The plan to work on four titles of the legislation means that now is the time to write or call your representatives telling them what you think about the Food and Farm Bill. Congressional websites have addresses and phone numbers for Representatives and Senators. Various organizations, like Om Organics also have action pages.

The current situation for the Food and Farm Bill in the House appears to be the following:

1. Rep. Peterson (chairman of the Agriculture Committee) wants to write the bill in the Agriculture Committee and avoid any amendments from the floor. In other words, he wants to maintain tight control of the content to avoid too much input from lawmakers from urban and suburban districts. Thus, if your representative is on the House Agriculture Committee, it is especially important to contact him or her. More commentary from me at Ethicurean, Ken Cook of EWG, and Dan Owens of the Center for Rural Affairs.
2. The overall budget for the Food and Farm Bill is more or less locked in at a level set by the Congressional Budget Office. A “reserve fund” of $15-20 billion was authorized in the budget process, but the funds need to be taken from another program or found through new revenue. A column at Ag Web points out that $190 billion in “reserve funds” are in the budget in other areas, so the reserve fund is probably not going to materialize. Therefore, changes in funding levels will be achieved by shifting funds between programs.
3. Subsidy programs for commodities are sacred. They will not be cut, and might even be increased, despite the record high price of corn and soybeans, and pressure from other nations about unfair trade policy.
4. Conservation money might be shifted around from fund to fund, e.g., from the Conservation Security Program to the Wetlands Reserve Program.
5. Funding for smaller programs, like Farmers’ Market promotion, organic farming research and farm-to-schools programs, have not been mentioned much in the sources I read. Since they are essentially “crumbs” compared to the giant “loaves” of the commodity subsidy programs. For example, The Farmers Market Promotion Program received an appropriation of $1 million in FY2006, which is two hours of annual corn subsidies or three hours of annual cotton subsidies (source: page 5 of Congressional Research Service Report RL33037 Previewing a 2007 Farm Bill).

The Senate is planning to work on their version of the Food and Farm Bill work at a later date. Here is a list of the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Photo by Gary Kramer, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, photo NRCSCA01029. Caption: “Lettuce crop in central California.”

While Americans are consuming more imported food and drink from preserved fruit to coffee, demand among U.S. food makers for overseas ingredients is increasing even faster.

In 2001, the United States imported about $4.4 billion worth of ingredients processed from plants or animals, AP’s analysis shows. By last year that total leaped to $7.6 billion — a 73 percent increase. Other food and drink imports rose from $38.3 billion to $63 billion — up 65 percent.

No single reason explains the increase. Profits are one factor; changing consumer tastes play a role, too. There’s a growing expectation that seasonal products will be available year round, while immigrants may hanker for familiar flavors and others want variety.

So U.S. food makers head overseas, where labor-intensive ingredients can be cheaper to produce in low-wage countries. They’re not expensive to ship, either, because they’re relatively compact and don’t spoil easily, said David Closs, an expert in global food supply at Michigan State University.

By its own latest accounting, the FDA only had enough inspectors to check about 1 percent of the 8.9 million imported food shipments in fiscal year 2006. Topping the list were products with past problems, such as seafood and produce.

“I don’t ever remember working on ingredients,” said Carl R. Nielsen, a former FDA official whose job until he left in 2005 was to make sure field inspectors were checking the right imports. “That was the lowest priority, a low priority.”

The budgets for inspection and food safety, however, have not kept up with the deluge of imported foods. The figure below shows the AP’s import figures (a 73% increase in ingredients, 67% increase for other foods), the budget of the UDSA’s Food and Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), and the budget for FDA’s food programs (sources for the budget figures are detailed at the bottom of the post). For reference, the 2001 funding for the FSIS was $782 million and for the FDA food programs was $302 million. Even though 2002 brought a huge jump in funding for the FDA’s food programs (probably a result of new efforts to prevent bioterrorism and agroterrorism), the two budgets have not grown nearly as fast as imports.

A few caveats about the plot are in order. First, the AP’s import figures are for all foods and all ingredients — it is unknown how responsibility for the imports is split between FDA and USDA. A potential clue comes from a prepared statement from the GAO for a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee: “…the majority of federal expenditures for food safety inspection have been directed toward USDA’s programs for ensuring the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products; however, USDA is responsible for regulating only about 20 percent of the food supply. In contrast, FDA, which is responsible for regulating about 80 percent of the food supply, accounted for only about 24 percent of expenditures.” Second, it is conceivable that the budgets for the portions of the FDA and USDA responsible for inspecting imported foods have increased faster than the overall agency budgets at the expense of other food safety programs. None of the recent articles about food import problems have mentioned anything about shifts in agency funding.

Sources for Budget Figures

The USDA FSIS figures for 2001-2003 are from a FY 2005 budget chart; figures for 2004-2008 are from the FY 2008 budget highlights (PDF). The budget figures for the FDA’s food programs are available at the Health and Human Services budget web page in a variety of PDF files: 2001, 2002-2003, 2004-2008 (note that the 2007 and 2008 figures are subject to change when Congress enacts the final budgets).

Caruso’s specialty is risk assessment, and she is concerned that neither the developers of these “biopharma” projects nor the regulators (at USDA and FDA) fully understand what can happen in the wild. The whole article is worth reading, but this part jumped out at me:

For starters, the “system” under discussion is nature, and despite our best efforts it always manages to elude our puny attempts at controlling it. The containment practices used by developers assume an ability to control living and propagating organisms, which scientific evidence does not support.

One scientist familiar with some of the issues raised by pharma crops is Norman C. Ellstrand, a professor in the department of genetics at the University of California, Riverside, and director of its Biotechnology Impacts Center. Professor Ellstrand is known as a fair and credible critic of various aspects of agricultural biotechnology.

He is deeply skeptical that efforts to confine biopharma genes in open fields will work.

“I don’t think that engineering plants for pharma is a bad idea, with two caveats,” Professor Ellstrand said. One, he says he thinks that planting should be done in greenhouses rather than in open fields. “The other issue is food,” he said. “Why do we have to do this in food crops? It doesn’t matter what you’re squeezing the compound out of. It could be a carnation, a corn plant or a castor bean.”

There might be value in engineering plants to produce drugs for humans, but I completely agree with Professor Ellstrand: don’t use human or animal food crops to make the drugs. We have already seen several examples of genetically engineered (GE) rice and corn being accidentally introduced into food. The presence of GE material makes the product unacceptable for Japanese and European export markets, and if the material contains a pharmaceutical, it could conceivably cause severe reactions in parts of the population (or in cattle, poultry or pork if the plants are animal feed). If the FDA and USDA strictly forbid use of food crops for “biopharma” applications, opposition to genetic engineering would be reduced.

The second article is about liability and freedom. Written by Steve Johnson of the San Jose Mercury News, it explores some of the legal issues around GE crops. In California, state and local officials are not informed when genetically modified organisms are planted — that information is shared only with the USDA and kept confidential because it is seen as proprietary business information. But the USDA only tracks early testing of the crops, not routine planting. A member of the State Assembly has introduced a bill (AB 541) that would change that by requiring notification of county agriculture officials when GE crops are planted. In addition, it makes the planter of the GE crops liable for damages to other fields, like if an organic farmer’s crops are contaminated by pollen from nearby farms with GE crops and thus ineligible for organic certification.

Cross-contamination has the potential to be a significant problem and I imagine that legal experts are trying to figure out how the law should apply. If an organic farmer’s crops are ruined by GE contamination, should the farmer who planted the GE crops be liable? Or perhaps the seed company? Does a farmer have a right to grow organic food?

The bulk of the article is an overview of the promise and peril of GE crops, and some of the recent legal troubles around GE crops. In 2007 alone, there have been three major setbacks for GE crops: contamination of long grain rice seed with an unapproved GE strain, a federal court’s temporary hold on planting a GE alfalfa seed, and a ruling against manufacturers of a GE turfgrass.

My Google News alert has been filled with stories about the Food and Farm Bill debate. Most of the stories are minor things: this Senator or that Senator speaking to a local farm group, or a Representative having a public forum, or the Agriculture Secretary having a meeting with somebody. Amongst all of this noise, a few important things have happened: budget proposals and two significant bill introductions.

Budgeting

The first step in the Farm Bill process is to decide how much can be spent over the next five-year period, thus putting financial boundaries on the legislators. The House and Senate budget committees have released their outlines.
The Senate approved a budget resolution for fiscal years 2007 and 2009 through 2012 which includes a $15 billion “reserve fund” for the Food and Farm Bill to allow spending above and beyond the baseline level. The catch: the fund can only be used if the money can be found in one of three ways: 1) taking the money from another program, 2) increasing government revenue (i.e., taxes or fees), or 3) the Senate votes to override the pay as you go (”PayGo”) spending rules.

In the House, The Chairman’s version of the budget plan (PDF) creates a reserve fund of $20 billion for the reauthorization of the Farm Bill (see page 30-31). As in the Senate, allocation of the funds can occur only if “would not increase the deficit or decrease the surplus for the period of fiscal years 2007 through 2012 and the period of fiscal years 2007 through 2017.”

A Reuters article says that “[t]he House and Senate have a goal of agreeing by April 15 on a spending plan,” so the next few weeks are good times for letters if you have strong opinions about how the Food and Farm Bill should look.

New Legislation

Two major pieces of legislation were introduced, one by Rep. Kind (D-WI), the other by Rep. Cardoza (D-CA).

Rep. Kind introduced the Healthy Farms, Foods, and Fuels Act of 2007 (H.R. 1551) with 74 co-sponsors. Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a bill with the same text as S.919. The press release from Reps. Kind and Gerlach, and Senator Menendez summarized the bill’s key points as

• Increase from $200 million to $2 billion annual loan guarantees for renewable energy development on farms.
• Expand programs that provide local, healthy food choices to our school children and dramatically
• Expand coupon programs that allow elderly and low income Americans to shop at farmer’s markets.
• Increase incentives by $3 billion a year for farmers and ranchers to protect drinking water supplies and make other environmental improvements.
• Provide funding to restore nearly 3 million acres of wetlands.
• Provide funding to protect 6 million acres of farm and ranch land from sprawl.

Rep. Cardoza (D-CA) introduced the “Equitable Agriculture Today for a Healthy America Act” (EAT Healthy America Act) with a bipartisan list of 64 co-sponsors as H.R. 1600. This is the bill that was written with input from growers of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers (the “specialty crops”). A few months ago, I covered some of the issues around specialty crops. Scripps News described a few features of the EAT bill:

• Increasing the Market Access Program to $350 million a year, up from the current maximum of $200 million. The money pays for overseas ads and marketing by groups like the California Cling Peach Board and the California Kiwifruit Commission.
• Providing grants to boost fruit and vegetable consumption. This money eventually would climb to $100 million a year and likewise flow through agricultural trade organizations; farm co-operatives such as Sunkist would also be eligible.
• Building a $500 million-a-year program of specialty crop bloc grants paid to states, distributed in part according to each state’s level of fruit and vegetable production. California would get the biggest share.

In a new twist, the rewritten bill also would shift thousands of agricultural port and border inspectors back to the Agriculture Department. The inspectors are currently part of the Department of Homeland Security, where their morale is low.

Rep. Salazar’s (D-CO) press release has some additional details on the EAT Healthy America Act.

Quite a few other bills have been introduced that relate to agriculture and food. One that caught my attention was introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Timothy Walz (D-MN), and Ray LaHood (R-IL) (press release). Called the Farming Flexibility Act of 2007 (H.R. 1371), the bill loosens the rules related to fruit and vegetable growing by farmers who receive payment for one or more of the five big commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice). Under current rules, a farmer who plants fruits or vegetables on land designated as commodity land will be forced to pay a penalty for removing the land from their commodity program. At first glance, the rule change seems like a good idea: one thing the United States needs is more fruits and vegetables and fewer commodity crops.

Next Steps

As mentioned above, the House and Senate will to agree on a budget plan in the next few weeks. In the meantime, more bills will be introduced, hearings will be held in the Agricultural Committees and Subcommittees to obtain additional input, and, I hope, Congressional offices will receive a good bit of mail about the Food and Farm Bill from “normal people” asking for a change in our nation’s agricultural and food policies. Sometime in the summer, we can expect the process to really heat up as the September expiration of the current Food and Farm Bill stares Congress in the eyes.

Background Reading or Viewing

If you find the above material interesting, but a little confusing, I recommend a new book called Food Fight: the Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill. It presents a comprehensive, yet readable, explanation of where the Farm Bill came from, how it works, and what needs to be fixed. For a audio-visual education on the Food and Farm Bill, the author of the book, Daniel Imhoff, was one of the panelists at a Michael Pollan moderated “Farm Bill Teach In” in Berkeley, which can be watched on the UC Berkeley webcast library.

1) Who Owns Organic?

For a long time, the word “organic” was synonymous with “small”: it brought to mind an independent farmer or a small company. These days, however, that association is not always accurate. Some companies that appear “small” on the label are actually part of an enormous corporate empire.

The Cornucopia Institute hosts the Who Owns Organic chart, which illustrates the connections between organic labels and their owners. For example, Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola, Celestial Seasonings is partially owned by Heinz (through Hain-Celestial), Seeds of Change is owned by M&M/Mars. The chart has been around for a while, but was updated recently.

2) Genetically Engineered Crops

Do you think your diet is free of genetically-modified foods? Don’t bet on it if you eat grains or meat grown in the U.S. The USDA recently posted a report called Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S. which shows that over 60% of the corn acreage in the U.S. is planted with genetically engineered (GE) corn and over 80% of the soybean acreage is GE (see figure below). Since labels are not required in the U.S. and voluntary labeling is rare, it is not easy for a consumer to know if GE crops are in their food. In my experience, the most likely places to see labeling about GE usage are organic products and soybean products from small producers (often in small print, so look carefully).

According to the USDA’s Feed Grains Database Yearbook, over 60% of the corn used in the U.S. is as animal feed (Table 4), so if you eat meat, there is a good chance you are consuming GE corn. About 7% of the corn goes to making high fructose corn syrup (Table 31), which sweetens almost all soft drinks and many other products. Even if you somehow avoid GE corn, there is a good chance that your car might be “eating” GM crops. A significant amount of corn is used to make ethanol (over 15% in 2006, according to USDA’s Feed Grains Database Yearbook Tables 4 and 31), which is blended with gasoline (typically up to about 10%). The Renewable Fuels Association claims that ethanol is blended into 30% of the gasoline sold in the U.S. today (PDF).

Figure from the USDA’s Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.

Definitions from the USDA Glossary on Genetically Engineered Crops:

Bt crops are genetically engineered to carry the gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. The bacteria produces a protein that is toxic when ingested by certain Lepidopteran insects. Crops containing the Bt gene are able to produce this toxin, thereby providing protection throughout the entire plant.

Herbicide-tolerant crops were developed to survive certain herbicides that previously would have destroyed the crop along with the targeted weeds, and allow farmers to use them as postemergent herbicides, providing an effective weed control. The most common herbicide-tolerant crops (cotton, corn, soybeans, and canola) are Roundup Ready (RR) crops resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide effective on many species of grasses, broadleaf weeds, and sedges. Other genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops include Liberty Link (LL) corn resistant to glufosinate-ammonium, and BXN cotton resistant to bromoxynil.

It is an interesting question to consider, but why on a food blog? It fits here because cotton subsidies are part of the Farm Bill, the massive piece of legislation that might be rewritten in Congress this year. Cotton farmers have long received government subsidies through Farm Bills, with recent years bringing the industry an average of about $2 billion per year (source: Table 9 in CRS RL33271, Farm Commodity Programs [PDF]). In addition to the large sums, the subsidy program is set up so that the largest farms receive most of the money. According to the Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database, “[f]rom 1995 to 2005, the top 10 percent of cotton subsidy recipients were paid 81 percent of cotton subsidies.” The top 1% of recipients got 28% of the funds, more than $5 billion, an average of $2.2 million per recipient. The bottom 80% of the recipients got just over $7,000 each (on average). The House and Senate Budget Committees will allocate a fixed amount for the Farm Bill, and every dollar spent on cotton subsidies is a dollar that can’t be spent on anti-hunger programs, organic farming research, or programs to incorporate locally-grown produce into school lunches.

In most PBS broadcast areas, NOW runs on Friday night, sometimes with a repeat over the weekend (find NOW in your area here). Whether you watch the program or not, you can learn more about the topic by visiting the NOW web site, where you will find links, extended interviews, and possibly even the full program in digital form.

I was impressed by Mackey’s passion for the business of selling food. Unlike some CEOs, who are simply steering a ship until a better offer comes along, Mackey knows the industry from top to bottom and seems to love being part of it. He was also quite honest, as CEOs go, generally talking in plain English, and never digressing into corporate speak (e.g., “To answer that question, let me just say that we’re seeking synergies between brand loyalty core competency and positive feedback revenue enhancement restructuring.”

The initiatives he described were promising, such as new labels for artisan foods (one label for food produced nearby, and one food from far away), a $30 million venture capital fund that will help create or sustain artisan food producers, and the Whole Trade Guarantee, which will act as an enhanced fair trade program. All of these programs require funds and effort, and I wonder if Wall Street will lose patience with Whole Foods’ long term thinking and start demanding better quarterly numbers.

In this post, I’ll cover some of the parts that I found to be interesting and thought-provoking. For a comprehensive review of the event, try Bonnie Powell’s article in the UC Berkeley News.

“Organic”

Mackey bemoaned the fact that the current organic labels are about prohibitions: do not use chemical pesticides, do not use chemical fertilizers, and so forth. But the standards do not account for positive behavior, like ensuring humane care of animals, just treatment of workers, or how soil fertility is maintained. For example, pork from a CAFO that severely abuses the pigs can get the same organic label as a farm that ‘lets the pigs be pigs’ by allowing them full access to pasture and forest (note, however, that the pastured pork would be eligible for additional labels, some of which are explained at the Humane Society).

Mackey said that the organic label is still important, but that Whole Foods wants to increase the amount of information on the organic label through a multi-star rating system. For example, a huge industrial feedlot milk operation that follows organic guidelines but doesn’t allow the cows access to pasture might get one star, while a small farm where the animals and the workers are treated very well and have full access to pasture might get four or five stars. This is definitely a welcome proposal, and ideally the rating system can be transferred to a credible third party so that all producers can be rated, instead of simply labeled.

Late in the conversation, Pollan asked Mackey if perhaps the publicity (and criticism from Pollan, among others) of Wal-Mart’s entry into the organic market has encouraged Whole Foods to look beyond the organic label to the next steps, like consideration of animal welfare and local foods. Mackey’s answer was that continuous striving to the next level is an indispensable part of the Whole Foods mission. That sounds great, but we’ll see if consumers and Wall Street agree. (Mackey seems to be very cognizant of the fickleness of grocery shoppers — ‘leasing customers for a day’ is how he described it.)

Food Miles

One of Mackey’s slides cited a calculation from Singer and Mason’s The Ethics of What We Eat that for a SF Bay Area resident, the carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption are lower for rice grown in Bangladesh and shipped across the ocean than for rice grown in California and trucked across the Central Valley. This assertion prompted a few disapproving yells from the audience (one of the few negative outbursts of the night). At first glance it seems unlikely — a several thousand mile journey vs. a one-hundred mile journey — but if one considers the entire production cycle, I can see how the results turn out that way. California rice growing is highly mechanized, requires large fertilizer inputs and generally requires a complex irrigation network. Rice growing in parts of Asia, in contrast, is less mechanized, uses the natural rain cycles for irrigation, and goods movement by ship is actually far more fuel efficient than trucking. But then again, by tweaking the input variable slightly, one can significantly alter the final answer.

However, there are many other issues to consider besides carbon dioxide and fossil fuel consumption: for example, the concentration of air pollution around ports, transparency (it is a lot easier to find out how California rice is grown than how the Bangladeshi product is grown), local laws (how many pesticides that Bangladeshis use banned in the U.S.) and preserving traditional foods (traditional French cheeses, for example). In addition, Mackey pointed out that as much energy can be used cooking the food or driving a car to pick up groceries, as producing or transporting the food to the market.

Complicating the Issue

Pollan mentioned that many people have asked him “What should I eat?” When writing The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he made a conscious decision to not write a “what to eat” chapter for O.D. because he wanted to complicate the issue. He wanted to encourage thinking and probing, and believes that the process of examining is perhaps as important as the final choice (as part of an evolutionary process).

Transparency

Letting consumers know more about where their food comes from (i.e., transparency in the food system) was one part of Pollan’s ideal food system (which he provided in response to a question from Mackey. Other parts were “grow less corn” and “biodiversity” in the marketplace). He gave the example of a Danish experiment in which customers could bring a package of food to a scanner and then obtain more information about how the product was produced, such as photos of the farm. Late last year, Treehugger had a short post about using cell phones in Japan to obtain food information using a cell phone which have built-in QR code readers. This sounds like a good project for Google to undertake with their billions.

Spending on Food

Pollan said that one of the important “cultural contributions” of Whole Foods to the evolution of the food system is to persuade Americans to spend more money on food (Americans currently spend about 2/3 as much on food as the French, Japanese, British or Italians, according to the ERS/USDA International Food Consumption Patterns Data Set), and to start thinking more about quality than about quantity. Whole Foods might also be encouraging consumers to think about ethical issues.

To watch a webcast of the event, click on this link. There are also plenty of archived interviews with Michael Pollan on-line (NPR’s Science Friday, or NPR’s Fresh Air), Pollan’s website collects his newspaper and magazine writings, and Mackey has a blog at the Whole Foods site.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are what can happen when efficiency and cost are the only considerations in food production. Cramming multitudes of animals into close quarters, they create vast amounts of waste, an oppressive stench, plumes of air pollution, inhumane conditions, and additional health hazards or nuisances. As an example, consider a 1998 report from the U.S. EPA (PDF) which said “Animal manure is much more abundant than human waste. It is estimated that in 1992, approximately 133 million dry tons of animal manure were produced, compared to 10 million dry tons of human sanitary waste (See Appendix A). Yet while the disposal of human waste is highly regulated, the disposal of animal waste has been largely unregulated.”

The CAFO is a relatively recent phenomenon, and so scientific understanding of their health impacts is still evolving. In March 2004, a group of scientists and health experts gathered in Iowa City for a conference entitled “Environmental Health Impacts of CAFOs: Anticipating Hazards – Searching for Solutions.” The conference participants produced several summary reports about the state of scientific knowledge about health impacts from CAFOs, with topics that included water quality, antibiotic resistant pathogens, and monitoring methods. The peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives published the conference reports in the February issue of the journal. The full content of Environmental Health Perspectives is available on-line for free.
Here is the abstract of the summary article, which describes the conference:

A scientific conference and workshop was held in March 2004 that brought together environmental scientists from North America and Europe to address major environmental health issues associated with concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which are large, industrialized livestock production facilities. After one and a half days of plenary sessions, five expert workgroups convened to consider the most relevant research areas including: respiratory health effects; modeling and monitoring of air toxics; water quality issues; influenza pandemics and antibiotic resistance; and community health and socioeconomic issues. The Workgroup Reports that follow outline the state of the science and public health concerns relating to livestock production as they apply to each workgroup topic. The reports also identify areas where further research is needed and suggest opportunities to translate science to policy initiatives that would effect improvements in public and environmental health. Viable solutions to some of the current environmental health problems associated with CAFOs are outlined. In addition, these reports bring to light several major concerns, including air and water contamination, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in livestock and the specter of influenza outbreaks arising from siting industrialized poultry and swine production in close proximity to each other and to humans.

The following Workgroup Reports were produced:

• Health Effects of Airborne Exposures from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
• The Potential Role of CAFOs in Infectious Disease Epidemics and Antibiotic Resistance
• Monitoring and Modeling of Emissions from CAFOs: Overview of Methods
• Community Health and Socioeconomic Issues Surrounding CAFOs
• Impacts of Waste from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations on Water Quality

Some sections of the papers can be rough going, with sentences like this: “This raises methodologic issues regarding appropriate comparison populations and confounders or effect-modifying variables that need to be included in multiple regression models to make accurate comparisons,” or “The inflammatory reactions are orchestrated by alveolar macrophages that carry specific endotoxin binding receptors [LPS binding protein, CD14, MD2, toll-like receptor (TLR) 4]” (both quotes are from Health Effects…). Nonetheless, the papers give a good overview of the current state of knowledge, as well as long reference lists for further investigation. The priority research needs sections are certainly worth reading to get a sense of what the experts want to know.

I found the section about odor in the Monitoring and Modeling… paper to be quite interesting:

The quantification of odor is more challenging because it represents a varying complex mixture of free and particle-bound compounds. An ideal approach to odor measurement would begin by characterizing the chemical constituents associated with a particular offensive odor. Odors could then be quantified objectively based on the identification and quantification of the speciated constituents. However, the correlation between human response and specific compounds identified by instrumental methods such as gas chromatography remains quite poor (Powers et al. 2000). One possible explanation is that the human nose may be sensitive to concentrations that lie below instrumental detection limits. Also, the simultaneous instrumental determination of more than 200 compounds that have been identified in livestock odors is difficult because different groups of compounds require different types of [gas chormatography] columns for efficient separation as well as different operating parameters and detectors. Currently, existing limitations of instrumental methods make the human observer a necessary part of the odor measurement methods. Livestock odor measurement techniques currently rely on trained human raters for odor quantification.

One can imagine the cocktail party conversations of an odor rater: “So, what do you do?” “I walk around feedlots and sniff, then give it a rating, sort of like in figure skating at the Olympics.”

Photo credit: Turkey photo from the UDSA ARS Photo Library.

“A revolution is underway in the pig industry,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS. “Whether at the corporate, legislative or consumer level, there is a tidal wave of opposition to the common U.S. agribusiness practice of confining mother pigs in gestation crates so small the sows cannot even turn around. While last year’s landmark advancements for pigs were tremendously exciting, we can expect the upcoming year to bring even more improvements for the welfare of these social, intelligent animals.”

Industry Leaders Making Change

In late January, Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pig producer, announced that it was making perhaps the most monumental advance for animal welfare in the history of modern American agribusiness—phasing out the confinement of breeding sows in gestation crates over the next decade. Less than one week later, Canada’s largest pig producer, Maple Leaf Foods, made a similar pledge. [author’s note: one has to wonder why it takes ten years to provide more space for gestating sows so that they can turn around.]

These decisions came just three months after Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative banning gestation crates—despite a multimillion-dollar industry campaign to defeat it. In 2002, Florida voters approved a similar measure. The Humane Society of the United States spearheaded both efforts.

These are some positive developments, but the meat industry still has a long way to go in improving animal welfare and reducing environmental impact. A recent Rolling Stone article about Smithfield Foods described some of the worst practices. One way to avoid subsidizing such practices is to buy pork bearing the words “Pasture-Raised”, “Free Range”, “Certified Humane”, or “Free Farmed.” The HSUS has a short guide that explains these terms and others, and whether they are strictly marketing or are backed up by third-party audits (e.g., “Free Farmed”) or USDA oversight (e.g., “Pasture-Raised”).

Another negative consequence of factory farms is the loss of biodiversity. With pigs raised in relatively climate controlled environments and with shareholders looking for ever higher quarterly profits, a small number of breeds are chosen for maximum growth rates, resistance to certain diseases, low fat content, and other profit-enhancing characteristics. This leaves breeds that are adapted to free-ranging in certain regions, have high fat contents, or have distinctive flavor vulnerable to extinction (either literal or from the marketplace). Groups like Slow Food USA, Heritage Foods USA, and others are working to preserve rare breeds. Slow Food USA has placed several pig varieties in their Ark of Taste, which seeks “to save an economic, social and cultural heritage - a universe of animal breeds, fruit and vegetables, cured meats, cheese, cereals, pastas, cakes and confectionery.” Heritage Foods USA tried a more dramatic publicity campaign last year, in which they brought two live Red Wattle Pigs on a tour around the United States (the Ethicurean wrote about the pigs’ visit to Oakland). This article in the San Jose Mercury News provides a good explanation of heritage pig breeds.

Ethanol is all over the news these days because it offers the promise of home-grown, renewable fuel for transportation as a gasoline replacement. At this time, corn is the main source of ethanol in the United States — and will be for some time until the cellulosic ethanol process becomes feasible. According to the UDSA’s Feed Grains Database Yearbook (Tables 4 and 31), the amount of corn used for fuel alcohol production has nearly tripled since 2001, to about 15% of the total supply.

Corn is also a major source of food in the U.S. (primarily as an animal feed) and thus diversion of the supply to ethanol production will affect food prices. A recent article by Jennifer Bjorhus, writing for the Pioneer Press in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, describes the “ripple effect” on food prices:

…food inflation is coming - anywhere from five months to a year or two out, economists and other food industry professionals say.

After all, corn, the country’s No. 1 crop, goes into thousands of household products ranging from the obvious - corn flakes and frozen niblets - to the not so obvious - peanut butter and a six pack of suds. The U.S. consumes so much Zea mays that “Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan calls us “processed corn, walking.”

It’s the meat aisle where U.S. consumers may feel corn’s biggest hit. Corn is the dominant ingredient in livestock feed. And feed forms about half the cost of raising beef cattle and more than half the cost of raising chickens. It’s a whopping 65 percent to 75 percent of the cost of raising hogs. (my emphasis)

Bjorhus continues:

Meat and poultry prices will likely rise 3.5 percent to 4 percent this year if corn remains at $4 a bushel, Wells Fargo agricultural economist Michael Swanson said in an interview. That’s lower than the 7.4 percent increase in 2004 on the “mad cow” scare, but higher than the 0.8 percent they edged up last year. It’s also higher than the official USDA forecast for meats, poultry and fish to rise 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent this year. The USDA, Swanson said, “is in a state of denial.”

[…]

[Cattle raisers are] adjusting, he said, by keeping cattle longer to fatten them and using other food, such as grazing them more on grass and experimenting with co-products of dry-mill ethanol production called distillers grain.

Unfortunately, distiller’s grain doesn’t work as well for chickens and hogs, so those farmers have fewer options to cope with corn’s rally.

“There’s almost no substitute for corn. Chickens like corn. They’re not going to eat tofu,” said National Chicken Council spokesman Richard Lobb in Washington, D.C. Experiments with wheat substitutes haven’t gone well, Lobb said. And too much fish meal gave the chickens an “off flavor.”

Indirect Effects

Production costs for meat are directly affected, but prices on other foods seemingly unrelated to corn might be indirectly affected, as Bjorhus explains:

“Not only is the rising price of corn raising the price of processed corn, it’s also raising the cost of other vegetables,” said Nickolas George, president of the Midwest Food Processors Association, a Madison, Wis.-based group whose members include Seneca Foods Corp. and Del Monte Corp. That’s because food processors, in the middle of setting the year’s contracts with farmers, are finding farmers mulling switching acreage to more profitable corn. As Seinfeld would say, they’ve got hand.

The run-up in corn prices could be another setback for local foods in corn country. For example, farmers who might have been considering growing vegetables, fruit, or grass-fed beef to sell to local markets (like schools and hospitals), might plant corn in the spring since it could be more of a “sure thing.”

Could the Ethanol Boom Make People Healthier?

Overconsumption of soft drinks has been implicated as a potential cause of the obesity epidemic. If drink prices rise, will consumption decrease? Probably not, because sweetener makes up a fraction of the cost of soft drinks. The Pioneer Press article cited above says that “The sweetener represents about 10 percent of the cost of goods sold in the U.S. for Coke and Pepsi’s main bottlers…” Assuming a two- or three-fold markup from raw materials to retail price, that means that the sweetener cost is less than five percent of the retail cost of a soft drink, something easily handled by a nickel retail price increase. How many people will say no to a large soda because of a nickel increase? Not many.
A (Small) Silver Lining for Some?

Reducing America’s corn exports might be a welcome change in Mexico, where small farmers are being crushed by the influx of subsidized corn (see this article by Michael Pollan, for example). This is not only a human issue, but a plant issue: whereas U.S. corn comes from a small number of hybrids and GM-hybrids, the corn grown in Mexico is much more biodiverse. Recently, the LA Times reported on some optimistic farmers in Mexico.

Non-farming Mexicans, however, are not so happy, as “[t]ortilla prices have soared more than 60% in some markets in recent weeks, sparking outrage from consumers and calls by some legislators to regulate the price of the main source of nutrition for Mexico’s poor.” (LA Times)

In some parts of the U.S., cotton is being pushed out in favor of corn (see for example, this article in the Southeast Farm Press), and so other winners might be cotton farmers in developing nations, who often see their crops made uncompetitive by highly-subsidized U.S. cotton (Oxfam has been pushing for reform for a while).

Cheap Fuel or Cheap Food?

When it comes to a choice between cheap meat and cheap fuel, fuel is probably going to win out. A few months ago I wrote about two studies of consumer responses to rising prices. One was for grapefruit, and the other for gasoline. A price increase of 1 percent for grapefruit resulted in a demand decrease of 1.5 percent. But 1 percent price increase for gasoline resulted in a demand decrease of between 0.034 and 0.077 percent — 30 times less than the change for grapefruit. It is a lot easier to make a slight change in one’s diet than to trade in the SUV for a smaller hybrid or remake the suburbs so that every single trip need not be made in a vehicle.

Photograph by John Vachon, from the Library of Congress Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection.