Regional Farm & Food Project Spring 2007 News
If you think you feel our paradigm shifting, these news stories should
interest you!
10 news stories...
1.) Farm & Food Network Presents "Welcome to the Cow Industrial
Complex"
2.) Northeast Pastured Poultry Association Hatchery Update
3.) Honey Bees AWOL! 90 Threatened Crops, $14 Billion in Potential
Losses
4.) Maine Does the Math on Agriculture
5.) World Food Prices Rise as Grain Crops Become Bio-Fuel
6.) Federal Legislation Attempts to Reform Meat Monopolies
7.) Mayor Bloomberg Changes the Way the Big Apple Eats
8.) Northeast Ag Works! Identifies Unique Needs of Northeast
Agriculture
9.) Federal Legislations Proposes to Outlaw Antibiotics in Food
10.) Soil Fertility, Biofuels & Carbon Sequestration: local
agriculture and global climate
+ C A L E N D E R
1.) Farm & Food Network Presents "Welcome to the Cow Industrial
Complex"
Farm & Food Network Meeting & Potluck Dinner
Monday, April 30, 6:00 - 9:00 pm
All are welcome to attend!
Billie Best will present "Welcome to the Cow Industrial Complex: the
link between your health, the stock market and corporate personhood."
at the
Quaker Meeting House
727 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY
Please park at the office building at 747 Madison
Please bring a dish to share. We will provide tableware & beverages.
The Farm & Food Network hosts a listserv and quarterly meetings to
connect farm and food entrepreneurs with new business opportunities and
strengthen business relationships. Our pods are activist groups
organized around pubic issues education. Together we are restoring the
balance between farms and factories, local and global, people and
profits. Join us for an evening of networking and good food.
Everyone who attends the Farm & Food Network meeting is invited to
share updates on their work. If you are promoting a country fair, an
educational workshop, or summer farm and food event, we invite you to
tell us about it. Now is the time to get it on our calendars.
Also, Regional Farm & Food Project has a new mailing address. Please
make a note of it:
Regional Farm & Food Project
PO Box 8628
Albany, NY 12208
518-271-0744
www.farmandfood.org
2.) Northeast Pastured Poultry Association Hatchery Update
LOCALLY HATCHED BROILER CHICKS
Within the past few years two issues around air shipping of day old
chicks have emerged as problems for pastured poultry producers:
airlines hesitation to ship live animals, including chicks, resulting
in uncertain and more expensive shipping and the effects of early
stress on chicks that spend 48 hours or longer in transit, subjected to
extremes of temperature and handling. NEPPA, after a SARE supported
feasibility study, has opened a hatchery to offer New York State
producers a local resource for chicks.
Jill and Ken Gies of The Pasture have operated the hatchery for four
full seasons, bringing the incubation equipment up to peak operating
condition and perfecting their egg handling techniques. Successful
incubation requires extremely precise temperatures, humidity and
oversight. Ken and Jill have achieved hatch rates that equal the
industry standard and are consistently over 80%. They also purchase
eggs from a high quality source, ensuring that chicks start with good
genetics and vigor, and they carefully inspect each chick at hatch and
cull those that lack vigor or appear defective in any way. This
results in lower brooder mortality at your farm. During the 2006
season the Hatchery sold 15,000 chicks to satisfied customers across
New York.
Hatches are scheduled every Tuesday from April through August. Chicks
should be ordered 5 weeks in advance, with payment submitted at time of
order. There may be a small number of chicks available on shorter
notice.
NEPPA is an all-volunteer organization devoted to helping interested
individuals and families get started raising pastured poultry. Members
are located throughout the greater NY Capital District and Northeastern
NY. We sponsor formal and informal training and technical assistance
on all aspects of pastured poultry production, coordinate utilization
of a mobile processing unit, and can offer equipment or other loans to
qualified families requiring assistance to get started. Our members are
eager to pass on the gift of knowledge and experience to others looking
for better know-how regarding pasture raised poultry and other animals.
Hatchery Operated by: Jill & Ken Gies, The Pasture, 660 Fordsbush Rd,
Fort Plain, NY 13339, 518-568-5322, giespasture@...
To learn more contact the NEPPA Leadership Committee:
Judith Kleinberg (Washington Cty) 518-878-2308
Linda Bulson (Rensselaer Cty) 518-279-9867
Ben Shaw (Washington Cty) 518-695-6801
Brian Bender (Saratoga Cty) 518-383-0690
3.) Honey Bees AWOL! 90 Threatened Crops, $14 Billion in Potential
Losses
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would
only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination,
no more plants, no more animals, no more man." - Albert Einstein
Losing Their Buzz
By MAY R. BERENBAUM
New York Times, March 2, 2007
Excerpt:
Urbana, Illinois -- When Hollywood filmmakers want to heighten the
tension of an insect fear film, they just arrange for millions of
killer bees to appear out of nowhere to threaten a vulnerable group of
people — over the years, these have included children in a school bus,
celebrants at a Mardi Gras parade and people living near a nuclear
power plant.
But people from all demographic groups across the country are facing a
much more frightening real-life situation: the disappearance of
millions of bees. This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have
noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind
no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies
either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically
deposit corpses of dead nestmates.
What’s more, the afflicted colonies tend to be full of honey, pollen
and larvae, as if all of the workers in the nest precipitously decamped
on some prearranged signal. Beekeepers are up in arms — last month,
leaders in the business met with research scientists and government
officials in Florida to figure out why the bees are disappearing and
how to stop the losses. Nobody had any answers.
That beekeepers are alarmed over this situation is understandable, but,
just as in the movies, the public may not recognize the magnitude of
the threat that these mysterious events present.
A decline in the numbers of Apis melllifera, the world’s most widely
distributed semi-domesticated insect, doesn’t just mean a shortage of
honey for toast and tea. In fact, the economic value of honey, wax and
other bee products is trivial in comparison with the honeybee’s
services as a pollinator. More than 90 crops in North America rely on
honeybees to transport pollen from flower to flower, effecting
fertilization and allowing production of fruit and seed. The amazing
versatility of the species is worth an estimated $14 billion a year to
the United States economy.
Approximately one-third of the typical American’s diet (primarily the
healthiest part) is directly or indirectly the result of honey bee
pollination. Production of almonds in California, a $2 billion
enterprise, is almost entirely dependent on honey bees. Every year
beekeepers transport millions of bees around the country to meet the
ever-growing need for pollination services for almonds, apples,
blueberries, peaches and other crops. This year it is possible that
there won’t be enough bees to meet the demand for pollinators.
Theories abound as to potential causes of what is being called colony
collapse disorder. As a social species living in close quarters at high
densities — the average hive contains upwards of 30,000 insects —
honeybees are prone to a staggering diversity of fungal, bacterial and
viral diseases. In the 1980s, honeybee numbers plummeted when two
species of parasitic mites appeared, wiping out most populations of
wild bees and placing more pressure on managed colonies. This latest
drop in numbers may be the consequence of a new infection, or of
several diseases simultaneously, leading to a fatally compromised
immune system.
It is also possible that severe stress brought on by crowding,
inadequate nutrition or even the combined effects of prophylactic
antibiotics and miticides sprayed by beekeepers to ward off infections
may be a factor. Another, particularly sad, possibility is that
accidental exposure to a new pesticide may cause non-lethal behavioral
changes that interfere with the ability of honeybees to orient and
navigate; brain-damaged foraging bees may simply get lost on their way
home and starve to death away from the hive.
Irrespective of its causes, however, this drop comes at a critical
time, with demand for pollination services rocketing upward. Even in a
high-tech age when the human capacity to improve upon nature seems
limitless, there is no satisfactory substitute for the honeybee. Thus
it’s astonishing that beekeeping remains largely unimproved by
technological advances relative to just about every other form of
animal husbandry. The basic design of honey bee housing is essentially
unchanged since L. L. Langstroth patented his movable frame hive in
1852...
May R. Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology at the
University of Illinois, is the author of “Buzzwords: A Scientist Muses
on Sex, Bugs and Rock ’n’ Roll.”
FULL STORY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/opinion/02berenbaum.html?
ex=1176004800&en=d766f010ec405f03&ei=5070
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
(NPR) - The disappearance of bee colonies across North America, which
endangers the pollination of fruits and vegetables, prompts a hearing
by the House agriculture panel. Alarmed beekeepers, farmers and
scientists voiced their concerns at the hearing. Full article here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9213661&ft=1&f=1001
In the US, the Sierra Club has been among those asking whether GM crops
are responsible for the massive instantaneous die-offs of millions of
honey-bees, which some say are slowly assuming catastrophic
proportions.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7670
An article in Der Spiegel, Germany's most influential news magazine,
also asks if the decimation of bee populations in the US and Germany is
a result of GM crops. Walter Haefeker, vice president of the European
Professional Beekeepers Association, points to research conducted at
the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004, which examined the effects of
pollen from Bt maize (corn) on bees. When during the research, by sheer
chance, the bees in the experiments were infested with a parasite, a
"significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among
the insects that had been fed on a concentrated Bt feed. According to
the director of the study, Professor Hans-Heinrich Kaatz, the Bt toxin
may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently
weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps
it was the other way around. We don't know."
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7676
4.) Maine Does the Math on Agriculture
Agricultural value study approved, Project will assess industry's worth
to Maine, cost of improvements
By Sharon Kiley Mack
Bangor Daily News - Bangor, Maine, March 20, 2007
AUGUSTA - Calling Maine agriculture "the invisible economic sector" of
the state, legislators Monday backed a study to determine what would
happen if the state invested in agriculture improvements.
There are plenty of signs that farmers want to expand their farms and
businesses, proponents said, but there is too deep a shortage of
support mechanisms within the state government.
The study, sponsored by Rep. Wendy Pieh, D-Bremen, would assess the
state's agricultural value and then project what the financial impact
would be if a variety of bureaucratic infrastructure improvements were
made.
These would include more state dairy and meat inspectors, more state
veterinarians, a $1 million marketing fund, a revolving loan fund and
funding for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Research
Center.
David Milan, economic director of Bucksport, said that when his
community proposed a shared-kitchen facility and looked into how many
licensed food manufacturers were within a 40-mile radius of Bucksport,
town officials were shocked.
"There were more than 400," Milan said. They were bakers, farmers,
growers and producers who were making everything from jam to salsa in
their home kitchens. Without a facility, which Bucksport is creating,
the opportunity to expand was beyond their reach.
Milan testified that any investment in Maine's rural economy would pay
off for the state.
Marge Kilkelly, former state senator, goat farmer and director of the
Northeast States Association for Agricultural Stewardship, proposed
the five-year plan, which would conduct the study in the first year,
fund it in the second year and then gather results of success in the
third through fifth years.
The Agriculture's Creative Economy Study, or ACES, would "be a small
investment of state money that would greatly be returned to the state
through economic growth," she said.
The ACES would be carried out by a Cabinet-level team consisting of
representatives from the Maine departments of Labor, Agriculture, and
Economic and Community Development.
Kilkelly said she based her proposal on three premises: the last thing
farmland grows is houses, any economy is only as strong as its weakest
link, and the rural economy is invisible.
"You don't get the same impact looking at a sign at Bath Iron Works as
you do one on a farm saying Androscoggin Holsteins," she said. "When
BIW sneezes, the stock in tissue goes up. When the dairy industry is
hemorrhaging, we have trouble getting noticed."
Kilkelly said that when the state has had lean financial years, the
Maine Department of Agriculture's budget is the first to be cut, but
those cuts were never restored in good years.
In addition, she said, the loss of value-added products means "lost
jobs, lost money and lost opportunities." She said Maine's animals are
sent to Pennsylvania for slaughter, fleeces are sent to Michigan for
processing, and grain is sent to Canada to be milled.
"We have wonderful, wonderful people in the Department of
Agriculture," she said. "There are just not enough."
"We need to strike now," she said. "There is an amazing renaissance in
New England of people - consumers - who want to know more about their
food and where it comes from. We have a tremendous advantage in Maine
over other parts of the country. If you invest in ACES, all of Maine
will prosper."
Representatives from the Maine Farm Bureau, the Maine Department of
Agriculture, the town of Bucksport, the Down East Business Alliance and
individual farmers testified in favor of the resolve.
There was no opposition.
Copyright 2007 Bangor Daily News
5.) World Food Prices Rise as Grain Crops Become Bio-Fuel
Diverson of U.S. Grain to Fuel is Raising World Food Prices
By Lester R. Brown
Earth Policy Institute, March 21, 2007
If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you
may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to
ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide.
Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading
at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In
addition, soybean futures have risen by half. A Bloomberg analysis
notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol
"is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food
chain."
The countries initially hit by rising food prices are those where corn
is the staple food. In Mexico, one of more than 20 countries with a
corn-based diet, the price of tortillas is up by 60 percent. Angry
Mexicans in crowds of up to 75,000 have taken to the streets in
protest, forcing the government to institute price controls on
tortillas.
Food prices are also rising in China, India, and the United States,
countries that contain 40 percent of the world's people. While
relatively little corn is eaten directly in these countries, vast
quantities are consumed indirectly in meat, milk, and eggs in both
China and the United States.
Rising grain and soybean prices are driving up meat and egg prices in
China. January pork prices were up 20 percent above a year earlier,
eggs were up 16 percent, while beef, which is less dependent on grain,
was up 6 percent.
In India, the overall food price index in January 2007 was 10 percent
higher than a year earlier. The price of wheat, the staple food in
northern India, has jumped 11 percent, moving above the world market
price.
In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that
the wholesale price of chicken in 2007 will be 10 percent higher on
average than in 2006, the price of a dozen eggs will be up a whopping
21 percent, and milk will be 14 percent higher. And this is only the
beginning.
In the past, food price rises have usually been weather related and
always temporary. This situation is different. As more and more fuel
ethanol distilleries are built, world grain prices are starting to
move up toward their oil-equivalent value in what appears to be the
beginning of a long-term rise.
The food and energy economies, historically separate, are now merging.
In this new economy, if the fuel value of grain exceeds its food
value, the market will move it into the energy economy. As the price
of oil climbs so will the price of food.
Some 16 percent of the 2006 U.S. grain harvest was used to produce
ethanol. With 80 or so ethanol distilleries now under construction,
enough to more than double existing ethanol production capacity,
nearly a third of the 2008 grain harvest will be going to ethanol.
Since the United States is the leading exporter of grain, shipping
more than Canada, Australia, and Argentina combined, what happens to
the U.S. grain crop affects the entire world. With the massive
diversion of grain to produce fuel for cars, exports will drop. The
world's breadbasket is fast becoming the U.S. fuel tank.
The number of hungry people in the world has been declining for
several decades, but in the late 1990s the trend reversed and the
number began to rise. The United Nations currently lists 34 countries
as needing emergency food assistance. Many of these are considered
failed and failing states, including Chad, Iraq, Liberia, Haiti, and
Zimbabwe. Since food aid programs typically have fixed budgets, if the
price of grain doubles, food aid will be reduced by half.
Urban food protests in response to rising food prices in low and
middle income countries, such as Mexico, could lead to political
instability that would add to the growing list of failed and failing
states. At some point, spreading political instability could disrupt
global economic progress.
Against this backdrop, Washington is consumed with "ethanol euphoria."
President Bush in his State of the Union address set a production goal
for 2017 of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels, including grain-
based and cellulosic ethanol, and liquefied coal. Given the current
difficulties in producing cellulosic ethanol at a competitive cost and
given the mounting public opposition to liquefied coal, which is far
more carbon-intensive than gasoline, most of the fuel to meet this
goal might well have to come from grain. This could take most of the
U.S. grain harvest, leaving little grain to meet U.S. needs, much less
those of the hundred or so countries that import grain.
The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800
million people who own automobiles, and the world's 2 billion poorest
people. The risk is that millions of those on the lower rungs of the
global economic ladder will start falling off as higher food prices
drop their consumption below the survival level.
In February 2007 the World Food Programme Director James T. Morris
reported that 18,000 children are now dying every day from hunger and
malnutrition. This daily loss of life is six times the number of U.S.
combat fatalities in Iraq over the last four years.
There are alternatives to this grim scenario. A rise in auto fuel
efficiency standards of 20 percent, phased in over the next decade
would save as much oil as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest
into ethanol.
One option that is gaining momentum is a shift to plug-in hybrids.
Adding a second storage battery to a gas-electric hybrid car along
with a plug-in capacity so that the batteries can be recharged at
night allows most short-distance driving -- daily commuting and
grocery shopping, for example -- to be done with electricity. If this
shift were accompanied by investment in thousands of wind farms that
could feed cheap electricity into the grid, then cars could run
largely on electricity for the equivalent cost of $1 per gallon
gasoline.
Encouragingly, three auto manufacturers -- Toyota, Nissan, and GM --
have announced plans to bring plug-in hybrid cars to market. Plug-In
Partners, which is spearheading a national campaign to shift to plug-
in hybrid cars, already has 508 partners, including electrical
utilities, corporations, state and city governments, and farm and
environmental groups. Among its fast-growing list of partners are the
American Public Power Association, Electric Power Research Institute,
American Wind Energy Association, American Corn Growers Association,
and the cities of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and Boston. Already a
number of Partners have collectively pledged to purchase for their own
fleets more than 8,000 plug-in hybrids as soon as they reach the
market.
Ethanol euphoria is not an acceptable substitute for a carefully
thought through policy. For Washington, it is time to decide whether
to continue with the current policy of subsidizing more and more
grain-based fuel distilleries or to encourage a shift to more fuel-
efficient cars and a new automotive fuel economy centered on plug-in
hybrid cars and wind energy. The choice is between a future of rising
world food prices, spreading hunger, and growing political
instability, or one of stable food prices, sharply reduced dependence
on oil, and much lower carbon emissions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Plug-In Partners http://www.pluginpartners.org
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization http://www.fao.org
United States Department of Agriculture http://www.usda.gov
Copyright 2007 Earth Policy Institute
6.) Federal Legislation Attempts to Reform Meat Monopolies
RANCHERS SUPPORT BILL TO RESTORE COMPETITIVE, FAIR MARKETS
Western Organization of Resource Councils
March 28, 2007
Billings, Montana --- Western ranchers are applauding legislation
introduced today to return competition and fairness to the nation’s
cattle markets.
Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (Rep.-Wyoming) has introduced the Captive
Supply Reform Act, S. 1017, with bipartisan support. The bill would
limit meatpacker control of the cattle market by requiring more
transparent transactions and firm base prices for cattle supplied under
advance contracts. Four multi-national packing firms control the
markets, in part through captive supplies, or cattle owned or
contracted by the packers.
“It’s time for Congress to step up to the plate and support Sen. Enzi’s
reforms,” said Mabel Dobbs, a rancher from Weiser, Idaho, and chair of
the Livestock Committee for the Billings-based Western Organization of
Resource Councils. “Ranchers want and deserve to earn a fair price in
an open, competitive livestock market.”
Dobbs said the packers use captive supplies to manipulate the price
paid to family farmers and ranchers for their livestock for nearly 20
years. “It’s time to fix the livestock markets,” she said.
“Meatpackers profit at the expense of hard-working producers by
controlling prices,” said Dan Teigen, a member of Montana’s Northern
Plains Resource Council and the WORC Livestock Committee. “Senator
Enzi’s proposal is a market-based solution that restores competition to
the packer-controlled livestock markets we face today. This change
would cost virtually nothing for the federal government to implement,
but would pay dividends to rural communities throughout this country.
Every senator with cattle in his or her state should support this
bill.”
Cosponsors are Senators Byron Dorgan (Dem.-North Dakota), Kent Conrad
(Dem.-North Dakota), Chuck Grassley (Rep.-Iowa), and Craig Thomas
(Rep.-Wyoming).
“Ranchers owe a big ‘thank you’ to these senators for their efforts to
regain a true livestock market,” Dobbs said.
The livestock market is broken. Big meatpackers are taking advantage of
honest, hardworking family farmers and ranchers by price fixing. Fair
and open livestock markets enable farmers and ranchers, auction yard
owners and feeders to keep their independence, run their businesses,
provide for their families and build their rural communities. It is
time to fix the broken livestock market.
The Captive Supply Reform Act, S. 1017, would fix the problems without
banning use of captive supplies. The bill would restore competition in
the market for livestock contracts by
* Requiring a fixed base price on contracts and marketing agreement
* Requiring that contracts be traded in open, public markets
WORC is a network of grassroots organizations from seven states that
includes 9,700 members and 45 local community groups. WORC represents
farmers, ranchers, and consumers in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North
Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.worc.org/media/csra3_07.htm
7.) Mayor Bloomberg Changes the Way the Big Apple Eats
Farewell, French Fries! Hello, Sliced Apples!
By Kim Severson
New York Times, April 4, 2007
NEW YORK’S mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, loves popcorn and merlot, but
not always at the same time. He watches his weight carefully, but more
often than not a hamburger will do for lunch, with maybe a little cream
cheese on a cracker for a snack.
The mayor’s a charmer at the dinner parties he gives at his Upper East
Side town house, but pot pies, fried chicken and ice cream sundaes are
more likely to be on the menu than foie gras and miso-soaked sea bass.
In other words, from a culinary point of view, he has sweater-vest
taste on a billionaire’s budget. But from a policy perspective, Mr.
Bloomberg has taken on more food issues, and provoked more controversy,
than any New York mayor before him. As a result, he has the potential
to change the way more New Yorkers eat — whether in the haughtiest
dining rooms or the poorest home kitchens — than all the city’s food
activists and restaurant critics combined.
“A lot of what he’s doing is likely to be happening nationally over
time,” said Tim Zagat, the co-founder of the guides that bear his name.
“The government’s involvement in what we’re eating is going to be
increasingly visible as a way to make people healthier.”
From the start, Mayor Bloomberg muscled his way into the city’s
restaurants on a health platform. He banned smoking in bars and small
restaurants. (Lighting up in restaurants with more than 35 seats had
already been outlawed.) More recently, he shot down trans fat, forced
large restaurant chains to post calorie counts and took on a
cutting-edge culinary technique called sous vide.
Bar owners threatened to pull him from office over the first move, and
restaurant owners are still grumbling over the others.
The mayor’s raucous takeover of the public school system in 2002 led to
a culinary bonus for the city’s 1.1 million school children. They now
have an executive chef, whole wheat bread, salad bars and little
plastic bags of sliced New York state apples. Even before the very
public rat infestations and a string of high-profile closings, health
inspectors were already making about 15,000 more restaurants visits
annually than they did four years ago. In January and February, the
health department closed 147 restaurants, double the number for the
same two months last year.
And the Mayor has now turned his attention to hunger and poverty,
working with the City Council to get more people to sign up for food
stamps and looking with renewed vigor at how to get healthy food to
people who live in neighborhoods with no grocery stores.
Perhaps the biggest statement Mayor Bloomberg has made about food
policy came in the form of a hire. In January, Benjamin Thomases, 31, a
New Yorker who holds an MBA from Columbia University, became the first
official charged with coordinating the city’s policies on food.
“This is a very important moment for the city,” said City Council
Speaker Christine C. Quinn, a Greenmarket regular who has a strong
following among New York health and food advocacy groups and who
pressed the mayor for the position.
Still, people engaged in agricultural reform, anti-hunger workers and
even the average food-obsessed New Yorker wonder whether the Mayor is
actually leading the city’s current food revolution or merely walking
in front of a social change that was well under way before he took
office.
It’s easy to see a dawning awareness in City Hall that government can
help people eat better. But it’s not as easy to find a singular grand
vision, or even much of a pattern, behind the intersection of food and
city government. The mayor declined an interview with The New York
Times on this subject and has never presented an overarching view on
food policy.
“On food issues they’re very peculiar, this Bloomberg administration,”
said Toni Liquori, an educator who has worked on food and public health
projects in New York City for more than 20 years, including
administering a $2 million Kellogg Foundation grant to improve the
eating habits and health of New York City school children.
“What ends up happening is that one issue will pierce through and
someone will charge with it, like trans fats or school meals,” she
said. “But you also have a sense that it’s not like the administration
is driving anything full tilt. It’s not as if they have embraced the
full connection on food.”
Anti-hunger advocates, who have long been skeptical of Mayor
Bloomberg’s commitment to the poor, credit the Mayor for taking a more
serious interest in food as it relates to poverty this term.
“The tools are now all in place to achieve significant progress, but it
depends on whether the city decides to use the tools,” said Joel Berg,
executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and
former member of the Clinton administration.
“It took Nixon to go to China,” he said. “Maybe it’ll take a Republican
billionaire to have real progress on hunger and poverty.”
In many American cities, agricultural politics are being argued at the
bar and alpha moms are organizing to take back school cafeterias. Chefs
are making heroes out of cattle ranchers and the obesity crisis has
prompted a new look at how and what to feed the poor. In an effort to
build a cohesive public policy that brings all those food-related
movements together, a handful of cities began forming food policy
councils in the late 1990s.
The organizations, which are in part designed to advise governments on
matters of food, usually include anyone who might have a stake in an
urban diet. The councils with the most power are seated in city or
state health departments, and might include farmers, food bank
managers, school principals, backyard gardeners, grocers, chefs, labor
leaders and clergy.
Both Berkeley and San Francisco have played with the model, as have
Hartford, Conn., Toronto and Portland, Ore. Last week, New York state
agricultural officials announced that the state would soon have its
first food-policy council.
The nearest thing New York city government has now is Mr. Thomases, the
food czar, who works deep inside the enormous collection of city
departments called Health and Human Services. In an interview, however,
he said that his job is not to set policy or offer vision.
“I prefer not to think of myself as the food czar,” said Mr. Thomases,
who is making $85,000 a year, a figure that some in City Hall say would
be higher if the position held more power.
Rather, his job is to make some sense of the myriad ways the city feeds
people. He will be the glue that helps hold it together, said Linda I.
Gibbs, the deputy mayor under whom Mr. Thomases serves. His main
mechanism will be an interdepartmental food policy task force, which
had its first meeting in February. He has also reached out to groups
outside government, including large food manufacturers as well as the
New York City Food Systems Network, an informal nexus for people who
work in hunger, nutrition, agriculture and other food-related
endeavors.
And while organizations like food councils and positions like Mr.
Thomases’ are a start, no major American city has yet established a
Department of Food, in the way New York has a Department of Cultural
Affairs or a Department of Environmental Protection. Although Gavin
Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, recently weighed in on the 2007
Farm Bill and many mayors have taken up the anti-obesity cause, no
mayor of a large urban city has stood up and become, in essence, the
Alice Waters of city food politics.
In the Bloomberg administration, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden is as close as
it gets. As head of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, he has
done more to change the mayor’s thinking about the government’s role in
how we eat than anyone else in the administration.
Mayor Bloomberg, who has donated millions to the Johns Hopkins school
of public health that bears his name, brought in the antismoking,
TB-fighting Dr. Frieden early on. Though he’s been labeled both a
zealot and a revolutionary, Dr. Frieden doesn’t see himself as either.
And he doesn’t see the changes in how New York eats as part of any
larger foodie revolution.
The city, he points out, has had a long history of making people
healthier by controlling food. In 1918, the Board of Health condemned
oyster beds in the East River because they were contaminated with
typhoid. Today, typhoid isn’t killing New Yorkers. Heart disease is.
“Obesity and diabetes are now the only health problems in the United
States getting worse,” Dr. Frieden said. In light of the epidemic,
Mayor Bloomberg’s hand in changing New York’s diet “has been relatively
restrained,” he said.
Dr. Frieden, who has a runner’s body even though he swears he can’t lay
off desserts, said it took a little bit of convincing to get the mayor
behind the trans fat ban. But in the end, as with the smoking ban, it
all came down to one question. The mayor asked, “Are you certain this
is going to save lives?”
Not all of Dr. Freiden’s efforts to alter New York’s food landscape
have been successful.
He realizes that a law forcing large restaurant chains to post calorie
counts as prominently as menu prices might face a court challenge. And
although the department often trots out its Healthy Bodegas Initiative
as an example of innovative food policy work, the project has not
gotten very far.
The idea was to encourage bodegas in neighborhoods with poverty and
health problems to sell more nutritious food. An effort to get more 1
percent milk into some stores worked, but an attempt to persuade 60
bodegas in East Harlem and the South Bronx to sell packages of sliced
New York apples and carrots didn’t take off.
The program began in all 60 in December, but as of last week, no one
could say how many bodegas still sold the snacks, and a department
spokeswoman called it a preliminary effort that bogged down by
distribution problems.
Despite those stumbles, many in city government feel empowered under
Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership to take on food-related projects. The
Department for the Aging is rethinking the Meals on Wheels programs and
wondering about how to serve more culturally appropriate meals at
senior centers populated by people with, say, roots in China or Italy.
The New York City health code was amended last spring so that day-care
providers must offer their charges fewer calories. The Department of
Housing Preservation and Development will open two 20,000-square-foot
urban farms this summer on vacant city land.
Ms. Gibbs, a tough and experienced bureaucrat who started with the
Giuliani administration, gets a twinkle in her eye when she starts to
contemplate the ways food issues might come together in the city.
“There’s no doubt in my mind there’s something about food in the air
that people are picking up,” she said.
On the other hand, chefs are mixed on Mr. Bloomberg’s food record —
especially the few who got hit with fines last year for cooking sous
vide, which involves vacuum-sealing food in plastic and cooking it
slowly in water that’s barely hot. Fearing the practice could infect
diners with pathogens like botulism, the Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene has restricted its use while it develops regulations.
“In the restaurant industry, we see the Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene as a division of tax and finance,” said Colin Alevras, the chef
and co-owner of the Tasting Room, who doesn’t think Mr. Bloomberg is a
serious food guy.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a man who knows a thing or two about the
headaches of trying to run New York as well as the pleasures of eating
in its restaurants, counters that the mayor really is a food guy.
“And he has a great cache of wine,” Mr. Koch said.
Although he’s a little disappointed he wasn’t tapped to serve as the
city’s official taster, he does have a little piece of advice for Mayor
Bloomberg as he works on food policy: Don’t forget that eating is about
pleasure, and food is supposed to taste good.
“You don’t want to leave food policy to a doctor,” said Mr. Koch.
“Because a doctor cuts out everything.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
8.) Northeast Ag Works! Identifies Unique Needs of Northeast
Agriculture
http://www.northeastagworks.org
Northeast Ag Works! is a region-wide project to propose, promote and
support public policies that foster and sustain our region’s
agriculture and food system. They promote a regionalist framework to
evaluate and promote public farm and food policies at all levels; they
address federal, state and inter-state policy barriers and
opportunities. They provide legislators and advocates with research,
tools, resources and forums.
At their website (http://www.northeastagworks.org/4.html) you can
download these documents:
+ "Are We Being Served?" A Regional Framework for U.S. Farm and Food
Policy
+ "Regional Policy Checklist" A tool to evaluate policies and policy
proposals for their responsiveness to regional characteristics and
needs.
+ "Regionalist Approaches to Farm and Food System Policy: A Focus on
the Northeast" A white paper by Allen Hance, Kathy Ruhf, and Alan Hunt
+ "Northeast Farm Bill Agenda" Ten top policy priorities for the
Northeast with references and links to the bills and policy proposals
that advance them.
+ "Northeast Farms to Food 2006 Update: A Focus on the 2007 Farm Bill"
Facts, figures and explanations related to the federal Farm Bill and
how it plays out in the Northeast
+ A series of newsletters highlighting policy innovations from
Northeast states, including Integrating Agriculture and Economic
Development, Farmland Affordability, and Institutional Procurement
9.) Federal Legislations Proposes to Outlaw Antibiotics in Food
February 12, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, D.C. – Today, Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Olympia Snowe and
Representative Louise Slaughter introduced the Preservation of
Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act of 2007. The increased use of
antibiotics in livestock has created microbes resistant to all but the
newest and most expensive drugs. The Preservation of Antibiotics for
Human Treatment Act of 2007 will protect the health of Americans by
phasing out the non-therapeutic use in livestock of medically important
antibiotics, unless their manufacturers can show that they pose no
danger to the public health.
“Unfortunately, in recent years, we have done too little to prevent
the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and other
germs, and many of our most powerful drugs are no longer effective.”
Senator Kennedy said, “The nation is clearly at risk of an epidemic
outbreak of food poisoning caused by drug-resistant bacteria or other
germs. In recent years, many nations, including the United States, have
been plagued by outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. It is time to put
public safety first and stop this promiscuous use of drugs essential
for protecting human health.
"The effectiveness of infectious disease fighting antibiotics continues
to be compromised by their overuse for agricultural purposes," Snowe
said "and each year we fail to take action on this critical issue
increases the risk that drug-resistant bacteria will threaten the
health of the American people. To ensure the effectiveness of these
life saving medicines - the overuse of antibiotics must be a public
health priority."
"When we go to the grocery store, we should expect that the food we buy
will not inadvertently expose our families to dangerous strains of
resistant bacteria. However, the practice of over-using antibiotics in
raising livestock - even when animals are not sick - is one of the
leading contributors to the development of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. As a result, our risk of exposure to increasingly stronger
bacteria is becoming a frightening reality," said Rep Slaughter. "It is
imperative that Congress enact this critical piece of legislation to
protect the integrity of our antibiotics and the future health of our
families."
Background
The widespread use of antibiotics beginning in the 1940's
provided – for the first time in history– effective treatments for
infectious diseases. These miracle drugs have saved countless lives,
but they are losing their effectiveness. Antibiotics that once had the
power to cure dangerous infections are now often useless, because
microbes have become resistant to all but the newest and most expensive
drugs – and some “superbugs” are impervious to any weapons in the
medical arsenal. Resistance to antibiotics takes a heavy toll on
patients across the nation. The World Health Organization estimates
that 14,000 Americans die every year from drug-resistant infections.
This means that one American dies from a resistant infection every 38
minutes.
It seems scarcely believable that these precious medications
could be fed by the ton to chickens and pigs – but that’s exactly
what’s happening in farms all over America. Over 20 million pounds of
antibiotics are fed to farm animals every year. That’s more than is
used in all of medicine. These precious drugs aren’t even used to
treat sick animals. They are used to fatten pigs and speed the growth
of chickens. The result of this rampant overuse is clear: meat
contaminated with drug-resistant bacteria sits on supermarket shelves
all over America. Every family is potentially at risk. The most
vulnerable among us – children, elderly, persons with HIV/AIDS – are
particularly endangered by resistant infections.
At a time when the nation is relying on antibiotics and other
medications to protect our homeland’s security from the grave threat of
bioterrorism, we can no longer squander these precious weapons in the
fight against disease by feeding them indiscriminately to livestock.
Provisions of the Legislation
· The Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act of
2007 will protect the health of Americans by phasing out the
non-therapeutic use in livestock of medically important antibiotics,
unless their manufacturers can show that they pose no danger to the
public health. The Act requires this same tough standard of new
applications for approval of animal antibiotics.
· The Act does not restrict use of antibiotics to treat sick
animals or to treat pets and other animals not used for food.
The below provisions are in the Senate bill:
· The Act provides for Federal payments to farmers to defray
their costs in switching to antibiotic-free husbandry practices, with a
preference given to family farms. The Act also authorizes grants for
research and demonstration programs on means to reduce the use of
antibiotics in the raising of livestock.
· The Act requires manufacturers to report: (1) on the amounts
of antibiotics they supply for animal use (2) on the animals to which
those drugs are given and (3) on the uses for which those drugs are
supplied.
http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=d609aaf1-1067
-4461-9cce-87a7c31f278a
10.) Soil Fertility, Biofuels & Carbon Sequestration: local
agriculture and global climate
Soil Fertility, Biofuels & Carbon Sequestration: local agriculture and
global climate
A workshop for farmers and our future
Sunday, May 20, 2:00-5:00 pm,
$10/person - $15/ farm
potluck community dinner after workshop
at Saratoga Apple
Route 29, Schuylerville, NY, north of Saratoga Battlefield Monument
518-695-3131 or 518-330-2587
http://www.championtrees.org/Saratoga
This workshop will:
Explain full spectrum soil fertility
How plants produce oxygen & fix carbon
Introduce emerging technologies
Detail current research & applications
Where to obtain materials & equipment
Outline basic operating methods
L.I.F.E.: Locally Integrated Food Economy
Discuss forming biofuel cooperatives
Sustainable soil renewal begins with abundant minerals, local materials
and natural methods. Soil life density and diversity rebound rapidly
with properly applied minerals, organic matter and inoculants.
Ultimately, carbon holds minerals and microbes in soil.
Pyrolysis—low temperature, low oxygen burning—extracts biofuels from
organic matter, with an organic charcoal by-product. Thus reduced,
carbon is stable in soil, where it retains water and nutrients,
supplies housing for bacteria, fungi & all, creates "microbial reefs."
This extraction of energy and carbon is carbon negative. Even when
biofuels are burned, this still sequesters more carbon than is
released.
If carbon and minerals are returned to soil, next year's growth is
thicker and quicker, to sequester more carbon. Synergy in successive
seasons accelerates carbon removal and increases nutrient density.
Kyoto Protocol cap & trade carbon exchange economics allow farmers to
be paid for carbon captured in soil—paid to farm sustainably, while
producing food, fiber, biofuel & biochar. Scientists calculate soil
can sequester as much carbon as fossil fuels release annually.
+ C A L E N D E R
Saturday, April 14th
Step It Up! National Day of Climate Action
Albany, New York
Stop Eating Fossil Fuel
11:00 - 1:45 Lake House in Washington Park
Music, free local food, entertainment, sign-making, etc.
1:45 - 2:00 Parade to Capitol Steps
Puppets, wheelbarrow floats, costumes celebrating our state's farmers,
farm produce and honeybees
2:00 - 3:00 Photo-op and speeches on the Capitol Steps
Sponsored by Honest Weight Food Co-op, is one of over a thousand such
rallies in the U.S.
See www.stepitup2007.org To help with puppets, signs and floats,
contact youthorganics@... or wingroadfarm@... More
info, call 518-482-3312 x113
Thursday, April 12th - 9:30 am to 12:00 noon
Transitioning Dairy Cows and Other Livestock Onto Grass in Spring
Winner's Circle, Fonda, NY (Montgomery County)
Karen Sullivan will discuss pasture and feeding considerations for
spring grazing. Cost: Free and includes lunch but you must register by
calling Montgomery County SWCD for more information at 518-853-4015.
Monday, April 16 - 18, 2007
NYSERDA's 7th Annual Innovations in Agriculture Conference
Empire Room, New York State Fairgrounds
Syracuse, NY
Innovation in Agriculture helps New York farmers improve profitability
while meeting new energy and environmental challenges. Agriculture
makes a multibillion-dollar contribution to New York State’s economy.
To remain competitive, New York farmers continue to seek new ways to
cut energy costs, improve productivity, and manage wastes. By bringing
together industry leaders, NYSERDA is continuing its efforts to
establish ties between new energy saving technologies, economic
development and the agriculture related industries.
Event Website:
http://www.nyserda.org/InnovationsInAgriculture/default.asp
Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 pm
Menand's Farmers' Market (Capital District Cooperative) Unveils New Plan
Village Hall, 250 Broadway
Menands, NY
Steve Miller will present the study he recently completed for the
Capital District Cooperative and the Village of Menands. There will be
a presentation on the findings as well as recommendations and an
opportunity for public questions and comments. This marketplace is an
important part of the local food system and long term viability of
agriculture in the Capital District. This is not a hearing and it will
be up to the members of the Capital District Cooperative where they
want to go with this information. Come join the discussion.
Saturday, April 21, 2007, 11 am - 2 pm
Sherman Hill Farmstead, Franklin, NY
Linda Smith will lead the tour and talk about her farm venture where
she raises goats and produces artisinal goat
milk, cheeses and yogurts. Learn from Linda’s 13 years of experience in
producing and marketing her excellent products. For more information
check CADE’s website at http://www.cadefarms.org or call Kelly Miller
at (607)433-2545.
Saturday, April 21, from 9:00 to 3:00
New York Nut Growers Association Meeting
Rogers Environmental Center
Sherburne, NY
Roy Hopke, from the American Chestnut Foundation, will make a
presentation about the American chestnut and the chinquapin. He will
lead a tour of the Center's chestnut grove. Peter Haarmann, a grower
from Long Island, will demonstrate successful tree planting with
reusable transplant pots, and discuss his work with English walnut
seeds from Europe and from the USDA Germplasm Repository in Davis,
California. There will be an update on the NYNGA Hardy English Walnut
Project. Richard Fahey will demonstrate grafting techniques for fruit
and nut trees which he employs on his 100 acre homestead. The $15.00
cost of registration includes a light breakfast and lunch. Please mail
a check made out to NYNGA to Tom Potts, 26 Willets Ave., Belmont, NY
14813. Include a phone number and e-mail address. Drop-ins are
welcomed, too. If you have questions, call Tom at (585) 268 - 5588 or
Jerry Henkin at (914) 423 - 7458.
Thursday, April 26th - 9:30 am to 3:30 pm
Grazing for Diversified Livestock
Winner's Circle, Fonda, NY (Montgomery County)
Information on grazing goats, pastured poultry, and other livestock.
Presenters include Darrell Emmick speaking on behavior based pasture
management and Kathleen Harris with Northeast Livestock Processing
Service Company. Free and includes lunch, but you must register by
calling Montgomery County SWCD for more information at 518-853-4015.
Thursday, April 26th - 11:00 am to 1:30 pm
Let's Get Started Grazing!
Steve Pick Farm, Westmoreland, NY (Oneida County)
Both experienced and beginning graziers are welcome to join the Oneida
County grazing group at the first pasture walk of the season. Pete
Mapstone, dairy grazier from Manlius, will be the featured speaker on
renovating and improving pasture and turning them into profitable
working grazing paddocks. We will also discuss how soon, far away or
should we run home and turn the cows out! Steve Pick will also discuss
how often he clips his pastures throughout the grazing season and how
his weed control has improved. Cost: free, and refreshments will be
served. For more information contact Bill Paddock at 315-736-3334 or
wlpaddock@.... Sponsored by ONeida County SWCD and Oneida
County Cooperative Extension.
Saturday, April 28th - 8:00 am to 4:30 pm
Annual Shepherd's Day School
Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Rhinebeck, NY
Sponsored by the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Growers Association,
this event will include workshops on behavior-based grazing management,
grazing nutrition, and fencing options for small ruminants presented by
Darrell Emmick, Karen Sullivan, and Rob DeClue, respectively.
Additional workshops will also be offered. For more information, visit
http://www.sheepandwool.com/annualshepherdsday.cfm or email
slhdem@....
Saturday, April 28, 2007, 10: 00 AM- 4: 00 PM
Livestock Marketing Workshop
William Rice, Jr. Extension Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension of
Albany County
85A & Martin Road, Voorheesville, NY
Bootstrap Marketing with Bernadette Logozar, Rural & Agriculture
Economic Development Specialist, CCE Franklin County and Paula Schafer,
Rural and Agriculture Economic Development Educator, Saratoga and
Washington Counties. Direct marketing your livestock products:
Regulations, Value- Added, Things You Need to Know Before You Sell with
John Arnold, Food Safety & Inspection, NYS Department of Agriculture &
Markets. Marketing Toolkit and Industry Marketing Collateral with
Bernadette Logozar, Rural & Agriculture Economic Development
Specialist, CCE Franklin County. Meat Panel Discussion with Paul
Paulson, Vermont Quality Meats and Lowell Carson, Nichols Meat
Processing,Inc. Update of Achievements and Launching of NELPS and New
Marketing Services with Kathleen Harris, Processing coordinator,
Northeast Livestock Processing Service Company, LLC. Lunch is
provided. REGISTER EARLY!! Please call Lisa Cox at 518- 765- 3512 or
by email at lkc29@ cornell. edu. REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS: April 20,
2007. Cost of Program: $25.00 first person from farm, $35.00 for two
from same farm
Sunday, May 20, 2007,10 am - 3 pm
"Understanding the Needs of My Horse"
at the SUNY Cobleskill Equestrian Center
Dr. Karen Sussman, a veterinarian with the Equine Clinic at Oakencroft,
a representative from Blue Seal Feeds, and Pfizer will conduct hands-on
demonstrations and informative presentations during the seminar, and
participants will be encouraged to ask questions. Topics will include
nutrition, dentistry, parasites and liability and insurance. $25.00
for adults and $10.00 for college students and children and includes
all handouts, refreshments and lunch. 4-H and FFA members that own or
have horse related responsibilities are encouraged to attend. Space is
limited to 25 participants. Pre-registration with a $10.00 deposit is
required by May 16, 2007. For more information contact Cornell
Cooperative Extension of Schoharie County at (518) 234-4303 or (518)
296-8310.
http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/schoharie.
# # #
Billie Best
Board of Directors
Regional Farm & Food Project
P.O. Box 8628
Albany, NY 12208
518-271-0744
http://www.farmandfood.org
The Regional Farm & Food Project is a member supported, farmer focused,
non-profit serving the greater Hudson-Mohawk Valley food shed. We work
to promote earth-friendly agriculture and community food systems. Our
Farm & Food Network hosts a listserv and quarterly meetings to connect
farm and food entrepreneurs with new business opportunities and
strengthen business relationships. Our pods are activist groups
organized around pubic issues education. Together we are restoring the
balance between farms and factories, local and global, people and
profits.
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