Last weekend, I joined more than 30 people who braved blizzard-like conditions to assemble in a square across from Occupy Wall Street’s encampment at Zucotti Park to speak up about connections between big food and the Occupy movement. There was a food activist from Iowa, a farmer from upstate New York, students and professors from NYU, a union electrician, a nutritionist (who said she was there because “if the food system isn’t working, I can’t do my job”) and more.

Many carried plastic-covered signs with slogans like “Beat the System” and, my favorite, a line from Tom Philpott’s excellent article: “Our Food System is a Big Fat Monopoly.” As the rally ended—cut short by 30-degree temperatures, blinding snow, and 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts—I shared my commitment to do one, easy thing this week in support of the 99 percent: To move my money out of the hands of Citibank.

This week, tens of thousands of people are pledging to move their money out of the pockets of the financial institutions that got us into this mess and into the hands of credit unions and banks we can believe in.

When I first heard about this campaign, spearheaded by grassroots activists along with national groups ranging from the Rainforest Action Network (where I’m on the board of directors) to MoveOn.org, I thought—and I admit this with a good dose of embarrassment—“Good idea, but what a pain. I mean, I’d have to change all my automatic bill payments and open new accounts.”

But, of course, it’s probably a bit more than a pain to spend cold, wet nights—like last Saturday—sleeping on the hard cement of outdoor parks. If hundreds of people can make that sacrifice—all day, all week, for weeks—I think I can handle doing some busywork to move my money. And so I am. On Saturday, November 5, the national day of action to move your money, I’m closing my Citibank account, the one I opened 15 years ago on the same block as my first Brooklyn sublet. And I’m joining tens thousands of others when I do.

And it’s going to feel good. See, I’ve had twinges of regret for years, every time I heard about some new act of egregious Big Bank behavior. I just got used to turning a blind eye. But then the financial meltdown, the Big Bank bailout, and now this collective call to action and my attitude started to change and my eyes started opening.

Consider, for instance, that Citibank just agreed to pay $285 million to settle a lawsuit, essentially admitting to misleading investors about toxic mortgage-backed securities, although the bank officially neither admitted nor denied that it had done anything wrong. How convenient. Meanwhile, ProPublica, which has been digging into the machinations of Citi and other Big Banks, argues that the bank is on the line for much more and much worse.

But also keep in mind what Citibank has been doing with my, and our, money all these years and what it has to do with the food movement that turned out at Occupy Wall Street this past weekend. Turns out, Citibank has been busy. Here’s a taste. The bank has been:

– Investing in major agricultural projects in developing countries, what many critics call a modern-day land grab;

– Financing the leading Chinese agribusiness company and development of China’s chemical industry;

– Underwriting $300 million to finance expansion of “land grabs” in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia for agricultural commodities and livestock production.

Bank of America customer? Keep in mind the bank is one of the lead underwriters of the coal industry. Rainforest Action Network is encouraging people to close their accounts and let BofA know that the bank should be moving its investment dollars away from dirty coal and toward clean, green renewable energy. Says RAN:

The bank routinely underwrites hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to…two of the biggest coal mining companies in the Powder River Basin that are desperately trying to secure a… facility to ship coal overseas…

As if all this weren’t enough to push us over the edge, I got a letter from Citibank several weeks ago—maybe you got a similar one from your Big Bank?—in which the bank informed me that clients who keep less than a $6,000 account balance—that’s me—would start seeing a monthly $15 fee on their statements. In other words, if you’re not rich enough to keep a big balance, you have to pay Citibank to keep your money while they spend it in their bailout-resulting, environment-destroying financial decisions.

I haven’t even been giving $15 a month to my favorite social action organization, yet I was sitting quietly while Citibank informed me they were going to take it from me and my captive bank account? (If you think Citibank’s policy was egregious, Bank of America announced it would start charging $60 a year to use its ATMs, a policy, which, thanks to public outcry, the bank just reversed).

Enough. I am done. Done with Citibank, done with feeling guilty when I get my monthly statements in the mail; done with feeling bad when I see my ATM card in my wallet. So on November 5, I plan to join with others across the country as I walk into my local Citi branch and close my account. I’ll tell them why, add my voice to the pledges here, and cut up my card. Then, I’ll head home to check out my new bank accounts online at Amalgamated Bank, the bank of the labor union movement. (You can find community-oriented banks and credit unions near you here and tips about how to move your money and not mess up your finances here.)

Finally, I’ll commit to giving that $15 a month (which, mind you, Citibank was going to take from me) to one of my favorite groups working on behalf of the 99 percent. All this will take a little paperwork and a little time, but nothing I can’t handle. And then, I’ll be free—and it’ll feel great. I hope you’ll join me.

National Sustainable Agriculture
Only once every 5 years do you have the opportunity to truly transform our food and farm system through the federal farm bill.

On Monday the Agriculture Committee leadership proposed to rewrite the food and farm bill in 2 weeks from today – yes you heard that right, 2 weeks – this is usually a year plus process and they want to do it in 2 weeks?! This would be the fastest food and farm bill decision-making process in history.

Please act today for a chance you have only once every 5 years to reform our food and farming system and protect our natural resources.

If you care about the health of America’s soil, water, and land; promoting organic practices and conservation; helping a new generation of struggling small and mid-sized farmers get their start; rebuilding local and regional food systems; or developing new markets and healthy food access – now is the time to speak up. If you want to see a healthier, more secure, environmentally sustainable, and prosperous America – now is the time to speak up.

This proposal would wipe out over 40 percent of the funding increases for conservation and environmental initiatives achieved in the 2002 and 2008 food and farm bills, setting the clock back and “un-greening” the farm bill. Moreover, it is unclear what the proposal would do to the fair and healthy farm and food system programs won in 2008 with your help, but in need of being renewed in the new farm bill. It could potentially wipe out all of those gains as well.

It just takes a minute to call:
• First check if your Senator and/or Representative sits on the Senate Agriculture or House Agriculture Committee
• If your Senator or Representative sits on either of these three committees: call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senators’ and Member of Congress’s office: 202-224-3121. Or go to Congress.org and type in your zip code, then click on your Senators and Member of Congress’s name and the contact tab for their phone number.
• If the line is busy, please leave a brief message on the voicemail.

The Message: I am a constituent, calling Senator/Representative _____ to deliver this message (use one or more of these talking points):

• The proposed farm conservation cuts are too big and should be reduced. In particular, the Conservation Stewardship Program funding should be retained and Wetlands Reserve Program funding should be restored.
• Farm commodity program reform should include caps on the amount of subsidy any one farm can receive. Loopholes allowing multiple subsidy payments to single farms should be closed. Conservation requirements should be attached to all forms of revenue and crop insurance subsidies.
• The farm bill must reinvest at least $1 billion a year in innovative, job-creating programs for rural economic development, local and regional food systems, renewable energy, organic farming, and young and beginning farmers.

*According to published accounts, the leaders of the Agriculture Committees are proposing cuts of $6.5 billion to conservation programs, $5 billion to nutrition programs, and $15 billion to commodity subsidy programs. The conservation cuts would be on top of the $2 billion already made by Congress in the appropriations process.

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From Hunger Action Network

Call you Congress member today (202 224-3121) and tell them:

No deficit reduction plan can work if it does not rebuild our economy by protecting Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance and other basic safety net programs. And it must create jobs. Such a plan must have increased revenues from upper-income households and profitable corporations, and savings from cutting unneeded military spending.

The Senate is about to take up a Agriculture Appropriations bill, in which the Republicans will seek to make cuts to the food stamp / SNAP program. Senator Gillibrand, whom we talked to last week, is leading the fight nationally to protect SNAP, so all she needs is a call to thank her (202 224-4451). Sen. Schumer, whose staff we met with this week, says he is also opposed, but a call to him would help convince him to take more of a leadership role. He is not signing onto a letter that Gillibrand is circulating to protect SNAP(202 224-6542)

The tougher fight is expected in the House, where the House leadership supports steep cuts in food stamps and other low-income programs.

You could also include in your message support for a Farm Bill that invests in healthy food, strong conservation programs and family farms, not corporate agribusiness.

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The Farm Bill Is a Food Bill

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-narayan/the-farm-bill-is-a-food-b_b_1020469.html

Where the farm bill allocates resources to funding food stamps on one hand, it also incentivizes the purchase of unhealthy foods. In the most recent farm bill updates, it appears as though the back-room appropriations are moving in the favor of subsidies. While both direct payment programs and nutrition programs are looking at cuts, a mechanism for replacing subsidy cuts with a new funding regime has already surfaced. Unfortunately for the food side of the farm bill, it’s become increasingly difficult to advocate for change. In the past, the farm bill has been traditionally held to industry interests. Now, the super committee process may shut out democratic input altogether if the bill is written in the coming weeks by a handful of legislators for the purpose of bypassing floor debate.

Because the farm bill is so rarely written, it becomes important to reclaim its status as a food bill. Even if parts of the package are at odds with the part of the bill that works to create a healthy food system, the latter still comprises 70 percent of the legislation. It remains to be seen whether the super committee process will allow some food for thought.

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Farm Bill Battle Heats Up

http://www.kfgo.com/agri-business-news.php?ID=9424

WASHINGTON (DTN) – Fights began breaking out Tuesday among agriculture interests over what the super committee might do with the farm bill, even though no one knows how the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees are planning to move ahead with the proposal that they sent to the super committee on Monday.

One of the fights over super committee ag cuts and farm bill plans is whether to cut spending on food programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Senate Agriculture ranking member Pat Roberts, R-Kans., House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and House Agriculture ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., sent the super committee a letter Monday saying they would agree to up to $23 billion in farm program cuts over 10 years, and that they will send the super committee a more detailed proposal by Nov. 1 on what they are seeking.

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Key farm groups back revenue plan

DANIEL LOOKER 10/19/2011 @ 4:58pm Business Editor

http://www.agriculture.com/news/policy/key-farm-groups-back-revenue-pl_4-ar20037

Three influential farm groups Wednesday urged the House and Senate agriculture committees to replace the main existing commodity programs with a revenue-based risk management plan that would pay for some losses not covered by crop insurance.

Today’s letter to the chairs and ranking minority members of the ag committees was signed by the American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association and National Farmers Union.

All three have their own farm bill proposals but they’ve united behind the idea of replacing existing farm programs, including the often criticized direct payments, with a program helps farmers only when they have losses in revenue.

The groups said that federal budget realities “make it imperative to find a viable risk management approach that can replace several existing programs, including Direct Payments, Countercyclical Payments, SURE, and the ACRE program.”

“…under a revenue-based program, compensation for losses that exceed a certain threshold would only be made as they are incurred, on all production, and only on a portion of the loss,” the groups point out. “This stands in contrast with the current Direct Payment program under which farmers receive payments regardless of whether they produce a crop or incur a loss. Also, many producers participate in the crop insurance program at levels that require losses of 30 percent or more before they are compensated. With the elimination of other elements of the farm safety net, a program is needed to offset part of these losses should they occur.”

They also voiced “strong support” for keeping the existing crop insurance program. Any revenue program “should be designed to complement rather than overlap or replace this key part of the farm program safety net,” they said.

In 2009, Congress directed several federal agencies to form the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Food Marketed to Children to develop guidelines for companies that market food to kids. The IWG proposed a strong set of guidelines earlier this year.

Unfortunately, the food industry and media companies are lobbying the President, his Administration, and Congress to prevent the IWG from finalizing the marketing recommendations. Yet, with the help of advocates like you, over 28,000 parents, health organizations, and others submitted comments supporting the proposed guidelines.

While the First Lady and the Administration have made childhood obesity a priority, they are considering pulling the marketing guidelines given the significant political pressure from the food and entertainment industries.

Please write to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (and the IWG agencies) today to encourage the Administration to finalize and release food marketing guidelines as Congress requested.

Recipients

President Barack Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama
Secretary Thomas ‘Tom’ J. Vilsack
Director Thomas R. Frieden
Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg
Chairman Jon Leibowitz

October 5th, 2011 By Anna Lappé

I recently wrote about attending the Food Dialogues, a national “conversation about food” hosted by the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), a new trade association funded by some of the biggest players in the food industry—including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Dupont, and Monsanto. There have been a number of comments on my post. I wanted to respond to one in particular from Hugh Whaley, USFRA’s General Manager.

Whaley takes issue with how I characterize the makeup and mission of the USFRA, writing:

Contrary to those who suggest, imply or state otherwise, USFRA is NOT a policy organization. USFRA is America’s farmers and ranchers who are committed to continuous improvement in how food is grown and raised to provide healthy choices for people everywhere. Our mission is to build consumer trust in today’s agriculture…all forms.

The farmer- and rancher-led organizations that are affiliates of USFRA have all sizes, shapes and production methods represented by their members. Small, medium, large; organic, natural, conventional.

To understand Whaley’s spin on who and what USFRA stands for, it might be helpful to share a little background on Whaley himself and how USFRA fits the mold of a common food-industry PR strategy.

For nearly 13 years, until March 2009, Whaley was an executive at the communications firm Osborn & Barr, founded in 1988 by former executives at Monsanto. While the company was its founding client, the firm has brought on other agricultural clients, including John Deere, United Soybean Board, the Cattlemen’s Beef Board/National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the National Pork Board—all of which are current USFRA affiliates.

During Whaley’s tenure, Osborn & Barr helped to launch American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT). Like USFRA, AFACT describes itself as a group “organized by farmers.” In the case of AFACT it was allegedly created “to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin,” or rbST, Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone sold to dairy farmers under the brand name, Posilac.

Though it was presented as a group speaking for farmers, AFACT was created in part by Osborn & Barr, which had been handling the Posilac account since 2007. AFACT’s formation came at a time when Monsanto was reeling from campaigns by real farmers and consumer advocates against the artificial growth hormone. Responding to concerns that ranged from the health of dairy cows pumped with the hormone to possible human health effects rbGH, Yoplait, Dannon, Cabot Cheese, and other companies had by 2009 stopped sourcing milk produced with Posilac. Grocery chains had started to eliminate it from their store-label milk, according to Food & Water Watch.

Similar to the spin about AFACT, Whaley describes the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance as “farmer- and rancher-led,” with affiliates of “all sizes, shapes and production methods.”

Yes, USFRA technically represents a range of farmers and ranchers, but only because much of its total budget—$11 million a year or $30 million depending on who you ask—comes from federal “check-off” commodity marketing programs. These programs, now covering 19 different commodities, compel all or most producers of these commodities, no matter the size, to pay into promotion programs. Beef ranchers for instance must pay $1 per head on domestic sales. The money adds up: In 2007, beef check-off programs spent more than $90 million.

You might not have heard of these programs, but you’ve probably seen their ads. Check-off dollars fund campaigns like “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner?” “Pork: The Other White Meat” as well as dubious marketing efforts like the 2010 dairy industry partnership with Domino’s Pizza to amp up cheese use on its pies.

So because USFRA gets a good chunk of its budget from the biggest commodity check-off programs—like beef, cotton, eggs, and pork—Whaley is technically accurate: Farmers of all sizes do pay into this marketing campaign, but whether the Alliance represents diverse interests is a different story.

When I asked Laura Batcha, the Vice President of the Organic Trade Association whether the Alliance reflects their members’ interests she said: “We don’t believe the Alliance is communicating the benefits of organic agriculture.”

The bottom line is the USFRA is being funded, in part, with organic producers’ money without their consent or participation, since many organic producers are required by law to pay into these check-off programs. “While organic producers and handlers have been paying into these check-offs for years, we have yet to see the funds be used to promote organic food and agriculture,” said Batcha. “It’s essentially taxation without representation.” In fact, sustainable and small-scale farmers have been fighting in the courts against the legality of check-off programs, for precisely this reason.

Fred Stokes, founder of the Organization for Competitive Markets and a cattle rancher in Mississippi, concurred. The Alliance doesn’t “‘represent all farmers and ranchers,’” he said, “These are the people who put family farmers and ranchers out of business! This is an alliance only of groups that preach ‘get-big-or-get-out’ and ‘efficiency through vertical integration.’”

It’s also an alliance, Stokes noted, that gets a healthy portion of its budget from big business, too. As members of USFRA’s “Premier Partner Advisors Group” Monsanto, John Deere, and chemical giant Dupont each have pledged $500,000 a year.

So what is the platform USFRA is pushing? Whaley says I missed the mark here, too, writing:

None of the issues discussed during the Food Dialogues can be answered strictly in black and white terms. That’s why continued dialogue is so important. Making grandiose (positive or negative) statements about any form of agriculture won’t achieve solutions or help Americans make sound and informed food decisions.

I agree with Whaley in one sense: Food systems are complex and more dialogue is certainly needed to figure out the best approaches to creating a safer, more affordable and sustainable food supply. But, I would argue that some food issues are black-and-white and taking a clear stand on these issues is the only way we will achieve such solutions.

To give several examples directly relevant to USFRA membership:

I believe everyone should have a right to know if the food they’re eating contains genetically engineered organisms (GMOs). So do most Americans who overwhelmingly want the right to know what’s in their food. Yet, USFRA’s industry partner Monsanto has been leading the fight against GMO labeling in this country, despite the fact that most other countries with commercialized GMOs require it, even China.

I believe we should be doing everything possible to protect the effectiveness of antibiotics—one of the most important tools in our public health toolbox. So do most Americans. Yet, as much as 80 percent of antibiotics in the U.S. are used not for human health but in factory farms, often for growth-promotion. A broad coalition is calling for restrictions on these non-therapeutic uses of antibiotics, citing mounting concerns about antibiotic resistance, while many USFRA affiliates have been spearheading the fight against such restrictions.

I believe we should be actively working to phase out the most toxic pesticides in agriculture, those known to cause cancer, disrupt hormones, or impair brain functioning. So do most Americans. Yet, members of the Alliance, including the National Cotton Council and the National Corn Growers Association, have been actively fighting against regulations that would help us move in that direction.

I believe our tax dollars should be incentivizing healthy food production and healthy food access. So do most Americans. Yet, members of the USFRA are among the key forces lobbying for payments to commodity producers, including those, like corn growers, that are not even producing food for people. Forty-four percent of corn last year went to ethanol production; nearly half was diverted to animal feed; much of the rest went to high-fructose corn syrup. (Thanks in part to the success of this lobbying, from 1995 to 2010 the 15 members of the board of the National Corn Growers Association—a USFRA board member—received subsidies totaling $12,048,167, while 62 percent of American farmers, and nearly all organic producers and fruit and vegetable growers, received no federal subsidies at all).

Finally, I believe that protecting our nation’s water is one of the most important issues of our time. So do most Americans. Yet, many in USFRA leadership roles are among the key players fighting federal policy that would promote tighter regulation of water pollution, especially from “conventional” agriculture’s nitrogen fertilizer runoff and industrial livestock waste.

Many of USFRA’s board, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Pork Producers Council, Cattlemen’s Beef Board/Beef Checkoff, and the National Corn Growers Association, as well as USFRA partner, The Fertilizer Institute, work together under the auspices of the Waters Advisory Council. The Council may sound like an environmentally minded organization, but as The New York Times reports, it’s a “lobbying outfit” for some of the country’s “largest industrial and agricultural concerns.”

These are just some of food’s “black-and-white” issues. Without indication otherwise, we’re left to assume the USFRA’s position on these critical food issues reflects that of its membership—and is out of step with the real concerns of many, and in many cases most, Americans.

Whaley also suggests I misrepresented who was able to ask questions at the Food Dialogues at the four sites, noting:

Questions were taken for all four of our panels from in-person audience members, from people on Twitter and from questions posted on our two websites. It is really unfair to say questions for the event only came from industry. The questions represented many voices…

Questions may have come in from Twitter and Facebook, but, as I wrote in my original post, at the New York City event I attended, and where we in the media were asked to write down and hand in questions for the panel, only one person got to ask a question: He was a rep from the National Pork Council, a USFRA affiliate. Only one attendee got to ask a question from the D.C. event that was shown at our venue: It was Jay Vroom, head of the agrochemical trade group, CropLife America. Whaley may contend questions represented many voices; it didn’t seem that way to me. But see for yourself. The Food Dialogues are available online at http://www.fooddialogues.com.

On Thursday, September 22, the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), a new trade association made up of some of the biggest players in the food industry—including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Dupont, and Monsanto—hosted what they called “Food Dialogues” in Washington D.C., New York City, U.C. Davis, and Fair Oaks, Indiana.

The USFRA describes the Food Dialogues, and their broader multi-million dollar media campaign, as an effort to amplify the voice of farmers and ranchers and help consumers know more about “how their food is grown and raised.”

Sounds good, on first blush.

Most of us are in the dark when it comes to the story of our food. And, farmers and ranchers—the people working hard every day to bring us our food—are nearly invisible in mainstream media. But dig into the Alliance’s membership, and its impetus for forming, and you start to wonder whether it truly represents the voices of grassroots food producers or whether this well-funded media campaign is agribusinesses latest attempt to push back against well-documented and well-publicized concerns about the environmental and health consequences of industrial agriculture.

When I asked a rep from Ketchum—the public relations firm hired by the Alliance—what motivated these groups to come together, without skipping a beat, he answered: Food, Inc. and movies like it. “People see Food, Inc.,” he said, “And think everything in that movie is accurate.” But, he continued, the film only presents one side of the issue and USFRA members feel they didn’t “have a voice in it.” Now, as the Ketchum rep put it, USFRA wants to “clear the air” and “get a national dialogue, a conversation, going.”

There are two big holes in this argument: Robert Kenner, the director of Food, Inc. did try to get industry voices into the film. And, while USFRA members may not like it, Food, Inc. is an accurate, if unpleasant, account of our industrial, toxic food system.

When I mentioned that Kenner approached many food companies to get their perspective, and they refused to go on camera, the PR rep said: “I’ll be honest with you: this is a change with how they’ve done things in the past. They’re trying to open their doors up.”

While these industry players may be saying they want to “open their doors up,” it seems only on their terms. Certainly the Food Dialogues yesterday gave a semblance of impartiality: Highly-credentialed journalist Claire Shipman of Good Morning America moderated from a satellite location in D.C. and celebrity chef John Besh hosted the panel in New York City.

But the reality was an orchestrated framing of the message about “modern agricultural production” from the perspective of big business. In the staged kitchen set at the New York City, the questions from the “audience” included only one: a pre-arranged question from the head of the National Pork Board. In D.C., Jay Vroom, from the agrochemical trade association CropLife America, was handpicked to join in the “conversation” and lob a softball question to John Besh about chefs and portion control.

Earlier this year, a trade publication explained that this image campaign, and others like it, not only aims to counter Food, Inc.’s “misconceptions” about food, but also to convert all those “Pollan-ated” minds. (Reading Michael Pollan is apparently unnerving to the food industry and it should be to the rest of the public, too.)

This media campaign, the industry publication continued, is also intended as a “preemptive strike” against “a long list of new regulations and restrictions coming out of the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Food & Drug Administration, ranging from tighter rules on pesticide applications to a potential ban of routine, preventative use of animal antibiotics.”

Take a look at the policy priorities of USFRA members and you’ll see exactly that: Most of its affiliates are hard at work, lobbying on Capitol Hill to weaken the very regulations that the consumers the USFRA itself surveyed say they care most about: Pesticides and antibiotics, for instance, as well as artificial hormones in animal production, and air and water pollution.

As one of its current policy priorities, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a USFRA board member and the marketing organization and trade association for the beef industry, is fighting for the Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act. If passed, the Act would limit the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet, as many in the environmental community have pointed out, the EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide pollution is key to addressing global warming in the absence of strong climate policy. This USFRA member attack on climate legislation shouldn’t be surprising considering the Alliance is working with Frank Luntz, the political strategist who has helped foster climate change skepticism. In a strategy memo leaked to the media in the early 2000s, for instance, Luntz advised Congressional Republicans that the best tactic to undermine public support for climate legislation is to cast doubt on the “scientific certainty” surrounding the issue.

To give you another sense of where USFRA membership stands, consider that the NCBA, along with other Alliance members, is actively fighting a policy that would reign in antibiotic abuse in livestock production. Called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, and sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the Act, according to the Cattlemen’s Association, is unnecessary: The industry already uses antibiotics “judiciously” to prevent disease.

Rep. Slaughter and other backers of this policy stress that research shows most antibiotics in livestock production are not given for disease prevention, but delivered at “sub-therapeutic levels” to speed growth—and therefore increase profit. And, as experts at the Government Accountability Office reported earlier this month, the inaction of the USDA and FDA to regulate antibiotic use, especially in animal production, is a serious threat to public health. It was chillingly ironic that the study came out on the heels of another major recall of Cargill ground turkey linked to antibiotic-resistant Salmonella.

Lest you think the Cattlemen’s Association is out on its own on this fight, other USFRA affiliates that are vocal opponents of regulating antibiotics in livestock production include the Dairy Farmers of America, National Pork Producers Council, American Egg Board, U.S. Poultry & Egg Association.

Another USFRA affiliate and board member, the National Corn Growers Association, is also battling policies that would help us protect public health. In a May 2011 statement delivered to the House Committee on Agriculture and on Natural Resources, Rod Snyder, the Corn Grower’s Policy Director and chair of the Pesticide Policy Coalition, dismissed the use of the Endangered Species Act’s to control toxic pesticides, describing the policy as “dysfunctional.”

He called for the Administration to “immediately suspend implementation” and continue with business-as-usual, regulating pesticides under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). But stress the importance of using the Endangered Species Act, explaining that FIFRA is “notoriously weak” and “industry-friendly.” According to advocates, the pesticide lobby, including USFRA members like the Corn Growers, wants to keep regulation under FIFRA because they know how to “sidestep and subvert it.”

While I believe the majority of our nation’s ranchers and farmers are respectful stewards of the land with the public’s best interest at heart—they’re working hard to reduce their environmental impact and address pesticide, artificial hormone, and antibiotics overuse—the USFRA clearly is not representing them. Instead, a look at the Alliance affiliates reveals that it is made up of, and funded by, the biggest players in the food industry, including those who profit most from toxic agricultural chemicals, polluting farming and food processing practices, and concerning animal welfare policies. No wonder, then, that that limiting protections from toxic pesticides and pushing back against antibiotic regulation are just two of the current policy priorities of USFRA affiliates.

The USFRA is working hard to present itself as a voice of farmers and ranchers interested in a conversation with consumers. I’m all for open, honest conversation, but let’s not be duped by polished PR into thinking that’s what the Alliance and its inaugural Food Dialogues is intended to be.

I posted a link on Twitter and a farmer who saw my post responded with these Tweets:

Do you really think your “factory farm map” is accurate? Really?

As a farmer is it [sic] insulting!

I was sorry that a farmer anywhere would find the map insulting. It’s not designed to disparage all farmers.

In fact, the map (and I think it actually could make this point more clearly) is not a map of all farms and farmers in the U.S. It is only plotting those factory farms in each county with very high livestock densities (you can see the detail here in their methodology page). (Personally, I think it would be a simple/helpful change for viewers to be able to click on the Key “Severe” etc. and instantly see what those levels mean).

The Factory Farm Map helps to make publicly available USDA data more usable and transparent. And the map helps to show, for instance, the concentrations of giant livestock operations that are polluting the environment in certain regions. The map also will hopefully help spark conversation about U.S. farm policy that forces farmers to get big to make a living.

I’ve been meaning to write up an article about the Agriculture 2.0 conference last week in New York City, but between trips to Louisville, planning for Milwaukee tomorrow, shindigs with the Food and Society Fellows, not to mention hanging out with my fourteen-month-old–I’ve been a bit busy. But while I’m working on that piece… chew on this. This pic was taken at the cafeteria of Spalding University where I was a keynote for the 11th annual Healthy Foods Local Farms conference.

Note the sheer size of the cup. It was so large, you almost needed two hands to pick it up and you felt compelled to fill it up to the top or else you’d have to tilt the whole darn thing back. Fill it with Coke and you’re easily saying hello to more than 300 calories.

The head of sustainability for Coca-Cola was a keynote speaker at the conference last week. Wondering what part of sustainable is these size cups for college students.

In a bold move, the board of supervisors in Santa Clara County voted to ban promotional toys in kids’ meals if they don’t meet nutritional standards.

This is good news since fast food meals, like McDonald’s Happy Meals, are typically high-fat, highly processed and packaged, and meat-centered – all of which take a toll on the climate, and our kids’ health.

Join the Voices From Africa community today.

Members will be able to create their own account, access articles and documents on these issues, participate in forums, and strategize with policy-makers, activists and other stakeholders from all over the globe. Make your voice heard in this critical debate.

–Deepa

Rainforest Action Network’s Executive Director, Michael Brune, was quoted in the article, stating, “Over the last couple of years, protecting the environment has become as American as apple pie and Derek Jeter. Every company wants to at least be seen as being friendly to the environment. A lot of the things sold on eBay are new merchandise, and last time I checked the Postal Service still used fossil fuels for all of their planes and their trucks, so it’s not sustainable.
It’s fair to say that buying used goods on eBay is better for the environment, but let’s not get carried away and say this is the greenest thing since recycled paper.”

– Deepa

According WorldWatch, “The questions addressed in the State of the World 2009 are many: how do we adapt- not just as communities and nations, but as a species-to the warming that is headed our way, no matter what we do now? How will the world deal with the fact that the climate burden will fall heaviest on countries whose contributions to climate change have been the most modest? And even as we struggle to adapt, how does society maintain focus on slashing emissions to a pale shadow of their current levels?”

The report selects specific challenges (land use, energy, emissions, etc.) and proposes innovative alternatives. Some of the Innovations highlighted in the Land Use section are:
>> In Parana, Brazil, farmers have developed organic management systems combined with no-till. No-till plots yielded a third more wheat and soybean than conventional plowed plots and reduced soil erosion by up to 90 percent. (p. 36)
>> In 2005, a Pennsylvania dairy farm invested $1.14 million in a project to process the manure from 800 cows, using a digester and a combined heat and power unit. Now the farm makes a profit using biogas to generate 120 kilowatt-hours of electricity to sell back to the local utility. (p. 41)
>> Both India and China have large national programs to revegetate millions of hectares of forest and grasslands-seen as investments to reduce poverty and protect watersheds. (p. 44)
>> In Morocco, 34 pastoral cooperatives with more than 8,000 members rehabilitated and manage some 450,000 hectares of grazing reserves. (p. 44)
>> In Rajasthan, India, community-led watershed restoration programs have reinstated more than 5,000 traditional johads (rainwater storage tanks) in over 1,000 villages. (p. 44)
>> Some countries are redirecting subsidy payments to agri-environmental payments for ecosystem services, some of which explicitly include carbon storage and emissions reduction. (p. 46)

If you’re interested in reading more, download chapters or purchase a copy of this critical report here.

– Deepa

Support Just Food’s 2009 Summit on Food and Climate Change! The Summit “will help build a more educated, informed and politically involved network of urban and rural communities in the New York City region to influence food, farm and environmental policy. It will be structured to inform and educate participants, generate ideas and strategies, and build coalitions to create and mobilize around a concrete platform for action on Food and Climate Change in 2010.” Just Food’s conference coincides with the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

For more information about this critical event, contact Nadia Johnson, the Food Justice Coordinator at Just Food. She can be reached at nadia@justfood.org or at 212.645.9880, ext. 237.

– Deepa

Check it out!

Juliette Jowit, from the British rag The Guardian, reported on a plan to eliminate meat from hospital menus across the UK. The action would be part of a larger strategy by the National Health Service (UK) to lower carbon emissions and save money, which could then be redirected into patient care.

Check it out here.

The National Health Service was inspired by a study they conducted last year through which they discovered that their emissions alone account for approximately 3% of the country’s s total emissions. If the NHS was a country, this emissions toll would rank them the planet’s 81st worst emitter in 2004.

The NHS has proposed both long- and short-term changes, from “urging people to drink less bottled water to more phone-in surgeries by GPs to the food: The NHS is planning to limit meat and dairy on hospital menus. David Pencheon, director of NHS’s sustainable development unit, said, “We’d like higher levels of fresh food, and probably higher levels of fresh fruit and veg, and more investment in a local economy.”

Sounds good to us.

Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column for the New York Times, takes a simple, holistic approach to food and cooking.

Read Salon’s s review here.

Time Mag ran its annual “top ten of everything,” including dipping their judging toes into the top ten of food. Coming in at number four was the almighty tap. With Nestle and the other Big Water companies quivering about the fate of their high-profit product lines (aka bottled water), the tap trend is certainly taking off.

White-tableclothed restaurants are starting to get in on the tap-is-best mantra and I couldn’t help but notice at both the Museum of Natural History in NYC and the new Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park their water fountains were draped with info-posters about the benefits of bottled water.

So drink up–from the tap and save your hard earned bucks for something more vital than water you can get for free.

Jenny Wiggins reports for the Financial Times:
“In the UK, bottled water sales volumes have slid 4.7 per cent and sales revenues have fallen 5.1 per cent in the 12 months to mid-August, according to research group Nielsen. This includes a 2.5 per cent drop in sales volumes of Evian and a 7.4 per cent drop in sales volumes of Volvic, both owned by French company Danone. In the US, where bottled water consumption is higher than in any other country, supermarket sales are at their slowest rate since bottled water became popular a decade ago.”

Check out the Take Back Your Tap campaign at Food & Water Watch to learn more and get involved.

Now after sitting through a requisite antitrust law “waiting period,” the companies can close on the multi-billion dollar transaction, provided both agree on the terms. (And that’s getting trickier as the tables have turned: Bunge made the bid earlier this summer when commodity prices–and Corn Products stock–were high). If passed, the deal will create a combined company with 32,000 employees and operations in 40 countries.

Bunge is one of those companies that has a heckuva lot to do with a lot we eat, but whose name you don’t know – yet. The St. Louis-based Bunge North America is just one of the operating arms of the global giant. “The world is our market – six billion people and counting,” says Bunge. They’re not kidding.

Founded in 1818, Bunge is a leading agribusiness and food company with operations, “stretching from the farm field to the retail shelf,” as they say.

Among its chief business operations, the company:
• manufactures fertilizer and animal feed for farmers;
• originates oilseeds and grains from the world’s primary growing regions and transports them to customers worldwide;
• crushes oilseeds to make meal for the livestock industry and oil for the food processing, food service and biofuel industries;
• produces bottled oils, mayonnaise, margarines and other food products for consumers;
• mills wheat and corn for food processors, bakeries, brewers and other commercial customers.

Why does this matter to you and me?

With this purchase of Corn Products International their reach will get that much larger, and with it their economic clout and influence over food and farm policy.