When the last farm bill passed, small farmers and sustainable food advocates had a few things to celebrate, but not as many as they’d hoped for. The bulk of the funding for agriculture went to subsidize industrial-sized commodity farmers (producing corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice) in a big way. Congress voted to continue a pattern that, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), has allowed ten percent of the nation’s farms to collect 74 percent of all farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009, a total amounting to over $150 billion. Those subsidies are delivered in the form of direct payments, crop insurance, and something called counter-cyclical payments (for a primer on some of the wonky terminology in this article, try EWG’s Farm Subsidy Primer).

The 2008 bill did, however, include some bright spots. There was a rural microenterprise program, support for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, grants for value-added agriculture, and several strong conservation programs (incentives for farmers to be good stewards of the land, water and air). As it turns out, however, the implementation of these programs is dependent on funding that Congress (more specifically, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee) then chooses to award—or not to award—on an individual basis every year. (You can see where this is going, can’t you?)

The Bad News

According to Susan Prolman of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the 2011 budget (which was only finalized this spring) was a disaster for these farm bill bright spots. “A lot of programs that NSAC supported really got crunched,” she said. “There’s a program called ATTRA that provided sustainable agriculture information to underserved communities—it got eliminated completely. Organic got hit. And at the same time, military spending went up.” As the subcommittee meets again to hammer out the appropriations for the next year, the same types of cuts are likely. (It’s no too late to stop next year’s cuts. See a related NSAC action alert.)

Prolman was speaking on a recent federal food policy panel called “The Hidden Cost of Cheap Food,” hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium as part of their Sustainable Foods Institute. She didn’t beat around the bush in talking about the 2012 Farm Bill. Prolman said she was told by the staff of senators on the committee, “‘If you can achieve level funding in any of your programs (i.e. not lose money), that is a victory.’”

A Bill With a Proud Past

As stark as this possibility sounds—that the 2012 Farm Bill is unlikely to make any advances in creating a more sustainable food system—it didn’t stop the panel of speakers from putting forth their visions for what they called a “rational” farm bill.

Rebecca Spector, west coast director for the Center for Food Safety, spoke to the origins of this legislation, initially intended to support farmers. When the first of such bills came about early in the last century, she said, “the nation faced conservation problems, and food pricing issues, and we were growing too many of the same crops. We’re seeing the same issues today, and we need to be asking: what do we want to be incentivizing?”

Spector and the other panelists pointed to the fact that the bulk of the subsidized crops go into either animal feed or common processed food ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup and soy lecithin. In the case of corn, ethanol is the other “elephant in the room”—it accounted for nearly 40% of the corn produced in the U.S. last year.

Spector used California agriculture as an example of one casualty of the commodity payment system. “We’re the largest agriculture state, and 91% of our farmers do not receive any subsidies. And yet we’re growing all the fruit and vegetables.” When moderator and New York Times food and agriculture journalist William Neuman asked, “Are there enough fruits and vegetables grown in this country currently?” Prolman responded: “If everyone ate the recommended daily allowance, no—there wouldn’t be enough.”

Conservation Operation

Thomas Dobbs, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at South Dakota State University, also spoke about the recent history of the bill.

“The ’85 farm bill followed about 15 years of a building environmental movement,” he told the audience. It was the first time the environmental movement had real clout in the farm bill process, added Dobbs. “There were questions about whether crop subsidies would continue and there was essentially a bargain struck.” At that point, conservation programs, including Wetlands Conservation (a.k.a. Swampbuster) and Highly Erodible Land Conservation (a.k.a. Sodbuster), appeared. “These programs were very historic–and we’ve built on it ever since.” And, Dobbs pointed out, the bill also followed a farm crisis in the Midwest in the early ’80s.

“We’re point of crisis now, too,” said Dobbs. “We have an obesity crisis, a budget crisis, and a real questioning of the global competitiveness model…we’ve seen that there’s something pretty rotten about this free-market-for-the-masses and subsidies-for-the-big-people.”

On a similar note, NSAC’s Susan Prolman made it clear that ominous warnings about budget cuts won’t stop her organization from pushing for change.

“We’re calling for caps so that if you earn more than $250,000 on your farm you can’t get direct payments. And we’re also calling for tying any kind of direct payments to soil and water conversation practices, so that we’re not providing reverse incentives for farms to create environmental problems at the taxpayers’ expense.”

The True Cost of Commodity Crops

In addition to the cost to the environment, some believe the most damaging impact of commodity subsidies is the cost to public health. These policies make empty calories cheap by subsidizing the ingredients in processed food. Dr. Loel Solomon, Vice President of Community Health at Kaiser Permanente, drew a direct line from the farm bill to public health.

“By 2018 obesity is going to consume 350 billion dollars. One in five dollars is going to be spent dealing with health care costs of obesity-related illnesses,” he said. “If we start to think about the farm bill as a barrier to American competitiveness and the ability to grow our economy,” he added, “that really changes the constituency that wants to see a different kind of food system.”

Originally published by CUESA

We, as American consumers, have gotten so used to having whatever we want, whenever we want. You walk into a restaurant and expect to see that salmon filet on the menu. Food items that at one time were for special occasions have become the everyday, because they are being farmed to keep up with our demand. Our food has fallen into the business paradigm that rules our society, and this is not the correct place for it. Paul Hawkins opened up the Institute on Thursday with the notion of the cost vs. the price of our food. “We have very, very expensive food in this country, it’s just that the price is cheap,” he so eloquently points out. And so, when the price tag of that pound of shrimp looks so appealing to the general masses, why wouldn’t they choose to buy it? . A hamburger that costs 99 cents? Aren’t we lucky! The true cost of that shrimp or that beef, to our earth, to our health, to our political structure, is hidden deeply within the system of speed and convenience we have become used to.

When food is available so cheap, it becomes less precious, which leads to huge amounts of waste. Today, the typical starting point of any of our food is at some sort of farm…massive, sprawling areas of land or sea in which one type of ingredient is cultivated, harvested, and then packed on a semi-truck for delivery. The whims of supply and demand create a timetable that doesn’t correspond with actual nutrients or freshness, leading to spoilage. Enter food safety issues, contamination, sickness, and ultimately the disposal of what could have fed hundreds of people. The industrialization of food distribution has created a system riddled with waste, from “fresh” produce to large bulk grains to tiny, individually packaged candy. Everything has an expiration date, and the more that is produced to appease the appetite of our vastly expanding population the more will not be used. This middle-man format of large scale distribution is also incredibly inefficient and sucks up our natural resources, food miles being one of those very expensive, yet unseen externalities that isn’t figured into your total at the register.

Our food marketing industry is constantly thinking up new products, labels and campaigns to make us hungry for something we’ve never tried before (have you seen the new Kraft “cheddar flavored” singles with bacon?), instead of recycling or re-inventing value added products from what gets thrown out. There is certainly a huge population of people in this country, and on a global level, who still can’t and never will afford that 99-cent hamburger. As the population grows, we will increasingly need to find ways of feeding everyone, and value added products are a valuable key to that struggle. Maine based Ingrid Bengis, of Ingrid Bengis Seafood, brought up a discussion about the use of fish “racks” during the panel “Greening the Blue Revolution“, the bits and pieces of unused meat left on the discarded skeletons of various sea catch. These racks sometimes make their way into fishmeal or aquaculture feed, but couldn’t it also go towards feeding the hungry a source of protein that is otherwise wasted?

Our restaurant culture certainly exacerbates waste, from the fast food level all the way up to fine dining. A chef that turns away a cut of fish because it isn’t quite long enough, or large enough, or small enough, or pink enough, shuts the door on a product that has already been killed, and there’s not much shelf life for that. Rick Bayless tells his story about starting Frontera Grill in Chicago. He was inspired by the regional cuisines of Mexico and wanted to showcase them here in the states while utilizing fresh, local ingredients. But at that point, in 1987, he hit a wall, finding that all available produce was under ripe and tasteless. Trials and tribulations ensued, specifically dealing with distributors that didn’t carry local strawberries because there was no demand for such a fleeting, fragile item. His passion led to forming direct relationships with area farmers and creating a system of respect for what they could provide for him. He appeals to other chef’s, saying that “we have to cook with what nature gives us”, opposing the idea of “perfection” in the kitchen just to fill a need for aesthetic on the plate.

Bayless also brought up another issue about a common lack of connection to the origins of our food. His example was about a farmer who saw one of the Frontera chefs nonchalantly throw a box of lettuce from the truck. This unconscious act points to more of the hidden systems of cost involved within every product. The amount of time, effort and labor involved from seed to fork is gigantic, and the kitchen worker was discounting that in one mere toss. At a consumer level, the more impersonal and separate we are from our food choices the easier it is to disregard the crisis our food system is in. The state of our oceans in particular offers a huge challenge in trying to educate the public…you literally can’t see what is going on underwater, which makes it that much easier to ignore the fact that we are still consuming wild animals on the brink of extinction.

“We are in the middle of a food revolution,” the reassuring words of our closing speaker, Marion Nestle, and despite what she identifies as the biggest issues; food insecurity, obesity, food safety, globalization, transportation, and harmful marketing techniques, there is heightened awareness within the crisis that is pointing towards change. The gigantic 2009 increase in lobbying funds from the corporate food industry is evidence that a battle is on, and those of us that can see it have to fight back with the only thing that seems to make much difference within the human race…our money. Even the most well intentioned efforts remain contradictory in some way or another. As Dr. Nestle was showing evidence of Coca Cola’s role in tooth decay within Latin America since they began targeted marketing there, I heard the crack and fizz of a can being opened, just a few feet away at the buffet table laden with Coke and M&M packed cookies. Not to mention the huge amount of waste that is inherent to any large event, especially food-centric ones. At what point will these gatherings themselves reflect the integrity of what we are trying to achieve?

The issues are so multifaceted and complex that it is maddening to try to weigh them all, but we are seeing more solutions to promote less wasteful food systems today. Regional, localized distributors, gleaning programs, citywide composting regulations and the popularity of value added products like pickles and jams, and the general up swelling of farmers markets and people sticking to seasonal eating habits. Ultimately, our food policies need to change dramatically at the governmental level, and if there were one thing I took away from Cooking For Solutions this year, it would be that we, the consumer, do have the power to make change. If Marion Nestle has hope, then I do too.

Thomas Keller is one the world’s most celebrated chefs with his fleet of restaurants in Yountville, Los Vegas, and New York. At the same time, he is a vocal “thorn in the side” of local food advocates, with his direct dismissals of the locavore movement.

His message was much the same this year when he spoke at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute a few weeks ago.  Speaking on a panel called “The Future of Food: Scaling Down,” Chef Keller made the distinction between geographically local and temporally local food.

That is, he personally considers local food to be anything that he can get at his doorstep within one day of harvest – even if that means flying that product overnight from across the country.

Here are some excerpts from Keller’s comments on the panel:

When I started cooking, 32 years ago sustainability wasn’t something that was talked about. And, being a chef, the kind of chef that I wanted to be, was about quality number one: quality of product, quality of execution, quality of experience for the guest.

It all rested on the highest quality that I could produce. For me as I went through my career, I came to understand where our product came from and where the best products came from, the term local changed for me. So it wasn’t about a geographical location, it was about quality of the product.

If we could get great lobsters from Main everyday at my back door, then for me that was a local product. If I could get the best lamb available from Pennsylvania, then that to me was a local product.

Now certainly, in saying that, all of you are probably thinking “Well, this guy’s crazy “– because he’s talking about sustainability, local geographical products, not leaving a carbon footprint by shipping things across the US, and there are certainly many things to be said for that.  But there’s also something to be said for supporting some of our purveyors who have products that are coming across the continent for us, people like Keith Martin, who is my lamber in Pennsylvania.

His protocols, his holistic way of raising his animals is something that I want to continue to support, because I really believe in the way that he’s doing. And eventually he will have an impact on the entire industry, and raise the standard of the entire industry. So, I’m willing to leave a small carbon footprint by shipping his lamb from Pennsylvania to Yountville or to New York or to Las Vegas because we use his lamb in all of our restaurants to continue to support what he’s doing. So, I buy from people I have great respect for.

So, ultimately, Keller is justifying the greater environmental load that his purchasing produces by the possible long-term benefits that supporting quality farmers might create. Keller has also said, “Price isn’t important to me, I just want the very best available.” As such, he admits to having an elitist philosophy – which is partly why he has been so successful in the culinary world.

And I am the first to admit — in the sphere he inhabits, his views work.  Extremely well.  At the same time, I would strongly caution against implementing this “24-hour local” food rule for the rest of society.

There are several reasons for this:

1) Building a Diverse Community: If everyone bought their food like Thomas Keller, we might have good quality farms but at the same time we wouldn’t have the infrastructure to support them.  Our agricultural infrastructure is currently targeted toward the large players in the market. It is difficult, for example, for small meat producers to find a certified processing facility in their local area, or for small farmers to find distribution networks for their products.  The more we buy from our local foodshed, the more incentive there will be for these localized networks of infrastructure to be (re)created.  In the process, we will make it  easier for sustainable food producers to go about the business of growing good, healthy food.

2) Diversity on our Local Farms: If we choose to buy our specialty foods from across the country, we are simultaneously decreasing the food-dollars that go to our local farmers — dollars they might invest in growing those very same products closer to home.  Farmers need an economic incentive to grow a variety of plants and animals.  This agricultural variety will directly increase the ecological / environmental health of our farm ecosystems, and at the same time encourage better health as we increase the number of foods in our diets.

3) Energy Use: Economist Jeff Rubin has a new book called Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller which addresses these issues directly.  Rubin’s premise is that the current decline in oil prices is going to be short lived, and was caused in large part by our current recession.  Once the economic recession is over, oil will again be well over $100 / barrel – which will have a dramatic impact on how we grow and ship food.

Here’s an excerpt:

I like salmon — who doesn’t? Salmon consumption has risen about 23 percent each year for the last decade or so. There are a number of good reasons to eat more fish: we all want food high in omega-3s, we want to eat less saturated fat, we want healthy protein for our low-carb diets. But here’s the key reason for the amount of salmon on your dinner table: cheap oil has been subsidizing the cost of fish. Just like Wal-Mart and Tesco and big- box retailers around the world have been able to cut prices on almost everything by taking advantage of cheap shipping and cheap Asian labor, salmon went from being delicious local seafood to being another global commodity. Cheap oil gives us access to a pretty big world.

So, what happens when our globalized food system breaks down as oil prices rise?  We need to be ready with local options, which brings us back to points 1 and 2.  (Again, in Keller’s case, he is buying the best without regard to price.  But this doesn’t work for the rest of us.)

Finally, as a chef I have personally found great value in buying and serving local food.  First of all, it keeps me directly connected with the seasons – and more importantly, how those seasons change from year-to-year.

For example, the menus I create tell me to the week when the local strawberries are available, when the blood oranges are ripe, and when the heirloom tomatoes are fresh off the vine.  I could, if I wanted, get these products nearly year-round if I chose – but then I wouldn’t know that a heavy spring rain delayed the strawberry harvest by two weeks compared with last year.  And perhaps I wouldn’t realize it when unusually cool temperatures kept the heirlooms from fully ripening.  And it is these seasonal and yearly variations that keep me grounded in where I am.

Working with local farmers also teaches me to be nimble in the kitchen, especially if you commit to buying whatever they bring you.  They might say they have 20 lbs of baby bok choy, but then the harvest might not pan out and instead I receive 10 lbs of sugar peas and a case of garlic scapes instead.  Too bad that your menu is already printed – improvise improvise improvise.  This is how nature is in the real world, and it benefits me as a chef to accept and integrate that unpredictability.

Interestingly, Keller does have a small farm as part of The French Laundry.  But when he talks about his farm, he does so from a social view point, not an environmental one. Again, here are Keller’s comments from the Sustainable Food Institute panel:

We have our own garden and orchards in Yontville.  “Why do we have our own garden, our own orchards?”  We’re in California which has the most amazing product in our country. It’s not just that we like to grow our own so we can say so. It’s about the teaching process for our young cooks.

When I was a young cook, I would get on the phone every night and place my order and it would come in the back door, and I didn’t have a connection to where that food came from, and so my idea of waste wasn’t’ something that was really important to me.  So now, growing our own, and harvesting it, and washing it and serving it, you understand the level of respect you have for that food grows enormously. So the amount of waste has been reduced by a great deal.  So it’s really about responsibility and respect for the product.

“Responsibility and respect for the product” is a great goal — and I applaud Keller for investing time, energy, and money into his gardens.  But at the same time, his culinary skills have given him power as an international spokesman for what good food is.  His terminology and ideas around local food are confusing to the casual observer.  So while his food is delicious, I believe our country would be better off by not following the example he is creating.

Photo: inuyaki.com