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
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.
I went to bed last night a bit earlier than usual. Can't say I can remember any dreams, and as always I woke up this morning to the smell of brewing coffee. Stretched, brushed my teeth, started up some some oatmeal, my normal morning routine. Sat in the kitchen and watched water enter the coffee pot. Steam rose from the top of the machine, and a few minutes later I enjoyed a cup.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh went to bed the night of December 2, 1984, many thousands of them for the last time. As they slept, water filled tank 610 of Union Carbide India, Ltd's pesticide production plant in a heavily populated section of the city. The water reacted with 42 metric tons of methyl isocyanate to raise pressure levels in the tank to the point where emergency venting sent massive volumes of a mix of toxic gasses spewing out into the city's night. The burning sensation in their lungs as they were being poisoned in their beds, in their homes, was what awoke countless Bhopalis that night. Thousands died instantly, while many more were trampled in the panicked flight away from the death cloud twenty five years ago today. Children were stomped to death in the streets by their neighbors as parents looked on helplessly.
Over 25,000 people eventually lost their lives directly due to the gas, and over 200,000 (some estimate many more) have suffered permanent injuries and chronic health problems from that night. Birth defects are still unusually high amongst the children of subsequent generations of those exposed. The people of Bhopal are still being poisoned. And they have yet to receive justice.
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.
Here's more bad news about methyl iodide, the proposed replacement for ozone depleting methyl bromide. This will be used on California strawberries, and I say not in MY backyard!!!
The scientific evidence of potential harm from exposure to methyl iodide is overwhelming. It is heavily linked to miscarriages late in pregnancy, and low survival rates in baby animals exposed in utero and after birth.
Methyl iodide also causes cancer, thyroid disease, and nervous system poisoning. Methyl iodide is considerably more toxic than methyl bromide and also considerably heavier.
It therefore contaminates the ground level air for much longer, rather than dissipating rapidly into the upper atmosphere. Finally, methyl iodide is a very persistent contaminant of both soil and ground water, remaining present in significant amounts for many months.
A group of Lane County, Oregon residents seeking to create a pesticide buffer zone around their homes to protect their farms and families from aerial spraying of nearby commercial forest land by helicopters, are gaining traction with their county commissioners.
According to researchers, 90 percent of television food advertisements aimed at American children are for junk foods. That number is also the same in Germany, while the "lowest" percentage of the 11 countries studied was 50% in Britain and Australia.
Hamburgers are for imperialists, comrade! North Korea's first fast food restaurant serves "minced beef and bread", instead.
An "etiquette" question - is it rude to take pictures of your food in a restaurant? I've done it a few times myself, but I snap my shots quick and low, and preferably when nobody else is around.
The 2009 session of the 75th Oregon Legislative Assembly came to an end Monday night, and I thought I'd just do a brief wrap-up of food, farming and environmental measures that passed out of the Oregon State Legislature this session. I'm not intimately familiar with all of these bills, just gathering them here in one place for informational purposes right now. I'll look deeper at many of them soon. Inclusion in the wrap-up below does not necessarily equate to an endorsement.
With an efficiency rarely seen in Oregon politics, Democrats took advantage of supermajorities in the House and Senate to push an aggressive agenda, rolling through Republican resistance and facing down Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
Looking back, the 2009 session, the shortest since 1995, will be remembered largely as a fight against the economic tornado that ripped billions of dollars and thousands of jobs from the state. Despite the hard times, lawmakers approved more than $1 billion in new taxes, vastly expanded health care programs and signed off on some of the most expensive transportation and capital construction plans in state history.
Specifically, lawmakers approved higher taxes on upper-income earners, on corporations, on hospitals and health insurance providers and on gasoline. Combining the tax increases with federal stimulus dollars, lawmakers staved off what might have been crippling cuts to public schools, prisons and programs that help the poor, elderly and disabled.
Some bills I really would have liked to have seen passed - specifically HB 2800, the Oregon Farm to School bill, and HB 2995, which would have created an Oregon Food Policy Council - stalled in Salem (again, in the farm-to-school bill's case) for now. We may have another chance when the Oregon Legislature convenes for a brief session early in 2010.
Below the fold is a list of what will now be (or in some cases, already has been) sent on to Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) for his signature...
In "Exposed", Mark Schapiro, Editorial Director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, tells the tale of two continents and their approaches towards environmental regulation, and what that means for our health, American business and even relative global power.
Schapiro takes a look at each of the regulatory approaches favored by both the European Union and the United States when it comes to substances ranging from BPA to GMOs to the chemicals in children's toys and cosmetics and beyond, and concludes that, like it or not, product innovation necessitated by Europe's adoption of the precautionary principle leads to not only safer products for people in the European Union, but is also creating a significant competitive advantage for companies overseas over their American competitors, as more and more of the world simply refuses to take the same leap of faith Americans must unfortunately currently take when it comes to new chemicals and substances being rushed onto the market and introduced into our bodies without sufficient prior testing to ensure they won't harm us. For just one recent example, as we're all seeing with BPA now, it's becoming clearer by the day that the current American laissez-faire approach to environmental regulation does not, and will not, work.
The FDA has sent a warning letter to General Mills, telling the company to stop promoting Cheerios as a health food. (For a funny take on the Right Wing blogosphere's outrage (grrrr!) at FDA's "attack" on America cereal, see here.) Meanwhile, Health Canada unfortunately seems to want to make it easier for food manufacturers to be able to market junk as "health food" in their country...
Elementary school students are snacking on (and learning about) healthy local produce in Madison, Wisconsin.
Can't say this is really a surprise - from Grist, Monsanto is now firing off their propaganda on National Petrol, errrrr, National Public Radio. Great article debunking Monsanto's claims, but it's not like the oil companies, ADM and other corporate interests haven't already been scrubbing themselves "clean" in their own greenshowers over the airwaves of NPR for years and years and years...
Fantastic article from Ken Olsen at High Country News on the intersection of agriculture, business, politics, power and salmon - and what government ultimately needs to do to help restore wild salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest.
In Punjab, India, cancer rates are worse in farming villages that use more pesticides, researchers found. This is according to NPR's fantastic continuing coverage of the failure of the Green Revolution (the introduction of industrial ag around the world).
A farmer named Jarnail Singh noticed a connection between pesticides and cancer and he got a university to research the issue:
Singh says he noticed one of the first troubling clues in the late 1980s and early '90s: Peacocks - India's national bird - disappeared from the fields. Over the years, seven people in his family got cancer - and three of them died. People in Jajjal and surrounding villages got cancer, too.
The researchers confirmed his hunch. Areas with heavy pesticide use have significantly higher rates of cancer. That does not yet prove that the pesticides are to blame, but it is enough of a link to make you worry. In the meantime, the rural Punjab population continues to line up to ride the "cancer train" - the train that takes them to the area's regional cancer center.
15 years after originally banning the granular form of carbofuran, an insecticide sold under the brand name Furadan, which was so toxic that just one grain was enough to kill a bird - USEPA on Monday finally officially banned use of the chemical in any form on food crops meant for human consumption -
FMC Corp. officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The company said on its Web site that Furadan "remains a useful product, vital to the sustainability of agriculture" and that its proper use "does not create a risk to human health, wildlife or the environment."
It's always great to see corporations attempt to pass of their deadly chemicals as a "sustainable solution", isn't it? While they're at it, maybe FMC Corporation can explain why a google search for 'FMC EPA investigation' brings up 18,500 hits, or why I spent a large percentage of my working life in environmental remediation back in New Jersey at their West Windsor chemical plant?
It seems that the news today is all swine flu, all the time. Well, here are a few other things going on, besides swine flu. But if you DO want a swine flu update, do not miss Tom Philpott's piece on Grist. He says it better than anyone else I've read so far, condemning industrial agriculture and the filthy and risky conditions that we all consider acceptable in order to produce and eat cheap meat.
Tom Laskawy comments on the reports that phthalates make us fat(ter). Here are my two cents: The focus on food should continue because crap eating is crap eating whether or not you get fat from it, and the focus on eliminating phthalates (used in PVC plastic) should ALSO continue because we know they do bad things OTHER THAN make us fat.
Mark Bittman tells how to make sunchoke fritters. I'm a fan of sunchokes, but I've never tried them as fritters. (In fact, being raised in a fat-phobic Jewish family, the only time a year I got anything that remotely resembled a "fritter" was Hanukkah.)
Alternet takes on marijuana legalization. They say 4 in 10 have smoked it, yet millions still get busted. And among those millions are my own friends and family, and perhaps yours too. The ridiculous war on pot hurts all of us. It's time to call a truce, or maybe even just wave a white flag and admit that pot is the rightful winner.
This idea of highrise farms gets trotted out every so often as the possible silver bullet to solve all of our problems. I'm a skeptic. What do you think?
No patents on seeds? Marion Nestle recommends we check out a report that calls for just that.
Good things come in threes, right? I've got a third good one from Marion Nestle. The title is Who needs bioterrorism when we've got manure lagoons. I soooo agree. Osama doesn't need to make us sick from our food supply because we do that all by ourselves.
Two California-based environmentalists and researchers are cycling 2,000 miles down the Pacific Coast to raise awareness about the massive plastic soup in the North Pacific. I can't even come up with the words to describe how angry the picture with this article makes me - an adult turtle who was grossly deformed by crawling into a plastic ring while young, and whose body grew around it.
A commonly used home garden pesticide, carbaryl, which is sold under the brand name "Sevin" (which has also been classified by EPA as a likely human carcinogen and is banned in the UK, Germany and several other countries...), has been identified as a threat to salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking our input as to how to form the rules protecting the now-endangered Cook Inlet (Alaska) beluga whales.
Scientists in Spain isolated a parasitic fungus as the cause of "colony collapse disorder" in some honeybee hives, and were able to treat the affected colonies successfully with anti-fungals. That's good news for the human race, since we depend on bees to pollinate a wide variety of food crops.
To my knowledge, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has not taken any steps in this direction--that is, I have been unable to find any reports on new USDA plans to fund research regarding pesticides and pollinators. The Bush USDA refused to halt or even thoroughly study the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.
When talking about food safety in the U.S. versus Europe, we often mention how Europe uses the "Precautionary Principle" - an idea that basically means "let's make sure something's safe before we use it." Seems sensible, right? In fact, you'd HOPE we're doing something rather similar to that here. But we're not. In a rather EXTREME sort of way. Check THIS out:
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would order the manufacturers of 67 pesticides to test whether their products disrupt the hormonal system of humans or animals. Congress passed a bill mandating such tests in 1996, but the agency took years to develop them and ensure their validity, officials said. The agency said that the 67 pesticides were chosen because humans and animals are widely exposed to them, not because they are necessarily the most likely disruptors of endocrinal functions. About 1,000 substances will eventually be tested, said James J. Jones, acting assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides and toxic substances. The results are due back from manufacturers around the end of next year.
Really? This stuff's never been tested? Yet we've been using it anyway? Let me tell you a little secret. The pesticide industry was born out of the chemical weapons industry. They used to test war gases on bugs to see if they would be effective on humans. After WWI, when the U.S. wanted to get rid of its Chemical Warfare Service, those who researched war gasses advertised "peaceful" uses of gas as a means of keeping themselves employed. One such peaceful use was making pesticides. In other words, if a chemical is deadly to bugs, there's a REALLY GOOD CHANCE it's not good for people. And we didn't even TEST to see if perhaps that was the case???
And now we are testing, but we're letting the manufacturers do it? I don't mind making them pay for it, but - would I be crazy to suggest that perhaps they might not be very independent and that the results might be skewed in their favors?
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