8 Steps Obama Could Take to Save Food

November 20th, 2009  By Robyn O'Brien

The landscape of health has changed. No longer are our families guaranteed a healthy livelihood, not in the face of the current rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s and allergies. In the words of Elizabeth Warren, Harvard University law professor who is head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, “We need a new model,” and we need a new food system. It’s our health on the line.

8 Steps Obama Could Take to Save Food:

1. Evenly distribute government moneys to all farmers. The current system allocates the lion share of our tax dollars (approximately $60 billion) to farmers growing crops whose seeds have been engineered to produce their own insecticides and tolerate increasing doses of weed killing herbicides. As a result, these crops, with a large chemical footprint, are cheaper to produce, while farmers growing organic produce are charged fees to prove that their crops are safe and then charged additional fees to label these crops as free of synthetic chemicals and “organic”. If organic farmers received an equal distribution of taxpayer funded handouts from the government, the cost of producing crops free from synthetic chemicals would be cheaper, making these crops more affordable to more people, in turn increasing demand for these products which would further drive down costs.  If we were to reallocate our national budget and evenly distribute our tax dollars to all farmers, clean food would be affordable to everyone and not just those in certain zip codes.

2. Reinstitute the USDA pesticide reporting standard that was waived under the Bush administration. In 2008, the USDA waived pesticide reporting requirements (a procedure that has been in place since the early 1990s) so that farmers and consumers would know the level of chemicals being applied to food crops. Given a report just released that reveals a 383 million pound increase in the use of weed killing herbicides since the introduction of herbicide tolerant crops in 1996 and the potential impact that this glyphosate containing compound is having on both the environment and on our health, perhaps the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy assumed under the previous administration should be reversed.

3. Reinstate the pre-Bush administration dollar value that the EPA places on the life of every American. in May 2008, the Bush administration lowered the value placed on the life of every American by almost $1 million, benefiting corporations who use this figure in their cost benefit analyses, marking down our lives from $7.8 million to $6.9 million the same way a car dealer might markdown a “96 Camaro with bad brakes. The EPA figure is used to assess corporate liability when a company’s actions put a life at risk. While this figure benefits the corporations conducting the cost benefit analysis when assessing the health impact of their chemicals, the costs of these chemicals are being externalized onto the public in the form of health care costs.

4. Allow public debate over the nomination of pesticide lobbyist, Islam Siddiqui for Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the office of the United States Trade Representative. As addressed in a letter sent to Chairman Max Baucus and Ranking Member Charles Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee, Islam Siddiqui, nominated for Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the office of the United States Trade Representative, was formerly employed by CropLife America, whose firm challenged Michelle Obama’s organic garden, has consistently lobbied the U.S government to weaken international treaties governing the use and export of toxic chemicals such as PCBs, DDT and dioxins, and blocked international attempts to help regulate pesticides that increasingly linked to chronic skin and respiratory problems, birth defects and cancer in our community. Given that a growing body of scientific evidence supports the theory that chemicals in our food are contributing to the rise in health problems, particularly in children, the appointment of an industry lobbyist to export our challenged food system to the rest of the world may be in the best interest of agrichemical corporations but consideration should also be given to the health implications that these novel chemicals, proteins and allergens may have.

5. Encourage climate change advocates like Al Gore to discuss Pesticide Use by Big Ag and its Chemical Footprint. While speaking openly about the petroleum industry’s impact on global warming, leading environmental advocates like Al Gore have been quiet about the chemical contribution that the recent introduction of crops genetically engineered with pesticidal toxins play on global warming despite scientific evidence from the Royal Society of Chemistry highlighting their impact. Since the Clinton Administration’s introduction of biotech crops designed and engineered to both withstand increasing doses of weed killing chemicals and produce their own insecticides, new reports based on USDA data, show a 383 million pound increase in the chemicals being applied to these crops since their introduction in 1996. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, “growing biofuels is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse” given that glyphosate, being applied in increasing doses to these crops, breaks down into nitrogen.

6. Update the Consumer Protection and Food Allergen Labeling Act to inform consumers of these newly engineered corn allergens. The recent engineering of novel food proteins and toxins into the US food supply has enhanced profitability for the food industry by allowing commodities like corn to produce their own insecticides. As a result, corn is now considered an insecticide and regulated by the EPA .  For this same reason, this corn has been either banned or labeled in products in other developed countries because the new toxins and novel allergens that it contains have not yet been proven safe. Despite the lack of evidence, this corn is in the American food supply. The increase in the rate of food allergies as demonstrated in the December issue of Pediatrics and the growing number of people with this condition- whose bodies recognize food as “foreign” and launch inflammatory reaction in an effort to drive out these “foreign” food invaders, speaks to the need to update and amend the food allergen labeling act to label these newly engineered genetically enhanced proteins and allergens as governments around the world do.

7. Ask the SEC to join the Department of Justice in its investigation into trade practices in agrichemical industry. As the Department of Justice begins its investigation into the impact that Monsanto’s monopoly is having on farmers, their financial situation and the food supply, research out of the USDA highlights that the biotech industry is not delivering on what some are calling their “hype-to-reality ratio”. As farmers are charged premiums for seeds that have been engineered to produce greater yields, research out of the USDA, Kansas State University shows that these products are not delivering as promised, directly impacting the cost structures of farmers in a razor to razorblade scenario. As farmers purchase genetically modified seeds in the hopes that they will increase yields and drive down cost structure and their dependency on weed killers, studies now suggest that since the introduction of the “razor”, these biotech crops introduced 13 years ago, farmers are actually spending more on the “razorblade”, the herbicides and weed killers required to manage them, driving farmers debt to asset ratios to record levels. Given that Monsanto’s CFO, Treasurer, Controller are all leaving the company by year end, the Securities and Exchange Commission could interview these three exiting executives and learn more about the financial predicaments of Big Ag’s customers, the farmers, and the greater ramifications that this monopoly will have on food prices.

8. Appoint a Children’s Health Advisor to serve on the USDA’s National School Lunch Program. The landscape of children’s health has changed. No longer are the American children guaranteed a healthy childhood, not in the face of the current rates of obesity, diabetes and allergies. Perhaps it is time that we follow the lead of governments in other developed countries and create a Chief Advisor for Child and Youth Health whose responsibilities might include, but not be limited to, serving in an advisory capacity to the USDA on the National School Lunch Program. Under the USDA’s current budget for the National School Lunch Program of approximately $8.5 billion (in comparison the Pentagon’s 2009 budget $600 billion), less than a dollar is available per meal for the purchase of healthy food once overhead costs are taken out. Given that 1 in 3 American children now has allergies, ADHD, autism of asthma and according to an October 2008 study from the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 3 Fourth graders is expected to be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood. As a result, dietary concerns are becoming increasingly prevalent for the estimated 30.9 million children and approximately 102,000 schools and child care institutions that participate in the National School Lunch Program. Given that increasing scientific evidence points to the roles that environmental insults like synthetic growth hormones in milk and trans fats in processed foods are having on our health, investing in a children’s health advisor may provide long term benefits to the future of our health care system .

It’s our food system on the line.  And if our children are any indicator, our health and the economic burden that it presents are on the line, too.

According to the New York Times, Robyn O'Brien is "food's Erin Brockovich." As the founder of AllergyKids, an organization designed to protect the 1 in 3 American children with autism, allergies, ADHD and asthma, Robyn has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and CNN highlighting the role that chemicals in our food supply are having on our health. Born and raised in a conservative Texas family on supply side economics and the Wall Street Journal, Robyn earned a Fulbright Fellowship, an MBA and served as an equity analyst on a multibillion dollar fund prior to moving to Boulder, Colorado with her husband and four children. She is the author of the book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.

 

This March, to much fanfare, the Obamas planted a vegetable garden at the White House, the first one since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden there during World War II. Now, the garden is being harvested. So far, the garden has produced more than 90 pounds of produce which have been given to area soup kitchens and used in meals at the White House. Our latest Transparency is a look at what the Obamas’s garden will be growing this year. Maybe you can start your own and follow along.

A collaboration between GOOD and Always With Honor.

Thank you Will Etling and Good!       

This was posted in April 2009 on Good http://www.good.is/post/food-grows-on-trees/# by Will Etling. I think this is an absolutely fabulous idea and I want to share it with you incase you missed it. I hope that my future raw food living diet includes this kind of community.

Urban gathering and gleaning are taking off. Here are six organizations that help people find free, fresh food in the city.

My dad emailed me the other day. His missives are brief and informative—this one was nine words long.

“I’ve had miner’s lettuce four nights in a row.”

During spring in Los Olivos, Califonia, miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) is abundant in the woods behind my parents’ house. It’s like spinach but crunchier, and it’s great in a salad.

His email got me thinking. Where in Los Angeles could I find food growing in its natural environment? Citrus groves once covered the Los Angeles basin, but concrete has taken their place. We often forget that anything we eat, at some point in our less suburban past, grew or roamed in the forest and fields. I have fond memories of picking wild blackberries on a vacation to Wisconsin as a kid, and building a padded bucket to catch plums picked from a ladder at my grandparent’s house in California. But living and working in the city quickly weakened my connection to the sources of my food.

As Americans begin to realize that their food doesn’t always have to come from a supermarket, urban gathering and gleaning are experiencing a surge in popularity. (For the record, “gathering” is the collection of wild or uncultivated food, while “gleaning” is collecting leftover crops after a farmer has finished harvesting.)

Maybe you’re trying to cut back on food costs and don’t have the time or space to start a garden. Maybe you have extra time on your hands and want to help your community and spend time outdoors. Here are a few organizations dedicated to gathering and gleaning the free food growing all around us. Check them out and get involved.

Fallen Fruit

For Los Angeles residents missing their miner’s lettuce and wild plums, FallenFruit.org has neighborhood maps of publicly accessible fruit trees. They also have a great guide to creating your own fruit gathering map. Tips range from the obvious (get out of your car and walk, you’ll find more fruit) to the specific (you should take note of that young fruit tree on private property—it might eventually grow to reach public property.) If more people create maps for other cities, Fallen Fruit could become one of the more delicious free resources on the web.

Learn more at fallenfruit.org

 

Portland Fruit Trees

Portland Fruit Trees is a volunteer organization that gathers fruit and nuts from trees all over the city. They hold “gathering parties,” and donate everything that is gathered to local food banks. Gatherers living on a low income get to keep some of their gathered fruit. They also offer pruning and tree care workshops, a tree registry, and food preservation classes. Check out their links section; it’s a great place to find other urban gathering projects. And they sell t-shirts.

Learn more at portlandfruit.org

 

Backyard Harvest

One of the more ambitious gleaning projects, Backyard Harvest collects food from private property and commercial farms in Idaho, Washington, and California. Doug Hagensen is the founder of the sixth chapter of Backyard Harvest in Santa Barbara, California. Over the past eight months he’s harvested full time, collecting more than 30,000 pounds of fresh whole foods for local food banks, funded by a single grant of $5,500.It’s not a sustainable business model, so Hagensen has started selling some of the gathered produce to the local school district.

“The schools will pay Backyard Harvest for the food,” Hagensen explains, “and once we meet the monthly expense for the project, all of the food will go back into the donation loop, to the less fortunate in the community.”

It’s a cycle that makes sense. Local schools pay fair market prices for locally grown food. Since the produce is donated, and the only cost involved is paying the harvesters, the school’s money also covers the cost of picking food for charities. Everyone wins.

Backyard Harvest also collects from local commercial farmers, which typically discard 20 to 25 percent of their produce.

“Two weeks ago I was at a local farm,” says Hagensen. “The farmer pointed to the field and said ‘You can have all that cauliflower out there.’ It was huge cauliflower, double the size of the typical cauliflower in the store. It was beautiful. There was nothing wrong with it except that it didn’t fit the image of cauliflower that consumers have in their mind, so he couldn’t sell it.” At the end of the day, he’d picked 600 pounds of free cauliflower.

Volunteers are welcome to register their trees, come help with the harvest, distribute fliers to find new food sources, or even assist in grant writing.

Learn more at backyardharvest.org

 

Society of St. Andrew

Operating for over 30 years, the Society of St. Andrew is a religious gleaning group that delivers over 60 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables per year and has operations across the continental United States. The Society provides food to the 200-plus food banks of the nonprofit Feeding America. You can sign up to help gather, or register your farm to allow the group to glean your crops post-harvest.

Learn more at endhunger.org.

 

The Tree People Fruit Tree Program

Started in 1984, this Los Angeles-area group provides free fruit trees to community groups, schools, and individuals that would otherwise be unable to buy trees. The result is free, fresh produce in communities where it is often hard to buy expensive fresh food. They also offer fruit tree pruning and pest management workshops.

Learn more at treepeople.org

 

Inland Empire Urban Fruit Harvest

After seeing a video about gleaning on YouTube, Krista Lawhon started gathering fruit in Riverside, California—the birthplace of the California citrus industry, where the official slogan is “City of Trees.” Incredibly, in a city that practically invented the industrial orchard, Lawhon hasn’t heard of any other backyard harvesting programs. On Wednesdays and Sundays Lawhon piles a ladder, fruit picker, fliers, and crates into her PT Cruiser and heads off to pick fruit. Volunteer pickers get to keep as much as they want; the rest is donated. Since January 1, Lawhon has picked and donated more than 2,500 pounds of food.”If you take the time to look around, you can find food growing just about everywhere, and it rarely gets eaten or harvested.” Lawhon says. “Riverside and surrounding cities have an abundance of fruit that is ripe and ready to eat, and those nutrients need to be put into the hands of people who need it.”Lawhon uses Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace to spread the word and find new trees to harvest.

For frequent updates and information on how to get involved, read her blog.

It would be great to see gathering and gleaning continue to spread. They’re easy ways to save some money, reduce your impact, and help out your neighbors. If you’ve got more gathering tips or know of other gathering organizations, mention them in comments below.  One last note: if you decide to try your hand at gathering wild food, please be careful around mushrooms. There are some things plants that you just can’t eat.

Do you have resources about gathering or gleaning in your city? Post them in the comments.

Photos courtesy of Bill Etling, Doug Hagensen, and Krista Lawhon. All other photos courtesy of their respective organizations.

I discovered this magical place on a Sunday morning. Luckily for me, that's when they have a little "farmer's" market after their lecture (around 11:30 - 12:30). I got to buy a huge bunch of kale from the garden I had just been admiring. I was so giddy, I proceeded to frolic barefoot in this flower garden. Soaking up the Sun's Vitamin D and the Earths energy made me feel like a kid again! I can't wait to go back for one of their retreats or Sunday lectures.