Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan will be hosting a live Facebook chat on Oct 1st to talk about local food systems. Last month, Merrigan put out a memo outlining proposed programs to strengthen local food systems:

1. The Community Facilities Program

The Community Facilities (CF) Program supports the success of rural communities by providing loans and grants for the construction, acquisition, or renovation of community facilities or the purchase of equipment for community projects.

As examples, she says an NGO (non-governmental organization) could receive USDA grant money to construct a community kitchen to teach healthy cooking classes using produce from farmers, a farmers’ market, or cold storage to help a school buy and serve fresh produce directly from farmers.
2. The Business and Industry (B&I) Guarantee Loan Program

The purpose of the B&I Program is to help new and existing businesses in rural areas gain access to affordable capital.

As examples, she says the loans can be used to aggregate local farm products so they achieve enough volume to serve a school system, to build a mobile slaughterhouse, or to add equipment and storage facilities for a local food processor.
3. Value-Added Producer Grant Program

The Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) Program provides grant funding for agricultural producers who add value to their raw products through processing and/or marketing, thereby increasing farm income.

Selling value-added products is a very important tool for farmers to capture more of the retail dollar from the food they grow. I’ve actually met a few farmers who have received this particular grant. Merrigan’s examples are an organic cooperative receiving a grant to conduct a feasibility study and develop a marketing plan to provide locally grown produce to schools, a farmer receiving a grant to direct market pasture-raised lamb to restaurants and stores, or a dairy farm receiving a grant to plan and execute a marketing campaign for their ice cream.

For those who don’t know, Merrigan is a member of the “Sustainable Dozen“.  She’s got a crazy resume that includes heading up Tuft’s Center on Agriculture, Food, and the Environment and was one of the main authors of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. As Sam Hurst at Gourmet points out:

At Tufts, Merrigan has directed a group of projects designed to stimulate community gardens, develop regional marketing strategies between consumers and local farmers, and promote food and gardening education in local schools. This is not the traditional career path of high-ranking USDA officials.

And she’ll be taking your questions.  That’s government accessibility you can believe in.

We can all dream, right?

Yes, dairy farmers are still in crisis.  Yes, the USDA keeps buying up surplus milk to no avail.  No, a floor price for dairy has not been set.  That’s why this is such a big opportunity to get something done on the dairy crisis:

USDA established the Dairy Industry Advisory Committee in August 2009. The purpose of the Committee is to review the issues of farm milk price volatility and dairy farmer profitability and provide suggestions and ideas to the Secretary on how USDA can best address these issues to meet the dairy industry’s needs. USDA also seeks nominations of individuals to be considered for selection as Committee members.

Here is a hige chance to get small family dairy farmers and cooperatives inside the door to actually have a say.  Now we just need some folks to nominate.  Who would you recommend?

Nominations should be sent to Judith Lindsay , secretary to Brandon Willis, Deputy Administrator, Farm Programs, Farm Service Agency, USDA, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 3612-S, Stop 0510, Washington, D.C. 20250-0510; Facsimile: (202) 720-4726; E-mail: judith.lindsay@wdc.usda.gov.

Big Dairy already announced the openings to their friends.  The question is whether we can get advocates for consumers and farmers on the board as well.

Advisory committee members will elect the chair and vice-chair, who will each serve a two-year term. As Deputy Administrator of the FSA Farm Programs, Brandon Willis will serve as the committee’s executive secretary.

photo courtesy of flickr user uwe hermann

Food companies sent a cheerful letter to Ag Secretary Vilsack this past week, warning of sugar shortages, leading to higher prices for consumers, manufacturing layoffs and that “trading patterns will be distorted” which sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Yes, folks, according to the food companies, it is the end of the world as we know it, and the USDA must act fast fast fast, to lower sugar trade barriers, or else!

Are sugar price up?  Futures on sugar are up:

The futures price of sugar traded on world markets closed at 22.2 cents a pound Thursday, down about a penny from the previous day but still up 72% in six months. Weather problems in the sugar-producing regions of India, the diversion of Brazilian sugar cane to produce ethanol, and a growing global sweet tooth are behind the increase, according to analysts.

However, wholesale prices are no where near that elevated:

There is considerable debate about whether the run-up in sugar prices is a sign of a looming crisis. Just a fraction of global sugar supplies is traded on international markets. And according to the USDA, the wholesale price of sugar in the United States has risen by just 15% from a year ago to a little under 35 cents a pound.

So what gives? Turns out this is just a good old fashion shake down of the monopolistic variety. First, maybe higher prices for sugar wouldn’t be such a bad thing for Americans’ ever increasing waistbands, Second, while the letter darkly warns this may be the end of sugar, sugar suppliers assure the public that no such nonsense if on the horizon. Big Food wants the USDA to increase trade quotas so that they can push down sugar prices even more, bringing US sugar farmers closer to the brink of insolvency.  Maybe if the processors get their way sugar will go the way of the dairy crisis.  Good times!

Just one last day in the week, and it was looking so good for eaters across America.  But not quite.  The USDA warns that ground beef produced between May 23 and June13 and are labeled “Est. 6250″ may be contaminated with salmonella. Yes, that does mean that the USDA did inspect this meat, it was sold to the public and it is in fact contaminated.

The meat was sold in the mountain west and central plains through King Soopers and City Market stores.

More Recall!

I got goosebumps reading some of the remarks made by Kathleen Merrigan, the USDA Deputy Secretary.

On the integrity of the organic label:

In terms of enforcement, the integrity of the organic label is fundamental to the growth of this industry. If consumers don’t have confidence in the label, industry growth will stall—it’s just that simple. It’s not a matter of expanding standards, but making sure the standards we have are enforced. I understand that it takes a while for standards to really sink in and for people to fully understand the rules of the game.

But, the honeymoon is over. It’s time to show the world that our standards have teeth; that we mean them and if people are not adhering to the standards, they’re going to be kicked out of the program. It will take staff work and it will take eyes out in the field because the USDA can’t be everywhere all the time. Part of our enforcement program has to be based on whistle blowing within the industry itself.

On the challenges the organic sector faces:

I’m going to tell you what I think the biggest challenge is—and I know I’m like a broken record on this, or a broken CD or iPhone—but the point is that the biggest challenge the organic community faces is internal. It is about not letting the “perfect” be the enemy of the “good”; not to self-destruct by pointing accusing fingers at each other.

There’s definitely a need for whistle blowing on enforcement issues, but I think this community sometimes explodes issues unnecessarily on the front pages of the newspapers, which leads to consumer confusion and erosion in belief for the organic label. People need to keep their eyes on the prize and think of this as a long-term haul and to just be really cautious before they throw bombs.

Be still my heart!  Not only does the woman recognize the precarious position the organic label is in by being so dependant on consumer trust, but she also recognizes that in order for organics to work and be cost effective, we can’t be too extremist when it comes to defining what organic means.  All she has to do now is declare that the cost of food needs to reflect its nutritional value and I’ll be popping the champagne.

I’ve been trying to track down confirmation of this, but it is being reported that the Obama Administration, the USDA and the FDA will jointly announce a new set of food safety standards today at 1:30pm EDT.  Supposedly, they will present the following:

Under the new rules:

—The FDA will help the food industry establish better tracing systems to track the origins of a bacterial outbreak.

—A new network will be established to help the many agencies that regulate food safety to communicate better.

—Egg and poultry producers will have to follow new standards designed to reduce salmonella contamination.

—The Food Safety Inspection Service, the Agriculture Department agency that inspects meat, will increase sampling of ground beef ingredients in an effort to better find E. coli contamination.

—The FDA will recommend ways that producers of leafy greens, melons and tomatoes can reduce disease strains, and require stricter standards in those industries within two years.

—The FDA and the Agriculture Department also will create new positions to better oversee food safety.

As always, the devil is in the details.

Yay! More fun with recalls!  This time its 41,000 pounds of beef from Greely, CO. The E. Coli contaminated meat came from the JBs USA meat packing plant. Here’s where it went:

According to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, the products were produced on April 21 and 22, and were shipped to distributors and retail establishments in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.

Anyone up for grilling this weekend?

The Monsanto death march of GMOs has been halted in its tracks.  The Ninth Court of Appeals stands up to the seed giant and barred Monsanto from seeling its Round Up Ready Alfalfa on the grounds that is has the potential of wiping out organic alfalfa.

This is huge news. For those of you who haven’t been following this fight, the problem with Monsanto’s genetically modified crops is that they end up polinating crops from neighboring farms, in effect turning the unsuspecting farmer’s goods into GM food without his/her consent. Already, 90% of all corn is genetically modified, to the point where it is difficult for farmers to find non-GM seed.

The saddest part is that the USDA weighed in on the case - for Monsanto.  Just goes to show that even with a supposed foodie in the White House, Big Ag still runs our government agencies.

Remember that pistachio recall last month?  The company in question recalled the nuts - then repackaged and resold them.

Joseph Coning

Joseph Coning died yesterday morning at the age of 8.  His kidneys failed and then his heart gave out after contracting E. Coli.  The source of the E. Coli is unknown at this time.

Last week I went to a hearing to review food safety standards for horticulture and organic agriculture by the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.  I haven’t written it up, because there wasn’t a whole lot of ‘there’ there. The first panel had David Acheson, Commissioner for Foods for the USDA, and David Shipman, Agricultural Marketing Service of the Dept of Agriculture. It was a little disturbing how few of the members showed up. Of the 10 members, only Reps. Cardoza, Massa, Schmidt, Costa, Schrader, Kratovil and Lumas attended parts of the first panel and less than half stayed for the whole thing. Reps. Moran, Johnson, and Murphy were MIA.  Maybe they showed for the second panel, which I couldn’t stay for.

Anywho, the majority of Acheson’s testimony was various members asking if he was looking into X issue or Y solution, in which he had pretty much the same answer for everything, “yes we are looking into it” or “we already have a program for that”. A very positive revelation was how concerned all the members on both sides of the aisle were concerned about the adverse affect new laws and new regulation would have on small farmers.  Both Massa(D-29) and Schmidt(R-OH), who couldn’t come from more opposite sides of the spectrum belabored this point.

The other aspect of the hearing I found interesting was Shipman repeated references to agricultural marketing agreements. He often made it sound like these agreements were what we currently have instead of real regulation. The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement was discussed as an example of voluntary standards. The is essentially what would have happened with organics had the USDA not codified the label.  The CLGM defines a set of standards and then producers apply to be certified.  I can only assume that the value in this is then the producers can use the label for marketing purposes with distributors and buyers.  Unfortunately, should members fail to uphold those standards, there isn’t anything that anyone can do about it:

Decertification Actions

The following handlers are signatories to the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement who are currently decertified or who will not be certified:

There are currently no decertification actions

Shipman often pushed back on the committe, asking if they made these regulations mandatory was the US Congress ready to pay for them.

This is awesome!  I am so proud of our USDA.  The USDA is distributing $50 million to farmers to pay for the cost of converting to organic production.  Now this is stimulus I can believe in.

Farmers will have three weeks to apply for $50 million in land stewardship funding to help pay the cost of converting to organic production, said the U.S. Agriculture Department on Tuesday.

USDA said the special sign-up would run May 11-29 under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. It will be open to growers switching to organic production or expanding their organic operations and certified organic farmers who want to expand stewardship work.

Six practices will be eligible for support — conservation crop rotation, cover crops, integrated pest management, nutrient management, rotational grazing and forage harvest management.

They are distributing $20,000 max per year, $80,000 over 6 years. I think the window is really narrow - 3 weeks is not a lot of time to publicize this to make sure all farmers know in time. Hurry up and apply, all ye merry farmers.

So many facts and figures to collect!  After 8 years of having the federal government refusing to release reports or even collect the data in order to support those reports, the tide has finally changed.  Which hopefully means that we will have lots of fun numbers to play with in the coming months and years.  One of the more interesting reports will be coming from the USDA, which announced that it will be conducting its first wide-scale survey of organic farming.

The survey will collect information on a number of aspects of organic farming, such as:

Production of field crops, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, berries, livestock and poultry;

Production practices such as pest management, cover crops, crop rotation, rotational grazing, conservation tillage, water management and buffer zones;

Production expenses;

Marketing practices, including wholesale, retail and direct-to-consumer sales; and

Value-added production and processing.

Hopefully, this will lead to more decisive answers on whether organic farming is really more lucrative than conventional and how fast organic farming is growing.  Sales of organics totaled $20 Billion in 2007, more than 10% higher than the $17.8 Billion forecasted by the USDA.

Food Politics by Marion Nestle opened American eyes to just how much influence that annoying food pyramid has on what we eat.  The USDA is in the process of updating their guidelines for 2010 and they are hosting a webinar on the hearing today and tomorrow.

Jennifer Huget from WaPo illustrates why our food safety system is so out of control, and why a key part of the fix is consolidating all the different food safety functions of our government into one entity.

As the situations have unfolded, one thing has grown increasingly clear: Somebody has to be in charge of keeping our food safe. As it stands, that responsibility is parceled out among more than a dozen government agencies, most prominent among them the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, whose jurisdictions are defined in mysterious ways. (For instance, if a frozen pizza has just a cheese topping, it’s regulated by the FDA, but if it has meat, it’s the USDA’s to monitor.) Once people are sickened by food-borne pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli, the CDC joins in, investigating and tracking outbreaks and providing information about preventing and treating illness caused by those pathogens.