On the heels of a Tea Party-fueled midterm election, House Republicans have pledged to use their new majority to rein in federal spending and decrease the size of the bureaucracy–a tough environment for any government agency seeking greater resources.  Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a fiscal conservative who will chair the subcommittee that oversees FDA’s budget, recently raised serious questions about the justification for the new food safety bill’s price tag.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new provisions will cost $1.4 billion over five years.

“I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out, but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant overreach,” Kingston told the Washington Post in late December.  ”We still have a food supply that’s 99.99 percent safe. No one wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn’t there.”

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told reporters on a White House media call Monday that she remains “optimistic” that the agency will be able to move forward and implement the bill, but declined to say whether the entire CBO estimate would be critical to carrying out all of the new responsibilities.  Those tasks include mandatory recall authority, increased inspection frequencies of high-risk facilities, and enforcing new requirements that growers and food facilities have food safety plans and that foreign facilities importing food to the U.S. must meet the same standards.

Shifting the federal food safety system, which haphazardly oversees a now global food system, from a reactive to a preventive system that enforces food safety regulations and inspects food facilities more than once a decade is no small feat.

“This is a major, historic piece of legislation … and it’s really Congress asking us to build a whole new system for food safety with all of the elements that you’ve been hearing about, some of those elements we’ve already been working on and will be able to put in place fairly quickly with existing resources.  Other components will require additional resources, dollar and human resources,” said Hamburg.   “We will be working closely with Congress and key stakeholders to try to really specify some of those needs.”

“Obviously the money that we have available in the annual budget cycle … ultimately impacts the way we are able to implement the bill,” said Hamburg, adding that FDA has been “very fortunate” to receive recent budget increases in recent years despite tough budgetary conditions.

When asked about Kingston’s comments about justifying the cost of implementing the bill,  Hamburg said that shifting the food safety system toward being preventive was “the appropriate way to go” and that the cost of not implementing the reforms would be “simply unacceptable.”

“We are very fortunate that we do have one of the safest food supplies in the world, however, every day we see preventable illness.   We see unnecessary hospitalization and too many people have died from foodborne disease that could have been prevented,” said Hamburg. “We are committed to taking on these new responsibilities and mandates given to us by Congress and we will work closely with Congress to implement this as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, also on the media briefing, called on Congress to fund the bill.

“The change won’t happen overnight and it’s still essential that Congress provide sufficient funding for these improvements to take shape,” she said.  ”Thanks to the legislation, we can seriously begin building the 21st century food safety system that we desperately need.”

Advocates for the new law, including consumer lobbyists and the leading food industry groups, are gearing up to fight for the funding.

“FDA is going to need the resources to enable this landmark new law to fulfill its promise.  The costs of not implementing this new law are staggering,” said Erik Olson, director of food initiatives for the Pew Health Group, citing a study last year that estimates the total health care costs for foodborne illness at $152 billion annually.

“Those costs dwarf any costs of implementing costs for this legislation,” added Olson. “That doesn’t even consider the costs to industry of these recalls.  A single company announced, back in 2009, that the peanut recall alone cost them $60-70 million.  This will save a great deal of money for consumers and industry.”

Olson said consumer, industry, public health, and foodborne illness victim lobbying groups are all set to “vigorously” make the case for funding the new provisions.  ”This is money that is extremely well spent.  It’s wise to spend money in order to save money in the long run.  We will be seeking to make the case to Congress that it is important to public health.”

Pam Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a strong supporter of the bill, said the food industry “has long recognized that strong government oversight is a critical and necessary part of our nation’s food safety net” and pledged GMA’s continued support for successfully implementing the new law.

Bailey said that the food sector expects the reforms will prevent contamination and “raise the bar for the entire industry.”

President Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act into law today after returning from a family vacation in Hawaii.

Originally published on Food Safety News

Author’s note: Lately a number of people have asked me what I think of how the Obama administration is approaching agriculture. Do all the gardens and talk of healthy food represent significant change, or are they a leafy green veneer on what amounts to nothing more than business as usual? Here’s my response, which was mailed by post today.

*
June 23, 2009

Dear President Obama and Secretary Vilsack,

I’d like to applaud your bold work this spring in beginning the shift toward a more sustainable agriculture. Change is evident in your symbolic work regarding gardens and food, and, more importantly, in the USDA’s practical actions of appointing Kathleen Merrigan as Deputy Secretary and granting $50 million to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Family farmers and other proponents of a healthy food system have long worked to advocate ideas like these, and it’s invigorating to see them finally taking root in the highest levels of government.

However, when I pan out from these changes, I see a deep contradiction. In your approach to agricultural policy as a whole, you continue to promote practices on the other end of the spectrum—practices that in fact negate those changes toward sustainability. Specifically, what troubles me is your hybrid vision for the future, in which those organic gardens grow alongside inherently opposing constructs, most notably patented biotechnology and the National Animal Identification System. Mr. Secretary, this spring you told the Des Moines Register, “To me it isn’t about either-or… It’s about how do you figure out ways for folks to co-exist and how do you figure how to take the best of all of it…” The problem is, that co-existence is impossible. Here’s why:

Sustainable agriculture is founded on the principle of farmer leadership. The first step to creating a sustainable food system is restoring stewardship, that elemental relationship in which a farmer balances food production with ecological health and social well-being. That is possible only when farmers are empowered: trusted to lead, respected financially, and encouraged—indeed, allowed—to be independent and free.

But these practices you propose as integral to our future in fact disempower farmers: biotech by denying them the right to save seed, and NAIS by indirectly punishing livestock producers who work on a smaller scale. Worse, they set in place systems by which the rights that farmers do have are overruled. What might seem like coexistence early on proves to be, instead, the slow death of the weaker half.

There’s an illustration of how this has already happened in the story of genetically engineered corn: After less than two decades since biotech seed came on the market, American agriculture has accepted that more or less every corn stock in this country has been contaminated with their patented genes. Because of that, the companies that own those genes have the power to shut down the farmers and plant breeders who are trying to come up with non-biotech solutions for our future—the very alternative agriculture that you claim to endorse. This approach is not “bi-partisan,” it is undemocratic.

Mr. President, on the campaign trail you insisted that “if Washington continues policies that work against America’s family farmers, our rural communities will fall further behind—and so will America.” Both of you have recognized the anti-farmer nature of corporate livestock production contracts, and worked to restore fairness to that sector of the industry. Why have you not applied the same judgment and vision to the rest of your agricultural policy?

I urge you to reconsider the future of our food system. I firmly believe that to feed ourselves in years to come, we’ll need to have our farmers right there with us—and not just as service people, but as leaders, stronger and more numerous than they are today. As a realist, I recognize that many existing practices within agriculture, even the most faulty, must stay in place at least long enough to keep Americans fed today. But if we base our survival on systems that ultimately disenfranchise farmers, we will certainly go hungry in the long run.

Sincerely,

Lisa M. Hamilton

Editor’s Note: Lisa M. Hamilton does write for the Prairie Writers Circle, but this letter was composed independently.

"Harvest Time in Harlem," an education program run by Slow Food USA.

Last week, Michelle Obama made these remarks (VIDEO) to a group of fifth-graders who had just harvested 73 pounds of lettuce and 12 pounds of snap peas from the First Lady’s Garden on the White House Lawn:

“To make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future, we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools. We’re approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs. In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids.”

It wasn’t Michael Pollan who said those words. It was the First Lady. Coming from her, the phrase “big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda” is a call to action we cannot ignore.

When children are given the chance to plant and pick and cook food that’s both delicious and good for them, they’re far more curious to give it a try—and more often than not, they like it. When those children are offered real food in the school cafeteria and at the family dinner table, they eat it. They begin to ask for it.

Michelle has said that when Sasha and Malia learned to enjoy real food, they started “lecturing” her about what she should be eating and “what a carrot does, what broccoli does” to our bodies. Her kids taught her to enjoy real food. Kids can lead the way.

The National School Lunch Program provides a meal to 30 million children every school day. By giving schools the resources to serve real food, we can teach 30 million children healthy eating habits that will last throughout their lives. That’s a major down payment on health care reform. By providing 30 million children with locally grown fruits and vegetables, we can dramatically reshape the way this country grows and gets its food. By raising a generation of children on real food, we can build a strong foundation for their health, for our economy’s health and for America’s future prosperity.

This year, the Child Nutrition Act, which is the bill that governs the National School Lunch Program, is up for reauthorization. Unless citizens everywhere speak up this summer, “business as usual” in Congress will pass a Child Nutrition Act that continues to fail our children. We can do better.

Our leaders in Congress have to hear that everyday people in their districts refuse to accept the status quo. We have to tell them that when it comes to our children and the legacy we’re leaving them, change can’t wait.

That’s why a group of us are organizing a National Eat-In for Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. On that day, people in communities across America will gather with their neighbors for public potlucks that send a clear message to our nation’s leaders: It’s time to provide America’s children with real food at school.

To get the whole country to sit down and share a meal together we’re going to need the help of all kinds of people: parents, teachers, community leaders, kids and people who’ve never done anything like this before. We’re going to need everyone to pitch in, starting today—because with the President calling for health care reform and the First Lady planting a garden on the White House Lawn, we’ve got an opening to pass legislation that grants 30 million children the freedom to grow up healthy.

We can do it this year, but only if we act now. It’s time to get real food into schools.

Later today, when the President announces his 2010 budget, which slashes 121 programs and about $17 billion, there’ll be one crucial area where spending will increase. Working with his closest advisers, President Obama is attempting to redress the longstanding civil rights grievances of black American farmers, by proposing a $1.25 billion deal to settle their discrimination case against USDA, which has come to be called ‘The Pigford Claims.’ (Pic: John Boyd speaks at a USDA rally)

The funding could benefit as many as 80,000 black farmers, who experienced decades of unconscionable behaviour from USDA employees, in the form of denied services and discriminatory lending practices. The President inherited the longstanding problems, and after taking office, both he and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack pledged to help. Pigford has been an emotional battle spanning multiple administrations and Ag secretary tenures, and the budget announcement is due to years of work by a bipartisan group of farmers, lawyers, and non-profit Ag and justice groups, led by Dr. John W. Boyd, Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA). But today’s settlement offer almost didn’t happen.

“After the President got into office, they [administration officials] asked us to wait another two years, because of the state of the economy,” Boyd said last night. “I said–two years! Some of these people have waited a lifetime already!”

Many of the farmers involved in the settlement are elderly, and many of the younger farmers who will qualify for settlement money saw their parents and grandparents fighting the USDA. Recently, Secretary Vilsack called the USDA “the last plantation,” an entirely accurate description of the pervasive culture of “Good Old Boy” behavior among white, male agency officials at the local, state and federal level. According to lawyers and farmers Obamafoodorama has spoken with, it was acceptable and routine for USDA officials at every level to “persuade” black farmers that farm services and loans weren’t available to them, that deadlines had passed, and to throw away applications for services. Last week, when the NBFA held a protest in front of USDA headquarters on the National Mall, farmers from around the country told stories of discrimination and bad practices at USDA. In every case, the state was different, but the behavior of USDA officials was the same.

Boyd said that he had repeatedly pointed out to White House officials that the longer Pigford went unsettled, the more the President would be involved in a situation he had no hand in creating. Top-level advisers, including Valerie Jarrett, have been crucial to resolving the issue, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been involved, too. Most recently, on Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) introduced The Pigford Claims Funding Act of 2009. Sen. Grassley has introduced various versions of this legislation in the past decade, as have others on Capitol Hill. While still an Illinois senator, the President also sponsored crucial Pigford legislation, which was included in the 2008 Farm Bill.

Boyd is pleased that the President has moved fairly rapidly to allocate money to settle Pigford, but he believes the $1.25 billion is still a low sum.

“$2.7 billion is a better figure,” Boyd said. “We’re talking about thousands of farmers, decades of discrimination, people losing their land and going bankrupt, people whose lives and livelihoods were ruined based on the color of their skin. If these farmers had been white, they would have had all the support USDA gives farmers, and I wouldn’t still be working on this.”

Boyd farms on the North Carolina/Virginia border, and says he hopes Pigford really will be settled soon, so he can stop coming to Washington. But he worries that Pigford may well get lost again when the President’s budget goes to Capitol Hill (in pic: A farmer from Georgia wears a t-shirt with all the names of those who work on his family’s farm…all have been impacted by Pigford)

“I’ve devoted my life to this,” Boyd said. “I just want it to be over. All the black farmers want it to be over. We’ve waited long enough.”

It should be noted that settling the Pigford claims also helps promote other parts of President Obama’s agricultural agenda, and to fulfill campaign promises. Most of the black farmers farm smaller, family owned concerns, and the President has promised to encourage this kind of farming.

Photos: Obama Foodorama, April 29, 2009 at USDA headquarters, Wahsington DC.

Originally published on Obamafoodorama

President Obama, on the other hand, entered his role with a stack of urgent crises on his desk. Food advocates couldn’t help but have lowered expectations of how he would address the decline of farming and of rural populations; lobbyists working in the USDA, FDA and EPA; the quality of school lunch; the 36 million Americans suffering from hunger; energy independence beyond the empty promise of ethanol, and more. The real food lobby has gotten used to these vital issues taking a back seat, but that didn’t mean they were going to stop asking our young, hip and multitasking president to change all that.

And as if that list of problems facing the food system weren’t enough, food safety became the main domestic issue (aside from the economy) thrust into daylight of this administration, beginning with the massive peanut butter recall back in January, then followed by Nicholas Kristof’s illumination of increased incidences of the virulent, untreatable bacteria MRSA (Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) occurring near factory hog farms in the Midwest, and now culminating in the swine flu, which might have had its origins in a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) cesspool at a million-head-per-year Smithfield hog farm in Perote, Mexico.

It seems, however, that President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack still view agriculture as separate from the problems we face in health care, environmental policy and energy policy. He has yet to show that he understands that in order to address food safety with lasting effect, his cabinet must address the underlying issues facing our food system first, including its reliance on oil and the unhealthy food it produces. I hate to do it, but I have to give the President a “C-” on his agriculture policy thus far, bringing the Obamas to a combined grade of “B-”.

“It’s time that our leaders engage in whole systems solutions for the problems facing not only our economy, but also agriculture,” said David Murphy of Food Democracy Now!, a sustainable food advocacy group, when asked about the matter. “Failure to do so will only lead to an increase in the number and severity of future food safety outbreaks.”

Back in March, it seemed as if Obama was prepared to change this status quo on food safety, with the announcement of a Food Safety Working Group (FSWG), following the recall of over 1500 products containing contaminated peanut butter, confirming what had been known for some time by those who study the food system: contamination in an industrial agriculture model can spread fast and far. Obama insisted with the introduction of the FSWG that he was going to take food safety seriously. But then the committee seemed to drop like a stone into the annals of policy making.

Why haven’t we continued to hear more from the FSWG? Perhaps because Former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius was held up until yesterday in the Senate, when she was finally confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Now that she is on board, there is again hope that food safety issues will be front and center (if only because of the fear surrounding the swine flu) and will hopefully get beyond the simplistic message that we can eat pork without worry.

“One place President Obama could start is to call for more regulation of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to make sure that they operate in accordance with the clean air and clean water acts,” Murphy said. “Another step would be to phase out the use of antibiotics in livestock that are important in the medical treatment of humans. The current swine flu pandemic should be a significant teachable moment for consumers, legislators and livestock producers. There are some things we can no longer afford to ignore. It’s time to put people over profits.”

Food safety requires manageable scale. And it requires honest, unbiased risk assessment. If a hog confinement operation was indeed the origin of the swine flu, we should not be afraid to consider the possibility that the way we are raising animals for meat in this country is dangerous and will never be safe.

Let that honest assessment begin today at 9:30 am, when 20 victims of foodborne illness, including surviving family members, will be in Washington, DC to share their stories and to call on Congress to pass food safety legislation. 76 million people get sick every year from food contamination, and 5,000 lose their lives. A band-aid will never solve this problem.

There is still hope that President Obama will recognize the power of local food economies of scale. With unemployment at 8.5% as of March and growing, its time for him and his cabinet to think seriously about the original green job: farming. He can begin by initiating a “farmer corps” program to incubate new farmers, similar to one recently implemented in Japan. Furthermore, instead of just talking about ending subsidies for industrial commodity farms, he should take action, minimizing payments and thereby incentivizing diversity in growing.

As the veil is lifted and consumers continue to learn through films like Food, Inc., Fresh and Meat the Truth about the impact of the food choices we make, the voices pushing Obama to deal with our unwieldy and outdated food system will only grow louder.  I hope that following this, the President and his cabinet will address food as the serious and vital issue that it is, and the President will deserve an “A” for his agriculture policy in the next 100 days.

Recently, a cadre of notable professors, chefs and policy leaders have spoken up about the dangerous links between our food and diseases like obesity, from Bill Clinton to Dr. Barry Popkin. Even Tom Vilsack has remarked that he would like to steer food policy under the umbrella of health care reform and just last week Michelle Obama spoke of reducing processed foods in our diets. But where is the voice of America’s #1 doctor, the Surgeon General?

As the Obama administration began to take shape at the start of the year and whispers circulated over the naming of the next Surgeon General, I couldn’t help but wonder what this post is really about and how seemingly appropriate its station could be in the widespread communication of food sustainability and health to the mainstream.

According to the government website of the Surgeon General, the position is part of the Office of Public Health and Science within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the office holder seeks to be “America’s chief health educator by providing Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.”

Unfortunately, our chief health advocate has been somewhat invisible or inaudible at least, some may argue, since the days of C. Everett Koop.

It is now time to revitalize this invaluable tax-supported post in our government and choose an intelligent agenda for the next Surgeon General. Although the sustainable-food movement has been gaining in leaps and bounds at the moment (e.g. White House organic garden), by tapping the top advocate for public health to join the squad, this base can be solidified to tackle issues from a government-backed, mainstream platform – at least on the health front. How better to contain the critics who profess that sustainable food advocates have a scattered and extreme agenda?

And there is no better time than now to have a Surgeon General dedicate resources to a healthier food supply. Some have now deemed obesity the #1 threat to American health (nearly 2 out of 3 Americans is either overweight or obese).

There are plenty of innovative and effective initiatives the next Surgeon General can roll out to inject techniques of sustainable food into an agenda combating diet-related lifestyle problems. Many of these ideas have been shuttled back and forth among food policy advocates, but by being heard through the office of America’s #1 doctor, awareness and change would be better guaranteed.

Firstly, a new campaign of health warnings pinpointing the perils of the average American diet should be considered, similar to the Surgeon General health warnings seen on alcoholic beverages, and most popularly, on packages of cigarettes. Although issuing warnings on items like cigarettes is a much easier task than enforcing rules on a vast array of retail foods, more attention should be given to finding effective ways to re-launch health warnings in a modified approach (e.g. levels of saturated fats in certain foods).

Secondly, the Surgeon General’s post could do a lot more to communicate the realities of food subsidies to the American mainstream by educating the public about how inexpensive, processed foods enter our food system and how important it is to promote healthy fruits and vegetables instead.

The Surgeon General could speak more powerfully on issues relating to fast-food outlets in urban areas and their proximity to schools, portion sizes and television advertising of processed foods to children. He or she could push for better front-of-package nutrition labeling (favored by almost 75% of American and developed for use in the U.K.), a redesigning of the Food Pyramid, and more research in the areas of local and sustainable food.

In general, the Surgeon General could be an invaluable teacher and poster child for the education of sustainable food to the masses by acting as the sole arbiter in the constant debate surrounding diet and health made more confusing by public misunderstandings over scientific findings, mixed messages from the media and a deluge of health claims pushed by corporate marketing initiatives.

Whatever the final agenda, the post of the Surgeon General needs to be rejuvenated and empowered with a new view of food policy in relation to public health. Although Admiral Galson (acting Surgeon General) has been seen very recently speaking about childhood obesity and their “Healthy Youth for A Healthy Future” initiative, these efforts are extremely weak and don’t go to the heart of the matter – changing our food system.

By choosing the next Surgeon General based on ideas relating to sustainability the Obama Administration and Congress can tackle a wide array of problems such as climate change, national security, and energy policy in addition to healthcare, as positive changes in the way Americans eat will have domino-like affects on many sectors and of society.

The time is now to harness attention and concern over the President’s next pick for the Office of Surgeon General and a remaking of its agenda based on the interconnected themes of sustainability, health literacy and disease prevention. Food policy advocates and the sustainable food community should make a push as well, for this post may be exactly what the movement needs in terms of mainstream awareness and government support. By capturing the momentum for change brought on by the Obama administration, a revitalized and progressive Surgeon General post can prove to be a wondrous agent for good food, good health and prosperity in our country.

In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama announced that he had put together a “Food Safety Working Group,” whose focus will include fostering communication between federal agencies in order to make sure food safety policies are being enforced, starting with “closing loopholes” that have up to now allowed sick downer cows to make their way into the food system.  The goal, he said, is to ensure that the food we eat — including Sasha’s peanut butter sandwiches — are safe from contamination.

But while the Peanut Corporation of America recall is perhaps one of the largest and most dramatic recalls in our country’s history, the story is not a new one: its part of the continuing saga of food safety SNAFUs in the U.S. I would argue result from the use of band-aids in the food system instead of addressing the root causes of contamination.

According to the New York Times article covering the President’s address on Saturday, around 76 million people take ill after eating contaminated food annually in the U.S., while hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die.  That is 1/4th of our entire population off work, in bed, recovering from a contaminated meal.

The discussion of MRSA seems an apt segue.  Today, Nicholas Kristof penned his second column this week in the New York Times focusing on the upswing in MRSA in humans, which seems to be stemming from the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in agribusiness pig feed. MRSA is an infection caused by a “superbug,” a bacteria that has developed a resistance to all the drugs we have tried to throw at it.  Pigs seem to be incubating MRSA: research from the University of Minnesota suggests that 25 percent to 39 percent of American hogs carry the bug. (Naomi Starkman reported on the correlation between MRSA and pigs on Civil Eats in January) And as Kristof wrote in his first column on pathogens at factory farms Wednesday, it was hardly a coincidence that around fifty of the inhabitants of a small Indiana town (population 500) near large pig operation facilities were coming down with MRSA — an infection that kills 18,000 annually, more people than die in the U.S. from AIDS.

Unfortunately, beyond being given growth hormones, livestock are kept alive in crowded and unsanitary conditions by being preemptively given a number of drugs in their feed. Without the drugs, the animals would probably die before they made it to your plate.  Therefore, the drugs are effectively shielding a larger problem in the food system: factory farms are too big to produce adequate, safe food.

To understand the sheer amount of drugged animals there are in this country, Kristof’s article states that in North Carolina alone, more antibiotics were given to animals than were administered to every person in the United States in that same period. The bottom line is that overexposure to antibiotics means antibiotic resistance — and Kristof points out that The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared this a “public health crisis.” It has been proven that land fertilized with the manure of drugged animals has resulted in concentrations of antibiotics in vegetables, so is it so hard to imagine the myriad ways eating the antibiotic-doused livestock could be directly affecting our health over time?

Kristof’s column challenges the new administration to take these issues seriously:

“So Mr. Obama and Mr. Vilsack, will you line up to curb the use of antibiotics in raising American livestock? That is evidence of an industrial farming system that is broken: for the sake of faster-growing hogs, we’re empowering microbes that endanger our food supply and threaten our lives.”

For food policy advocates, the Food Safety Working Group is cause for a huge sigh of relief.  It appears that food safety was the way to get the public’s attention on the issues facing our food system all along, as its plays right into our inherent ability to respond to fear. Everywhere you look these days the talk is e. coli, salmonella and now MRSA contamination via pigs.  As a result, people are reading labels and questioning the food supply more than ever before.

But the battle for Obama, Vilsack and the Food Safety Working Group will be hard-fought.  Already, the pork lobby is holed up in meeting rooms trying to spin Kristof’s beast of a story.  The good news is that food advocates are not backing down on the pathogens-as-harbinger-of-a-broken-food-system story. U.S. Congresswoman from New York Louise Slaughter plans to reintroduce a bill in the House to ban nontherapeutic use of antibiotics this week.  And on Monday, HBO will air “Death on a Factory Farm,” a documentary exposing the realities of the way animals are treated in massive confinement operations, beamed straight into American living rooms.  Another documentary, Food, Inc., will debut in June — and while it successfully breaks down the problems our food system faces on the whole, food safety is a huge part of that discussion.  A factory producing so-called fixes like ammonia-laced meat filler is shown as the processors’ answer to contaminant-free meat. Another portion of the film features a mother seeking to change food safety laws beginning after the death of her two-year-old son from an e. coli infection following the ingestion of a hamburger at a fast food restaurant.

It is high time we change a system that is not working — the evidence keeps mounting that tweaking the system as it stands will never be enough to ensure eaters are safe; we must fundamentally alter how we bring food to our plate.  As David Murphy wrote on Civil Eats last week, “food safety cannot be cloned, genetically modified, implanted with an electronic chip, medicated or irradiated into being.”  There is no easy answer, but I hope President Obama will stay true to his commitment to bring the heads of federal agencies together, and honestly work to strengthen food safety in America.  We must reconsider — and rethink — the model of farming that has enabled us to produce the cheap food that is making us sick.  The American public is ready, willing, and asking for this change.

Photo: Gretchen Rolland

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told several consumer groups yesterday in a conference call that he will ask the meat industry to voluntarily follow stricter guidelines for new package labels designed to specify a food’s country of origin. If the industry does not comply, the administration will write new rules, reported the AP.

Mandatory country of origin labeling (also known as “COOL”) for meats, fish, produce and peanuts went into effect on September 30, 2008. President Obama ordered a review of the rule before it becomes permanent, which had been scheduled for March 16. Vilsack said he would like to see labels that would give consumers a clearer idea about the origin of the animal or food and also said the regulation should cover more foods.

In general, consumers have overwhelmingly demanded COOL, with nearly 92 percent of Americans agreeing in a Consumers Union poll that imported foods should be labeled by their country of origin.

“COOL gives consumers a tool they can use during a food safety crisis,” said Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives for Consumers Union. “For example, when California leafy greens were implicated in cases of e. coli illnesses, if COOL had been in effect, consumers could have purchased Canadian spinach without worrying.”

While COOL is a huge step forward, there are large loopholes that the majority of consumers have wanted closed. For example, Congress exempted meat and poultry sold in butcher shops and fish sold in fish markets—some 11 percent of all meat and fish— from country of origin labeling. (For a nifty guide as to what’s been defined as COOL and what’s not, check out Consumers Union’s COOL Tool.)

In addition, the rule exempts processed food, and the Bush Administration interpreted that very broadly, to include roasted, salted, and smoked food and mixed ingredient foods, like fruit salad. Vilsack has proposed narrowing that definition. He’s in good company, as a recent CU poll found that 95 percent of consumers want processed foods to be labeled by their country of origin.

The leading opponents of the law have been grocery stores and large meatpacking companies—many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef—and other businesses involved in getting products to supermarkets. Supporters of the law were not happy with the Bush administration’s version of the rules, which they said allowed meat companies to be vague about where an animal was born, raised and slaughtered.

Yesterday, Vilsack told Congress Daily he planned to send a letter today asking meat companies to label each product with more information than that required in the Bush rule, which the new administration has had under review. Accordingly, USDA is planning on labels indicating the country in which the animal was born, the country in which it was raised, and the country in which it was slaughtered.

The move comes as Obama is headed on Thursday to Canada, a key meat exporter to the U.S. The Canadian government has criticized strict labeling rules on meat in the U.S., fearing that American consumers would prefer homegrown beef, and is likely to raise objections to Mr. Vilsack’s plans.

Canada would resume its World Trade Organization complaint against U.S. labeling rules for meat and fresh produce if Obama decides to change them, Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz told Bloomberg news. “Should the Obama administration continue on with protectionism, we will then re-ignite our WTO challenge,” Ritz said.

In regard to the trade sensitivities, Vilsack told Congress Daily that President Obama would personally deal with trade issues during his visit to Canada and indicated that any final decision on changes to the labeling rule would be made at the White House.

Uncertainty about what changes will be proposed was heightened this morning when USDA abruptly canceled a press teleconference on the issue, which had been scheduled for 10 a.m. ET.  We will keep our readers updated as the news on COOL develops.

UPDATE: Friday 2.20.09 Vilsack announces the implementation of COOL [PDF]

Image: podchef

One never knows from the outside what really happens in a marriage, especially a high-profile White House relationship. But Barack has been particularly candid about his relationship with Michelle – while he might be the Senator or now President, Michelle is the boss at home. And Michelle, despite her high-powered diplomas, has made her number-one position “Mother in Chief” to their two girls.

So, it seems a no-brainer to give all the credit to Michelle for this surprisingly political culinary appointment. And she follows the lead of many a First Lady who have pioneered healthy food policy, often against their Presidential husbands’ wishes. For example, it was Hillary who instigated the White House rooftop garden while her husband Bill was cavorting with his best buddies in large agriculture. And before that, it was Eleanor Rosevelt who planted the Victory Garden on the White House lawn – over the objections of her Presidential Husbands’ US Department of Agriculture. We have to go way back to 1918 to find a joint White House effort – when both President Wilson and First Lady Edith Wilson recruited a flock of sheep to mow and fertilize the First Lawn during World War I (Just imagine the reaction she would have gotten if Alice Waters had suggested that!)

Chef Kass’ is no stranger to culinary politics, having previously been a primary figure in the Hull-House Kitchen “Re-Thinking Soup” project that combines organic political discussion with a healthy meal.

Chef Kass is also a vocal opponent of the current federal school lunch guidelines, which kowtow to large agribusiness interests over the health and nutritional interests of our children. And while his White House appointment means that he will have to withdraw from his other activities, it has already given his ideas – which include local and organic cuisine as part of a healthy lifestyle – a considerable boost while allowing him to continue serving healthy lunches to First Children Malia and Sasha.

On the flip side, while Michelle Obama deserves more credit than she gets for all things Presidential these days, it is possible that this was the Presidents decision. Following the storm of criticism he received following his announcement of Tom Vilsack as the pick for Secretary of Agriculture, this could be Obama’s way of mitigating the political damage while ensuring that his daughters continue get a healthy lunch.

I tried to picture Michael Pollan in Vilsack’s chair, answering the same questions. The US Senate Agriculture Committee would have been outraged by his answers — the answers we collectively discuss and generally support in the sustainable food community.

Only when food consumers and farmers growing for local consumption create a political movement that elects a lot of Congresspeople and Senators will we have a shot for change in Washington.

The hearings confirmed Obama’s judgment in appointing Vilsack — an understanding that the Department of Agriculture will not be seedbed for the change we seek.

They also present us with a very clear picture of the scale of the challenge before us.

We need to develop a political framework for the Local Food Revolution that enables the thousands of grassroots food initiatives to come together in an effective political movement. This is easier said than done.

In my experience, most grassroots food and small farming efforts are decidedly non-partisan in nature. Politics only reluctantly enters into the equation, often in the struggle over food safety regulations and land tenure.

By some measure, the Local Food Revolution is deeply libertarian in its implicit attitudes — personal choices good, government bad. Foodies don’t want to get involved in the messy political process — particularly if it involves challenging the power of a few agribusiness corporations and a handful of rich farmers who currently control agriculture policy.

We have no political framework to challenge this corporate power; witness the inability of Congress to even know where the first $350 billion of the bailout went.

In the past, most of our political effort has gone into stopping particular USDA initiatives and in trying to influence the Farm Bill every five years. This strategy while good as far as it goes, is not up to the challenge before us.

So what do we do?

We need a proactive vision of our economy with healthy local food and clean local energy systems at its center.

We need to challenge the current agricultural and political paradigm through a national campaign to re-localize our food and energy systems.

This is NOT a return to some romantic, idealized vision of the 19th Century. Michael Shuman described the change this way (in his book Going Local).

“It is easy to dismiss the principle of self-reliance by pointing to many complex products that communities cannot manufacture on their own. The goal of a self-reliant community, however, is not to create a Robinson Crusoe economy in which no resources, people or goods enter or leave. A self-reliant community simply should seek control over over its own economy as far as is practical.”

Key words in this change are: self-reliance, resilience, community, local control, harmony, and balance.

I propose we organize a political movement — intentionally and broadly — including health care, energy, education, and economic development in the equation as well as local food — around re-localization of the economy. This is not a new idea. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has pursued this vision for at least three decades.

Tip O’Neil used to say, “all politics is local.”  Well, yes.

Peak Oil activists have moved beyond their doomsday message to the next step and created a Transition Movement — transition to a post-petroleum economy and society living on 90% less petroleum than we do currently. They present this change as an opportunity to renew and regenerate our society and culture — a positive, better future being the end result. Such a hopeful vision should, in my opinion, be at the center of re-imagining of our effort to change public policy.

Read these books, if you haven’t already:

EF Schumacher — Small is Beautiful (particularly the Buddhist Economics essay)
Rob Hopkins — The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience
Albert Bates — The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook
Michael Shuman — Going Local

These books don’t provide all the answers. They just raise the right questions and values. The way we challenge the conventional agriculture death spiral occurring in Washington is to fundamentally change the political game. Re-localization builds on the deep libertarian roots of the Local Food Revolution while challenging the global economic paradigm in a non-partisan, bi-partisan way.

[Editor: For a dip into the field, see Annie Myers' research on the movement forming among young farmers]