In High Schools, a Critical Lens on Food

By HANNAH WALLACE

Published: October 26, 2011

A commercial for McDonald’s fish sandwiches played in a classroom at Park Slope Collegiate one day last month as part

of a class called the Science of Food. It was clear that many students had seen the ad several sang along with the jingle
but this was the first time they had been asked to critique it.

“Who is the target audience for this ad?” asked their teacher, Joni Tonda.
“Us!” yelled the 23 students, practically in unison.
Through the class, which is part of a new program being taught at 15 city high schools, students are becoming aware that they are part of a lucrative demographic, and they are learning how companies target them.
Media literacy is only one part of Ms. Tonda’s lesson plan, which is based on a curriculum developed by a nonprofit group, FoodFight. The group’s founders, Carolyn Cohen and Deborah Lewison-Grant, two former public school teachers, set out to change the way adolescents think about food. By one estimate, 35 percent of adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese.
Though there have been several recent attempts to improve school food and to plant edible gardens at public schools — Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign among them — those efforts have largely been focused on elementary and junior high schools.
“High school students have been ignored in this conversation about the obesity epidemic,” Ms. Cohen said. “It’s a serious health crisis.”
The lesson plan blends media literacy, politics, nutrition and cooking. Students learn how to evaluate food labels, to prepare nutritious and affordable meals, and to identify the political and economic forces that shape their diet. Some will visit urban farms, food co-ops and a 400-acre farm upstate.
Sarah Katz, one of the first teachers trained in the program, in August 2010, said the curriculum appealed to her because of its interdisciplinary nature and because it was not preachy.
“Telling kids what they should and shouldn’t eat is not really effective,” said Ms. Katz, who taught a class called Food for Thought at Essex Street Academy last spring. “Teenagers don’t do things because adults tell them to. They need to care and have enough information to make their own choices.”
A FoodFight course begins with a critical look at marketing campaigns. Some students react with outrage. “Kids don’t like to be played by corporations,” Ms. Katz said. “They want to make their own choices.”
At another point, the class discusses why some neighborhoods lack access to healthy, affordable food, an issue that resonates with students because many FoodFight classes are taught in poor neighborhoods.
Students keep a food journal and learn how lobbyists try to influence federal dietary recommendations.
In the lesson about advertising at Park Slope Collegiate, Ms. Tonda organized her students into small groups and asked them to create a slogan for a real or imagined food product. Three boys in the back of the class designed an energy bar called Pro-Fit. “It’s more than protein; it’s Pro-Fit!” their slogan read.
Takiyah Newton, a senior, said, “I signed up for the class because I wanted to learn about the food we eat, and society and stuff.” A highlight, she said, was “learning about these companies and how they’re tricking us.”
Ms. Tonda said she had seen some changes in students’ behavior. After a lesson about the consequences of consuming too much sugar, Ms. Newton switched from McDonald’s sweetened iced tea to a no-calorie drink, Ms. Tonda said, and now brings bottled water to class. Another student, affected by the images of a crowded chicken farm in the documentary “Food Inc.,” has asked her mother to stop buying meat from industrial producers.
Ms. Katz, at Essex Street Academy, was skeptical at first that her students would alter their diets. But when she quizzed parents, it became clear that habits were changing. One student said he had cut out sugar-sweetened beverages. “His mom said, ‘So that’s why they’re still sitting there in the fridge!’ ” Ms. Katz said.
Before Brandon Rosales took the class last year, he drank a lot of soda and never thought about portion sizes. “I would skip breakfast, eat a light lunch and then stuff myself at dinner,” said Mr. Rosales, who acknowledged that he was overweight.
After his food journal revealed the unhealthy pattern, he began replacing juice and soda with water, he said, and started eating smaller meals. Since he took the class, he said, he has lost 10 pounds, and he continues to maintain the journal.
“Now my food journal looks clean,” he said. “My meals are good; I drink water. It’s like a healthy person’s journal.” His family history provides some motivation. “I have a family full of diabetics,” he said. “I want to live a happy life not having to put insulin in like my grandmas do.”

Discussion Questions:

1. The article points out that there has been less focus on high schools in the push to make school lunch programs more nutritious. Why do you think this is? Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's more difficult to change existing eating habits than it is to start kids eating  healthy at an early age?

2. The FoodFight courses seem to offer students a well rounded view of our food system. One of the things they focus on is media literacy. Their discussions appear to focus on the advertising of unhealthy foods, but how does talk about marketing strategy relate to discussions we've had in class about certified organic as well as fair trade labeled foods? 

Food Safety is a Shared Responsibility

Logan Hawkes

Oct. 26, 2011 7:54pm

Recent outbreaks of Listeria in Colorado cantaloupes and salmonella contamination of eggs and lettuce in California and the Midwest are fueling the fires of controversy that have many asking about the safety of U.S. food products.

Add to that the growing number of Latin American imports of fruits and vegetables and widespread media coverage of food safety issues internationally, and it makes for an escalating crisis that has consumers, growers, packers and distributors on the same page when it comes identifying and correcting weak links in the U.S. food safety system.

But a close examination of recent food contamination reports may bring to light a more sobering conclusion. It appears that regardless how diligent and careful the food industry may strive to be, and in spite of new food safety regulations imposed by the FDA through the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), contamination of food products is an issue that refuses to go away.

“For one thing, the lofty goals of the FSMA may be for the good of all, but the law was created without any budget to support it,” says John McClung, President of the Texas Produce Association. “What good is a law or regulation that can’t be enforced?”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law by President Obama on January 4th, 2011. It aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus of federal regulators from contamination response to one of prevention at the industry level. But critics like McClung argue food safety and contamination issues go beyond the farm and processing plant and require understanding and compliance all the way from the farm to the consumer’s kitchen.

“Nearly a third of all food borne illness is caused by the consumer. They way food is handled and stored and washed and the way it is prepared or underprepared plays a major role in food safety, and while the food production industry must be responsible in minimizing the chance of contamination, the responsibility can not stop there,” McClung says.

He is quick to point out that the food industry plays a major role in preventing food contamination and must continue to be interactive in control and management. He says farmers and processing plants invest millions each year to acquire and implement the latest in new technologies and procedures designed to reduce infection and contamination. But he warns that is not enough. And with the introduction and regularity of imported foods in the U.S. market, the challenge of preventing contamination and disease is increasing.

USDA-ARS scientist Robert Mangan agrees. Mangan is an entomologist and coordinator of the Kika de la Garza Sub-Tropical Agricultural Research Center in Weslaco, Texas, located just a few miles from nine international bridges linking the United States and Mexico. Tons of agricultural products move between the two countries each day including vegetables from Mexico and cantaloupes from Central America. Mangan is considered one of the leading experts on food imports from Mexico and Central and South America.

“It’s a misconception to assume that fruits and vegetables imported from Latin America are less safe than domestic varieties. In truth, licensing and permits for Mexican produce plants are the same as they are in the United States. We are just as likely to find food borne contamination in domestic produce as we do in imported varieties,” Mangan said. “The majority of problems we are seeing relative to food safety include problems in storage facilities, in shipping and distribution networks, at retail outlets and in consumer homes. There is no one person or industry to blame.”

McClung says we may be hearing more about food safety these days than ever before, but the problem has always existed. He contends there are fewer problems on the farm and in the packing houses than ever before because of better education and regulation. But he and Mangan agree that microbial infections in food are very common and widespread and are difficult to prevent.

“It’s a problem we can not escape and one in which we dare not lower our guard. But by-and-large industry is doing a much better job today than ever before,” McClung says.

Mangan warns consumers to be ever mindful of washing fruits and vegetables and cleaning up afterwards.

“A little Clorox and water will go a long way in greatly reducing problems like Listeria and salmonella. It’s something we need to keep in front of the consuming public as much as we do food producers and suppliers. Only then will we see improvement in the safety of our food,” Mangan adds.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think about the safety of the foods you buy even at times when there has not been recent media coverage of a food contamination outbreak? For example, would you think about the safety of buying cantaloupe if there had not been coverage about the Listeria outbreak?

2. What importance does food safety have compared to all the other problems surrounding food across the country (food insecurity, lack of nutrition, GMOs, etc.)? Keeping in mind that many diseases are difficult to prevent and food safety is better today than it has been in the past, should we keep spending more money on food safety regulations of farms and processing plants or should we focus our efforts on the other problems surrounding food?

Food and Politics

U.N. Humanitarian Chief Heads to North Korea to Assess 'Potentially Catastrophic' Food Shortage
Published October 20, 2011| Associated Press

WONSAN, North Korea – Scythe in hand, a woman slices through a bright green field of rice. Oxen plod down country roads pulling carts piled high with harvested stalks of grain.

This autumn, as farmers fan out into fields of corn, wheat, rice and cabbage, such evocative pastoral scenes -- the stuff of centuries-old Dutch landscape paintings -- also are a reminder of the challenges North Korea faces in feeding its people.

Primitive farming techniques, a lack of arable land in a rugged, mountainous country and the suspected diversion of food to military and ruling party elites have all contributed to widespread hunger in the country's poorest areas, aid groups say.

This year, summer floods, soaring global food prices and the continued reluctance of the U.S. and its allies to provide aid to a hostile and nuclear-armed country means millions of children and pregnant women are slowly starving, aid groups say. So this autumn harvest is being watched particularly closely, and already there are concerns that it won't be nearly enough to feed a nation that has struggled with food shortages for more than 15 years.

North Korea faces a "potentially catastrophic food situation," five charities warned the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development in a Sept. 26 letter obtained by The Associated Press, "with clear indications of acute malnutrition and slow starvation -- especially in children."

And a far greater crisis may unfold in six to nine months when stocks run low, said Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, Christian Friends of Korea and Global Resource Services after visiting three hard-hit provinces last month.

This week, the top U.N. official for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, is visiting hospitals, schools, orphanages, farms and a food distribution center around the industrial city of Hamhung, northeast of the capital, Pyongyang. "I'm particularly concerned over the reports that there's increasing malnutrition among children," she told AP in Pyongyang.

In the countryside near Wonsan, south of Hamhung, rice plants lie stacked in piles, corncobs dry on the tiles of traditional farm cottages. A woman cradles bundles of Napa cabbage, which will be used to make kimchi, the spicy staple of Korea.

But pull back the husks and you find the corn is stunted, the kernels shriveled. The potatoes are tiny, the greens meager -- the result of the floods that engulfed the region's southern breadbasket.

"You may see a whole field of green rice plants swaying in the breeze -- which we saw a lot of -- but the rains knocked down a lot of the pollination needed at critical times," said Jim White of Mercy Corps. "The rice never properly matured."

It's a humanitarian crisis that threatens to physically and intellectually stunt entire generations of North Koreans subsisting, at times, on just one potato or a fistful of cornmeal a day, aid workers say. Already, a third of North Korean children younger than 5 are chronically malnourished or stunted, according to the World Food Program.

"The child's brain needs protein," said White, who was part of the September group that traveled North Korea. "They need fat. They can't just grow on starches."

He described visiting pediatric wards in the city of Haeju filled with sick, starving children. They lay listless on blankets on the floor, bones protuding from skinny arms, legs jutting out from baggy sweatclothes, lacerations on their discolored, sallow faces. One bout of diarrhea would be enough to kill a child already weakened from years of malnutrition, he said.

"I'm sure there are kids there who are dead now," he said. "They were pretty far gone."

In April, the U.N. appealed to its member nations for $218 million in food aid for North Korea. Six months later, donor nations have coughed up less than a third of that amount, and the question of whether to help feed the North Koreans remains mired in political calculations by governments cautious about offering help to a regime with a history of defiance.

Washington approved $900,000 in emergency flood aid, mostly tents and plastic sheeting, in August. But the Obama administration is still mulling whether to offer food aid, even after sending officials to North Korea to assess the food situation four months ago following a direct plea from Pyongyang in January.

The North Koreans raised the issue of food aid at nuclear talks with the U.S. in New York in July, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, and a new round of U.S.-North Korea talks on disarmanent is set to take place next week in Geneva.

The U.S. reluctance to commit to more food aid reflects a familiar dilemma for Washington: whether to help North Korea when its own officials plow scant national resources into developing atomic weapons and ballistic missiles.

Providing aid also risks alienating U.S. ally South Korea, whose president has linked aid to nuclear disarmament and has all but stopped aid and money to Pyongyang following the sinking of a South Korean warship last year that killed 46 sailors.

Michael Green, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank and an ex-Asia adviser to former President George W. Bush, says the food and nuclear issues should be separate.

"If you don't get satisfaction on the nuclear deal and you don't give food aid, what you're at least implicitly doing is suggesting that the North Korean people should not get food because of the regime's stance on nuclear issues," he said.

Amos sad she hopes to be able to reassure donors that funding for the U.N. appeal will make it to the hungry and not to the plates of the political and military elite. North Korean officials have expressed a willingness to allow rigorous monitoring of aid distribution, White said.

The issue of food aid to North Korea is not new: The nation built on a philosophy of self-reliance was forced to accept outside help during a famine in the mid-1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and to this day grudgingly relies on aid to feed up to a quarter of its population of 24 million.

But the latest crisis comes at a delicate time for Pyongyang.

Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of late President Kim Il Sung, a landmark milestone seen as a key occasion to rally national pride and unity. At the same time, current leader Kim Jong Il is grooming his young son Kim Jong Un to eventually succeed him as ruler.

One of Kim Il Sung's most famous creeds was to ensure that his people eat "rice and meat soup," and filling bellies is one way to ensure loyalty.

Current government policy calls for building up the economy, including modernizing farms. But even North Korea's impressive new showcase farms aren't producing enough to make up for the damage from the harsh winter cold and summer flooding.

In March, the WFP warned that North Korea's publicly distributed rations would run out by July. While that didn't happen, U.N. workers in Pyongyang say rations were reduced to less than 200 grams a day.

Those with cash, especially in Pyongyang, can supplement government-provided rations with meat, fruit and vegetables. Farmers also share their own harvest with relatives in the cities.

But here in the country, and in many of North Korea's poorer small cities, people have neither the cash nor the access to protein, produce or gardens.

Yet these country roads, lined with stone monuments emblazoned with the words for "self-reliance" and "military first," bustle with people hauling corn and rice balanced on their heads, strapped to their bicycles or packed into wooden V-frames. Red flags flutter in the fields to signify that the harvest is under way. Billboards exhort the farmers to work hard and bring in a good harvest.

"Let's carry out the Great President Kim Il Sung's orders thoroughly!" says one.

"Let's build a strong and prosperous nation our way!"

Discussion Questions:

1) How much should politics factor into whether or not food is supplied to a starving people? Why?

2) The article states that "One of Kim II Sung's most famous creeds was to ensure that his people eat "rice and meat soup," and filling bellies is one way to ensure loyalty." How do other governments use food systems to manipulate their people? How can this issue be addressed? Should it be addressed?

University Of Georgia Students Open Food Pantry

This is the transcript for the story, it can be listened to here:

MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel.

The unemployment rate is stubbornly high across the country. New census data shows that young people, those under 24, are facing some of the highest poverty rates and that has led to a rise of food pantries on college campuses.

NPR's Kathy Lohr reports on one effort at the University of Georgia.

KATHY LOHR: Colleges bring to mind images of ivy-covered halls and wealthy students. But that's not necessarily the case. Food pantries are becoming more common on campuses as the effects of the recession drag on.

MEGAN JANASIEWICZ: I think there's definitely more of a need than people actually would think.

LOHR: Megan Janasiewicz helps manage the newly opened food pantry at the University of Georgia started by students. In the first few weeks, more than 200, both graduate and undergraduate, students have visited the pantry looking for staples.

JANASIEWICZ: We do recognize that there are students in our community that are putting down a lot of money and taking out major student loans in this economy and aren't able to rely on their parents because they've either lost a job or just, you know, the parents aren't able to write those checks and they live paycheck-to-paycheck just as much as the students do.

LOHR: Lucio Benzor from Fayetteville, Georgia searches the shelves of the small closet that's become the food pantry in a building across from the student union. It's stocked with chicken soup, cans of tuna, peanut butter and lots of ramen noodles. Benzor says his parents, who owned a small accounting business, are struggling.

LUCIO BENZOR: We're going through bankruptcy right now, so that's a thing, too. So money has been tight.

LOHR: Benzor's shy and says he doesn't want to take too much, but he says he needs the help because of the economy.

BENZOR: It's the fact that my parents and indirectly me - well, directly me just because the Board of Regents has had to raise tuition and institute fees and then - yeah. I've have less to work with. It's frustration.

LOHR: Benzor is paying for college with grants, student loans and he's got a part-time job. He says he'd work more, but he can't get more hours at his work study job.

Travis Lubin also stopped by.

TRAVIS LUBIN: I've got a couple of cans of tuna in here. I've got some cereal, some mashed potatoes, pudding and then just like some crackers and bars and things.

LOHR: Twenty-two-year-old Lubin is a foreign language major with a scholarship that pays most of his tuition. He says he pays for all his expenses - rent, utilities and food.

LUBIN: In this time, just obviously where money is just a lot tighter and people are becoming a lot more mindful of that. It's a really useful thing that people can have where it's just this aid where, you know, again, something simple like just some ramen and some soup can really just go a long way, you know, just to help out.

LOHR: At the University of Georgia, students don't have to meet any economic guidelines to use the pantry. The only requirement is that they show a student ID and sign a waiver. It turns out the shaky economy has caused more universities to open pantries like this, many started by students for students. There are a couple at Florida schools, Iowa State, the University of Arkansas and Wisconsin opened their versions earlier this year.

Nate Smith-Tyge is director of the Michigan State University food bank that's been around since the 1990s.

NATE SMITH-TYGE: There are the sort of economic difficulties that have faced our state for a little bit longer than they've faced the nations. There is clearly need, especially food need, out there and we have the opportunity to help meet some of that need and so that people can focus on staying in school full time and taking care of their family.

LOHR: Smith-Tyge says the Michigan State pantry will likely serve more than 4,500 students this year. According to the latest U.S. Census information, poverty among children and among 18 to 24 year olds has skyrocketed over the past decade. Nearly 22 percent of all young adults have incomes below the poverty level.

Jim Weill is head of the Washington, D.C. based Food Research and Action Center.

JIM WEILL: Whether they're in the job market full time as high school graduates or recent college graduates or part time because they're students, the situation has gotten a lot worse for 18- to 24-year-olds.

LOHR: Food banks, both on and off campuses, are helping, but labor analysts suggest it's going to take more jobs and higher paying jobs to turn things around.

Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Atlanta.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you feel that student poverty is a problem at UGA? If so, do you think this pantry can help to curb hunger issues? What do you think the benefits and repercussions of having this food bank are?

2. As more and more people face hunger issues each day, what are some programs you would like to see at the University to address these issues? Do you think it is the University's responsibility to make sure it's students aren't going hungry, why or why not?

Deep Thinking About the Future of Food

October 12, 2011, 1:40 PM
By JUSTIN GILLIS

Josh Haner/The New York TimesA variety of drought-stressed wheat grown by researchers near Obregón, Mexico.

The environmental crowd is worried mainly about the ecological damage from agriculture and is prone to recommend solutions that farmers say would undercut the food supply. Traditional agronomists are mainly worried about supply — and tend at times to recommend fixes that might worsen the environmental damage.

Trying to tap into the best thinking about the future of global agriculture, as I have tried to do in my work as a reporter, can be an exercise in frustration. Many groups and many bright people go at the problem, but not many of them go at it in a holistic way.

A separate crowd is primarily worried about the inequities in the global food system: that a billion people at the top end are killing themselves eating overly rich diets while a billion poor people live desperate lives circumscribed by malnutrition.

Can’t we figure out how to fix all this at once?

It’s a tall order, but a heartening development in global agricultural policy is that some people are starting to try. Now comes an interesting new installment in the literature of the Big Fix. It’s an analysis by an international team of scientists led by Jonathan A. Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

Their paper, “Solutions for a Cultivated Planet,” was released online and is scheduled as the cover article of the Oct. 20 issue of the journal Nature. Dr. Foley is also publishing a piece in the November issue of Scientific American, due on newsstands next week, that summarizes the team’s analysis in layman’s terms.

The group finds, as others have before them, that the challenge of doubling global food production in coming decades can probably be met, albeit with considerable difficulty. The interesting thing to me about the analysis is that it doesn’t treat any of the problems confronting the food system as superior to the others — it treats the environmental problem, the supply problem and the equity problem as equally important, laying out a case that they all need to be tackled at once.

“Feeding nine billion people in a truly sustainable way will be one of the greatest challenges our civilization has ever faced,” Dr. Foley says in the Scientific American article, referring to the projected global population at midcentury. (He outlines some of the links between environmental problems and agriculture in this talk, and his group produced a popular animated clip that gives a sense of the scale of the problems here.)

Many elements of the new paper will be familiar to readers who follow these issues. Yet it is interesting to see these building blocks of a smarter food system spelled out in one paper, with hard numbers attached.

For starters, the group argues that the conversion of forests and grasslands to agricultural use needs to stop now; the environmental damage we are doing chopping down the Amazon far exceeds the small gain in food production, it says.

Next, the paper contends that increases in food supply need to come from existing farmland by a process of intensified production in regions where yields are low: northeastern India, Eastern Europe, parts of South America and large parts of Africa being good examples.

If yields in these regions could be brought to within 75 percent of their known potential using modern farming methods, including fertilizer and irrigation, total global supply of major foodstuffs would expand by 28 percent, the paper found. If yields were brought to 95 percent of their potential, close to those achieved in rich countries, the supply increase would be a whopping 58 percent.

The paper does not say so, but I suspect that either development would be enough to reverse the soaring food prices of recent years.

Another important strategy laid out in the paper is to improve the efficiency of agriculture in places where yields are already high. If farmers in Africa need more fertilizer, farmers in the United States need less.

The paper essentially argues that high yields can be attained with fewer chemicals and less water, which would not only cut pollution but in some cases also cut costs for farmers.

And finally, the paper argues that more of the food we grow needs to wind up on people’s plates. That means cutting food waste, not just the kind so common in Western kitchens but also the tremendous post-harvest losses caused by bad storage conditions in poor countries.

And it means a shift in diets away from meat and dairy products, which are inefficient to produce, and toward plants. The paper acknowledges that a massive transition to vegetarianism is unlikely but argues that even incremental changes — getting many people to move from less-efficient beef to more-efficient chicken, for instance — would make a difference.

The paper studiously avoids taking sides in the ideological wars over the food system. It does not adopt the left-leaning argument that organic production is the answer to the world’s food issues, nor the rightward view that markets will solve all problems.

It does argue for pulling as many good ideas as possible from emerging food movements into the conventional system — but only if they serve the three goals of increasing supply, reducing environmental damage and improving food security.

As a scientific report, not a policy document, the Foley paper does not offer any big new proposals for how to make all these things happen. Many commentators who have studied these issues have come to the conclusion that the barriers are not primarily technical but involve a lack of political will to solve the problems, leading to low public investment in agriculture.

In his Scientific American article, Dr. Foley does make one intriguing proposal. Pointing to the certification system that has encouraged the construction of green buildings, he asks: what about a new certification system for sustainably produced food?

Instead of catering to a single ideological predilection, the way the organic label does now, the new label would be based on a system that awards points for public benefits and subtracts them for environmental harm. Foods produced according to the best practices would get the highest scores, or possibly the highest letter grades. If consumers adopted it, such a certification would put pressure on companies and farmers to clean up their practices.

“This certification would help us get beyond current food labels such as ‘local’ and ‘organic,’ which do not tell us much about what we are eating,” Dr. Foley writes in Scientific American.

I can only imagine the ideological battles that will erupt if this idea is taken seriously. Yet some of the needed elements are already falling into place, like attempts in Europe to measure the carbon footprint of various foods.

If scientists with no axes to grind could manage to keep control of the certification system, using it as a vehicle to apply stringent performance criteria to farming systems while turning the label into a global brand, the world might have a powerful new tool for improving the food supply — and the health of the planet.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/deep-thinking-about-the-future-of-food/?scp=3&sq=food&st=cse

Discussion Questions:

1)  Can environmental sustainability coexist with economic sustainability in today's realm of agricultural production? 

2)  With the world population rising to 7 billion this week, do you think that this immense number of people can be fed solely by foods produced in a sustainable manner? Concerning globalization, other countries have begun to mimic the consumption patterns of Americans by increasing the amount of meat that they eat - could the adoption of a vegetarian diet be a viable solution to world hunger and environmental stability?

What if Georgians Ate Georgian Produce?

What if Georgians Ate Georgian Produce?

Published by Georgia Organics (www.georgiaorganics.org)

$10 a week per household = $1.9 billion for state

 

Imagine a Georgia where an army of family farms grow mountains of fresh, seasonal vegetables and fruits, practically year round.

 

Now imagine that every single household in the state prepared at least one meal from that local produce once a week.

 

It’s the kind of daydream that drives farmers, and conscientious consumers to wonder, “What if …”

 

For the first time, we can begin to paint a picture of what that scenario would look like, thanks to a new study conducted by the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, and funded by Georgia Organics.

 

“The Local Food Impact: What if Georgians Ate Georgia Produce?” explores the potential economic impact of Georgia consumers purchasing more locally grown food products.

The study reports that, if each of the approximately 3.7 million households in the state devoted $10 per week to locally grown products from Georgia, it would add more than $1.9 billion back into the state’s economy.

 

The results of the study are one of the strongest demonstrations so far of what a small change in consumer behavior could mean for farmers, and for entire state.

 

There are many other incredible findings as well. The study reviewed all the agricultural products raised, grown, and sold in Georgia (called the state’s Farm Gate Value and found that produce is a measly 9 percent, while poultry comprises nearly half of the state’s agriculture output.)

 

 

The study also found that Georgians eat less than the national average of locally grown food. The study’s authors generated scenarios that approximate what agriculture production would be like if Georgians consumed the national average of locally grown food. Currently, direct farmer to consumer sales contribute 132 jobs, $4.5 million in labor income, and $14.4 million in sales.

 

If Georgia vegetable, melon, fruit, and nut farms increased direct farm-to-consumer produce sales to the national average level, the result would be an overall statewide contribution of 228 jobs, $8.1 million in labor income, and $25.8 million in sales.

 

The authors also analyzed the potential of individual crops as well. For example, the average Georgian eats about 30 pounds of fresh lettuce per year, yet the state grows less than 245,000 pounds per year – far below the amount of lettuce Georgians consume.

 

“I want to start a lettuce campaign,” “We eat more than 285 million pounds of lettuce and right now we are only growing less than one-tenth of one percent of that. That gap is enormous, and we are talking about huge economic gains for the state.”

 

If all of the lettuce consumed by Georgians were produced and sold in the state, it would mean an additional $83.6 million of direct revenue for farmers. Likewise, if all of the carrots consumed by Georgians were produced and sold within the state, there could be an additional $12.8 million in direct revenue or sales.

 

In all, when considering the other crops Georgia produces, the state is losing out on more than $780 million.
“The climate is in our favor. We can grow these crops well and we can grow them year round,” says Alice Rolls, Georgia Organics executive director. “We should be looking at data like this to make strategic decisions about what we plant here. And, we need to think beyond farmers markets. We have to create networks and build distribution systems that close these gaps.

 

“We’re a big agricultural state and small farms are the ones that could take advantage of the direct to consumer market. But we don’t have that model anymore. The get big or get out mentality has driven us towards large mono-cropping, which is mostly commodity crops – not the fresh fruits and vegetables that we purchase from our local grocers. Also, our reliance on fossil-fuel inputs allowed farms to get so big that they stopped growing real food. Food products are so cheap now that Americans are addicted to a diet based on non-food.”

 

For the purposes of this study, locally-grown implies only that the product is grown and sold within the state of Georgia. Further, the study’s scope focused only on produce, including only vegetables,  melons, fruit and nuts as classified by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

 

As of 2007, there were 335 farms classified as produce farms that sold in excess of $2 million in products directly to consumers for human consumption.

 

 

Responses to the Study

Kent Wolfe, one of the study’s four authors and a marketing specialist with UGA’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development:

“The most surprising thing this study revealed to me was that we consumed so little locally grown foods in the state,” says. “It just made me excited to see what the potential is out there. There are a lot of small farmers who’d love to take advantage of all that potential. We just need to find a better way to connect everybody.”

 

Wolfe added, “I hope that it raises the profile of the need the state has to increase local food consumption in Georgia.” 
Wolfe says that he and his colleagues are working on a follow-up study that will examine what other states are doing to promote direct farm to consumer sales across the southeast, and determine “if there are regulations we can work on to help facilitate local consumption. It should also shed some light as to why Georgia is behind the national average.”

 

Julia Gaskin, Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator with UGA’s Biological & Agricultural Engineering Dept. and Georgia Organics board member says the study highlights a major obstacle that could also become a major economic engine in rural Georgia.

 

“We’ve got this chicken-and-the-egg thing when it comes to infrastructure,” Gaskin says. “The smaller producers that are selling to CSAs and farmers markets have figured their marketing out. But we don’t have enough mid-sized producers, and one reason for that is we need some aggregator to get to new markets and institutions, such as schools and universities, and they need packing and handling facilities, too. We don’t have that infrastructure in the state. We have to re-create it, so there’s a real potential for food processing for mid-sized sustainable producers and processors,” Gaskin says. “There’s a lot of opportunity that can strengthen our rural communities. I don’t think it’ll be easy, but it’s a great potential.”

 

Roderick Gilbert, Georgia Organics board member and Project Manager for the Center for Innovation for Agribusiness:  “As a partner, the Center for Innovation for Agribusiness thinks the report is a very strong report, and we are looking forward to working with Georgia Organics on developing ways to capture more of the dollars that are spent on local fruit and vegetables and keep that money here in the state.”

Discussion Questions:

1)  The article notes a number of barriers as to why more food isn't grown for local consumption.  Some of the barriers mentioned are a reliance on growing commodities on a large scale, a reliance on fossil fuels, lack of mid-sized producers, and issues with infrastructure.  To what extent do you think that educational and cultural factors play a role in the reason why more produce isn't grown and consumed locally?  Do you think these educational and cultural factors outweigh those examples presented in the article?  

2)  Julia Gaskin, who wrote one of the included responses to the article, mentions that smaller producers who sell to CSA's and farmers markets have their marketing "figured out".  What are some marketing techniques that you think that larger producers could implement to make products grown for local consumption be more appealing to a shopper?  Do you think it would be something like more accessible (and larger) farmers markets?  More advertising about the benefits of eating local produce?  Or is price always going to be the biggest determinant in this scenario?  

Is Cooking Really Cheaper Than Fast Food?

—By Tom Philpott

| Tue Oct. 4, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

You can walk into any McDonald's in America and buy a bounty of ready-to-eat calories for just a few bucks.
But can you cook much better food for yourself for even cheaper? That's the message of Slow Food USA's ongoing $5 Challenge, and of a recent column by New York Times recipe wizard/food politics columnist Mark Bittman. Bittman's piece links to a handy infographic showing that the typical burgers-and-fries dinner for a family of four at McDonald's costs about $28, while a home-cooked chicken-and-potatoes meal for four would run you just $14.
I agree with the message that Slow Food and Bittman are sending here: that from-scratch cooking is absolutely the most powerful tool we have for improving our diets and resisting the food industry's most awful offerings. But I sense a significant accounting error: They omit the cost of labor for the home-cooked meal and include it in the fast-food alternative, which comes begging to be inhaled immediately, no postprandial dish-doing necessary.
The Times calculated the cost of its $14 chicken dinner by summing the price of the individual ingredients: a $6 raw whole chicken, $3 worth of potatoes, a nickel for salt and pepper, etc. But what about the time it takes to plan the dinner, shop for the ingredients, transform them into a meal, and then clean up the resulting mess?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tells us that the median hourly income in the United States is $16.27. Let's say it takes two hours to put the Times' meal together and clean up afterward—for the median US worker, that's about $32 worth of labor. Voilà! Our chicken dinner now costs around $46. Suddenly, that $28 Mickey D's excursion looks like quite the bargain.
Yet that bargain seems deeply problematic. McDonald's adds to its customers' leisure time in part by exploiting its own workers. The labor-adjusted price advantage McDonald's offers over a home-cooked meal largely reflects the fast-food industry's success at de-skilling and low-balling its own workforce. A "cook" at McDonald's doesn't so much cook as oversee the operation of simple-to-use cooking machines. As the BLS puts it: "Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment." It's no surprise, then, that the median wage listed by the BLS for "Cooks, Fast Food" is $8.70 per hour—just over half of the median wage for all professions.
But I can see why American families, facing recessionary pressures and ever greater professional demands, so often leverage the fast-food industry's cheap labor pool for a fuss-free meal.
Bittman's accounting error is significant, because it allows us to underestimate the depth of the problem: McDonald's really is making an offer that's hard for millions of families to refuse. It's neither all in their heads nor solely the function of (admittedly) powerful marketing.
The trick, for those of us who would like to see Americans doing more of their own cooking, is to convince people to value time in the kitchen more than they do leisure activities like TV watching or video gaming. On this point, I converge with Bittman and the Slow Food people. Bittman sees two obstacles, one political and the other cultural, to the goal of a broad-based cooking revival:

The cultural lies in celebrating real food; raising our children in homes that don't program them for fast-produced, eaten-on-the-run, high-calorie, low-nutrition junk; giving them the gift of appreciating the pleasures of nourishing one another and enjoying that nourishment together.
Political action would mean agitating to limit the marketing of junk; forcing its makers to pay the true costs of production; recognizing that advertising for fast food is not the exercise of free speech but behavior manipulation of addictive substances; and making certain that real food is affordable and available to everyone. The political challenge is the more difficult one, but it cannot be ignored.       

I would add another suggestion that combines the cultural and the political: reintroduce cooking classes—home ec, aimed at teaching basic kitchen skills—to the public school curriculum alongside reading and math. Cooking is a habit, one that Americans have largely lost. Interest in it is growing, but probably not fast enough. If you don't know how to handle a knife or stock a working home pantry, it's doubtful you'll ever learn to enjoy cooking. Fewer people are now learning those skills at home, and people who can't cook are in no position to teach their kids to do it. If the public schools don't fill the void, who will—the fast-food industry?

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/10/cooking-really-cheaper-junk-food-mark-bittman

Discussion Questions

1) Bittman sees two obstacles, one political and the other cultural, to the goal of a broad-based cooking revival. Do you think either of these obstacles can be overcome? If so, how? How long do you think it would take to overcome them?

2) Do you agree with the author, that cooking classes should be reintroduced in schools? How would you argue their reintroduction to a school superintendent? Or do you believe that cooking classes would be hard to promote because of  current political and cultural obstacles?

Just Label It: We Have a Right to Know What's In Our Food

By Naomi Starkman

Yesterday, a broadbased coalition of nearly 400 businesses and organizations dedicated to food safety and consumer rights called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods, to give consumers the right to know what is in our food. The Just Label It -- We Have a Right to Know campaign submitted a petition on behalf of millions of consumers to the FDA calling for the mandatory labeling of GE foods, also referred to as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. These are foods that are altered at the molecular level in ways that could not happen naturally.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires the FDA to prevent consumer deception by clarifying that a food label is misleading if it omits significant, "material" information. In 1992 however, the FDA issued a policy statement that defined "material" by the ability to be sensed by taste, smell, or other senses. The FDA determined that GE Foods were "substantially equivalent" to conventionally produced foods, so there was no material difference and no labeling was required. After almost 20 years, this policy is still in effect today.

For example, the FDA is currently deciding whether to deregulate GE salmon and make it commercially available. According to FDA, a salmon that is genetically engineered is not materially different from a non-GE salmon because it does not taste, smell or feel different. Without a label to tell us differently, when eating GE salmon, the public will not know if what they are consuming has been genetically altered.

"We are asking the FDA to change a decade's old and out of touch policy," said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety and lead author of the petition. "Today's consumers are more informed than ever, and they have a right to know about the foods they are purchasing and consuming. We want the FDA to require labeling on foods intentionally produced using genetic engineering."

"Polls show that consumers demand transparency in the foods they buy and overwhelmingly support labeling of GE food," said Dr. Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, the public policy division of Consumer Reports. "In order to make informed decisions, the public deserves a truthful marketplace."

Ninety-five percent of consumers believe GE foods should be labeled according to a poll [PDF] conducted by Consumers Union and 93 percent of the American public want the federal government to require mandatory labeling of GE foods. Labeling is required in other countries, including the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Brazil, and China.

While nearly 90 percent of corn, 94 percent of soy, and 90 percent of cottonseed grown in the US are from GE seeds, the safety of GE crops for human consumption has not been adequately assured[PDF]. Several National Academy of Sciences studies have affirmed that GE crops have the potential to introduce new toxins or allergens into our food and environment.

Yet, unlike the strict safety evaluations for approval of new drugs, there are no mandatory human clinical trials of GE crops, no tests for carcinogenicity or harm to fetuses, no long term testing for human health risks, no requirement for long-term testing on animals, and limited testing for allergenicity, with some studies [PDF] raising concerns that GE foods may pose an allergen risk.

"Scientists and consumers alike have many reasons for being concerned about the long-term health and environmental consequences of genetically engineered foods," said Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, a member of the coalition. "And the scientific debate about the benefits and risks of these crops will continue for a long time. Meanwhile an entire generation will have grown up consuming them."

The best option to avoid GE foods is to buy USDA certified organic as the organic standards prohibit the use of GE ingredients, to look for Non-GMO Project Verified Non-GMO products and to buy unprocessed foods such as fruits, vegetables, and avoid packaged food, much of which contains GE ingredients.

The campaign Web site, justlabelit.org, allows consumers an easy, one-click method to notify the FDA of their support for the petition and stay up to date on the initiative. It also offers education tools to get informed about GE foods, the benefits of labeling foods and ways to stay engaged through blogs, and social media. The campaign also launched a video that conveys the point of the initiative: Without labeling, families are being kept in the dark.

Discussion Questions:

1. The article references a poll that shows a staggering 95% of Americans who support labeling of genetically engineered food. What structural problems do you think are preventing the implementation of this policy, and do you think that movements like "Justlabelit.org" play an important role in overcoming these problems?

2. The article also mentions the fear that by the time this is implemented, a whole generation would have grown up consuming GE food and would be accustomed to it. Do you think that labeling will have any noticeable affect on consumer preferences?