Food Policy forum- this week!

Register today, and come hear the latest food policy developments in RVA!

Virginia Food Summit in Charlottesville

Just a quick post to let you all know that the 2nd Virginia Food Security Summit is going on today in Charlottesville.  The Virginia Food System Council (the 501(c)3 that was formed after the first summit in 2007) has put together a Farm to Table plan (see a draft of the plan here), which looks at the local food system through the rich farming heritage of Virginia, and opportunities provided by the growing demand for local products.  The summit is a chance for growers, policy makers, chefs and consumers to discuss the the plan and its implications for the state.

I am attending, so if there is anything you'd like for me to find out about local food on a state level, you can email me here, and I will certainly try.

Businesses for CHICKUNZ Breakfast!

The topic of legalizing backyard hens has been building momentum for the last few years.  There is a great facebook 'club' called CHICKUNZ that allows area residents interested in having laying hens to share their thoughts, and information on the subject.  Now, area business have come together with Lulu's Local Food, to put together a breakfast with Richmond City Council and Henrico's Board of Supervisors to discuss the topic.  An all locally sourced breakfast will be provided thanks to Lulu's Local Food vendors.  The breakfast is  free,  and open to interested business, as well as individuals. 
April 19
9:00 am - 10:30 am  

For more information and to RSVP  Contact Copeland Casati:
copeland@copelandcasati.com

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Sues Monsanto

Just reading over the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange page thinking of spring and such, and found this rather amazing news....
"Fighting for our Rights
Southern Exposure is joining the fight against Monsanto in a critical suit that argues that Monsanto cannot sue farmers when their organic crops are contaminated by genetically modified seeds. We are collaborating as a part of OSGATA (Organic Seed and Trade Association) and as an individual plaintiff along with several dozen other seed companies and organizations to bring Monsanto to the stand. You can read this press release that has been posted by the Public Patent Foundation. We will send out a special newsletter soon with more details. We hope you will support us in this landmark lawsuit to protect our rights as gardeners, farmers, and Americans seeking a safe future for our food and families."
Click on Their Link to read more.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Our National School Lunch Program

Three Cheers for Chef Jamie Oliver, and all of his efforts to improve our food system! The season finale of his ABC show aired last night with a mixed bag of positive impact and government roadblocks. This is a great time for Jamie to be raising awareness of the need for vast change in the way we feed our children. The new Federal School Lunch Bill is awaiting a vote in the Senate. The group Mission: Readiness, made up of retired military officers has weighed in with the release of their report this week showing how obesity in America's youth has become a problem for military recruitment. The group is petitioning the government to support better food in our school system. I feel like some real threshold has been crossed when the Mission: Readiness group has turned it's attention to the poor quality of our school lunches. Read the A.P. article here, or the somewhat more informative NPR story here.
Click Here to sign Jamie's petition for better food in America's public schools. You can roll over each state and see how many people from each state have signed. Virginia has almost reached 12,500. That puts us a couple thousand below North Carolina, and about 50 thousand behind California. As for West Virginia, the state that played host to Jamie's Food Revolution Television show... they are at 5,343 signatures, interesting stuff. Check out Jamie's Food Revolution website to track progress and learn more on how you can help. The site even has a two week school meal plan with recipes included.
Locally, our new Richmond chapter of Slow Food has made transforming the food in our area public schools part of their mission. To learn more about Slow Food Richmond, and maybe join in, click here.
If you want more info here are some related reports from The Institutes of Medicine of The National Academies:
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2008/Nutrition-Standards-and-Meal-Requirements-for-National-School-Lunch-and-Breakfast-Programs-Phase-I-Proposed-Approach-for-Recommending-Revisions.aspx

Act Now!

Our dear friends at Virginia Cooperative Extension are in trouble. The new state budget would eliminate the funding for Virginia's Viability Specialists and all of the incredible work they do to help create viable farmers markets, food systems and agricultural enterprises. The local food system needs to show that we value the services of the extension office. Please read on, then take action to let your delegate know that you support the folks who work in your local food system.

Here is info from a leader in the Richmond Area Food System who has done the leg work for us...

"The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) created the budget and voted on it (nothing can be done about that now)…they are now sending it along to the full House for acceptance (this is the time to contact any and all House members to object to HB30 Amendment 219)…after the acceptance (can’t see why it wouldn’t get approved by the body) the HAC gets the approved bill back for amendment in conference with the Senate Finance Committee (now through next week is a good time to contact any and all Senators). Those two committees will generate the compromise budget (and amend the language as they see fit) and pass the final compromise budget along to the Governor for acceptance. Once the budget gets out of the compromise process it’s over, unless the Governor sends it back for revision. Contacting the people on the HAC today and tomorrow is best today, however you can. Then move to any and all Delegates you’d like. Here are the folks that need contacting right now… HB 30 Budget Bill.
02/21/10 House: Reported from Appropriations with amendments (15-Y 7-N)

The House of Appropriations Committee proposed budget amendment was offered on Sunday, February 21. The amendment number is Item 219 #2H and is available on line at: http://leg2.state.va.us/WebData/10amend30.nsf/ab35158e9e81b1f48525688b005f54a7/91de82f03f2d46d7852576d200822379?OpenDocument

YEAS--Putney, Morgan, Tata, Ingram, May, Sherwood, Cox, M.K., Landes, Jones, O'Bannon, Lingamfelter, Poindexter, Massie, Abbitt, Dance--15. NAYS--Phillips, Scott, J.M., Joannou, Brink, Ware, O., Howell, A.T., BaCote--7. ABSTENTIONS--0. NOT VOTING--0. "

Here is a wonderful example letter that was sent by our friend Anne on the behalf of our viability specialist Jonah Fogel. Feel free to cut and paste when you write your own letter.

"February 23, 2010
Dear Ms. McQuinn,
I am writing you regarding the section in the House’s proposed budget that would eliminate Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Community Viability program.
I understand and sympathize with the difficult position that Virginia’s legislators have been put in due to fiscal constraints. That said I would like to express to you how much Virginia Cooperative Extension’s Community Viability program has meant to me.
I am a resident of the City of Richmond and a staff transportation planner for the Richmond Area MPO. I am also, outside of my job, a founding member and facilitator of the Richmond Area Food System Council (RAFSC) (http://www.richmondfoodsystem.org/), a not-for-profit, ad-hoc community group focused on strengthening the area’s local food system. The group is made up of consumers, producers, market managers, retailers, restaurateurs, and nutrition advocates, among others. As a planner, I am focused on our local food system’s ability to strengthen our local economy, affect land use and protect our environment. The Richmond Area Food System Council has been extremely well-received and needed by our community, urban and rural alike.
The only full-time, paid support that our group has had since our creation in 2007 has been from Dr. Jonah Fogel, a Community Viability Specialist from VCE’s Community Viability program. His consistent, objective support has been invaluable to our group’s success, and the affiliation with VCE has lent credibility and notoriety that we would never have had otherwise.
Dr. Fogel has been available to me and other members of RAFSC over the past years and has constantly provided research assistance, advice, meeting space and technical support. His objective attitude and careful approach has lent a gravity and professional quality to our efforts.
It is my belief that if the Community Viability program is eliminated, our group will suffer greatly, both from Dr. Fogel’s absence and from the lack of affiliation with VCE.
Please do everything in your power to keep funding for this important program. Your efforts will not go unnoticed by your constituents. "

You can find your delegate's contact information here. http://dela.state.va.us/dela/MemBios.nsf/MWebsiteTL?OpenView


Please take a moment and contact your Representatives and ask them not to support a bill that would cut funding for this invaluable resource.

He's on our side! Sort of.

So after I posted about James McWilliams' new book Just Food, I happened to listen to a podcast of the radio show Think on KERA, during which McWilliams was featured in an hour-long interview including call-in questions. I still haven't had a chance to read the book, but I realized McWilliams' views parallel my own in many ways.

Contrary to the hype, McWilliams is not against locavorism in all ways, shapes and forms. Instead, it seems that his primary argument for what locavores have 'got wrong' is the practice of buying unsustainable produce or meats locally, instead of more sustainably produced items from afar. He points out that buying local industrial beef makes a much larger carbon footprint than ordering a grass-fed steak from some distant locale. Food miles, he says, are not the only factor we should take into consideration when determining how to eat an ethical diet. I myself also espouse this view, and this season I have been disillusioned by all the 'EAT LOCAL!' hype surrounding produce at both Ukrops and Ellwood Thompson's from a local farm that uses plenty of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and other (in my mind) suspicious and unsustainable practices. I would like to join McWilliams in stating the importance of really knowing where your food comes from, and not taking local food at face value.

I admit, McWilliams also won me over by espousing one of my most strongly held views: that, in order for our food system to become more sustainable, we must point-blank stop eating so much meat. I believe that the quanity of meat consumed by Americans on a daily, weekly or monthly basis is outrageous, unhealthy, and completely unsustainable. Industrial beef is one of the biggest American institutions contributing to carbon emissions. I'd like to quote Bill Maher here: "It's better to eat a salad in a Hummer than a hamburger in a Prius."

Third, McWilliams also addresses some of the propaganda surrounding organic agriculture. He rightly identifies the fact that many organic farms are not even close to using sustainable practices, and are flying under the radar as they contribute to carbon emissions, nitrogen runoff and soil erosion, looking pretty as they complete USDA requirements but ignore the moral dictates of conscientious farmers. I will say I had a major departure with McWilliams when he made the statement here that he believes crop yields are lower in organic agriculture than in conventional. The subject of crop yields is much more complicated than the picture painted in the interview I listened to. A snapshot in a given year of an organic farm versus a conventional one may indeed yield a picture favorable to conventional agriculture. However, a study that stretches over a much longer period of time will show that crop yield in conventional agriculture declines sharply without a drastic increase in fertilizer applications. In comparison, organic yields on a sustainably managed farm maintain or grow, as soil fertility increases in response to wise management practices. Now, even over ten years, it may be possible to get consistently higher yields from conventional fields, by adding increasing amounts of fertilizer, but there will eventually come a tipping point when these fields are simply, like it or not, utterly barren and incapable of growing plants. So it's not a simple choice between medium and high yields. It's a choice between an endless source of medium yields or a temporary source of high yields that ultimately burns itself out. And once again, I have to go back to the original point and say this only applies to those farms that are managed conscientiously.

McWilliams also effectively said that we are not going to just transform agriculture overnight, and so we should be, instead of just 'jumping on the organic bandwagon,' encouraging conventional growers to use better practices. Some of his suggestions were kind of vague here, and again I'd probably be served well by reading the book. Now, regardless of what anyone says, I believe sustainable organic practices can and will feed the world, once we have experienced a radical shift in our understanding of what we like and want to eat. I do believe we need to negotiate with conventional farmers, but I think negotiations should be pointing them in the direction of organic and sustainable practices, not encouraging them to use weird new technologies. USDA just put out an organic initiative to provide funding to farmers who agree to put into place organic practices, and research is ongoing in no-till and other agricultural concepts that are beneficial to soil erosion and fertility (two concepts that will become increasingly important as we are approaching the limit of available agricultural land on the planet). This is not to say USDA is a reliable champion for these issues, but that we should be doing more of this kind of thing.

I did feel a major departure when the discussion arrived at the subject of GMOs. McWilliams supports the idea of using 'humanitarian' GMO crops, those that are developed to be drought tolerant or high-yielding, to provide extra food for starving populations in places like Africa. Now, I am very aware of the plight of some of these rural peoples, but I must say I am very wary of the effects of such crops on the global ecosystem. We need to put grant money and research efforts into solving food distribution problems, not creating fantasy crops that will solve inevitable farming problems like variations in weather and pests. By that same virtue, the coming population spike necessitates a major reevaluation of the world's food distribution system along with its system of production. We also need to, as McWilliams mentions, take back the American Midwest from CAFOs and feed crops and put it into food production for all these new humans.

Based on this interview, I felt that McWilliams has taken a very intense and realistic look at modern agriculture and global food distribution. I didn't agree with all of the conclusions he drew, but I did agree with many of them. He is clearly applying critical thinking to many of these problems and is, as I am, wary of absolutes. Look for another rant-happy post on this once I have actually read the book.

The Group is Called Chickunz

Truthfully, I am fascinated about where this will lead us. What if your neighbors had chickens? Would it drive your dog mad? Would it really be so different than having a dog, anyway?

In any case, I am all for conscious freedom. And, I am all for having well looked after animals. There is a petition going around to legalize laying hens in Henrico. You can sign the petition here. Chickunz also has a Facebook page.

Every little bit helps choke the machine of industrial agriculture. Too bad I can't have both dogs and chickens...

Keeping Up With Vilsack

Just in case you haven't been keeping up with the latest on our USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack...

"About the time that Chemical Ag spokespeople were chiding Michelle Obama for promoting home-grown organic food with her White House garden, compost from the Rodale Institute farm was landing on a new organic garden right in front of U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters...

...Vilsack has kept ultimate responsibility for the project in his office, giving the small space a big symbolic role in showing how organic agriculture can benefit the nation. Produce will be donated locally. Maintaining the garden will be USDA staff members who volunteer, backed up by the department’s commercial landscape maintenance firm."

Whole article here.