Question & Answer With Jill Richardson

Jill Richardson is the creator of La Vida Locavore and is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. She also is a contributing blogger for Sustainable Food, which is a part of Change.org.

Find out in this 5 minute Q & A how a 20-something with a day job in software has gained influence in politics, been read by Congressional staffers and made a mark in the sustainable agriculture movement.

Center for a Livable Future: How did you get into the sustainable agriculture movement?

Jill Richardson: It happened gradually, and then suddenly. For a long time I had been interested in environmental causes, and following the 2004 election I became a lot more passionate. Obviously a lot of environmental news centered around food. But then in January 2006, my job sent me to work in a cardiac ICU in Hawaii for a week and that really drove the message home to me. Oh. My. God. Look what we are doing to ourselves with our diets!!! That was it for me – when I came home, I was a full-fledged foodie.

CLF: You are publishing your first book, Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It, which shows how sustainable agriculture offers a solution to the food crisis in the U.S.  Can you expand on some of your suggestions?

JR: I think the broader picture is that we need to make sure that all Americans can have a living wage and access to affordable health care, in addition to a number of other large scale changes (re-regulate the financial industry?) that will allow people to have enough money, time, and health to obtain and prepare sustainable food. Without that, no amount of farmers markets or CSAs could solve our problems. But in the meantime, we can do quite a bit for our food system, and that’s what the book lays out. I didn’t attempt to re-create the wheel, just, perhaps, consolidate and explain the wheel. We have so many disparate groups and movements working on their own unique (or shared) initiatives and it’s hard for anyone who’s just getting into food policy to understand what the issues are and how to take action. I broke my recommendations into the categories of: Labeling, Protecting Children, the Farm Bill, Food Safety, and Human and Animal Rights. My hope is that people interested in food issues can read the book and understand how the food system operates as a system -and how we need to fix it as a system, not in the little silos we often treat it as with animal rights over here on one side and food safety over there, even though they are inextricably linked.

CLF: This is a broad question, but in your opinion, what should the average person be thinking about in terms of food?

JR: I think Michael Pollan stole my answer :) Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Well, I’m stealing it from him, not the other way around. But that certainly DOES sum up my thoughts even if I would have never found such a clever way to say it myself. And don’t be afraid of your food! I was raised in a household where food was the enemy. We ate all kinds of processed garbage – but only the low fat, low calorie varieties of processed garbage (like Snackwell’s cookies), in small servings and with lots of guilt. That’s no way to live, or to eat! Food should be enjoyed.

CLF: What is the major takeaway(s) you hope readers gain?

JR: I hope they come to see the government as accessible and easy to get involved in. Because it is. Surprisingly so. From the comfort of your home, you can watch Congressional hearings, call offices, speak to staffers, and actually get your opinion heard. Last summer I accompanied a friend lobbying a state government and we just walked around the Capitol, knocked on office doors, and chatted up various staff people. One of the representatives invited us into is office and we sat down and talked for maybe 20 minutes, and he was extremely interested in our issues – even though we were liberals and he was a very conservative Republican. Yet a lot of times I hear people who are represented by Republicans say they don’t even bother writing to them because they don’t expect to be heard.

CLF: Any shout-outs to bloggers or local farmers?

JR: Right now I’m especially loving my friend Phil at Sage Mountain Farm for the delicious pasture-raised eggs he gave me, and Barry from La Milpa Organica for the heirloom spinach I’m putting in my omelets :)

Forget the dog, get a flock of egg-laying chickens?

Bill and Nicolette Hahn Niman proposed an interesting suggestion for the First Family on the Atlantic’s On The Farm blog: “a flock of egg-laying hens for the White House grounds.” Now the Huffington Post is polling readers on whether it’s a bird-brain idea or would it add another feather in the First Family’s cap. For the record, I voted yes. But I’m still looking forward to finding out when the First Dog will arrive.

‘Take the Pharma Out of Farming,’ says Chipotle Founder

Check out Chipotle Founder Steve Ells’ write-up in yesterdays Huffington Post. Says Ells, “Many might think that a restaurant chain like ours would not care about this issue. After all, most restaurant companies focus largely on assuring a high-volume food supply, lower production costs, and increasing profits. From an ethical, economic, and public health perspective, pumping animals full of antibiotics to keep them from getting sick is way to cut corners, not a way to forge a sustainable and humane model for food production.

“Federal action to improve the conditions of our factory farms is necessary because these large farms account for the vast majority of meat produced in this country, but their practices carry a number of horrific unintended consequences – from polluting rivers, streams and coastal waters, to air quality problems, and endangering the lives of people by contributing to the proliferation of antibiotic resistant infections. Scientists and public health officials have offered a slew of recommendations to reverse these negative side effects, many of which are presented in a recent Pew Commission report on industrial farm animal production in America.

Ells calls for the public support of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA) now before Congress. “I hope that private citizens will support the Act by contacting their local congressional representative. If the legislation passes, it could take as many as two years to phase out this indiscriminate overuse of antibiotics. It’s time to get the process started. Let’s preserve these drugs for the sick animals and humans who need them. Antibiotic use is not a prerequisite to life on the farm, but rather a threat to life itself.”

Food System Reform–not just for the Elite

A great article in this morning’s Washington Post profiles Dave Murphy, the founder of Food Democracy Now, and emphasizes the need for strong advocates of food system reform who are from the Midwest. The importance of having advocates who aren’t coastal and who have worked the land (or are related to those who have) echoes Jill Richardson’s recent comments about the media ignoring the food justice side of the sustainable food movement and painting “a picture of the Organic Elite – Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and big wigs at Stonyfield and Whole Foods – but mak[ing] them seem as though they’ve got their heads in the clouds as they call for tripling what we pay for kids’ school lunches or changing our policy to create decentralized, regional food networks.” As Natasha Chart points out the media can play an important, and often defining, role in establishing (or defeating) a movement, and too often the media just reinforce the status quo. For me, this is another example of the need for the sustainable food movement to come together and agree on some major talking points that encompass the entire movement (while still continuing to work for local and regional change). One voice could help ensure the full spectrum of issues are heard and reported on correctly.

PAMTA Under Fire from Farm Bureau

In a letter to Congress, the president of the American Farm Bureau said that a bill to ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics, introduced last week by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would hurt the health of livestock and compromise food safety.

A Reuters News Agency report quoted the letter from Bob Stallman, who told Congress that Farm Bureau members “carefully, judiciously and according to label instructions” use antibiotics to treat, prevent and control disease in animals.

“Antibiotic use in animals does not pose a serious public health threat,” said Stallman, who urged lawmakers to oppose the bill. “Restricting access to these important tools will jeopardize animal health and compromise our ability to contribute to public health through food safety.” he added. Read More >

Early Death Attributed to High Diet of Red Meat

A new study has found that high intakes of red or processed meat may increase the risk of mortality. The research, just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, examined more than a half-million middle-aged and elderly Americans and found those who consumed four ounces of red meat a day were more than 30 percent more likely to die during the 10-year length of the study.

According to an article in today’s Washington Post, researchers analyzed data from 545,653 predominantly white volunteers, ages 50 to 71, participating in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. In 1995, the subjects filled out detailed questionnaires about their diets, including meat consumption. Over the next 10 years, 47,976 men and 23,276 women died.

And the implications of a high-meat diet go beyond human mortality. “There is a global tsunami brewing, namely, we are seeing the confluence of growing constraints on water, energy, and food supplies combined with the rapid shift toward greater consumption of all animal source foods,” said Barry M. Popkin, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina, whose editorial is published with the study.

Show Me the Movement!

Aaron French’s commentary yesterday on the Civil Eat’s blog raises this issue of how prepared the sustainable food movement is to take its seat at the table in Washington. An important question given the receptivity the current administration has shown of late. It seems some more organizing is necessary. Case-in-point: a statement from Obama, as quoted by Michael Pollan at the Georgia Organics conference (where I was on Saturday), in reference to taking action on sustainable food:

“Show me the movement. Make me do it.”

While Obama’s comments are encouraging, they point to the need for stronger organization within the movement. Read More >

Michael Pollan (and me) at the CDC

The media aren’t the only ones paying attention to calls for a sustainable, healthy food system. Last Friday, Michael Pollan was invited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to vision with them about how their work can support a more healthy, sustainable food system. Planning his visit encouraged cross-Center collaboration (CDC has 7 Centers) which will be necessary for future food systems work. He spoke to a packed house of CDC employees and outside guests (including me) and was firm in pushing the CDC to become a leader in supporting a healthy, sustainable food system. The CDC seemed receptive, as noted in the CDC’s introduction to Pollan: “We at the CDC care, and we want to do better,” and some concluding remarks: “[Pollan's] visit has been the catalyst to pull people together across the Centers, and will leave a lasting legacy at CDC.” Read More >

The First Garden

First Lady Michelle Obama breaks ground for White House Garden

First Lady Michelle Obama breaks ground for White House Garden

Environmentalists and Foodies alike couldn’t contain their giddiness when they heard the First Lady broke ground on the White House Kitchen Garden today. Check out more pictures from the White House Blog. The Washington Post even has video as Mrs. Obama was joined by about 2 dozen elementary school students.

Vilsack Visits the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Meeting

I was privileged to spend the past few days at the Inaugural Meeting of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), a well-organized group of stakeholders from around the country ranging from farmers to policy wonks (who are sometimes one in the same) working in coalition on important issues. In addition to learning an incredible amount from this crew, I was thrilled to meet dozens of NSAC members eager to see public health take a larger, more active role in drawing the links between sustainable agriculture and health. I was also encouraged that Secretary Vilsack took the time visit to the NSAC Meeting. Read More >