The bad food news of 2011
by Twilight Greenaway.
We continue digesting this year’s food politics coverage below — only this time we take account of the things that didn’t go so well. (Tired of bad news? See the year’s good food news instead.)
1. Food prices have gone up, and more people need
help feeding their families
The fact that 46 million people
– about a seventh of the U.S. population — now receive food stamps (i.e.
help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)) should be
enough to tell us that something is wrong with America’s food system. But
thanks to the way public food assistance is now set up, the
problem is all but invisible to the rest of us.
Why are so many Americans using food stamps? Beyond our collective
economic woes, a large part of the problem lies in the cost
of food itself, which rose considerably in the last few years. Then
there’s the speculation
market, which drives up the cost of commodity crops. Ethanol
doesn’t help, either.
2. The food we can afford could make us sick (or even kill us)
2011 saw the largest
Class 1 (i.e. potentially lethal) meat recall in history, involving 36
million pounds of Cargill turkey tainted with multi-drug resistant Salmonella.
The listeria outbreak in cantaloupes
was also the deadliest U.S. foodborne illness outbreak in 100 years.
Germany’s E. coli outbreak over the
summer was also the deadliest on record — anywhere.
What happened to last winter’s Food
Safety Modernization Act — the much-debated legislation that might have updated
the regulations that would stop outbreaks like these? Well, to make a long story short, it was
never funded. Who’s hungry now?
3. GMOs aren’t going anywhere
Take a deep breath: 2011 began with the approval
of GMO alfalfa (which could permanently change the organic
milk industry for the worse). Less than two weeks later, the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) defied a court order and partially
deregulated GMO sugar beets without completing an environmental impact assessment.
Meanwhile, concern about “superweeds,” which are resistant to
Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, raised red flags beyond the foodie
and environmentalist communities; now big
business is also worried. And our six-legged friends have outsmarted Monsanto too; an insect
called the corn rootworm has become resistant to the company’s Bt corn (which is supposed to be engineered to produce its own
pesticides).
GMO business got especially fishy this year, as well: GMO
salmon may also be inching toward commercial approval. The “frankenfish” appeared
to be fast-tracked for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval during the
first half of 2010, which would have made it the first genetically engineered
animal food on the market. But in June, the
House of Representatives blocked the FDA from spending money to approve the
salmon. This seemed like a good sign, but in October, the USDA gave
Aquabounty, the company looking to produce the salmon, a research grant — meaning this fish is far from out of the picture.
4. Pesticides: Also here to stay for now
Eaters may have plenty of evidence to suggest that
agriculture should involve fewer pesticides (example: this
recent piece about the weed killer atrazine in the rural water supply), but big
agribusiness vehemently disagrees.
Last December’s approval
of methyl iodide (a known carcinogen) for use in strawberry fields in
California has many advocates concerned about farmworkers, nearby communities, and water tables. Small bright spot: It has yet to be adopted widely, so many in the state are still working to make the short- and long-term consequences known. Some advocates are even calling for an
end to all
fumigants.
In May, we covered the fight
in Congress to restrict the EPA’s ability to regulate pesticides –
specifically when it comes to spraying near streams and waterways — and the issue has yet to be put to sleep.
Meanwhile, there is now clear
evidence linking a
class of pesticides called neonicotinoids to recent honeybee die-offs, but top
USDA scientists still refuse to recommend a ban. To make matters
worse, honeybees aren’t the only type of bee that’s disappearing: Bumblebees are going missing, too.
5. Extreme
weather is messing with our food
Between the drought
in the Southwest, which wreaked havoc on farms and ranches in both the U.S.
and Mexico, and Hurricane Irene, which
hit the East Coast at the worst possible moment (peak
harvest for farmers in New York state and elsewhere), 2011 was a terrible weather
year. The result? Fewer
pumpkins for Halloween, and a
costlier Thanksgiving, to start with. But this year was also a reminder of
the ways a shifting climate could make food production especially unpredictable in the future.
6. The American meat
industry is still run by a small handful of huge companies
For a while it seemed that one of the more positive food
policy developments of 2011 might have come in the way of important changes to
the Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyard Administration
(GIPSA) — a wonky set of rules that essentially set the terms for competition
in the meat industry. Then, in November, we reported that the USDA
removed all parts of the rule that would have upset the current — highly
consolidated — meat industry. Whereas new rules would have
truly leveled
the playing field for small producers, business as usual will mean that four
companies still control 90 percent of all beef processing, while an equally small handful of companies control 70 percent of all pork processing, and nearly 60
percent of poultry processing.
On a related note: Remember how California voters opted for
more humane standards for egg producers a few years back? Well, this year, Idaho
lawmakers have been easing their regulations to make way for what they hope
will be a wave of companies moving in from California to build confined animal
feeding operations (CAFOS) when the rules go into effect. Thanks a lot, Idaho.
7. Fracking is bad for farming
One of the most
well-known results of hydraulic fracturing, the process of drilling for natural
gas known as “fracking,” is the wastewater that appears as a by-product.
But not everyone knows about how that wastewater affects farms. In May, we ran
a story about the impact
fracking has on ranching: Cows in upstate New York were getting sick
and dying after coming into contact with chlorine, barium, magnesium, and other
radioactive elements. But that’s not where it ends; earlier in the year, wastewater actually flooded
a series of farms in Pennsylvania.
8. BPA is lurking
On the bright side,
the endocrine disruptor bisphenol-A was banned from use in
baby bottles in California this fall. But national efforts to get it out of
canned food (even the FDA itself detected it in can liners) haven’t happened yet.
The FDA is dragging its feet, but the National Institutes of Health recently
initiated a $30
million research program to examine the growing risks and make a final call
on BPA’s safety. Then, in September, we
reported on a fishy government study that purported
to debunk the entire BPA threat all together. And predictably, corporations are behaving irresponsibly even when apprised of
the danger. For example, in the spring,
we reported that Coca-Cola shareholders voted by a 3-to-1 margin to continue
using BPA in the lining of its soft-drink cans.
9. School lunch: still in bad shape
We reported on the Republican
attack on school lunch that began last summer, when the Obama
administration proposed new USDA guidelines for school lunches
that would have replaced French fries with healthier options like whole grains,
orange and green veggies, and low-fat milk.
Then, just last month, thanks to a
concerted effort by Big Food lobbyists, Congress unveiled a final plan that
rejected the proposed changes and allowed pizza to be counted as a vegetable.
Meanwhile, new facts surfaced that contradict a common assumption — namely, that including big food processing companies in the
school-lunch chain is always a better deal. In fact, doing so
may cost nearly as much as cooking from scratch and do much more harm to local
communities.
10. The next Farm Bill probably won’t change the food system
The Farm Bill — that giant piece of legislation that gets
updated every five years and impacts everything from food stamps to farm
funding to crop insurance — came awfully close to getting crafted in a hurry
this fall as part of the debt-slashing congressional supercommittee process.
The supercommittee ultimately failed, putting an end the so-called Secret
Farm Bill.
And while we can now look forward to a more traditional,
transparent congressional process, it looks like the draft Farm Bill that was
drawn up in November will still provide
the framework for this year’s process. This is unfortunate news
because the draft bill included significant cuts to conservation programs (despite
a great deal of opposition) while dishing out large subsidies to
industrial-sized commodity growers (just
in a slightly different form). We’re still hoping for a miracle, but it’s looking like the
very bill food reformers have put so much hope into for the last five years might turn out
to be business as usual, or worse.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably feeling like a real Debbie Downer. Don’t worry; 2011 was full of good news, too. Go read about it now!
Related Links:
Pepsi spends $3 million a year so laws don’t come between corn syrup and your kids
New Agtivist: Kandace Vallejo is working for food access in the heart of Texas
View full post on Grist.org – the latest from Grist