Gershoff Symposium, April 27

The 2018 Gershoff Symposium, on April 27, will feature 4 presentations:

• "Food Labeling Chaos" (Keynote). Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of Sustainability and Professor of Public Policy at George Washington University. Merrigan was Deputy Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama administration. She led a fascinating workshop on sustainability in dietary guidance in 2014, leading to a 2015 commentary in Science (whose co-authors included my Tufts colleague Tim Griffin and myself), which was part of the discussion and debate around sustainability issues in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 
• "Deal or No Deal, What Do You See in a Label?" John Bernard, Professor, Department of Applied Economics & Statistics, University of Delaware. John is an old friend from graduate school at Cornell. His recent research addresses fascinating topics in food labeling, including (a) one article in Food Policy anticipating what will type of mess will happen if cloned meat and dairy products enter the marketplace without labeling rules, and (b) another article in Food Quality & Preference with amusing results about how much more highly consumers rate the taste of equivalent food products when they are labeled organic compared to when they are not labeled.
• "State of the Evidence: Organic vs. Non-Organic." Qi Sun, Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
• "Creating a Sustainable Food System: What Matters and What Counts?" Amanda Beal, President and Chief Executive Officer, Maine Farmland Trust. Beal is a Tufts Friedman School alum and a great source of insight about local farming and fisheries in Maine.

A registration link and more information about this annual symposium, in honor of former dean Stanley Gershoff, are here.

Food policy in Brazil emphasizes enjoyment of meals and criticizes overprocessed foods

The Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) and the Nation have an in-depth article by Bridget Huber this week on national food policy in Brazil, led by Carlos Monteiro and colleagues. Dietary guidelines in Brazil bluntly criticize highly processed foods while simultaneously communicating a healthy enjoyment of food more generally.

Monteiro came to believe that nutritionists’ traditional focus on food groups and nutrients like fat, sugar, and protein had become obsolete. The more meaningful distinction, he started to argue, is in how the food is made. Monteiro is most concerned with the “ultraprocessed products”—those that are manufactured largely from industrial ingredients like palm oil, corn syrup, and artificial flavorings and typically replace foods that are eaten fresh or cooked. Even by traditional nutritionists’ criteria, these sorts of products are considered unhealthy—they tend to be high in fat, sugar, and salt. But Monteiro argues that ultraprocessed foods have other things in common: They encourage overeating, both because they are engineered by food scientists to induce cravings and because manufacturers spend lavishly on marketing.

This blog has previously discussed the way Brazilian dietary guidelines combine nutrition and sustainability issues, in a manner that is not done in the United States. I helped colleagues at George Washington University organize a conference on sustainability issues in dietary guidance in 2014, at which Monteiro was a speaker, and the Brazilian experience has influenced my sense of what might be possible in the United States.

Regarding enjoyment of healthy meals, Huber writes:

Pleasure is an essential part of the new guide, which frames cooking as a time to enjoy with family and friends, not a burden. And instead of sterile prescriptions for the number of grams of fat and fiber to eat each day, the guide focuses on meals. Sample meals were created by looking at the food habits of Brazilians who eat the lowest amount of ultraprocessed foods. One dinner option is a vegetable soup followed by a bowl of acai pulp with cassava flour, as one might eat in the Amazon region. Another plate, more typical of São Paulo, is spaghetti, chicken, and salad. If these seem like ordinary meals, that would be the point, one of the researchers said: They wanted to counteract the idea that a “healthy” diet is one full of unfamiliar and even unpleasant foods.

Friedman School Student Research Conference on "The Future of Food and Nutrition" (April 11)

The Friedman School's graduate student-organized research conference on "The Future of Food and Nutrition" will take place here in Boston on April 11 (registration here).

In addition to the excellent student research program, this annual event has particularly notable speakers this year. The topic is especially timely in light of the new Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report, which for the first time discussed sustainability issues along with nutrition issues.

I look forward to moderating the plenary discussion panel:

We are excited to announce that this year’s keynote speaker is Angie Tagtow, Executive Director of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion at USDA. Her talk is titled “Nutrition Policy at a Crossroads: Application and Evolution of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans”. We will also have a panel discussionfocused on sustainable diets and implications for dietary guidance in the US. Our panelists include Dr. Miriam Nelson (Member, 2015 DGAC), Dr. Andrew Rosenberg (Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of Concerned Scientists) and Julia Pon (Director, Double Value Coupon Program, Wholesome Wave).

USDA estimates that 31% of the food supply is lost and uneaten

A new report from USDA's Economic Research Service finds:

In the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten. The estimated value of this food loss was $161.6 billion using retail prices. For the first time, ERS estimated the calories associated with food loss: 141 trillion in 2010, or 1,249 calories per capita per day.

AGree position paper

The AGree agricultural policy initiative, which has been working for a couple years to bring together a diverse group of food policy stakeholders, recently began posting position papers to its website. 

For example, one position paper addresses policies to Increase Agricultural Productivity by Conserving and Enhancing Soil, Water, and Habitat.  In my view, the position paper reflects common-sense mainstream views about the need to protect the environment.  Yet, U.S. food policy has become sufficiently fractured, and some producer organizations are sufficiently concerned about regulatory overreach, that it requires some courage and compromise for AGree just to state these positions.

That productivity and conservation position paper includes several general principles plus a smaller number of policy planks for 2013:

AGree is deeply concerned about policy proposals actively being considered that would undermine rather than build on achievements to date. AGree supports the following currently threatened policies and programs, which are critical building blocks for long-term transformative change:

• Existing conservation requirements for farm program eligibility, which should be re-attached to federal subsidies for crop insurance premiums.* [Note from Parke: the footnote addresses special transitional issues for farmers who would be subject to these conservation requirements for the first time.]
• Investments in farm bill conservation programs; these programs should target durable environmental quality improvements across the landscape and leverage the investments of producers and other partners.
• Investments in the scientific, research, and extension infrastructure that support agriculture; indeed, strengthening this critical infrastructure will be necessary to successfully meet the challenges the U.S. faces over the long term.

I work on AGree's Research Committee, which provides research support services to the more important Advisory Committee.  The Advisory Committee oversees the policy positions.  AGree is funded by several major foundations.  Of course, AGree is not responsible for anything said on this blog, nor am I asked to endorse everything AGree does.  I will say that I think it is great to bring together such a group of stakeholders to talk and get to know each other, perhaps eventually overcoming some divisions and mistrust.  Such an effort could lead to policy recommendations worth listening to.

A concept for insurance company investment in community supported agriculture

Friedman School Ph.D. student Nicole Tichenor explains the concept of community supported agriculture (CSA) health insurance rebates on the Rodale Institute blog:

Here’s how it works: insurance policyholders read about member farms on the Coalition’s website, all of which are certified organic or have exempt status. They then contact a farmer directly to sign up and pay up front for the share, as with any traditional CSA. Finally, they fill out their respective health plan’s CSA rebate form (available online) and mail/fax it to the health plan with proof of payment and a copy of their sign-up form. A few weeks later, policyholders receive a reimbursement check for up to $100 for an individual contract or $200 for a family contract.

The FairShare partnership has been wildly successful.

Food-related environmentalism and flying

Many readers of this blog seek to make environmentally sustainable food choices.  Good choices include eating food with less meat, less processing, and less food packaging.  We can choose food sourced in season and closer to home.  We can waste less.

For some of us in first-world countries, the benefit of these choices is more than offset by the impact of frequent flying.

The book by Berners-Lee, How Bad Are Bananas?, which I discussed a couple months ago, gives the technical details on greenhouse gas estimates.  Buses and trains have vastly lower impact, and even automobile driving is much better so long as the vehicle carries multiple passengers.

In the New York Times recently, M. Sanjayan, the lead scientist for the Nature Conservancy, reflects very briefly on the paradox of environmentalists who frequently fly.  I see earlier commentaries in recent years by Anna Guyer (with an interesting comment thread) and others.  In 2006, George Monbiot wrote that we are all killers until we stop flying.  Still, basically, this question seems to be discussed quite rarely.

For those of us who fly frequently, we each offer reasons.  We tend to describe our motivation as "necessity" rather than "desire" to fly.  We must fly because of work.  We must fly so that children can know their grandparents.  But there surely is an awful pile of assumed privilege in these claims of necessity.  It is not just that most people in the world never fly; most people in the United States do not fly even once in any particular year.  The concept of flying as a necessity is confined to a small elite.

When I travel by train for business trips, I feel a higher quality of life.  Boston's South Station is walking distance from my office.  The homeland security apparatus is more humane.  The trains now have wi-fi and fairly good working conditions.  The views of the Connecticut shoreline, New York City, and the Susquehanna are striking.  An hour before the destination, one can shut down the laptop and go to the cafe car for a beer.

As I watch the news about climate change, replacing just one or two plane trips with alternative transportation modes does not seem sufficient.

Is it possible for an active university-based researcher not to fly?  Would colleagues think I had become unhinged?  I wonder, who is the highest-profile academic researcher in the United States who does not fly?  How does he or she do it?

I once went 15 months without flying for work.  In advance, when I told my colleagues over drinks at a conference reception what I planned to do, they laughed.  "Sure, let me be an environmentalist too and spend more time with my family!," one said.  Is it possible that millions of American professionals are squandering the environmental commons by packing ourselves like sardines into aluminum flying tubes, at great expense, with no welfare benefit? 

It would be ironic if we each fly joylessly out of obligation to other people who simultaneously flew joylessly in order to meet us.  Not just ironic, it seems insane.

Before deciding what to do about this, my family and I are spending some months discussing it with family and friends, including with relatives in distant places.  If you have any thoughts, or web links or reading suggestions, feel free to share.  There may be an update in a future post.

New Entry Sustainable Farming Project

Tufts University's New Entry Sustainable Farming Project was covered this week in the Boston Globe, which described the project's matchmaking service connecting new farmers to both mentors and tillable land.

New Entry uses GIS mapping data to screen for potential farm plots.

The map sets contain a long list of criteria to distinguish individual parcels. For example, New Entry can filter the parcels based on size, ownership, zoned usage, and the quality of the soil.

The system is so sophisticated it can pick out suburban homesteads with large patches of unused land, so New Entry was no longer limited to looking at obvious candidates, such as existing farms.

The screenings are used to narrow the farmland hunt to the best candidates to approach about allowing use their land.

Once New Entry identifies sites, it approaches agricultural officials in the towns involved to work with landowners interested in turning over property to farmers.

See the project's website for an inspiring array of resources and training programs for both farmers (including a special focus on small-scale immigrant farmers in Massachusetts) and consumers.

Upcoming event: Hack // Meat on Dec 7-9

During a period of time when food policy-making at the federal level seems nearly dysfunctional -- witness the continued absence of a farm bill! -- I have been reflecting on innovations in the private sector and in civil society.

Just for example, here is the announcement for an upcoming event in New York City:

Mark your calendar! From December 7 – 9, Food+Tech Connect, GRACE Communications and Applegate are bringing together technologists, entrepreneurs, creatives, policy experts, non-profit leaders and industry executives for Hack//Meat, the first-ever “meat hackathon” in New York City.

Over the course of the weekend, “steakholders” will work with teams to rapidly prototype innovative solutions to business and consumer education challenges in the way meat is produced, processed, distributed, sold and consumed. Our goal? We want to bring together the best and brightest minds to develop technologies and tools that help democratize meat. Some of the areas we will be tackling include:

Production: Develop tools to help small and medium sized ranchers more efficiently and sustainably manage their herds, process their meat and sell direct to consumers or wholesale buyers.

Health: Reimagine how technology can eliminate or minimize antibiotic use and improve animal health.

Processing: Design ways for processors to more easily demonstrate that they are complying with federal regulations, manage processing demand and access financing.

Distribution: Streamline the process of selling “non-choice” cuts of meat, and improve the efficiency and financial viability of getting meat from farm to buyer.

Foodservice: Make it easier and more affordable for restaurants and foodservice to source sustainable ingredients, as well as to manage supplier adherence to worker and animal welfare.

Consumption: Improve consumer insight research and education on the benefits of sustainable meat and nose-to-tail cooking.

Developers, designers, gamers, marketers, storytellers, academics, farmers, butchers, restaurateurs, policy experts and anyone who is in the business of meat is invited to participate. As always, you can be sure to expect great food, lots of learning and invaluable new connections. We also want to make sure teams are able to actualize your prototypes, so we’re offering cash prizes and consulting services to winning hacks.

Visit the Hack//Meat website to learn more about the event and for updates on additional prizes and judges. You can register for the event here.

Barry Estabrook's Tomatoland

Barry Estabrook's new book Tomatoland is getting great coverage.  The NYT review is by Dwight Garner, who grew up not far from the heart of the Florida tomato industry.  Here also is an NPR interview on Fresh Air.

From the publisher's site:

Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to the impoverished town of Immokalee, Florida, a.k.a. the tomato capital of the United States. He visits the laboratories of seedsmen trying to develop varieties that can withstand the rigors of agribusiness and still taste like a garden tomato, and then moves on to commercial growers who operate on tens of thousands of acres, and eventually to a hillside field in Pennsylvania, where he meets an obsessed farmer who produces delectable tomatoes for the nation’s top restaurants.

I described my visit to Immokalee in this blog in 2009.

Farming and fishing in collaboration

The work of recent Friedman School graduates Amanda Beal and Ellen Tyler is covered in an online Tufts Now article by Julie Flaherty.

What do farmers and fishermen dream about? A bumper crop of zucchini and calm seas? Perhaps. But both lose sleep over some of the same things: finding markets for their products,  transporting their goods cheaply, tapping into the local foods movement and protecting the  natural resources on which they both depend.

Although the two groups face similar challenges in keeping their businesses afloat, they rarely  compare notes. Two recent graduates in the Friedman School’s Agriculture, Food and  Environment Program, Amanda Beal, N11, and Ellen Tyler, N11, are trying to change that. With  a grant from the Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine, they organized a series of forums around  the state where farmers and fishermen could get together to talk and swap strategies.

“We’re looking for really creative solutions to help both groups,” Tyler says of the project, called By Land and By Sea. “So the more diverse perspectives we can pull in, the more innovative  strategies will emerge.”

Amanda Beal, N11, and Ellen Tyler, N11, organized a series of forums where farmers and fishermen could talk and swap strategies. Photo: Alonso Nichols

Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food

In a speech today on the UC Davis campus, Kathleen Merrigan gave a fascinating tour of USDA's bustling and diverse work on local food, healthy food, direct marketing, and rejuvenation of U.S. farming.  Some of this work is collected on the USDA website under the heading, Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food. 

Merrigan is the current Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and a former faculty colleague at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.

She has a true gift for talking about profound social and environmental principles in an accessible and persuasive way.  Although many farmers (and many agricultural economists) get nervous about overly fanatical locavorism, Merrigan is a sort of antidote for everything that divides us.  She makes a compellingly pro-farmer argument for local and sustainable food production.  At a time when many urbanites are suspicious of USDA, and sometimes even suspicious of the farming community, Merrigan makes both look good.  I hope farmers across the country get to hear her speak.

Merrigan's speech today was sponsored by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.  She presented the first Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award to a graduate student here.

Here are some links to things mentioned Merrigan's speech: 

• the National Restaurant Association's trends analysis, which focuses on local food,
• USDA's Food Desert Locator,
• USDA's Food Environment Atlas,
• the First Lady's Let's Move campaign.

NRDC Growing Green Awards

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) today announced its 2011 Growing Green Awards, in four categories. The awards went to:

Food Producer:  Jim Cochran, founder and co-owner of Swanton Berry Farm, started the first commercially successful organic strawberry operation in California and the first 100 percent unionized organic farm in the nation. Jim not only helped jumpstart the organic strawberry industry, but is also encouraging fair labor practices among sustainable growers.

Young Food Leader (new category):  Molly Rockamann, founder of the non-profit organization EarthDance Farms in Ferguson, MO, won for her efforts to cultivate a new generation of sustainable farming stewards in the Midwest. Through Molly’s unique apprenticeship program, urban St. Louis residents -- with ages spanning five decades -- learn the complete cycle of organic farming from seed to market.

Knowledge Leader: Chef Ann Cooper is an outstanding leader in the national movement to ensure that all children have access to nutritious food at school. Known as the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” Ann started the Food Family Farming Foundation, which provides schools with the tools and guidance they need to transition from over-processed meals to healthy, fresh ingredients on a limited budget. Ann’s day job is in the trenches of the Boulder Valley School District, where she is transforming lunch menus in the entire 48-school district, just as she has done before on the east and west coasts.

Business Leader: Pam Marrone is the CEO and founder of Marrone Bio Innovations, a leading developer of environmentally-responsible biopesticides based in Davis, California. MBI’s products use naturally occurring materials like plants and microorganisms to help growers control pests, maintain yields, and reduce risks to human health and the environment frequently associated with conventional pesticides. Having launched three successful companies to develop bio-based pesticide alternatives, Pam has created a strong business model in a rapidly growing industry.

From the NRDC's press release:

“With the double whammy of rising food demand and growing environmental challenges, we need a food system that can produce more while using fewer natural resources,” said Jonathan Kaplan, Senior Policy Specialist at NRDC. “These Growing Green Award winners are providing the leadership needed to make that happen. They inspire all of us.”

US dairy industry's "sustainability plan"

This week the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy announced a joint agreement to support a U.S. dairy industry goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% over 20 years. Unfortunately, the dairy industry's idea of sustainability through mitigation inhibits the real process changes needed to combat climate change and the creation of a truly sustainable food system.

The real way to combat climate change in dairy is by reducing dairy consumption (and therefore, production) and by producing dairy from cows raised on pasture, two things the industry is far from considering.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (ICUSD) was created in 2008 to foster industry-wide pre-competitive collaboration and innovation in strategies designed to increase sales of milk and milk products. One of the founding organizations of the ICUSD is Dairy Management Inc™, which manages the national dairy check-off program.

From an industry perspective, the "sustainability" focus is on CO2 emissions, largely in response to anticipated government regulation. Further, the approach is how to extract value and utilize opportunities to leverage demand. Much of the results from lifecycle analysis (LCA) conducted by land grant universities, show the largest reduction potential in the production phase of the dairy value-chain. Consequently, their strategy for sustainability is targeting nutrition management of cows (changing ratio of corn and protein feed) and the utilization of methane digesters to mitigate methane from manure lagoons.

Research presented on the Measurement of GHG Emissions from Dairy Farms at the Climate Change Research Conference by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Air Quality CE Specialist Animal Science at UC Davis, had some interesting findings:

• The main dairy GHG source is cows, rather than waste.
  
• The CO2 emissions from cow respiration cannot be mitigated without reducing herd size.
• The leading methane contributor is enteric fermentation from cows eating corn instead of their natural fodder, grass.
• The leading nitrous oxide contributor is land application of manure and fertilizer for growing feed (corn).
  
• Nitrous oxide has almost 15 times more the global warming potential as methane.

That scientific perspective, emphasizing smaller herd sizes and the value of grass, is overlooked in much industry communication. Industry communication instead boasts of past efficiency gains and promotes increased milk consumption for good nutrition.

The most cited piece of literature by industry dairy sustainability initiatives is from Dr. Jude Capper currently at Washington State University. “The Environmental Impact of Dairy Production: 1944 compared with 2007” published in The Journal of Animal Science found that the carbon footprint per billion kg of milk produced in 2007 was 37% of the equivalent milk production in 1944. It concludes:

"Contrary to the negative image often associated with “factory farms”, fulfilling the U.S. population’s requirement for dairy products while improving environmental stewardship can only be achieved by using modern agricultural techniques. The immediate challenge for the dairy industry is to actively communicate…the considerable potential for environmental mitigation yet to be gained through use of modern dairy production systems."

Jill Richardson at La Vida Locavore recently criticized Capper's research in her post "Junk Science Study Says Factory Farming is Better" for including Roger Cady, former Sustainability Lead Monsanto and now works for Elanco (the former and current owners of rBGH), on the team of researchers. Cady was criticized by Tom Phillpot at Grist for conflict of interest in research extolling the environmental benefits of rBGH.

Capper’s twitter name is “Lactolobbyist” and she describes herself as a “dairy scientist passionately spreading the word about reducing environmental impact through improved productive efficiency and use of biotechnology.”

The other most cited resource in the milk industry's sustainability literature is the USDA's 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommends consumption of 3 cups per day of fat-free or low-fat milk or equivalent milk products. According to Open Secrets, the dairy industry spent $3.3 million on federal lobbying in 2006, with Dean Foods, the National Milk Producers Federation and the Dairy Foods Association topping the list of spenders. The Dietary Guideline Advisory committee in 2005 was heavily criticized for its ties to dairy.

Ironically, the ICUSD primer reveals two important pillars of sustainable agriculture: the importance of place and scale:

“Today, in many states where climate is conducive, roughly 50% of producers use pastures to meet some fraction of their herds’ dietary needs. Of these producers roughly half practice continuous grazing which, compared to intensive grazing, is a less efficient method of providing forage and of sequestering carbon.”

They note: “generally this includes dairies in the Midwest, Southeast, and New England regions. although the amount of a herd’s dietary needs that can be met by pasturage varies by climate, management practices, and site-specific constraints.”

But, this discussion of pasturing and Midwestern production overlooks the dairy industry's real home base -- industrial production in California and other places with water shortages. According to the University of Minnesota Extension, California ranks #1 in the U.S. in total dairy cows (1.7 million cows on 2,030 dairies) and #1 in total milk production (21% of U.S. milk supply). The average herd size is 850 milking cows, with 46 percent of all dairies over 500 head.

These cows are not raised on pasture. They are raised on dairy freestall and drylot housing (concrete) in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley with 1,071,956 of their closest friends. Tulare County and five counties in the central valley account for 49% of the total milk production in California. Tulare County alone accounts for 25% of California’s total milk production and has an average herd size of 1,300 head.

And they drink a lot of water (in the desert) - 20-50 gallons a day and create a lot of waste - approximately 120 pounds, or 14.475 gallons of manure a day per cow.

Even with mitigation with methane digesters, the industry is off the mark towards sustainability. A real commitment comes from decreasing consumption of dairy and producing milk in the way it was intended, through cows on pasture. Seems like nature's own supply and demand curve. Until we have the dairy industry's commitment to these tenets, I am not convinced that sustainability in dairy is possible.

From the ICUSD site:

"Ideally the dairy industry will chart our own course in sustainability." -Jed Davis, Cabot Creamery

Gaining Ground Cookbook

The Gaining Ground community is excited about its new cookbook, which is already on its second printing run. My Friedman School colleague, Lisa Troy, president of the board for Gaining Ground, writes that the organization has been contacted for an entry to be included in the White House Cookbook for Children, featuring recipes using produce grown in the White House garden.

Gaining Ground is a not-for-profit 17-acre community farm in Concord, MA, which donates its produce to area food pantries and meal programs.

Kitchen Gardeners International

The non-profit group Kitchen Gardeners International has a video celebrating the success this year of the campaign to establish a White House garden, and looking forward to new projects promoting kitchen and yard gardening around the world.



Roger Doiron, a Tufts alum and founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, spoke at the Friedman School this past week.

Growing Green awards from NRDC

The Natural Resources Defense Council is taking nominations through December 4 for its second annual "Growing Green" awards program. See Jonathan Kaplan's blog for more information. There are four categories: food producer, business leader, thought leader, and water steward. There is a cash award for the food producer category and non-pecuniary praise for the other award recipients.

Truth in food?

The website "Truth in Food" has a commentary about farming, titled, "10 reasons why they hate you so." It caricatures the sustainable agriculture movement as being full of hate for farmers and includes the photograph below.

Here is my comment submitted to the site.

You can win an argument against haters any time. But, so much more of the criticism of modern industrial agriculture is thoughtful and worth reading. It is fair to ask how we can feed ourselves in a way that doesn't sacrifice the future for our children and grandchildren. You won't find hate in the writing of Michael Pollan or the movie Food, Inc. It makes me wonder if you are largely fighting just a straw dummy.

And that brings me to ask, where did you get the top photograph of the protester? The alt text says "top news photography." Is that posed or photoshopped? Who took the photograph and when?

You can win an argument against the boy with the sign in the picture. But I wonder if he is even real. In any case, he isn't representative of a movement.

Update: edited slightly 9/30, 1:45 p.m.

New Entry featured on NPR

The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (NESFP) was featured on NPR's Here and Now last week highlighting two farmers, one from Zimbabwe and the other from Cameroon, that have transitioned to their own farms. The segment is titled Pumpkin Greens Grow in Massachusetts.



NESFP's mission is to

"assist people with limited resources who have an interest in small-scale commercial agriculture, to begin farming in Massachusetts. The broader goals of New Entry are to support the vitality and sustainability of the region's agriculture, to build long term economic self-reliance and food security among participants and their communities, and to expand access to high-quality, culturally appropriate foods in underserved areas through production of locally-grown foods."

You can access their blog here.

Time Magazine on "America's Food Crisis"

Time Magazine today gives a polished and highly readable summary of contemporary issues in U.S. food policy, titled "America's Food Crisis."

The report by Bryan Walsh is strongly worded, and the choice of sources for commentary seems daring.

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans. Those hidden prices are the creeping erosion of our fertile farmland, cages for egg-laying chickens so packed that the birds can't even raise their wings and the scary rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria among farm animals. Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous. A series of recalls involving contaminated foods this year — including an outbreak of salmonella from tainted peanuts that killed at least eight people and sickened 600 — has consumers rightly worried about the safety of their meals. A food system — from seed to 7‑Eleven — that generates cheap, filling food at the literal expense of healthier produce is also a principal cause of America's obesity epidemic. At a time when the nation is close to a civil war over health-care reform, obesity adds $147 billion a year to our doctor bills. "The way we farm now is destructive of the soil, the environment and us," says Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Many readers will have seen most of the article's themes elsewhere already, but the major news magazine's writing style gives these themes some mainstream appeal without watering them down very much. The article addresses both personal choices (local buying decisions) and policy issues (nontherapeutic antibiotics). It includes both non-commercial responses (home gardening) and commercial responses (Niman Farms, Chipotle, Bon Appetit) to environmental and sustainability concerns. The accompanying multimedia is slick, including a nice photo essay about two farmers and the video below about organic vegetable gardening (you'll have to excuse the advertisement and the quirky references to "generation x" as a description for young people).