Each day, as I drop my daughter off at her pre-school, I am horrified to see the canned food drive bin in the threshold.
It is not that the bin itself is scary to me—although it is dressed up as a six-foot tall Thanksgiving turkey that says, “Feed me.” It is not all of the sodium and industrial ag products packed tightly in the can that’s upsetting me. What concerns me most, as a doctoral student researching environmental contaminants in the food system, is all of the BPA that has leached from those epoxy resin can linings into the food. I read report after report confirming that, although we have a dearth of human epidemiological evidence on the health effects of BPA, we certainly have animal data that find BPA to be linked to many adverse health effects including endocrine disruption and carcinogenesis. Read More >
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has launched the Farm Bill Budget Visualizer, an innovative web-based application that allows visual analysis of Farm Bill spending since the 2008 Farm Bill.
The Budget Visualizer uses “treemap” technology, a method of displaying spending data as nested rectangles, which allows users to “see” the proportion of federal funding received by Farm Bill programs. The application, developed in partnership with the Hive Group, is intended as an educational aid for the general public, advocacy groups, and policymakers who wish to better understand the relationships among public health and other priorities, and federal spending in the Farm Bill. Read the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s news release announcing the Farm Bill Budget Visualizer. 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 >
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 >
Pingree-Brown: strengthen local food systems
Local farmers have been a hot topic in Congress lately.
Last Tuesday, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D–ME) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D–OH) introduced the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act in Congress. The goal of the bill, which was intended for inclusion in the 2012 Farm Bill, is to strengthen local and regional food systems. It addresses the needs of smaller farms that produce for local markets, as well as of consumers who may lack access to healthy foods.
The bill has between 35 and 40 cosponsors in the House, including Rep. Donna Edwards (D–MD), and six cosponsors in the Senate, including Senator Barbara Mikulski (D–MD). Read More >
Much of the world's phosphate is in the Western Sahara
Here’s a riddle: What is essential to all life on earth, is thrown away instead of recycled, is quickly running out on a global scale, and yet has no substitute?
If you guessed fresh water, you wouldn’t be wrong. But would you have guessed phosphorus?
Despite growing acceptance in the scientific community of peak oil as a legitimate cause for concern—and perhaps a bit more attention from the media—far less attention has been paid to the phenomenon dubbed “peak phosphorus,” despite increasing evidence that peak phosphorus is expected to occur by 2030, if it hasn’t already. Read More >
An article just out in Clinical Microbiology Reviews should put to rest the hotly contested debate about antimicrobial misuse in industrial food animal production (IFAP). The review article, “Food Animals and Antimicrobials: Impacts on Human Health,” written by Bonnie Marshall and Stuart Levy of the Tufts University School of Medicine, provides one of the most comprehensive summaries to-date of the evidence linking antimicrobial misuse in IFAP to increased incidence of antimicrobial-resistant infections in humans, and it should silence accusations made by elected officials who contend that there is insufficient evidence to support restrictions on antimicrobial use in agriculture.
These accusations have grown louder in recent months. In June of this year, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have prohibited the Food and Drug Administration from spending money to restrict the use of antimicrobials in the absence of “hard science.” The “hard science amendment,” poorly written and clumsily introduced, was stripped from the legislation before it passed the House. But the arguments presented by Rehberg and other members nevertheless reveal a strident—and unwarranted—skepticism of existing scientific knowledge about antimicrobial resistance. Read More >
Local market, fresh vegetables
The global food system has become largely dependent on a finite supply of oil. Rates of crude extraction are projected to decline in the immediate future, accompanied by a rise in oil prices. Judging from recent oil price hikes, higher food prices are likely to follow closely behind. As a result, populations afflicted by hunger may face a particularly sobering transition to a food system divorced, at least in part, from what has become an almost inextricable bond with oil.
In every potential crisis lies opportunity. In our efforts to prepare for a post-peak oil food system, what measures can be taken to uplift and protect the world’s most vulnerable? Among several other key recommendations, expanding the capacity of local and regional food systems may build resiliency against rising food prices, more expensive agricultural inputs and other shocks related to oil scarcity. By providing greater economic opportunities to the most affected populations, building support around local farmers in developing regions may also help to alleviate hunger. Read More >
