many farmers I met in Iowa used "triple stacked" corn, which means that all 3 of these traits were engineered into the same seeds.
As of 2009, according to the USDA, 17 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is "Bt" corn, 22 percent is "RoundUp Ready," and 46 percent has more than one trait stacked into it. Altogether, GM corn makes up 85 percent of the corn we grow. Translation: Unless you eat organic (and probably even then because of genetic pollution), congratulations! You are a lab rat! Enjoy the organ damage.
(Of course, Monsanto's already claimed that this study isn't true and that their products do not cause organ damage. I'd like to see further study happen - ASAP! And, in the meantime, how about pulling Monsanto's GM corn off the market until the science is conclusive one way or the other? I, for one, do NOT want to be a lab rat, thankyouverymuch.)
It is Bt rice, meaning that it produces its own pesticide
While the Chinese claim the rice will reduce pesticide use by 80%, that projection fails to consider that the rice will be producing its own pesticide. There will most likely be a reduction in additional pesticides sprayed on the rice, but that does not necessarily translate to a reduction in pesticides once you add in the Bt produced by the rice itself.
China is not yet commercially producing Bt rice - it will do so in 2-3 years.
Most of China's rice is consumed domestically. However, some of it is exported. Out of about 59.5 million tonnes of rice produced by China, they export about 600,000 tonnes annually.
If you are going to China, you may actually be able to avoid their GMOs. Cotton is not eaten anywhere, and the Chinese don't really eat corn, papaya, or tomatoes. Rice is eaten but it's seen as a food for poor people who cannot afford anything better. Also, the Chinese say that a person who eats too much rice gets fat. Rice is not automatically served at restaurants unless you request it, and no self-respecting banquet host would ever let a bowl of rice be seen on the table. I still ate quite a bit of rice in China, but only because I like rice.
A new report, Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years, found that GM crops have resulted in an increase in overall pesticide use. I'd heard this anecdotally from farmers but now it's been confirmed. The report was done by The Organic Center, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Center for Food Safety. By their math, GM crops have resulted in an extra 383 million pounds of herbicides between 1996 and 2008. Simultaneously, the GM crops resulted in a 64 million pound decrease in insecticide use. Together, that equals an overall increase of pesticide use by 318 million pounds.
Food, Inc. the book (by Peter Pringle) has nothing whatsoever to do with Food, Inc. the movie - other than that they are both about food. The full title is Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto - The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest. I highly recommend the book, with a caveat. The book covers the debate over GM crops with a reasoned, science-based analysis. Often it seems that rather than giving you his own point of view, Pringle describes the arguments and actions of both sides of the debate and allows the reader to decide for him or herself who is right. However, some conclusions are impossible to avoid. For example, in several anecdotes, the U.S. government is caught entirely with its pants down, totally failing to adequately assess the safety of GM crops before allowing them to be grown. Furthermore, Pringle often provides adjectives to describe the players in the debate, making his own point of view very clear. He calls the biotech firms (particularly Monsanto) "arrogant" but then paints anti-biotech activists as radicals.
Here's my caveat though: I believe the content of this book is essential reading, but I disagree with the author's ultimate assessment of biotechnology. In the tail end of the book, Pringle says:
[GM foods] are scientific creations full of both promise and potential hazard. These experimental foods deserve respect from those who discover them, call for more caution from those who regulate them and grow them, and finally, at the end of this real food chain, demand close study by those of us who eat them.
My main critique here is that, from reading the book, I do not believe Pringle has an adequate background in the science of sustainable agriculture (or perhaps ecology or agriculture in general) and thus, I believe that he overestimates the promise of GMOs. Assessing GMOs also requires assessing alternative solutions to the problems GMOs are intended to address. The question is not only "Do GMOs solve a problem?" but "Do GMOs represent the BEST solution to the problem?" This book makes it clear that the science of genetic modification is not quite ready yet for prime time. I am all for science for science's sake, but I believe that agroecology is the best and fastest way to solve the world's food problems at present. If, some day, biotech presents a better, safer solution than agroecology, then I will revise my point of view. In the meantime, those who want to solve the world's problems will get their best bang for their buck (and their fastest results) via agroecology, not biotech.
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In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto's third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion. 
