This November, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future joined with fellow members of the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition steering committee to officially launch the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition—“a broad-based collaboration of organizations committed to achieving a healthier nation in tandem with a strong farm economy through policy reform at the local, state and national level.”
The Coalition will work on short-term targeted policy efforts, as well as long-term goals centered on policy change and information-sharing across sectors. The Coalition brings together stakeholders from the health, agricultural, anti-hunger, environmental and economic development communities, whose diverse expertise is necessary to make such reforms to the food system a reality. Read More >
Also contributing to this post is Rachel Pinson, an MPH student focusing on food access, food policy, and program planning.
One of Baltimore City’s most underserved neighborhoods received funding for a facelift recently in the form of a $60,000 grant from the USDA. The grant, known as the People’s Garden Grant, was designed “to invest in urban and rural areas identified as food deserts and/or food insecure areas, particularly those with persistent poverty” (USDA). Cherry Hill—a neighborhood without a full-service supermarket and where more than 90 percent of non-married families live below the Maryland Self-Sufficiency Wage (an index of how much income is needed for a family to adequately meet their basic needs without public or private assistance)—is a quintessential food insecure area. Read More >
Also contributing to this post is Patrick Baron, CLF Doctoral Fellow and PhD student in Environmental Health Sciences.
For the first time in 13 years, the Interagency Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance* (ITFAR) heard from the public on antimicrobial resistance. We presented a strong argument for why surveillance, environmental antimicrobial pollution, and veterinary oversight should be given more attention by ITFAR. We were not alone in our concerns about antimicrobials and resistance; representatives from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the coalition to Keep Antibiotics Working (KAW) also provided input to 14 representatives from over 10 agencies that are members of ITFAR. Read More >
I’d like to contribute to the Farm Bill discussion initiated earlier this week in a Baltimore Sun op-ed penned by Tom Albright, Holly Freishtat and the CLF’s own Bob Lawrence. The op-ed called for farmers’ markets to be provided with electronic benefits transfer (EBT) technology, to ensure that they are able to process purchases made with SNAP benefits (otherwise known as food stamps). The authors rightly point out that providing EBT at farmers’ markets would provide both a financial boon for local farmers, and increased access to fresher, more nutritious food for SNAP participants, who often live in areas where such food can be hard to come by and difficult to afford. I encourage you to read the op-ed for more information on the cost and benefits of this provision, and would like to add a few additional points for your consideration. Read More >
This is the sixth blogpost in the series, “Corn-Fed Cars: On the Road with Ethanol.”
While increased food prices is the most contentious of the many controversies surrounding the rapid increase in ethanol production from corn, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from what is termed “indirect land use change” (ILUC) ranks a close second in the debates. (Here is a one study on ILUC.)
The controversy was triggered by a 2008 paper in Science by Searchinger et al. that stated, “Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. Read More >
“Sustainability is a business strategy. It’s not a charitable giving strategy.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear this from Beth Keck, Walmart’s Senior Director of Sustainability, who spoke on the role of the private sector in sustainable agriculture at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC late last month. Indeed, I’ve heard Gary Hirshberg, Chairman, President and CEO of Stonyfield Farm and author of Stirring it up: How to Make Money and Save the World, call on sustainable producers to harness the power of big business. Ms. Keck echoed this sentiment: “What we’re concerned with is how our business processes and our business decisions make a difference in the supply chains we interact with.” Unlike Mr. Hirshberg, though, Ms. Keck could not provide a real definition of “sustainability.” Walmart does not have its own definition, but “often cite[s] the original concept of leaving the earth in the same shape that you have found it or better—trying to be neutral or add back.” Read More >
Today the Baltimore Sun ran an opinion piece co-authored by CLF director Robert Lawrence, Holly Freishtat, and Tom Albright. The piece proposed a win-win for farmers and SNAP (food stamp) participants: Supply farmers’ markets with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) machines so that people can spend their SNAP dollars at those markets. The essay makes an appeal especially to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who sits on the Super Committee that may have sway over Farm Bill re-authorization.
To read the op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, click here. FarmPolicy.com, a daily agricultural news review excerpted the op-ed. Read More >
While the leaders of the Congressional Agriculture Committees have yet to announce the final details of their proposed Farm Bill cuts to the Super Committee, they have announced a goal of $23 billion in cuts to FB programs. We expect that cuts will touch commodity supports, conservation, and nutrition. The most recent information suggests that the proposal will cut:
- Conservation programs by $6.5 billion (a 10 percent cut relative to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) currently projected baseline for the Farm Bill).
- Commodity supports by $14 to $15 billion (24 percent)
- Nutrition programs by $4 to $5 billion (1 percent)
At first blush the cuts to conservation and nutrition may seem small, but there’s more at risk than meets the eye. Read More >
A Center for a Livable Future study, published recently in Environmental Science and Technology, shows that testing of imported seafood by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is inadequate for confirming its safety or identifying risks.
About 85 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, and most of those imports are produced in overseas fish farms, where drugs may be administered to the fish to treat and prevent fish diseases. In terms of food safety, imported seafood is one of the most significant high-risk foods, and FDA oversees the safety of imports. CLF researchers David Love, PhD, and colleagues believed it was important to measure and evaluate the degree to which imported seafood is tested for drug residues. Read More >
This June, South Korea took a giant leap in protecting human health, the environment, and animal welfare—by banning antibiotic use in animal feed. This is big news.
Most importantly, the ban comes at a time when we know with greater and greater certainty that the misuse of antimicrobials in industrial farm animal production (IFAP) is linked to an increase in antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. (A very recent article by Bonnie Marshall and Stuart Levy, published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews, provides one of the most comprehensive summaries of the evidence to date. For more on this read this blogpost by CLF’s Tyler Smith.) Other negative impacts of using antibiotics in animal feed to promote growth and as prophylaxis against the unsanitary conditions of IFAP include allowing to continue practices that degrade the environment, compromise animal welfare, and, too frequently overlooked in discussions about IFAP, harm the mental and physical health of IFAP workers. Read More >
This November, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future joined with fellow members of the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition steering committee to officially launch the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition—“a broad-based collaboration of organizations committed to achieving a healthier nation in tandem with a strong farm economy through policy reform at the local, state and national level.”
