We know we’ve struck a chord with the Just Label It campaign, as Americans are responding in record-breaking numbers. As of today, more than 900,000 people have submitted comments to the FDA in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. (I’ve written about the campaign before here and here.) But this campaign has always been about more than just the numbers. It’s about spreading the word about our right to have GE foods labeled.

We’re excited to now introduce this new infographic, which visually explains why the FDA should Just Label It. Designed to clearly show the need for labeling of GE foods, this educational tool includes a link to the Just Label It website where consumers can submit a comment to the FDA. Convenient for sharing on-line and via social media, the infographic is being distributed nationally by Just Label It’s 500 diverse partner organizations.

Whether it’s salmon genetically engineered to grow at twice its natural rate or herbicide-resistant corn that encourages the use of more chemicals in our food supply, we have a right to know what’s in our food.

Already, more than 40 countries–including China and Russia–require labels on genetically engineered food. As Americans, we deserve the same opportunity to make informed decisions about what we eat.

As more Americans know about GE foods, more pressure will build on the FDA to label them. This new infographic will help do just that and it’s easy to share with friends and family, so everyone can be afforded the right to make informed decisions about the food they eat as well. So please help share this cool new tool online, on Twitter, and Facebook. Together, we’ll continue to raise awareness and make our collected voices heard!

Originally published by Just Label It

Food & Water Watch released a new report yesterday called Genetically Engineered Food: An Overview. Sounds rather textbook, yet this report contains answers to questions about this controversial method of food production that big agribusiness does not want you to know. Our researchers worked long hours to provide consumers with information to make informed decisions about GE foods, so you will want to check this out.

As agribusiness constantly reminds us, by 2050, the world’s population will reach approximately nine billion, and that’s a lot of people who will need to eat. While we should be having a comprehensive conversation about how to feed those nine billion people in a way that makes wise use of natural resources, agribusiness has been pushing biotechnology and genetically engineered foods as the only way to provide nourishment to a growing population. Since the mid-90’s agribusiness has found ways to engineer our plants and animals to possess more desirable traits (at least more desirable to their profit margins).

There is a tremendous push from the private sector to incorporate GE foods into our global food supply. More than 365 million acres of GE crops were cultivated in 29 countries in 2010, and the U.S. leads the world in production by being host to 165 million acres. Yet there are many questions that surround this controversial method of production. Do genetically engineered foods really provide long term food security? Are we tracking the health or environmental implications? Who stands to benefit from the policy changes that could potentially allow GE foods to infiltrate our entire global food system? How do GE foods compare to their natural counterparts?

The answers to most of these questions are unsettling. Check out the new report [PDF] to find out why.

Originally published on Food & Water Watch

This past holiday weekend, hundreds of people gathered for a free conference, called Food Justice, hosted by the University of Oregon’s Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. In the words of the conference organizers the purpose was to, “Explore the history and future of our food system with a focus on three themes: community, equity and sustainability.”

With a heavy hitters Fred Kirschenmann and Dr. Vandana Shiva offering inspiring plenaries and a host of academics and practitioners sharing their latest research and ideas, the event was as stimulating as it was frustrating. As Dr. Shiva so eloquently said in her closing plenary, “No other species has achieved the amazing success of depriving itself of food.”

As I was manning the Civil Eats table at the food fair in the student union all day Monday, I wasn’t able to attend as many sessions as I’d like, but I do want to offer a few notes and ideas that I gathered. There is no way to capture everything, clearly, and the following may seem out of context, but hopefully something will spark new ideas and actions.

I’m particularly interested in the language we use to express this movement and advocate that we all get on the same page, so to speak, especially with terms that will resonate with consumers, therefore new or recommended terms always peak my interest. To that end, some of the words I overheard: The word local isn’t cutting it, we should use instead, “resilient” and “foodshed.” We need no longer say “climate change” when we should call it “climate destabilization” and need to refer to GMOs as “transgenesis.” The best wheat to buy is “small wheat” and fish from the Pacific Northwest should be “troll caught” to ensure the future for farmers and the fish. And, finally it looks as if almost everyone has started to say “Food and Farm Bill” in reference to the 2012 Farm Bill.

At Saturday night’s opening plenary with Kirschenmann, we heard from Pete Sorenson, Lane County Commissioner, who started the evening off saying, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Kirschenmann followed and framed my experience for the conference when he said, “We are all just citizens of the biotic community and we need to start [designing a just food system] from this perspective.” He continued by saying, “Not all local systems are the same size … therefore it’s about community engaged as a local ecosystem as a part of a larger ecosystem … so it’s about the health of each impacting the health of the whole and about a network of healthy foodsheds.” He also talked about “coming into the foodshed” and that “our first priority should be to make food for people in the foodshed by people in the foodshed.”

There were conversations about: Measuring the cost of food by its nutrition value; a resurgence of the concept of food commons; the idea that we’ve become too linear in our thinking as a result of the industrial food system – that it causes us, as humans, to think in terms of either this or that, one or the other, rather than holistically and bio-diversely; that there is no one definition of food justice.

Net neutrality, a free Internet, should be a second priority to any food security solutions we work towards.

What if deliciousness were the solution to the problem? How would that re-order our priorities? What would that food system look like?

As citizens participating in food, we have obligations, we have power and our resources are supposed to be equitable, so it’s up to us to fight for them. (There were a lot of references to Egypt … when will Americans stand up for what’s truly just?)

Chuck Benbrook, a leading scientist at The Organic Center told us, “Our community needs to up its game in terms of how we respond to our current food system.” He and University of California Berkeley’s Ignacio Chapela presented on my favorite panel entitled, “Sustainable Agriculture & Emerging Research in Plant Genetics.” Chapela, whom I’ve heard speak on transgenesis in the past, is a total anti-GMO bad ass. He presented, in detail, how the scientific community was derailed and high jacked by the promises of the Manhattan Project and how a small group of people created a national program, in secret, to push technology as the new frontier and led us inevitably into what he calls a “bio ponzi” scheme, or “faciscm as they call it in Italy” – the GE era. He advocates for science that is free and independent (more reason to support the Union of Concerned Scientists) and says “we are bundling when we should be diversifying.”

There was a riveting presentation about wheat production and seeds that lead to the question, do you want to rent your seed or own it? Resulting in a call for revitalizing local mills and keeping wheat in county; as well as breeding our own varieties so Monsanto can’t sue everyone for saving, cleaning, or supposedly stealing seeds.

Our very own Naomi Starkman presented, with Leslie Hatfield on New Media & Food Activism. In “Digitally cultivating food justice” they explored the impact of Twitter (“it’s the tool”) and Facebook, advocated for everyone to use Wikipedia to define their work, and told us that the Huffington Post is our friend. Naomi encouraged anyone interested to become one of their bloggers because, “If we don’t frame this debate, they will.” Plus, it’s quite easy and once you do, “the doors are open.”

One of the attendees asked a question that I must throw out there: When thinking about a new food system, it’s become apparent that we’ll have to do it with the big guys, not against them. So, if that’s the case, that we’ll have to work with Monsanto, McDonald’s, Wal-mart, etc., what are some of the non-negotiables? Panelists didn’t have any answers, but I thought of two, to start: People who work to produce food are paid a fair living wage and if commodity crops get subsidies so should soil health and bio-diversity.

These snippets are a mere tip of an iceberg of notes, fodder for my own advocacy and continued learning, all valuable indeed. But as my head spun with theories, facts, concepts and case studies, I had to wonder why we don’t use our time together more meaningfully when we gather at these conferences. Here you have rooms full of activists, academics and advocates — all concerned, interested eaters hungry for action and change and yet we do nothing but listen and ask questions. Fill our heads with more information. I’d like to challenge all future conference organizers to come up with one action that everyone can take, en masse, some galvanizing call that will give these people something to actually do when they are all together. You know, the old power in numbers theory.

On a final note, Alison Carruth, the conference organizer and resident scholar at the Wayne Morse Center for Law & Politics, said in her closing remarks, “Food justice happens when communities define it with each other.” Great. Let’s get to it!

Rick North is the man who put the fight against rBGH on our radar. As the Director of the Campaign for Safe Food Program at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Rick leads grass roots efforts to discontinue the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) in cows and to ensure that genetically engineered biopharmaceutical crops do not contaminate the human food supply or environment and speaks on the topic regularly. Rick will retire January 31 so that he can become a full-time volunteer fighting undue corporate influence in our government and other aspects of our lives. He’s very concerned about the corporate take-over of our government and the unlimited funds coming into our election process. After the recent elections, he knew he needed to do something. So, he’s taking it on. With a successful track record of beating Monsanto under his belt, we’re all lucky to have him in the trenches. Go Rick!

What issues have you been focused on?

Three main issues: Genetically engineered (GE) foods in general; rBGH (rBST) in dairy [genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone injected into lactating cows so that they produce more milk]; and the industrial meat system. We have major problems with each of them.

What inspires you to do this work?

I started years ago and it was all kind of by accident. I was volunteering for a church and doing research on how our eating habits affected our health and our environment and how we could help local farmers. I stumbled on information about GE foods and rBGH in particular and I became very concerned.

The strong, well-documented articles I read talked about how most industrialized countries had banned rBGH and how they found that it may cause cancer in humans. Most of my career had been working for the American Cancer Society, so that piqued my interest.

I showed the articles to my wife. She has three sisters each with cancer so she may be at higher risk. She read them and it took us about three seconds to decide not to buy rBGH milk. One thing led to another, I linked up with Oregon PSR and started this program.

What’s your overall vision?

The vision is to have a food supply and agricultural system that is safe and sustainable for all people. It is economically viable for farmers and safe for consumers.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

A few books I recommend that deal with GMOs are: Jeffrey Smith’s Seeds of Deception; Andy Kimbrell’s Your Right to Know; and an older one, The Food Revolution by John Robbins; Lisa Weasel’s Food Fray; and one from a Mom’s point of view: The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien.

Who’s in your community?

In Oregon, my world is PSR (and my wife). Our chief scientific advisor is Martin Donohoe. He’s a physician and has been the main guy right from the start. For rBGH, Michael Hansen is a Ph.D and a senior scientist with Consumers Union. He knows more about rBGH than anybody. And, then there are all the other organizations we work with. I’m also involved with a couple coalitions on GE foods and one that I facilitate is the rBGH Coalition, a nationwide coalition that plans strategies and campaigns.

What are your commitments?

Ten years ago, I always thought that if the FDA said something was safe, I figured it was safe. Once I got into this, through GE food and investigating, I realized it’s not necessarily true. So, I’m committed to educating the public on the real health and environmental risks of GE food and the industrial meat system. Hopefully enlightening people the way I was enlightened and working with people who are experts in the field. It’s more than education though, it’s motivating people to take action.

What are your goals?

The one specific goal we have for rBGH is to discontinue its use anywhere in the country; company by company, persuading them to go rBGH-free. Also having people vote with their dollars and stop buying products that allow it and putting pressure on the companies.

We have a national postcard campaign to Breyers and Dreyer’s ice cream companies, asking them, nicely, to stop using rBGH. They’ve received thousands of postcards asking them to stop, along with thousands of emails. So, this is how we work.

We also work with hospitals and big organizations in the same way. It’s a lot of persuasion; getting people to look at the research so they can make up their minds for themselves. The more people know about rBGH and GMOs in general, the more they avoid them.

What does change look like to you?

We did these postcard and email campaigns with Dannon and Yoplait and they got thousands and thousands of emails and postcards and finally stopped using rBGH. Now, there are virtually no dairies in Washington and Oregon using rBGH. We’ve had a lot of success. We’re at the point now where at least 75% of the milk in the country is rBGH-free, and we’re estimating that 75% of the yogurt is. When we started, 90% were using it. So, it’s been a great team effort.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

Take the rBGH efforts, which I facilitate and take the lead on in terms of setting strategies and agendas nationally to discuss it. We have lots of conference calls with the organizations with which we collaborate — collaborations that can number in over a hundred organizations working together toward a goal. Eighty percent of managing anything is clarifying who does what by when. If you can clarify people’s organizational roles, you’ve come a long way. So, we establish those roles and you go out and execute them.

Not all the work is proactive though. A few years ago, Monsanto was going around the states trying to get legislatures to pass a bill or rule that would ban or restrict rBGH-free labeling. They were losing the battle and they thought this would be a good strategy. It caught us by surprise and we spent the better part of two years stopping this in the legislatures and agriculture departments, state-by-state, and we won every one. But a lot of the work we had planned to be proactive had to be put on the back burner for these battles.

Organization, strategy and persistence.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

We work with a lot of organizations. And, I know how difficult it can be to work with coalitions and this has gone really quite smoothly. It’s not that we always agree with each other on everything. So, the organizations in our coalition, there’s GE Action Network, which is a listerv with different organizations that oppose GMOs. We have a lot of really good exchange of information.

Food and Water Watch. The Center for Food Safety. The Union of Concerned Scientists. Family Farm Defenders. National Family Farm Coalition. Organic Consumers Association. Humane Farming Association. Breast Cancer Action. Heath Care without Harm. Locally there’s NW RAGE (Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering).

A lot of “projects” are in the courts or regulatory agencies: GE sugar beets, GE alfalfa, GE salmon. And, now ArborGen is threatening to plant GE eucalyptus trees in the southeast U.S. We have our hands full.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

The Center for Food Safety has done excellent work in the courts. They work with Earth Justice and there are a lot of lawyers there who have done a great job. Consumers Union and Food and Water Watch are very effective in terms of consumer advocacy and action.. There are so many. Health Care Without Harm has done really well to get hospitals to buy and serve safe and sustainably-produced food. Breast Cancer Action is great. Just about any that I’d name are small with limited budgets and it’s amazing how much we’ve accomplished with very little money; especially when you think of the millions Monsanto has to spend.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

Yes, absolutely. We’ve already seen real change. I think what we’re already seeing is a move toward buying more local and organic foods, two promising trends as well as the explosion of farmers markets and CSAs. People are learning more. They know more about their foods than they used to. They are making conscious choices and that’s a really good sign. Some areas of the country are obviously further along than others.

A negative trend though is in the industrial meat system and the worrisome consolidation of the industry, The confined animal feeding lots are just breeding grounds for disease. And, one other serious problem is that companies like Monsanto are buying up smaller independent seed companies. The more they buy them up the fewer choices we all have in terms of our food supply. I can’t think of a worse trend than that.

It’s kind of like the best of times and the worst of times.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

A lot is just getting the word out. If people don’t know they can’t act. We can’t stop with education though. It has to be more than that. It is persuading and actively working with people to change their habits; part of that is personal habits and part is institutional. If someone has never contacted a company before, make it easy for them to contact a company. We need to motivate consumers to be more than just consumers; we need to motivate them to make their voices known.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

The same I ask for every year on my birthday: vegetarian lasagna, with rBGH-free cheese, obviously, tossed salad, garlic bread and chocolate cake (rBGH-free butter) for dessert.

On January 14th Monsanto received some unwelcome news – the U.S. Justice Department was opening a formal investigation of its business practices surrounding its Roundup Ready soybean, the most popular genetically modified (GMO) crop. For the many farmers and seed cleaners who have lost their livelihoods fighting Monsanto, it was surely bittersweet news after years of ignored pleas and support from the Justice Department.

This formal investigation is no David vs. Goliath moment, or in any way an indictment against Monsanto. This is Big Ag vs. Big Ag. The timing coincides with the Pioneer Hi-bred seeds unit, owned by DuPont, filing its own complaints regarding Monsanto’s business practices around its patented Roundup Ready technology division. DuPont is concerned that the emergence of generic genetically engineered (GE) competition (something it plans on leading) will be gravely impacted if Monsanto is allowed to continue with its current practices. (On January 16, a U.S. District Court ruled in Monsanto’s favor—holding that DuPont violated it contract with Monsanto by developing GMO soybeans created with Monsanto’s technology—but left open DuPont’s antitrust challenge on biotech seeds.)

And what practices are those? Primarily they include forcing seed companies and farmers to switch to its second generation patented Roundup Ready technology as the patent on the first generation is set to expire in 2014.

This case is not about the use of GMO seeds (impact or otherwise) – it is strictly about market share and money. The Justice Department investigation wants confirmation that farmers and seed companies will have access to the first generation Roundup Ready trait, which enables Roundup Ready seeds to survive the application of Roundup Ready herbicide. This would allow farmers to save seeds from harvested crops, something they have not been able to do since the product was introduced in 1996. It would also allow seed companies, like Pioneer Hi-bred, to use the trait in its own GE seed modifications – big money and big market potential.

Monsanto is fighting with everything they’ve got. The bottom line impact could be a loss of a half a billion dollars a year in royalties if they are not able to get farmers and seed companies to switch over to their second generation technology. According to the Center for Food Safety, it is estimated that up to 85 percent of U.S. corn, 91 percent of soybeans, and 88 percent of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products), is genetically engineered, which means an estimated 70 percent or more of all processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients. I’ll state the obvious – this is one huge market.

So how does the issue of the ge technology fit into this investigation? It doesn’t, at all. There will be no opportunity to put Monsanto, and others on trial. There will be no questioning of whether or not GE seeds might actually do more harm than good. The examination of studies that have shown that the Roundup Ready seeds don’t actually increase crop yields. A deep look at seed drift and contaminated acreage, even in areas where GMO seeds are not allowed by law, like Oaxaca, Mexico. There will also be no discussion of U.S. Foreign Aid policy and a new push for a Green Revolution Part 2 that is heavily reliant on GE seeds. We won’t get to hear about soil degradation, and the ever-increasing use of herbicides to combat the super weeds that are invading farms across America.

That day will come, in fact perhaps even before the above case sees the light of day. On January 15, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about the risks of genetically engineered crops. Named Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the case will center on GE alfalfa seeds, and stems from a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety on behalf of a coalition of non-profits and farmers who wished to retain the choice to plant non-GE alfalfa. Now that is a day in court I don’t want to miss.

Until then, you go U.S. Department of Justice. Every little bit counts.

For its sixth installment, Kitchen Table Talks will begin to dissect the complex issues of genetically engineered foods and equip participants with knowledge and specific actions to protect themselves, our community and the environment. Two of the most laudable champions in the fight to educate and protect the public from the unregulated, untested genetic engineering of food and unchecked interests of industrial agriculture will lead the conversation: UC Berkeley Microbial Ecologist Ignacio Chapela and Center for Food Safety attorney Zelig Golden.  Kitchen Table Talks No. 6 will take place Tuesday, Oct. 27, from 6:30 – 8:30p.m. in a new location, SUB-Mission gallery in the Mission District of San Francisco.

For more than a decade, one of the largest genetic experiments in history has been taking place and all of us have been unwitting, or at least non-consenting, participants.  According to the Center for Food Safety, up to 85 percent of U.S. corn, 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products), is genetically engineered, which means an estimated 70 percent or more of all processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients. Thanks to the tireless work of GE-critical farmers, lawyers and activists, progress is being made to shed light on GE food. The New York Times via Greenwire reported last week that the USDA has been ordered to conduct an environmental impact statement for the first time on a GE crop.

Representing the scientific perspective of genetically engineered food at the Oct. 27th Kitchen Table Talks, Dr. Chapela is the lead author of the ground breaking 2001 Nature paper that exposed the presence of genetically engineered DNA in wild Mexican maize and was a featured expert in the documentaries The Future of Food and The World According to Monsanto. Providing a view of the policy landscape and the powerful role of legal action against GE food, Zelig Golden is the Center for Food Safety attorney who was integral to the recent Federal Court victory that ordered the USDA to conduct a rigorous assessment of the environmental and economic impacts of “Roundup Ready” beets in Oregon.

Need a primer on the basics of GE food? Check out this entertaining, enlightening three-part series by Bill Nye before the Oct. 27 conversation:

Check out Part Two and Part Three.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of Civil Eats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP to ktt@civileats.com or leave a message at 925.785.0713. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wines.

KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING! Thursday, Oct. 29, 18 Reasons will host Kitchen Table Talks Continued in conjunction with its weekly 18^th Hour community reception. Join our guest speakers Ignacio Chapela and Zelig Golden, and Kitchen Table Talks and 18 Reasons organizers, for an informal, drop in reception open to all, 7-9pm. A donation at the door is requested ($5 for 18 Reasons members, $10 for the general public); delicious Bi-Rite refreshments including Alter Eco chocolate will be served.

Photo: USDA

Historically, the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the US and other countries has primarily profited patent-holding companies, while creating farmer dependence on the chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced by a few US corporations, used to the detriment of human health, soil quality and the environment. The failed sweet potato project at the KARI lab was a product of a public-private partnership between Monsanto, KARI and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the federal organization responsible for most US non-military foreign aid. USAID is not shy about their desire to promote biotechnology, and have been working towards furthering a GMO agenda abroad since 1991, when it launched the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP). According to this in-depth research article by the organization GRAIN, the ABSP sought to “identify suitable crops in various countries and use them as Trojan Horses to provide a solid platform for the introduction of other GM crops.”

In Kenya, that crop was the sweet potato — the focus of the USAID-funded Kenya Agricultural Biotechnology Support Program, which sought for fourteen years at KARI, at a cost of $6 million dollars, to create and bring it to market before the partnering groups abandoned the project.

ABSP shifted its operations in 1998 (four years after GMOs became legal to plant and sell to the US public in food products without a label) by branching out into more specific focus groups seeking the promotion of biotech abroad. This included the Collaborative Agricultural Biotechnology Initiative (CABIO), and its subsidiary, a public relations arm focused on promoting policy friendly to biotechnology called the Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS). PBS is noted for its aggressive push against various governments’ use of the Precautionary Principle, a moral and political principle that protects society from risk in the face of a lack of scientific consensus, in decisions not to plant GMOs.

USAID’s support for biotechnology also extends to its personnel. For example, Judith Chambers was one of the main forces behind the strategies pursued to further the biotech agenda at the ABSP. After working as a senior advisor to USAID, she later served as Director of International Government Affairs at Monsanto, and is now head of PBS.

The point of all these acronyms and associations is to show how a tangled consortium (these are just some of the groups), funded by taxpayer dollars via USAID, seeks to further the aims of biotech abroad, especially in Africa, where Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia were singled out and have been the testing grounds for this strategy.

The obvious beneficiaries of such international development are the handful of corporations which own the patents and the technology, and which produce the herbicides and pesticides required by the use of such seeds. Josephat Ngonyo, head of the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, a network of 60 community groups, small farmers and food security organizations in Kenya, stated in a teleconference yesterday organized by the US Working Group on the Food Crisis that he didn’t feel that farmers were considered when governments made agricultural policies. He sited building infrastructure, like roads, as well as a need for markets as real ways to help farmers. Africans like Ngonyo have a right to be worried — they can look to India to see what a future relying solely on biotech seeds could look like, where a depleted water table, poisoned waterways and farmer suicides have been the result of the first Green Revolution.

The bottom line is that biotechnology requires a spin campaign because it is a marginal approach to the very big and very real problems we face in agriculture. Indeed, there is no one-fits all solution to food security. Yet the US government still pursues the same stubborn, limited policy.

Secretary Clinton continued the mis-guided rhetoric yesterday, despite the fact that hunger is not a yield problem, while speaking at KARI:

“Farmers in Africa have also faced the lack of investment from the private sector as well as governments and the global community, while technologies that have helped farmers in other parts of the world haven’t yet been adapted to the extent necessary to Africa’s needs. Together, these challenges have eroded the foundation of African agriculture. But that foundation is being rebuilt. The scientists here at KARI are taking the lead. I’ve just met with researchers who are cultivating hardier crops that can feed more people and thrive in harsher conditions, disease-resistant cassava plants, sweet potatoes enriched with Vitamin A to prevent blindness, maize that can flourish in times of drought.

The breakthroughs achieved in these labs and others throughout Africa can go a long way toward making sure that farmers who work from sunup to sundown can grow enough to support their families and so people aren’t forced to pull their children from school or sell their livestock to survive a food shortage.”

It is noteworthy that we are even having this discussion, and I commend the administration for talking about food security. (It is also noteworthy that it has taken many months to find a head of USAID — which could be a sign of a real effort to change the direction of that organization.)

But instead of tired solutions that are not working, we need a paradigm shift, says Dr. Hans Herren, who has worked in Nairobi for 27 years and was co-chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report. The IAASTD report [pdf] was sponsored by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and represented four years of work by 400 scientists. “We can do better and more using a broader set of tools [than biotechnology],” Herren continued. The report, which came out in 2008, stated unequivocally that business as usual in agricultural production was not an option, pushing for a more broad-based approach to answering the question:

What must we do differently to overcome persistent poverty and hunger, achieve equitable and sustainable development and sustain productive and resilient farming in the face of environmental crises?

Biotechnology is a reductionist pipe dream which is overly dependent on waning resources. By contrast, the IAASTD looked a agro-ecological solutions that focused on agricultural resilience. Agriculture according to the IAASTD requires multifaceted, local solutions. While biotechnology has been promising drought tolerance and higher yields for years without delivering, there are real answers available now — like drought tolerant varieties, suited to certain areas, which are naturally bred; science that focuses on building the quality of the soil and the capacity for that soil to hold more water; or push and pull solutions that deal with pests naturally by attracting beneficial insects or planting compatible species that act as decoys for those pests.

So now what are we going to do with the 20 billion in aid pledged by the G-8 last month to promote food security in Africa? In light of what we now know about USAID, and the fact that there are biotech friendly advisers like Technology and Science Advisor to Secretary Clinton Nina Fedoroff and Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rajiv Shah in the administration, it is not hard to assume how those monies might be used. But President Obama should significantly change our policy if he wants to truly help the continent he says he cares so much about.

Obama administration: Study the IAASTD. If there is any hope for a better food system in Africa and the U.S., we must first accept that what is being practiced now is not sustainable, and begin to start the process of making it so.

Yesterday in speaking with Allafrica.com, President Obama discussed today’s trip to Ghana, and his ideas for alleviating hunger in Africa. In just a few words, he revealed a bit about his possible economic agenda there, too:

“Now, I also think on the ground in many of these countries, how we think about not high-tech stuff but low-tech technologies to, for example, improve food production is vitally important.”

Low-tech technologies could imply better education around sustainable farming practices and food storage. But “improving food production” sounds a lot like boosting yields, similar to what Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in June (“If we can help countries become more productive themselves then they will be in a better position to feed their own people”). Both messages imply that not enough food is currently being produced to feed the world population. But as I’ve argued before, hunger is not a yield problem. Feeding people is about access, which is lacking even in the United States, where around 36 million people are food insecure. Speculation on commodities, the same practice that bottomed out our financial sector, has resulted in higher food prices and by extension, a food crisis, because people could not afford to buy food.

And yet these overtures are all too familiar. The President is echoing the wording featured in advertisements by companies like Monsanto, in whose interest it is that we continue to pursue GM seeds abroad (Monsanto holds 90% of seed patents) even though in the last 20 years these seeds have failed to produce the higher yields and drought tolerance they have promised. In an economic crisis, perhaps there is discussion that we can stimulate our economy by getting Africans hooked on our seeds and the herbicides/pesticides they require. But it will surely not be Africans who benefit from this arrangement.

Obama continued:

“And I’m still frustrated over the fact that the green revolution that we introduced into India in the ’60s, we haven’t yet introduced into Africa in 2009.”

There are very good reasons why we have never introduced a Green Revolution into Africa, namely because there is broad consensus that the Green Revolution in India has been a failure, with Indian farmers in debt, bound to paying high costs for seed and pesticides, committing suicide at much higher rates, and resulting in a depleted water table and a poisoned environment, and by extension, higher rates of cancer. If President Obama is lacking this information, it is his cabinet that is to blame.

Agricultural development is a loaded phrase, vague in the way political phrases can be, because the way it is implemented depends on the viewpoints of those involved in decision making. President Obama is currently embedded in a bubble featuring some of the fervent promoters of the biotech industry and a Green Revolution in Africa, such as Nina Fedoroff, who is a biotechnology researcher currently serving as Hilary Clinton’s adviser on science and technology, and Rajiv Shah who left his post at The Gates Foundation’s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to serve as the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) and Chief Scientist at the USDA. One can’t help but wonder, then, if by requesting this money from the G8 in the name of charity we are instead trying to promote our own economy.

Right now, with most studies being sponsored by industry, millions of dollars being spent on lobbying by agribusiness in Washington, and a revolving door that brings people from private sector agricultural companies to Capital Hill, the public is being given one side of the story on biotechnology. Six European countries have now banned the planting of GMOs in their fields based on this lack of information, following what is called the “Precautionary Principle:” that if there is no scientific consensus, there is a responsibility to intervene and protect the public from possible harm. Instead, the U.S. is conducting a scientific experiment on its people, and the results have been alarming.

Aside from the the impact GMOs have on our health, on which study has been lacking, these crops are responsible for massive pollution and depletion of our waterways, and require high oil inputs and a stable climate to produce. This is not sustainable. Isn’t it then a bit short-sighted to promote GMOs and commodity crops in Africa, where 80% of the population is rural, and 33 million farms each farming 2 hectares or less are producing 90% of the continent’s food?

If we really want to help the hungry, we should invest in tools, arable land for communities, and education about sustainable farming in Africa. We should teach seed-saving and intercropping, so that diets will be diverse and healthy. Most of all, we should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to hunger, as there are no easy answers. Empowering locals to work within their own climate, governance and culture will ensure that real strides are made in alleviating hunger. Otherwise, instead of teaching Africans to fish, we will be giving Africans fish with the hook of dependence still attached.

Update: The full G8 summit statement on food security can be read here. It is wide-sweeping, and a lot more focused on localized efforts than this piece had predicted. We shall see what the outcome of this statement will be.

[If you feel strongly that GMOs should not be a part of international development policy, sign the CREDO Action petition and let your legislators know!]

Seed and chemical giant Monsanto and friends have lately been conducting all-out re-branding campaigns, seeking to present themselves as the answer to world hunger and the actualization of sustainability.  As an extension of this tight message control, Oxfam is hosting a panel discussion at the Asia Society in New York tomorrow at 8:30 am called “The Global Food Crisis – Time for Another Green Revolution?“  But the discussion seems like it will be rather one-sided.

Taking part are Kevin L. Eblen, Vice President, Public Policy and “Sustainability Lead” at Monsanto, as well as Rajiv Shah, Director of Agricultural Development at the Gates Foundation and Dr. Robert Zeigler, Director General, International Rice Research Institute (The institute that conducted the research for the original Green Revolution).

Perhaps this group is convening to pat each other on the back for their role in bringing forth a similar Green Revolution to what we have seen before.  In any case it is clear there will not be a considered critique of the role genetically modified seeds have played in increased farmer debt, and by extension, farmer suicides worldwide; the increase dependence on international food aid due to a reliance on monocropping (growing one single, usually inedible-before-processed crop — or worse, growing something like BT Cotton, which is totally inedible); and not to mention, a stripping of the fertility of the land, contributing to desertification and climate change; and waning GM crop yields that have resulted in the face of proven increased productivity of organics over time.

Tom Philpott pointed out the lopsided nature of the panel on Comfood:

If Oxfam wants a real debate or even a robust discussion, where are the agro-ecologists, the organic ag folks on this panel? Has Oxfam never heard of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which — under the aegis of the World Bank, of all institutions — took an extremely skeptical position viz. patented transgenics as a solution to climate change-related ag problems in the global south? Or the recent UN report finding vast potential for low-tech organic ag in Africa?

The debate is on for whether we actually need a new Green Revolution, and if so, what that should look like.  I spoke with Raj Patel a few months back for a piece about our perceptions of GM seed.  He spoke then about his discussion with panelist Rajiv Shah that was quoted in the New York Times Magazine, and he had this to say:

“I absolutely think we need a sustainable Green Revolution.  But it has to be with the kind of technology that Vandana [Shiva]‘s working with, or Via Campesina is working with.  An agroecological revolution is one that isn’t just about what chemicals and what genes to use in the fields, but changing our relationship with the earth. That’s not something that the Gates folk are ready to hear (we’ve tried). Moreover, though, there’s something very wrong about a private foundation doing something that should be government policy – and the only reason it isn’t government policy is because governments have been prevented in the past 30 years from doing this sort of agricultural work and research. I’d say if something is to be sustainable in Africa, shouldn’t Africans be involved, rather than the passive recipients for US largesse (which hasn’t worked out very well).”

Apparently, we are not the only ones scratching our heads about plans for the new Green Revolution.  Seemingly preemptive to the meeting at the Asia Society tomorrow, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a study on Tuesday called the “Environmental Food Crisis: Environment’s Role in Averting Future Food Crises,” which suggests that we begin to think more ecologically about food waste and infrastructure.  UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner: “We need to deal with not only the way the world produces food but the way it is distributed, sold and consumed, and we need a revolution that can boost yields by working with rather than against nature.”

They suggest “managing and better harvesting extreme rainfall on continents such as Africa, alongside [giving] support to farmers for adopting more diversified and ecologically-friendly farming systems – ones that enhance the ‘nature-based’ inputs from pollinators such as bees as well as water supplies and genetic diversity.”  The report also speaks rationally about water scarcity, organic production capacity, re-organizing the food market structure and removing crop subsidies.  Check out this great article from Inter Press Service about the report for more perspective.

Needless to say, I will be present at the discussion in the morning, looking forward to (and a bit freaked out about) standing up for all of those voices who have no say in how their land is developed under the auspices of philanthropy, by those whose pockets have the potential to be lined by this little experiment.  Please join me at th Asia Society, I will be outside at 8:00am, somehow making myself known (Late twenties with an iPhone addiction, and I won’t be bothered if you approach me — unless you are a Monsanto exec), and will be livetweeting the event on my twitter feed, featured in the right-hand side panel on Civil Eats.

UPDATE: Doug Gurian-Sherman, a Senior Scientist of the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is speaking tomorrow at the Asia Society panel, instead of Rajiv Shah.

Image: Monsanto’s recent ad campaign

And anyone that eats can attest to the utter confusion that our food supply has become. As headlines swirl about beef recalls large enough to feed every American two hamburgers, baby formula laced with melamine, and controversial additives used to preserve processed foods, eaters can’t help but yearn for the days when all we had to worry about was contaminated spinach.

To be candid, I was never much of a foodie. When I heard about Michael Pollan’s PBS Interview with Bill Moyers, I couldn’t relate when he said that his “path was through the garden.” My path was through the aisles at Costco and the tubes of blue yogurt, since I saw the organic thing as a lifestyle choice that I couldn’t afford.

But as 2008 headlines exposed our tainted financial system, stories followed about our tainted food supply. As I read about baby formulas and jars of salsa laced with who-knows-what, I was left slack-jawed as I learned that the financial industry wasn’t the only industry that had experienced deregulation, lack of transparency and failed oversight.

In the last eight years, the Food and Drug Administration, charged with safeguarding the health of our nation’s 300 million eaters, has not only seen its budget decline but has also seen its staffing levels fall behind its workload.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of food safety inspections conducted by the agency dropped by 47 percent, leading its own Science Board, chaired by Barbara McNeil, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and a radiologist at the Brigham and Women’s in Boston, to declare that the agency could “no longer fulfill its mission without substantial and sustained additional appropriations.”

In “an alarming report,” the New York Times stated that the FDA had also declared that “American lives at risk” and that the FDA lacks resources and “can no longer ensure the safety of the food supply.”

And I thought all I had to worry about was the declining stock market and sick kids.

As I dug into additional research from organizations like the Cato Institute, the Environmental Working Group and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I learned that a lot of the scientific data highlighted in the press has been funded by the food industry and propagated by groups with legitimate sounding names like the American Council on Science and Health. I also learned that in the last ten years, our food supply had been chemically engineered in order to enhance product shelf life, productivity and profitability of food corporations.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States is the world’s largest corporate producer of genetically engineered organisms. Since the introduction of these bio-engineered ingredients into our food just over ten years ago, we are also one of the only developed countries allowing these ingredients into our food supply (stats from USDA/ERS: Rapid growth of adoption of genetically engineered crops continues in the US).

As I continued to learn more from the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, I also learned that no human trials had been conducted to assess the safety of consuming these genetically modified and bio-engineered foods, prompting government agencies around the world – from Europe to Russia to Australia – to either ban or label these ingredients due to the health risks that they may present.

Through documentaries like The Future of Food and a May 2008 Vanity Fair investigative story, which detail the remarkable relationship that the agrichemical, food corporations have with our government, I learned about a “revolving door” that exists between the food industry and our government agencies. Candidly, the stories read much like a James Bond movie or George Clooney’s Michael Clayton and reminded me of a recent New York Times piece titled “The Guys From Government Sachs” about the “revolving door” between the investment banking industry and our government.

As I struggled to reconcile what I was learning about these corporations, their profit-driven strategies, our government and the global food crisis, I was fascinated by an article by Michael Pollan, “Playing God in the Garden” and a recent Catholic News document from the Vatican stating that “the responsibility for the food crisis “is in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people. If one wants to pursue GMOs (genetically modified organisms) one can freely do so, but without hiding that it’s a way to make more profits” given that “a more just system of distribution and not the manufacturing of genetically modified foods is the key to addressing the problem.”

According to the Wall Street Journal‘s Money and Investing section, one of these corporations has recently seen their stock price rise 170 percent.

As the Vatican cries “moral foul”, is this a signal that there’s more fire than smoke on the horizon? We will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I may listen to a few earnings’ calls as evidence continues to mount regarding health risks like infertility that these bio-engineered foods present. I may also clean out my cabinets in an effort to reduce my family’s exposure to these genetically engineered organisms now found in conventional corn, soy and milk in the United States.

And as I do, I will reflect on the headlines of 2008, The Audacity of Greed, and the impact that the corporations, lobbyists and bankers spinning through the “revolving door” have on our policy decisions, while the theme song from Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice, runs through my head:

“Money, Money, Money, Mon-ey, MON-EY!”