Two Trends

It isn't simply going to be enough to have organic food. Fair labor practices is increasingly coming into play and not just with "fair trade" coffee and similar products. Equitable labor is an issue with organic farmers in the United States.

Sarah Newman writes for AlterNet (The Ugly Truth Behind Organic Food): "The connection between environmental conservation through organic-farming practices and labor rights, has been largely lost in much of today's organics movement."

Following that head of cabbage or that strawberry from field to table is important. Even if it is organic, was it equitably raised? More and more, this will be a question consumers will ask.

Another trend is toward simplicity. However, as the Hartman Group reports: "we'll continue to see an evolving trend toward simplicity that will (ironically) require much dedication, effort and practice."

To see that it is not so simple to be simple, read Simplicity Trend: Not as Simple as it Seems.

Christians Leading Sustainable Living Trend?

In the past Christianity has often gotten a bum rap when it comes to environmental care. Adam's trumpeted dominion over creation has been used by far too many as an excuse for environmental destruction. However, more and more it would seem that Christian groups are beginning to lead the way when it comes to sustainable and green living.

Earth Ministry has a simple mission: To inspire and mobilize the Christian community to play a leadership role in building a just and sustainable future." Congregations from several different denominations have active Earth Ministry groups.

Zoecarnate's trendy, house church scene provides a long list of Christian sites on simplicity and holistic living.

Even the more ancient and traditional Christianity of the Eastern Orthodox Church has issued a statement on the environment which calls for "a radical reversal of secular values that fail to honor the earth as a sacrament of God’s living presence."

Computer Enhanced Infrastructure

Tom Philpott blogs about New Scientist articles that link the swine flu with large-scale pork-raising operations in the United States. Organic Consumers is already claiming that factory farms a fast track to disaster and calling on the President and others to shut down these operations.

They may be right. Certainly these are just more volleys in the war between local/organic versus giant, corporate agri-biz.

Conkey's writes about trends. Keep this one in mind: computer enhanced infrastructure. Not only can energy usage and transportation be made more efficient with computer technology but so can moving food from farm to distributor to grocery shelf. Score one for agri-biz?

How Serious Is H1N1 Really?

Now it's being called H1N1 and not the swine flu. Whatever. How serious is it really. Schools and businesses are closing. International commerce and travel are shutting down. Cases are being suspected worldwide but the number of deaths isn't going up rapidly - less than 200 now.

A friend emailed me earlier and asked me if I knew how many traffic fatalities there were in 2008. It took me awhile to find any good information - several times at googling.

"What's up?" I asked.

She replied:

"I looked also for the traffic deaths. Remember I was talking about keeping us in a state of fear. They don't mention, AIDS, cancer, traffic deaths, etc. . . . unless you search, but they put in the headlines that 109 cases have been confirmed in the US. I can't believes so many schools in Texas have been closed and we are still open for business. Makes me wonder who is running the show here."

Then came this: Swine Flu in Perspective. As author Eric De Place explains, perhaps we will become outraged over the number of traffic deaths when pigs fly.

Swine Flu Ground Zero?

There seems to be little doubt now that ground zero for the swine flu is La Gloria in Mexico. ABC News even interviewed the little boy who is suspected to have been the first victim and went on to report the local suspicion that the flu originated at a local factory pig operation owned at least in part by Smithfield Foods of the United States.

La Gloria locals pin the outbreak on Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a factory farm owned by Smithfield Foods. According to Business and Media Institute, Smithfield only owns 50% of the operation and Granjas Carroll operates the farm. B&M decries:

"Once again, in its quest for a scapegoat for a crisis facing society, the media has set its sights on a large corporation . . . Smithfield has been the target of various left-wing groups on labor and environmental issues before, and Kofman brought up the environmental issues, tying them to the flu virus’ first known victim, four-year-old Edgar Hernandez."

Al Giordano at Narco News points to Smithfield's operation in Mexico. He wants to rename this pandemic, the NAFTA Flu. He argues that Smithfield bought (bought into?) the plant in La Gloria because of the lax enforcement of environmental laws in Mexico and the ease of doing business in Mexico because of NAFTA. According to Giordano and others, there is no sewage treatment plant in La Gloria. They conjecture that the confined pigs do have the respiratory disease caused by the swine flu virus and that it spread from someone who works there or from flies in the pig sewage.

So far neither ABC News nor any other news group has been allowed into Granjas Carroll. A copy of the ABC video can be viewed on You Tube. Embedding info has been disabled by request.

On the Lighter Side: the Origin of Swine Flu

My friend, Paco Dominquez may have discovered the origin of the swine flu:

"Damn kids!"

The Value of Food

I have been wanting to comment about Jill Richardson's guest post on Obama Foodrama on April 20: Mexi-corn, Ameri-corn: President Obama Faces Corn-troversy in Mexico.

The angst and complaint that indigenous and local farmers everywhere (including the United States) have with big agri-biz is easily summed up: "Mexicans honor corn as an integral part of their historic culture but Americans treat corn as a commodity."

Richardson goes on to write:

"American subsidies are currently structured to promote maximum commodity
production. About 30% of our cropland is planted in corn. Each farmer's best interest is to grow 'as much yellow stuff as possible' (as one corn farmer once said to me). Quality doesn't matter, neither does biodiversity or environmental stewardship. Just quantity. In fact, our subsidy system allows the price of corn and other commodities to fall below the price of production because the government will pay farmers back the difference between the actual price of their corn and what the government determines as a 'fair' price."

The emphases are mine.

Of course, Mexican farmers (or any other small farmers around the world) can't compete. Thus "corn as a way of life" is being destroyed by "corn as commodity".

Here's the central difference in worldview: for the large corporate marketing model and system, food is a commodity. For indigenous peoples food's value is not in the food itself but in the fact that food is a means of relationships with the earth, with friends and family, and (in the opinion of many including my own) with God.

In spite of how cheap subsidized, genetically modified, Monsantoed herbicided and insecticided, and synthesized agri-biz food may be, there are many, many people around the world who reject it for the sake of native foods that give connectiveness to the tribe, family, earth . . . Universe. Many people in our urbanized American and European cultures are attempting to return to this connectedness through local food, slow food, farmers markets and CSAs.

Swine Flu: A Gift of CAFOs?

To begin with: the best source for information about swine flu is on the Center for Disease Control web site or its tweets or Veratect or Veratect's tweets. Let it also be pointed out that there is no evidence now that pigs in Mexico are getting sick with the flu. Yet, the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly points to a CAFO pig farm in La Gloria, Vera Cruz Mexico. The farm is Granjas Carroll, owned by Smithfield Foods of the United States.

The well read blog Biosurveillance, run by the U.S. disease-tracking consultancy Veratect has put together a time line that points to La Gloria and the Smithfield concentrated animal feeding operation. Following Veratect, Tom Philpott believes that all signs point to this industrial agricultural operation in Mexico. Mike Davis of the Guardian is convinced that the swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power.

Smithfield obviously denies any culpability.

Of course you can't get the flu from well-cooked pork (or any other meat). But that fact hasn't stopped countries such as Russia from banning imports of meat from Mexico and from Texas, Kansas and California.

Pigs get the flu just as humans do: from pig to pig. A confined operation is a viral soup. They are more likely to catch the disease "in the crowded unsanitary conditions of a factory farm" according to La Vida Locovore's Jill Richardson.

Until we have confirmation of the origin, it is important for all of us to do those things that keep us and anyone else from getting sick: cover your mouth and nose with a Kleenex when you cough or sneeze and throw the tissue away. Wash your hands. Use hand alcohol-based sanitizers and avoid touching your eyes, ears, nose or mouth until you have cleaned your hands. If someone else is coughing and sneezing, be anti-social. If you begin coughing and sneezing, stay home. Now is not the time to be the super worker hero.

If indeed the origin is a factory farm, then it will be just one more nail in the cofin of big agri-business that has brought us salmonella, E Coli, and burning fossil fuels growing and distributing food over thousands and thousands of miles.

Community Gardens and Schools: A Growing Trend

Every day I get links to stories about schools across the country starting community gardens - many organic. The words "sustainable" and "local" are increasingly in the vocabulary of curriculum. When I was on a radio talk show recently, there was a young caller who was a student at the University of Texas at El Paso. He spoke enthusiastically about his garden and his sharing food with friends and family members.

Here are three examples. In San Diego high school and college students tend an organic garden together. Arizona State University students will see much of the food that they are grown sold at a Tempe farmers market. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, elementary students work a community garden.

The National Farmers Union has developed curricula for grades 1 through 12 entitled Eat Fresh, Buy Local. Ecoliteracy has developed an education for sustainability.

Bottom line: there is a generation growing-up that will want local, fresh, organic food. To survive, the big box grocery stores will have to adapt to this future trend.

Locavores versus Big Agri-Business: the Battle Lines Are Drawn

The battle lines are clearly drawn and the war has begun: Locavores versus Big Agri-business. 2 examples:

Mid America CropLife Association (MACA), which represents Monsanto, Dow and DuPont for starters, has suggested that Michelle Obama's White House garden is not good for agribusiness. They fear that Americans will get the "wrong impression" about conventionally grown food - conventionally meaning the use of pesticides and herbicides and lots of Round-up. Heck, those kids who helped plant the White House garden should have used Round-up on the turf rather than shovels and some muscles.

Now comes an op-ed piece in the NY Times: Free Range Trichinosis by James E. McWilliams. McWilliams asserts that the organic, lovavorian practice of free-ranging animals will jeopardize our food safety: trichinosis and other nasty diseases will follow.

The locavorians have been quick to respond. Susan A. Schneider, Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas points out that free-ranging is not new and that confined raising has far more health risks.

In a letter to the NY Times, Paula Crossfield writes:

"I was very disappointed to read the Op-Ed piece, 'Free-Range Trichonosis', published on April 9th. The study that Mr. McWilliams cites was funded by the
National Pork Board, a group that lobbies on behalf of industrial pork operations. Worse, the study retained two samples from the free-range pigs which tested "seropositive for trichinella," in other words, those pigs had trichinosis antibodies, which does not mean they specifically carried trichinosis."

Deirdra Stockmann, a PhD Candidate, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Michigan looks at McWilliams' argument from an environmental perspective:

"As with climate change, the backlash against the sustainable food system movement is inevitable and will rely heavily on the fear of the consumer because a sense of fear seriously detracts from the ability to consider the health of the entire system. (I am sure you noted that the Op-ed author daintily skipped around any of the environmental impacts of the different production methods and their implications for human and other species' health.) We need to be prepared to respectfully and concisely respond to - or much better yet, anticipate and preempt, these types of interpretations of limited studies."

Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore bats clean-up.