Farm Bill future in Senate is cloudy

Here is the report from Barbara Vauthier and Zy Weinberg's excellent newsletter Foodlinks America, which is available for free from the TEFAP Alliance.

Although Congress has begun working on a 2007 Farm Bill that will guide federal agriculture and food policy into the next decade, it is uncertain whether a final bill will be completed this year. The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill on July 27, 2007, but action has yet to be scheduled in the Senate.

Senate action will depend, in part, on whether Senate Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and/or Senate Budget Committee chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) can identify funds to offset the cost of desired improvements in conservation and nutrition programs. Harkin, who is committed to nutrition program expansion, recently said, “We can’t let this Farm Bill go through without a really strong nutrition title and have some of the gaps [in the Food Stamp Program] filled.”

Little progress is expected in revising commodity program payments, one of the more controversial aspects of the Farm Bill and a possible source of funds for new priorities. After the House essentially maintained the status quo on commodity payments, the momentum for change in the Senate began to fizzle. “Political expediency trumped moral responsibility in the House’s vote on the Farm Bill,” commented Reverend David Beckman, president of Bread for the World, a Christian lobbying organization in Washington, D.C. “In the end, the House made only cosmetic changes to the outdated commodity payment system. While obviously disappointing, the passage of the House’s version of the 2007 Farm Bill is by no means the end of the push for broad reform,” said Beckman.

Also potentially complicating the Farm Bill picture in the Senate are World Trade Organization (WTO) issues. The potential need to settle costly trade disputes through the Farm Bill may add financial pressures. It was reported on August 29, 2007 that agricultural trade talks under the WTO, stalemated for almost six years, may resume and move forward in early September. The WTO “could actually blow this whole thing up,” Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN), chair of the House Agriculture Committee has warned in reference to world trade and the Farm Bill. A reduction of up to $16 billion annually in “trade-distorting subsidies,” like commodity program payments, could be required of the U.S. in WTO rulings.

Consequently, Farm Bill outcomes in the Senate are currently anybody’s guess. “The Senate leadership can reclaim the moral high ground by giving priority to reform of farm commodity programs when they take up the bill in September,” noted Reverend Beckman, who remains optimistic change can occur. “Eventually, the flood of constituents calling for a fair Farm Bill will overwhelm the narrow interests of the select few.”

Menu labeling in California

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reported yesterday:

A bill that would require nutrition information on menus in chain restaurants in California cleared a key legislative hurdle today, passing in the state Assembly’s appropriations committee. SB 120, which passed the full state Senate in June, would require chain restaurants to list calories on menu boards and calories, saturated and trans fat, sodium, and carbohydrates on printed menus. Health advocates are urging passage of the bill when it comes before the full Assembly in early September.

“Californians, and indeed all Americans, deserve to know what they’re getting when they’re ordering food at chain restaurants,” said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. “A Double Whopper with Cheese has as many calories in Sacramento as it does in San Diego. Why not make that information available when people are making their decisions?”

CSPI recognizes that, to make the case for menu labeling, it must overcome concerns about feasibility, cost, and the sense that there would be too much mandatory information on the cluttered menu boards. Though that's a big challenge, their clever graphic artists continue to come out with more convincing photoshop examples of how it could be done well.

U.S. Food Policy TV (episode 1): the pleasures of home-made food and drink

U.S. Food Policy is experimenting with video. This post is really the second attempt at a video blog post (readers using RSS feeds, please forgive us).

Episode 1 is about the September Eat Local Challenge.

COOL complications

The Boston Globe reports on some of the complications of country-of-origin-labeling (COOL):

After years of delays, labels for a wider variety of foods -- including beef, lamb, pork, perishable agricultural products, and peanuts -- are set to become mandatory by September 2008. A bill passed by the US House of Representatives in early August is expected to be taken up by the Senate and signed by President Bush with few revisions. But despite the long-awaited regulations, plenty of food still will not carry country labels.

Consider poultry. Because opponents of the legislation were so strongly against requiring country labels and so little imported poultry is sold in the United States, legislators exempted it to avoid jeopardizing the bill, said a staffer at the US House Agriculture Committee.

Then there are the labeling law's quirks. For example, jalapeno peppers sold fresh will have to be labeled. But if they're sold frozen as "poppers" -- wrapped in a jacket of breading with cream cheese filling -- they will be exempt.

And a laundry list of countries are likely to grace various hamburger labels, owing to the multitude of countries that send beef here for processing. But if that same beef is used as an ingredient in a Marie Callender's frozen dinner, for instance, the dinner's maker -- ConAgra Foods -- will not be required to note the country of origin.

Opponents have seized upon what they call the arbitrary nature of the legislation. Why pigs and not poultry? Why green peanuts but not peanut butter?

Unfortunately, mandatory COOL is an example of a task that is difficult for government agencies, and which might be better addressed with market tools. Economists tend to think that, if consumers really want to know about country of origin, an entrepreneur whose product comes from a preferred country (U.S., for example, or New Zealand) will probably find a profit-making opportunity to provide that information voluntarily. Once some sellers provide this information, consumers will catch on that meat without labels probably comes from a less-preferred country.

At present, the economist's view in its purest form would be naive. There is strong survey evidence of consumer desire for country information, and yet insufficient voluntary labeling. Perhaps the best role for the government would be to break down some of the existing institutional barriers to better flow of country-of-origin information. Some of these barriers may be generated by meat industry trade associations. Perhaps some public funding for tools and systems to provide food brands with information about the country of origins used by their suppliers would be a better option than putting government agencies in the position of making difficult decisions about exactly which products should or should not be subject to mandatory COOL.

I point out the possible shortcomings of mandatory COOL with some hesitation. It is tempting to bite my toungue on grounds that anything the American Meat Institute hates must have some merit. The main impact of mandatory COOL, even if it were bad policy, would be to raise the costs of meat slightly and increase consumer awareness that some of their meat comes from unsafe sources. The consequences of doubtful policy on this issue might be better nutrition. But that's faint praise for mandatory COOL.

Peter Jennings report on obesity in America

YouTube has Peter Jennings' report in 2004 or so about obesity in America. It differs from most mainstream reports by portraying more starkly the role of government policy and food industry marketing.

Consider this exchange between Jennings and a marketing guy (who wasn't clearly identified that I could see).

Jennings: When you're putting together an advertising campaign, do you care whether the product is healthy or not?

Response: I care that the product has a positive role in a child's life.

Jennings: But you know what's less healthy. You know where asparagus and soda pop line up.

Response: You are absolutely correct that I am not going to get the same return on investment for a client advertising asparagus and spinach to a kid as advertising some of the so-called less healthy products to a kid. Guilty as charged.

In a sense, one has to be sympathetic to the marketing guy. His advertisements are entertaining, and the products do bring a certain joy to a child. His client does expect a profit from its investment in advertising.

There is no point in blaming an entrepreneur for seeking a profit. But, realistically, we should lower our hopes that public-private partnerships can address the problem of obesity in a constructive way. Two more promising avenues for constructive change are better public policy and a cultural change among parents and other caring adults, as they come to see more clearly what a vigorous defense they must mount if they hope to influence their children's food choices in this marketing environment.

[See Marion Nestle's blog post about this show.]

[p.s. I had to fiddle with the template to get YouTube to fit, which was something I wanted to do anyway for other future uses. Please comment if this causes any errors in formatting in your browser.]

CARE declines to accept millions of dollars in U.S. food aid

You can tell U.S. food aid policy needs reform when it comes to this (on the front page of the New York Times last week):

CARE, one of the world’s biggest charities, is walking away from some $45 million a year in federal financing, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but also may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.

CARE’s decision is focused on the practice of selling tons of often heavily subsidized American farm products in African countries that in some cases, it says, compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.

The charity says it will phase out its use of the practice by 2009. But it has already deeply divided the world of food aid and has spurred growing criticism of the practice as Congress considers a new farm bill.

NYT reporter Celia Dugger has been on the trail of this story for many months. Last week's article quotes Daniel Maxwell, formerly of CARE and now at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts, who co-authored an important book on food aid with Chris Barrett in 2005 and has continued to write on the topic.

Ultimately, CARE’s decision to phase out such sales evolved from a senior manager’s change of heart. Daniel G. Maxwell, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, was a food security adviser for CARE in Nairobi who saw sales of American food as an imperfect, but useful way to raise money.

He knew firsthand, however, how risky it was to manage projects financed in fluctuating commodities markets. When prices sank, CARE had too little money and was sometimes forced to lay off workers. Mr. Maxwell said he also strongly suspected that buyers had offered too little for the farm goods, knowing they were dealing with aid workers who were novices in commodities trading.

Food aid gets a free ride, politically, because of a "halo effect." How could a gift of food be a bad thing? But some poor farmers around the world don't want our gifts. They want to earn a fair price selling us their products. And even non-farmers in poor communities around the world may be harmed by food aid in some circumstances. In food aid's favor, one must consider the depth and urgency of the need for assistance; on the other side of the ledger, one must consider that food aid may suppress demand for local farm production, and the local production may increase demand for the goods and services of other local families even if they are not farmers.

Here is more information about CARE.

[Updated slightly, following a conversation with colleagues here, to narrow the critique of food aid in general.]

NIEHS director steps aside temporarily

Dr. David Schwartz, the director of the federal government's institute overseeing environmental health issues, is stepping aside temporarily while senior officials review his embattled program, according to an Associated Press report (via Guardian Unlimited).

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), addresses environmental toxins and their health consequences. The public health blog Effect Measure covers the controversy in full, including Schwartz's recent letter to staff announcing his stepping aside, an earlier controversy over his effort to outsource the institute's flagship journal Environmental Health Perspectives, Congressional inquiries into Schwartz's initiatives, and his effort to address conflict-of-interest rules he perceived as unwise and personally disadvantageous.