GAO Finds Tainted Food Served to School Kids

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 15:34:59 PM PDT

The finding came from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which issued a report titled "School Meal Programs: Changes to Federal Agencies' Procedures Could Reduce Risk of School Children Consuming Recalled Food." I've included the executive summary of the report below, but here's the most important sentence in my mind: "During 3 recent recalls, FNS [USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees school lunch] notified states, but in only one case did it inform schools to hold and not serve suspect foods prior to an official recall of commodity products."

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has already introduced a bill, The Safe Food for Schools Act, to implement the recommendations of the GAO report. My hope is that her bill - if it's a good one - can be passed as part of the upcoming food safety bill that the Senate HELP committee is already debating. Details are below.

New Report Exposes Flaws in U.S. Food Aid

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM PDT

A federal requirement that most international food aid be grown domestically - a boon for America's farmers - is also hobbling efforts to feed the world's hungry, according to a new government report released Thursday.

That paragraph comes from the article "Food Aid Program Helps U.S. Farms, Hobbles Anti-Hunger Efforts."

The article (and, I assume, the GAO report) cites benefits of cheaper food aid as well as less time required to deliver the food aid if we bought it from the countries where we provide it.

What are the findings in the report on the effects of buying American for food aid?

• 65% of the money spent on emergency food aid goes to shipping costs! That's led to 52% LESS food going to feed hungry people from 2002 to 2007

• Because we're buying food here and shipping it there, it takes an average of 147 days (nearly 5 months!) to send food. If we bought locally from the area receiving the aid, it would only take 35. If we bought food from the region of the area receiving the aid, it would take 41 days.

• If we bought from the area receiving our food aid instead of from U.S. farmers, it would cost 34% less for aid to Africa and 29% less for aid to Asia.

As the article notes, food aid purchased from U.S. farmers is a form of subsidies for our farmers. The U.S. has 3 ways it can deal with low prices and excess supply in U.S. agriculture. One is the current subsidy method, one is a price floor, and the third is to take excess food off the market - often by shipping it overseas. And while that's nice as it fills a needed role here at home, it undercuts farmers in those other countries, ultimately making it harder for them to feed themselves. And while I haven't read the full report yet, it seems that THAT aspect is NOT recognized by our government. If we purchased food aid locally for countries in need, we would support their farmers! We would be helping their entire economy as we purchased food from their farmers, who then used the money to pay for their own needs, and the money continued to multiply in the economy.

You can see the full report here or the highlights from it here.

Genetically Modified Rice

by: Curtis Abbey

Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 10:59:21 AM PDT

Greenpeace released this statement with the video

Rice is daily food for half of the world's population. Genetically modified (GM) rice, on the other hand, is a threat to our agriculture, our biodiversity and a possible risk to our health.

At present, GM rice is not grown commercially anywhere in the world. But Bayer, the German chemical giant, has genetically manipulated rice to withstand higher doses of a toxic pesticide called glufosinate, which is considered to be so dangerous to humans and the environment that it will soon be banned from Europe.

In just a few weeks, the European Union will decide whether or not this GM rice can enter EU countries, appear on supermarket shelves and end up on our dinner plates. If the EU approves the import of Bayer GM rice, farmers in the US and elsewhere may soon start planting it.