COOL labeling had been slow to take effect after being part of the 2007 Farm Bill.  Currently, it exempts foods that have undergone a physical or chemical change (cooking, curing, smoking) or that have been processed (breaded, chocolate-covered, blended).  Will Obama consider that consumers have a right to know where there food is coming from, even if it is value-added? On the new rural agenda, it just states, “Implement Country of Origin Labeling so that American producers can distinguish their products from imported ones.”  The devil is in the details, so we will have to wait and see.

The biggest doozy that Obama will hopefully deal with soon is EQIP.  EQIP is billed by the USDA website as “the largest conservation program for working agricultural lands.” But a failure of the program has been the big fat check (up to $450,000) for large CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), who only voluntarily regulate the manure spewing forth from thousands of head.  The New Your Times reported on EQIP last week — detailing the results of changes in the 2002 Farm Bill that encouraged large industrial operations to seek ever-growing subsidies.  While EQIP also provides funds for soil erosion and sediment control as well as irrigation water management and grazing land practices, animal waste management practices (manure lagoons) make up the largest payments, at $179 million.

Agriculture policy expert and Ethicurian blogger Elanor Starmer gives more of the messy details in the report she authored last month [PDF] entitled “Industrial Livestock at the Taxpayer Trough: How Large Hog and Dairy Operations are Subsidized by the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.”

The bottom line is that we are sponsoring Big Ag to make a mess of our waterways, pollute our air and feed us the meat of fat, hormone-injected cows and pigs. Starmer’s report gives suggestions for better enforcement, like capping subsidies at $150,000 and encouraging transparency on how EQIP money is being used.

So what will Obama do?  His current agenda includes stronger regulation for CAFOs: “Strictly regulate pollution from large factory livestock farms, with fines for those that violate tough standards. Support meaningful local control.”

But this isn’t quite the hardline he took in his campaign’s Real Leadership for Rural America [PDF], where he said on the subject the he planned to:

Limit EQIP Funding for CAFOs: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that we should help farmers find the resources to comply with environmental requirements. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides important financial support to farmers seeking to improve the environmental quality of their operations. Unfortunately, the 2002 Farm Bill lifted the cap on the size of livestock operations that can receive EQIP funding, enabling large livestock operations to receive EQIP payments and subsidizing big CAFOs by as much as $450,000. Barack Obama and Joe Biden supports reinstating a strict cap on the size of the livestock operations that can receive EQIP funding so that the largest polluters have to pay for their own environmental clean up.

Let’s hope he remains as stern in his conviction.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has placed a 60 day hold on the pending regulations, and says he intends to conduct the reviews properly and as quickly as possible.  Let’s hope that amid all of the demands being placed on Obama in these crucial early days, he will make room for food issues at the table.

Meanwhile, Vilsack has been busy naming USDA positions, and unfortunately has not yet included any of the Food Democracy Now! Sustainable Dozen.  There is some speculation, however, that the Deputy Secretary position could be filled by Chuck Hassebrook or Karen Ross.  New USDA staffers include Bart Chilton, who will stay commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Carole Jett, who will be Vilsack’s deputy Chief of Staff, and Dallas Tonsager, who will likely be named USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development.   Here’s hoping that the USDA takes note, and brings some sustainably-minded individuals on board.

According to a Consumer Reports poll released this week, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about U.S. food safety, and the overwhelming majority want the government to do more to monitor the American food supply.

Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is only required to inspect domestic food production facilities (other than meat plants, which the USDA inspects daily) once every 5 to 10 years; foreign facilities are inspected even less often. According to the poll, two-thirds of Americans believe the FDA should inspect domestic and foreign food-processing facilities at least monthly. Eighty-three percent are concerned about harmful bacteria or chemicals in food, and 81 percent are concerned with the safety of imported food.

“The American public wants to know more about their food, where it comes from, how safe it is, and will vote with their dollars to support highly meaningful labels,” says Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. “Consumers want to know that the food they buy meets the standards they expect—our poll shows that right now, that is not the case. Whether that means that ‘organic’ fish eat 100% organic feed without contamination, or that people know which meat and dairy products come from cloned or genetically engineered animals—consumers want the government to ensure safety, quality and meaning in the food marketplace.”

Next week, the USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will meet to decide what the USDA “organic” label should mean for fish. The NOSB will vote on their recommendations for “organic” fish production that currently allows the use of fishmeal from wild fish—which has the potential to carry mercury and PCBs—and open net cages, which flushes pollution, disease, and parasites from fish farms directly into the ocean, adversely impacting wild fish supply, sustainability, and health of the oceans. Currently, fish is allowed to carry an organic claim as long as it isn’t a USDA “organic” label. For a good backgrounder check out this article or listen to this segment on Public Radio International’s Living on Earth.

An overwhelming majority of Americans polled—93 percent—agree that fish labeled as “organic” should be produced by 100 percent organic feed, like all other organic animals. Ninety percent agreed that “organic” fish farms should be required to recover waste and not pollute the environment and 57 percent are concerned about ocean pollution caused by “organic” fish farms. More than 4 in 10 polled are concerned about the health problems associated with eating wild fish.

In addition, the poll reveals that an overwhelming majority of consumers want country of origin labeling loopholes closed. Mandatory country of origin labeling (also known as “COOL”) for meats, fish, produce and peanuts was finally implemented on September 30, 2008 but there are large loopholes that the majority of consumers want closed. Ninety-four percent of Americans want specialty meat and fish stores to label their products by country of origin. Meat and poultry sold in butcher shops and fish sold in fish markets—some 11 percent of all meat and fish—are currently exempt from country of origin labeling. Ninety-five percent of consumers polled believe that processed or packaged food should be labeled by their country of origin. Processed (i.e., roasted, salted, smoked) and mixed ingredient foods are currently exempt. Consumers Union developed an online guide—the COOL Tool—to help navigate the new rules of what’s COOL and what’s not.

As for cloned food animals, 70 percent polled want them banned entirely. Ninety-five percent want foods derived from genetically engineered (GE) animals to be labeled as such, and more than 60 percent wouldn’t even buy meat or milk products derived from cloned or GE animals.

After soliciting public comments for more than three months, USDA is finalizing its standard for meat that could carry a “naturally raised” claim. The government proposes a very limited definition—only that the meat should come from an animal not given antibiotics, artificial hormones, or animal byproducts. A vast majority of consumers disagree, and think that meat labeled “naturally raised” should come from animals who were not fed chemicals, drugs, and/or animal byproducts, who were raised in a natural environment, who ate a natural diet, who were not cloned or GE, who had outdoor access, who were treated humanely, and who were not confined.

This is just some of the information gleaned from the poll, but it reveals growing consumer expectations for the labeling of food.  On the brink of a new administration, perhaps a new food policy agenda will emerge, one that meets these expectations for food safety.

Photo: M. V. Jantzen

One of the side effects of a corporate leaning agriculture policy has been the dearth of information found on the labels of consumer-bought produce, meat and other foods. But on September 30th, Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) will finally be put in effect for perishable food items. This will require all unprocessed meats, produce, nuts and other commodities to be appropriately labeled with the country where they were produced, empowering the consumer in the event of a pathogen outbreak but also enabling the consumer to find fresher, more local edibles.

In the last two decades, large food producers have been moving their operations overseas in an attempt to save on overhead, to countries where workers have fewer rights, earn much less and there are fewer health and environmental regulations. Agri-businesses have feared that the U.S. consumer will be uncomfortable with the safety of food produced in other countries, and therefore be less inclined to buy it. Since COOL was written into the Farm Bill in 2002, lobbying has kept it from being implemented in all foods except seafood.

We’ve been told that ceding our food production to international soil was just one of the realities of globalization. But the interest in buying local represents the opposite: a desire to take part in the authentic relationship with the people who produce our food. Beyond that, buying locally is becoming a reality of the current economy, requiring us to think about the oil inputs raising the prices of bringing our food to our table.

In recent years we have seen outbreaks of food-born illnesses, from avian flu to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease), only further exhibiting the need for the consumer to know where their food is coming from. While COOL gives the consumer one piece of the behind-the-scenes puzzle, hurdles still exist to getting full disclosure on our labels. Other potentially empowering information that labels might provide includes whether or not a food item has been genetically modified or whether produce has been irradiated (treated with radiation to kill disease-causing agents, a controversial practice that also destroys nutrients). Buying organic protects the consumer by law from GM food but not everyone can afford to buy organic all of the time. Also, the FDA does not require labeling of genetically engineered animals sold as food. Irradiated foods are required to be labeled, but the label can be miniscule, and foods that have only partially been irradiated don’t have to be labeled at all.

COOL is a big step in the right direction, but beware that any foods that have received the least bit of processing (roasted nuts, peanut butter, ground meat, sausage, trail mix) will be exempted from this law. Check out this tool for determining what will and won’t be labeled at the Consumer’s Union website.

Consumers have a right to know what they are putting in their mouth. Tell your Senators and Representatives how you feel about COOL, and encourage transparent labeling for all foods, fresh and packaged.

Image: foodzie, Olive oil bottles at the Taste Pavilion