yearofplenty

Washington State Artisan Cheesemaker's Battle with FDA a Case Study in Food Safety Debate

The New York Times has done a great service by writing a story on the Estrella Family Creamery in Washington State, as an example of how the current national debates about small farms and food safety land in the real world. (Go here, here, and here for background)

The Estrella family, pictured to the right, left the city to make world-class artisanal cheeses. Here's how Kelli tells their story:

In 2001 we left home and business for an abandoned dairy on 164 acres. They laughed at our young family and said it couldn't be done, and I'll admit I had my fears! My faith was put to the test during the blood, sweat and tears of the early years. But we started with three cheeses and now have a list of 18, and at last the farm even feels like home.

Sometime last year I noticed that there was a lot of food on our table and some empty chairs, so we adopted 3 more kids from Liberia. Together the kids are learning that hard work won't kill them, and that the pursuit of excellence in our craft and careful nurturing of the creatures placed in our care yield a tremendous reward. Over and over at our farmers markets and in our emails they say thank you, thank you!! And they tell us stories of some of the finest moments of their lives that were enriched by our cheese. We are so blessed.

We hope you enjoy the fruit of our labors as well, and thank you. 

Since establishing their cheesemaking operation with 36 cows and 40 goats they have gone on to win a a series of awards that would make any cheese-maker jealous, and a loyal base of customers at farmers' markets and Manhattan restaurants.

But according to the Times, recent actions of the FDA threaten to shut down the whole operation after they found the presence of listeria in her cheese and in the building where the cheese is aged. They did a thorough clean-up of the facility but the FDA found the bacteria again:

Last month, the F.D.A., which does not have the power to order a recall (the food safety bill in the Senate would give it that authority), went to court, saying the “persistent presence” of listeria meant all of Ms. Estrella’s cheese should be considered contaminated. In response, a federal judge sent marshals to effectively impound the cheese, preventing her from doing business.

No one is arguing that the Estrella's shouldn't have a safe product, but there is a debate about the role of the FDA in overseeing small artisinal operations vs. the large industrial cheesemakers.

“If the F.D.A. wanted to shut down the U.S. artisan cheese industry, all they’d have to do is do this environmental surveillance and the odds of finding a pathogen would be pretty great,” said Catherine W. Donnelly, co-director of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese of the University of Vermont, referring to the listeria testing at cheese plants. “Is our role to shut these places down or help them?”

Kurt Beecher Dammeier, owner of Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, an artisan cheesemaker and retailer in Seattle, said the F.D.A. needed to work harder to understand artisans like Ms. Estrella. “The F.D.A. comes from an industrial, zero-defect, highly processed, repeatable perspective, and she comes from a more ancient time of creating with what she gets,” he said. “I’m not sure they can really even have a conversation.”

The key question is, do we want a food system where there is room for artisanal operators, or do we want a system where only industrial, highly processed foods are legal? There is concern that without the small farms amendments in the Food Safety Modernization Act, the American food system will be so inflexible, small farmers will be unable to comply. Just as the American food landscape is beginning to localize and diversify, the Food Safety act could undo the progress that has been made in recent years.

The Bill that passed cloture was essentially tabled this week when big ag lobbyists rallied legislators to halt the passage of the bill because of the small farms' amendments.

h/t Northwest Food News

UPDATE: For another, less sympathetic, take on the situation go here and here.

Food Safety Modernization Act Headed for Passage - Fate of Small Farms Amendments Uncertain

I reported earlier on the fears that the Food Safety Modernization Act now before Congress could put small farmers' out of business and send a destructive ripple through the burdgeoning local food movement. Yesterday the bill passed a cloture vote in the Senate which means it will likely soon be passed and put into law. The amendments to lower the negative impact on small farmers are still up in the air, and it sounds like there is an epic battle going on right now among legislators, big food lobbyists, and locavores.

Huffington Post yesterday even went as far as to say "Locavores Hold Up Food Safety Bill in Senate." They've subsequently changed the headline to "Local Food Advocates", but yesterday it was all about those pesky, food-luddite locavores who were gumming up the works. I guess we officially have a Locavore Lobby in this country now.

Grist has been all over this so I'll turn it over to them:

Two very important amendments to the bill are currently the subject of fierce lobbying by industry. We've already extensively discussed the Tester-Hagan amendment, which would exempt small and very small farms and food processing businesses (defined as those that make under a certain amount of money, and that earn at least 50 percent of their revenue from direct-to-consumer sales like farmers markets or CSAs), from some of the bill's requirements.

It's worth noting that such direct sales of agricultural products totaled just $1.2 billion in 2007, or 0.4 percent of total agricultural sales, according to the USDA. That's the tiniest drop in the bucket, but it's growing fast every year -- sales are up 105 percent in the last decade, double the rate that overall agricultural sales have grown.

Which may explain why agribusiness groups considers such small operations enough of a threat that they're taking the legislative route to block any further growth.

If you want to get your food wonk on, go to Grist and read up on the whole interesting process. Here is a good place to start:

Will the Food Safety Modernization Act harms small farms and producers?

Grist reports that it's still not too late to call your Senator:

There's still time to tell your senators that you want them to ignore these industry lobbying groups and pass a bill that will better protect all Americans from food-borne illness and known carcinogens in their food. Call them today: Go to www.Senate.gov to find your representatives' contact information or call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Because if you've read the 20,000 words of debate that Grist has published about this bill, you hopefully agree with our panelists that the system it will create, though concerningly vague in places, will be better than the one we've got now.

How My Little Blog Out-Reported the New York Times

On Monday I wrote up a post on the much heralded New York Times article, While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales. This kind of story is the bread and butter of the fast evolving food blogosphere, of which Year of Plenty is a very small part. A large media outlet like the Times does the original reporting and then it gets echoed throughout the blogosphere, Twitterverse, and Facebook Friend-Feed-Frenzyverse. It received so much attention that I initially wasn't going to bother linking to it, assuming that everyone had already seen it. But when I got around to actually reading the Times article, something didn't seem quite right. The article was factually correct in its reporting but cryptic in the way it described the relationship between the USDA and the Dairy Management Corporation. It hinted that the U.S. taxpayer-funded USDA was pulling the strings on the Domino's marketing campaign.

This subtle hint in the article was turned into the brash assertion all over the internet that U.S. taxpayers were not only paying for the $12 million campaign with Domino's for extra-cheesy pizzas, but that the USDA, and therefore the government, was running the ad campaign. While I highlighted in my post some smaller blogs that reported the story this way, Bill Bishop at the Daily Yonder gives a good summary of how this played out among some of the most influential people and news platforms in America:

Food writer and journalism professor Michael Pollan tweets that “our tax dollars (are) at work promoting Domino’s pizza.”

Kerry Trueman (co-founder of EatingLiberally.org) states on the liberal Huffington Post that Domino’s Pizza is selling gobs of cheese with the help of a “government handout.” 

The Atlantic says the “government wants to fatten you up with cheese.” Paul Waldman at The American Prospect writes a government agency uses “taxpayer funds” — “your tax dollars” — to promote double melt cheeseburgers.  Matt Yglesias writes a headline saying "Tax Dollars Going to Subsidize Cheesier Dominoes (sic) Pizzas," adding that this is the kind of “government spending…we could entirely do without.”

Because of previous stories I've done on the agricultural checkoff programs, these assertions didn't sound quite right. So I did something that Michael Moss, "ace New York Times Reporter" didn't do; I made a couple phone calls and actually talked to someone at Dairy Management about the program. As far as I can tell, in all the reporting that's been done on the story, I'm the only "reporter" that talked to Dairy Management to better understand their relationship to the USDA. I also talked to a representative of United Dairymen of Idaho to get a better understanding of how the checkoff system works.

Moss explained in the article why he didn't have those conversations:

The Agriculture Department declined to make top officials available for interviews for this article, and Dairy Management would not comment. In answering written questions, the department said that dairy promotion was intended to bolster farmers and rural economies, and that its oversight left Dairy Management’s board with “significant independence” in deciding how best to support those interests.

The crux of the whole story is the nature of the relationship between the USDA and Dairy Management and Moss didn't speak to anyone at either entity? He apparently got a written response to questions from the USDA. This may be a case of the USDA and Dairy Management not doing their job of accurately explaining the nature of the relationship, but I'm baffled that I could get through to them to ask probing questions and he couldn't.

So is it possible that I did a more thorough job of reporting on the relationship between the USDA, Dairy Management, and taxpayers than the New York Times?

I'm flattered that the "So Good" food blog seemed to think so. In assessing the reporting on the USDA and Dairy Management the blog says;

The most accurate breakdown of this organization’s role in this story can be found in this post on Year of Plenty, Newsflash: Dairy Industry Wants You to Eat More Dairy – What’s So Controversial About That?

I'll let you read my blog post to decide if I did a more thorough job, but I do know that because of those phone calls I didn't take the "tax-payers paying to promote cheesy pizza" bait, like so many others.

There are a couple of lessons for me in this;

1. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

2. Don't believe everything you read in the New York Times.

3. When it comes to food politics and debates about food systems, the problem is not the demonization of food, as the Daily Yonder proposes. The problem is the demonization of people. In this case the demonization of people at the USDA and Dairy Management as evil cheese-conspirators.

If this is the problem than the solution is to talk to people and give their perspectives a genuine hearing. In other words, to be in relationship with people. In my case, when it comes to writing about food, that means being in relationship with small local farmers and large scale farmers, conventional and organic, following Grist and #agchat on Twitter. It takes all perspectives to get the story straight. Go here for a recent post on why living in an agricultural region like Spokane where I am in ongoing relationships with people involved in all aspects of the food system makes me a better food blogger.

One of the grand lessons from our year-long experiment in eating local is that relationships with people involved in bringing food to market is the key to developing just and sustainable food systems. This includes farmers, but it also includes business people. The core crisis in the food system is a break-down in the relationships between people involved with bringing food to market and those sticking the food in their mouths. Relationships breed accountability, pride, quality, health, and sustainability. A vaccuum of relationships creates paranoia, pollution, corruption, unhealth, shoddy practices, and most of the other ills in the food system. That's why I am committed to eating locally and promoting local food.

My diagnosis of the situation is more than just about good reporting and blogging. (Warning: If you don't follow my blog this is going to sound totally random.) It's actually rooted in my Christian faith and my role as pastor at a Presbyterian church. My focus on relationships arises from my understanding of Jesus' commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. In my judgement, this call to be in relationship with people is the key lens through which to see everything, including food. In my upcoming book I have a chapter dedicated to explaining this perspective. I hope it will be a helpful contribution to food debates that too often get bogged down haggling about food miles, carbon footprints, or cheesy marketing campaigns.

Poor Locavore's Almanac - Low-Income Family Goes Local, Shares Their Story

One of the enduring critiques of locavorism is that such efforts to eat local via farmers' markets, food co-ops, and CSAs are a luxury of the well-off foodie elites. The naysayers have been quick to point out that low-income families with limited resources cannot afford to be so picky about the source of their foods. Advocates for industrial agriculture often point out that the industrialization of food has led to increasingly lower percentages of disposable incomes spent on food as illustrated below. They argue that it's counterproductive to lead people down a path that will necessitate more money. Go here for a reponse to such arguments.

One problem in the debates is that we have all kinds of anecdotes but not much hard data on the financial impact of going local. During our year of local food, we didn't keep good financial records. Given this reality I'm pleased to see that a low-income family in the Northwest has taken on the task of going local and tracking in detail the financial implications. Here's the way Charlie describes his family's experiment:

I’m a student at a small college in the Great Northwest, majoring in Environmental Studies, and this blog is part of my senior year project. I’m taking a year-long look at the American food system from a user’s point of view. I’m trying to answer the question of whether a busy, low-income family can transform its diet from the conventional, industrial-agriculture model to one that is more locally-sourced, and hopefully more sustainable.The family in question? Mine.

I started out specifically to examine the environmental impacts, both small-and large-scale, that this transformation would generate. I soon realized that the economic and social implications would be every bit as important, so I will take a long look at those as well. This project will last for at least the forthcoming school year, so I should have plenty of time and space to find out whether it is feasible for a poor family on a tight budget, without benefit of a garden or chickens or much else in the way of external resources, to dramatically localize their eating.

Thanks for taking this on Charlie. I look forward to seeing how things unfold. Go here for his Poor Locavore blog.

Here's an example of what they're discovering;

Another apple-related expenditure happened the weekend before last. We went apple-picking north of town and came back with 50 pounds of Cortlands for…wait for it…twenty dollars. Oh, yes, we did. Even figuring the cost of gas to get up there, it came to 60 cents per pound. We even got to press our own cider for $4 per gallon, not that it lasted long. So, those apples are going to get stored, stashed, chopped, frozen, baked, stewed, sauced, and eaten all winter, and cheaply enough that I might be able to buy a food mill or a corer-peeler to help me process them.

Wal-Mart ramps up efforts to buy local food

Wal-Mart continues to make larger bets on going local and more sustainable as reported this morning;

In the United States, Wal-Mart will double the percentage of locally sourced produce it uses, to 9 percent, the company said. Wal-Mart defines local produce as that grown and sold in the same state. Still, the program is far less ambitious than in some other countries — in Canada, for instance, where Wal-mart expects to buy 30 percent of produce locally by the end of 2013, and, when local produce is available, increase that to 100 percent.

In emerging markets, Wal-mart has pledged to sell $1 billion of food from small and medium farmers (which it defines as farmers with fewer than 20 hectares or about 50 acres). It will also provide training for the farmers and their laborers on how to choose crops that are in demand as well as the proper application of water and pesticides.

Go here, here and here for previous posts on Walmarts efforts to go local.

Food Fight, Ctd - Haiti an Important Case Study in Local Food Infrastructure and Food Security

The food fight continues (go here, here and here for previous installments of food fight) with Adam Ozimek's assertion that the push for local and organic foods in schools is more about using schools to advance progressive values vs. advancing educational objectives.

He says that if the goal is to get kids to eat more vegetables, then teaching them how to prepare frozen vegetables from far off places is a much better way to accomplish that goal.

(He doesn't seem to be aware that programs to teach kids and parents how to prepare healthy meals are already up and running. Here in Spokane County we have the Food Sense program, which is a model program, and I'm sure they use their fair share of frozen vegetables.)

The evolving debate has people lining up on one side saying that industrial food produced and shipped from far off places is best and an over-emphasis on local and organic is dangerous, while others are lining up on the other side saying that an over-emphasis on global food distribution is dangerous and local/organic food is best. The argument seems to focus mostly on the merits and benefits of each kind of food system, but I'd like to see more debate about which is more dangerous. In other words, which system has a bigger down-side for local communities?

I'll leave it to others to outline the perils of an overemphasis on local and organic food systems, but I'll take a shot at outlining two of the looming dangers of a global industrial food complex.

An over-reliance on a few genetically modified seed stocks is a classic case of putting all of our eggs in one basket. A story this week about Monsanto's souring prospects is a bit foreboding;

Sales of Monsanto's Roundup, the widely used herbicide, has collapsed this year under an onslaught of low-priced generics made in China. Weeds are growing resistant to Roundup, dimming the future of the entire Roundup Ready crop franchise. And the Justice Department is investigating Monsanto for possible antitrust violations.

Creating a dependence on importing cheap food can decimate local communities as illustrated most recently in Haiti. A report out this week explains the predicament;

"Currently, U.S. rice subsidies and in-kind food aid undercut Haitian farmers at the same time as the U.S. government is investing in Haitian agricultural development," said Philippe Mathieu, Oxfam's director for Haiti.

"The international community must abandon these conflicting trade and aid policies in order to support the growth of Haiti's fragile rural economy."

I was talking to a friend last week who works for an agency trying to help develop a sustainable agricultural base in Haiti and he explained how the influx of cheap imports over the years put local farmers out of business, so when the earthquake hit, there was no way for the country to feed itself. It was completely reliant on cheap imports, and in many ways still is. Here's how the situation was reported back in March;

Decades of inexpensive imports – especially rice from the U.S. – punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.

While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.

They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."

Haiti is an extreme example, but it points to the devastating effects of a country or region that relies completely on importing cheap foods from elsewhere.

Year of Plenty on NPR Show "Locavore or Globavore? The Debate Over Local Food"

Go here to the NW Food News site to listen to me and others engage the debate over local food. The radio show will air today in Boise and then later in the week throughout the Pacific Northwest at NPR affiliates.

Spokane Area Farm to Offer Winter CSA Meat and Vegetable Subscription

Living in a northern climate means short growing seasons and extra challenges finding local sources of food during the winter. This year Rocky Ridge Ranch, a farm small sustainable farm in Reardan, WA, is going where no other Spokane area farm has gone in helping consumers with this dilemma. They are offering a winter CSA program.

CSA's are a wonderful innovation in local food but it's likely you have no idea what a CSA is. They are basically subscriptions for a weekly supply of fresh local fruits, veggies and meats. Go here for previous posts that will help bring you up to speed and go here for a first hand account of someone's experience with a CSA. CSA's are a win-win for farmers who need steady reliable cash flow and consumers who are often too busy to hunt down local sources for food.

Rocky Ridge Ranch produces some of the areas best meat, eggs and produce so this is a great opportunity.

Here's the description they give of a typical weekly delivery;

Meat
Chicken or Roast (beef or pork or lamb.)
Beef Steak, or Pork or Lamb Chops, or Beef, or Pork Cutlets
Sausage, Bacon or Links
Ground Beef or Beef Stew Meat or Ground Pork or Ribs
Soup Bones, etc. as available
(Substitutes of comparable value may have to be made from time to time.)

Produce
Salad Mix or Spring Mix or Spinach
Salad onions or radishes
Lettuce, or Winter Greens
Beets,or Carrots or Potatoes (Stored or fresh)
Squash or Cabbage ( Brassicas we succeed with.)
Herbs (dried or Fresh.)

Go here for the full run-down.

Food Fight, Ctd - In Praise of the 10,000 Mile Diet

A recent Chicago Tribune article had one of the more thorough treatments of the debates between industrial agriculture pragmatists vs. local food idealists.I was intrigued to hear about an upcoming book;

...economist Hiroko Shimizu and University of Toronto geographer Pierre Desrochers are finishing a 2011 book, tentatively called "In Praise of the 10,000 Mile Diet," that argues locavorism is a misleading marketing fad that, among other problems, ignores the threat it poses to the current affordability of food and to the economic health of developing countries.

Food security can suffer if "you put all your eggs in one local basket and something goes wrong," Desrochers said from his Toronto office. "I also have a problem when local food activists want to promote food that is either not economical or cannot compete with foreign food in that area."

Go here for a brief article of the same name by Shimizu.

The whole Tribune article is worth a read but I should clarify one point regarding the use of food stamps at farmers' markets. The article offers that as a counterpoint to farmers market elitism but early reports are that while many markets take food stamps, few consumers are taking advantage of it. Unfortunately, this has been true at the Millwood Farmers' Market where we haven't had a lot of food stamp transactions this summer.

Go here for my response to these debates.

Idaho Potato Commission: Local Food Movement a Threat to Idaho Potato "Global Brand"

Picture: Mashed potatoes from last year's potato harvest featuring the natural colors of the potato flesh.

Northwest Food News has a great report on how local food advocates and the Idaho Potato Commission recently butted heads in the Idaho legislature.

A resolution was brought before the ag committee simply proposing that the Idaho legislature endorse local food. In response to this rather tame, teethless proposal Frank Muir, the CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission stood up as the lone opponent;

Well Mr. Chairman, Representatives it will probably come as somewhat of a surprise that the Idaho Potato Commission is here to testify in opposition to HCR-56 and on the surface I would be shocked too because it sounds positive, in support of the grower, in support of eating locally and the problem that we have with this is that Idaho Potatoes is not local.  Idaho Potatoes is a global brand.

He went on to explain that the growing emphasis on locally grown food led Walmart to shift gears;

The largest retailer in the country discontinued Idaho potatoes in 5 distribution centers – not 5 stores – 5 distribution centers.  Not because Idaho potatoes wasn’t selling; it was because they were now focusing on buying from the local farmers.

There are several fascinating aspects to this development. For one, stores as big as Walmart are shifting gears in the way they distribute food. I've always said that any substantial shift toward local food would take change at the large retailers and it looks like that is actually happening.

The other interesting aspect is that this shift creates dilemmas for places like Idaho that have low populations and high production of food. A big portion of the Idaho economy is built on exporting milk, potatoes and other agricultural products. When McDonald's in Seattle starts bragging about using Washington grown potatoes that's a problem for Idaho potatoes. They can't compete with that. People that have gone to great lengths to nurture "global brands" are coming to grips with a new marketplace that values local brands.

The whole story is worth a read or listen. If you're interested in local food in the Northwest, Northwest Food News is a must follow on Facebook or Twitter.