FLOTUS with the mostest: Michelle Obama addessses the Obesity Summit.

Well, last week I had the honor of attending the new task force’s White House Childhood Obesity Summit,  and it certainly had the flavors of a food policy council: an array of food-policy players across agencies gathered to discuss a key symptom of a food system gone off the rails: childhood obesity.

The task force was charged with developing and submitting to the President in 90 days an interagency plan that “details a coordinated strategy, identifies key benchmarks, and outlines an action plan.” As part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! campaign, the task force is engaging both public and private sectors with the primary goal of helping children become more active and eat healthier within a generation, so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

Feeding our children well may seem at first glance like a softball issue for the first lady, but Mrs. Obama is actually in the opening innings of what looks like a long and complicated fight. As Time put it:

If this sounds like a political fight, well, it is. Michelle Obama may be tilling nonpartisan ground with her vegetable garden and child-obesity program, but food has long been political. From soda taxes to corn subsidies, food is about health care costs, environmentalism, education, agriculture and class.

Which is why such heavy hitters from the latter departments are involved in the President’s Task Force on Childhood Obesity and all spoke on Friday at the White House’s Childhood Obesity Summit, including Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan, and Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes.

The lead pitcher to Let’s Move!, Michelle Obama, provided the welcoming remarks for this historic event. She declared:  “This gathering has never happened before at the White House. It’s one where we’re bringing together teachers and child advocates, doctors and nurses, business leaders, public servants, researchers and health experts to talk about one of the most serious and difficult problems facing our kids today, and that is the epidemic of childhood obesity in this country.”

After Mrs. Obama made brief welcoming remarks, Barnes, the domestic-policy advisor, took over. Barnes chairs the obesity task force, and said it was time for “all hands on deck” as the task force focuses on its report for the President.

Joining the ranks of the 75 students who are Michelle Obama’s most critical stakeholders in her Let’s Move! campaign, I was fortunate enough to be on deck and participate as a representative for the National Farm to School Network at this meeting and make the point that connecting schools to their surrounding farmers is critical; it advances all four of the objectives laid out by the Administration:

(a) Ensuring access to healthy, affordable food;
(b) Increasing physical activity in schools and communities;
(c) Providing healthier food in schools; and
(d) Empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.

Four break-out groups convened separately for the topics a-d above ,and we were tasked with identifying 3 to 5 of the best ideas to present to the writers of the roadmap to a healthier generation. I was assigned to Kevin Concannon’s breakout: using schools for improving nutrition for American children. We were asked to consider the nutritional quality of school meals, necessary changes to the school environment, and infrastructure that would lead to key benchmarks and actions.

Our group dove right into lively discussion with two enthusiastic food service directors, Tony Geraci of Baltimore City Schools, and Tim Cipriano of New Haven Public Schools, showcasing what does work: farm to school. In sum, the recommendations coming out of our group included:

1) Need for strong national standards for ALL food in schools: meals, snacks, competitive, etc.
2) Enhance and ramp up professional training for all those involved in putting food on the tray: food service, custodians, and all adults in the school
3) Rethink business of meal production and its delivery: kids involved in preparing food, local procurement, schools gardens, etc. Find funding for this. We need to rethink the business of meal production and its delivery with programs such as Farm to School. Some of the most fortunate schools have gardens and Farm to School programs. We need to break down the myths of USDA regulations: it is ok to source locally and it is ok to have a garden. The CNR includes funding for Farm to School nationally.”
4) Nutrition education needs to happen across all classrooms (again citing farm to school)–classroom for nutrition education, but also using cafeteria as educational opportunity for a teachable moment
5) Integrate incentives to make positive change happen

We then re-convened with the full gathering and shared our small-group results. My full notes are available here (PDF).

I left with Michelle Obama’s concluding words running through my head: “What we have done is start a national conversation. But we need your help to propel that conversation into a national response.”

This administration has continually opened doors for civil society participation in the discourse of creating a healthier generation. There was an opportunity for public comment, a kid-only Town Hall at the White House, and this child obesity meeting at the White House. Do you have something to tell the President’s Task Force on Childhood Obesity? Build more playgrounds? Reform school lunch? if so, send your comments to LetsMove[at]who[dot]eop[dot]gov.

When I returned from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I received this message from my sister, a mother of three, who juggles a full time job and a family calendar of activities that makes your eyes glaze over: “In honor of you today fighting childhood obesity, I’ll make sure Grant eats an apple and plays outside before we let him on the Wii.” If all parents would make that commitment, Michelle Obama would be one step closer to succeeding in the goal of her Let’s Move! initiative.

Of the 50 or so food and farm conferences I’ve attended in the last several years, the Drake Forum for America’s New Farmers: Policy Innovations & Opportunities held March 4-5 in Washington, D.C., rises to the top. Actual farmers — not just commodity crop growers but innovative “agripreneurs” like Xe Susane Moua from Minnesota and Rosanna Bauman from Kansas — got to tell the USDA what they needed to survive.

But were policymakers listening? Many of the invited speakers with a political row to hoe seemed to be concerned about one segment of farmers in particular.

Farm building in southwest Story County, Iowa.Photo: cwwycoff1 via FlickrSecretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack kicked off the conference with the message that to preserve and grow rural America, which is the heart and soul of this country, we need to stop thinking about big versus small and start thinking more inclusively. He shared the usual dismal statistics — the increased unemployment in these areas, the lower per-capita income, and how more than 57% of rural counties have shrunk. All to say, what we’ve been doing to conserve and grow rural America isn’t working.

Among the alternative strategies the administration has launched recently is the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, intended to shore up the shrinking numbers of farmers. There are tremendous opportunities to build on local and regional supply chains through connecting local products to local consumption, Vilsack noted, but then quickly followed with “it’s not the only answer, though.”

Bill Even, South Dakota’s Secretary of Agriculture, picked up that thread. He began by asking the Republicans in the room to raise their hand: a paltry 5 out of 200 shot up. After praising the USDA’s Know Your Farmer initiative for helping to reconnect society to the soil, he got to the message that he repeated throughout his 10-minute speech: “Don’t disparage one type of agriculture” — by which he meant conventional, large-scale industrial “production” agriculture. Quoting his mother, he said that “blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours burn brighter,” and echoing Vilsack, he ended with how “this is a big tent for all types of agriculture.”

I presented at the Drake Forum on behalf of beginning farmers (along with Zoe Bradbury, a young farmer and Grist contributor) and to share how Farm to School programs offer a new, stable market for farmers and an opportunity to teach agriculture literacy to youth. After Dan Durheim from the American Farm Bureau Federation made comments along the same lines as Even and Vilsack, I felt it necessary to make a pointed comment to the closing plenary:

There seems to be a common thread throughout this panel, that started off with the Secretary’s welcoming remarks that there’s plenty of room at the USDA and in food and farm country for all types of agriculture, and to not be down on certain practices. But if we had done that in the 1860s, we never would have abolished slavery because slavery “worked” for plantation owners. When atrazine is creating infertile rural populations, it’s not about “blowing out a candle” — it’s about putting out a fire.

I found the chutzpah to make that comment because I had Even’s children in mind; he had mentioned his 16-year-old son in his remarks. Being a Midwesterner, however, I felt the need to tell him later that I wasn’t attacking him personally, just the logic he used to come to what I thought was a short-sighted conclusion, to which he responded, “yeah, you kind of threw me under the bus.”

Even had started his presentation with, “To understand where someone stands, you need to know where they stood,” so I outlined my own rural conservative roots and told him I come from a farming family. I wanted him to see that I am not just some liberal academic pointing fingers at farmers, but that we share in many ways a common background from which I have diverged. While yes, there “is room for” all types of agriculture, I believe we must acknowledge that some types of agriculture are broken — making us and our land sick, and draining our rural communities of youth.

Even said he agreed with me. That if agriculture doesn’t make sense “economically, scientifically, or socially, then it has to change.”

He said he was meeting Tuesday in South Dakota with a group called “Ag Unity,” which he implied is to bring opposing groups working in their proverbial rural silos together. But the only description I can find of Ag Unity is for “an umbrella group of some 20 agriculture-related groups” that sounds a lot like they’re all hailing from the same side of the commodity-focused production fence.

Phrases like “big tent” and “ag unity” make for good speeches but bad policy when it comes to the next generation of farmers. Real unity is about finding common ground for “mother nature and the workers, the reapers and the threshers, the seedlings and the raindrops, the bakers and the truckers, the ranchers and the farmers, the butchers and inspectors, the cows and special cheffers,” as the fifth graders from Elysian Charter School sang in “Who Put That Burger on Your Plate?” (the winning video in last year’s “Real Food Is” winning Farm to School contest). And that’s going to take leadership that’s not afraid to level the growing field through targeted procurement and research funding.

Note: The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is collecting policy recommendations and ideas for a Beginning Farmer Bill for the 2012 Farm Bill via email.

The farm bill has a hand in all that happens before the swallow. The bag of Tyson chicken wings (grain subsidies), gallon of Horizon Organic milk (forward contracting), and pound of Fuji apples (country of origin labeling) are all regulated in some fashion by this policy determining how our food is raised and who profits.

But does the massive legislation support family farmers? Increase food access in urban food deserts? Or feed the 40 million poor and hungry in the United States?

Yes and no.

Reauthorized and revamped every five years, farm law has its roots in the 1930s New Deal efforts to handle the overproduction of agricultural commodities while maintaining stable prices. Although most of the money in the current bill, around 75 percent, goes to nutrition programs such as food stamps, the politics of writing the bill is still driven by commodities such as corn, rice, wheat, cotton, and soybeans.

One way to interpret farm policy is to follow the money. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Cargill’s profits increased nearly 1,000 percent from $280 million in FY 1997-98 to $2.34 billion by FY 2006-07. Add to that pile of profits the $35 billion in indirect subsidies that the industrial animal factories (owned and controlled by corporations like Cargill) reaped by being able to buy feed crops at 20-25 percent below the cost of production.

Farm-bloc legislators were challenged this time around to make the connection between the current farm policy’s cheap-corn complex and the growing problem of diabetes and obesity. Unfortunately, prior policy plunders were not weeded out of the current farm bill. As the House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) explicitly stated, except for some “minor changes,” the new farm bill is “very much like the current law that we have been operating under.”

For those farm bill pugilists — sustainable agriculture groups, anti-hunger advocates, faith-based organizations, conservationists, community gardeners, and grassroots family farmer coalitions — that tried to have their voices heard above the industrial agriculture cacophony, the final 2008 farm bill is bittersweet.

Bitter due to the numerous multifunctional reforms that never came to fruition while corporate agribusiness deepened their roots, and sweet for the minor victories for sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and conservation.

The policies that survived through countless revisions, late-night conferences, numerous listening sessions, lobbyist wrangling, and earmarks are far from the wish lists various groups envisioned. However, more than one thousand food and farm organizations came together and requested that Congress override the president’s promised veto. As stated in their joint letter to Congress:

Communities across the nation, from urban to rural, have waited too long for this legislation. The Conference Report makes significant farm policy reforms, protects the safety net for all of America’s food producers, addresses important infrastructure needs for specialty crops, increases funding to feed our nation’s poor, and enhances support for important conservation initiatives. This is by no means a perfect piece of legislation, and none of our organizations achieved everything we had individually requested. However, it is a carefully balanced compromise of policy priorities that has broad support among organizations representing the nation’s agriculture, conservation, and nutrition interests.

Passing through the House with a margin of 306 to 110 and the Senate 82 to 13, the votes in both chambers were far past the majority needed to defeat President Bush’s veto. Formally called the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, the 673 pages of legislative prowess represent a precarious balancing act of principles and politics.

Below are samples of positive seeds of change planted in the new farm bill:

• Community food projects and geographic preferences: The new farm bill provides $5 million in mandatory annual funding for innovative Community Food Projects for matching grants to community groups building sustainable local food systems addressing hunger, nutrition, and meeting food security goals. There is also new statutory language clearly stating that preference can be given to local purchasing of agriculture products for schools serving meals that receive federal assistance, resolving a conflict in USDA’s interpretation of the 2002 farm bill.
• Local food initiatives: Another provision provides funding for new local and regional food supply networks including $33 million in mandatory funds for the Farmers Market Promotion Program, $56 million for the Seniors Farmers Market Nutrition Program, and $1.2 billion to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program that will enable 3 million low income children across the country to have access to healthier food options.
• GMO oversight: New mandates to strengthen USDA oversight of GMO crops will help prevent the disaster that occurred when an unauthorized genetically modified rice strain entered the U.S. rice crop and caused massive losses to export markets. The new regulatory framework will reduce the potential for future GMO contamination events at field trial test sites.
• First-ever livestock title: Provides much needed protections for independent ranchers and farmers raising livestock under contract, which includes preventing mandatory arbitration clauses for livestock/poultry contracts, allowing a three-day period to cancel contracts, and requiring contracts to disclose the requirement of large capital investments.
• Diversity initiative: The farm bill gives significant recognition to the importance of minority and socially disadvantaged farmers. There are specific targets for minority and socially disadvantaged farmer participation in conservation, farm credit, Value Added Producer Grants, and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Programs. Minority Outreach and Education (Section 2501) authorized in the 1990 farm bill receives for the first time mandatory funding at $75 million over four years. This competitive grant program to community-based organizations and educational institutions helps minority and socially disadvantaged farmers access USDA programs through effective outreach programs.
• Beginning farmer and rancher development program: Provides $75 million over four years in mandatory money for competitive grants to groups providing technical assistance and other services to beginning farmers and ranchers. This program was created in the 2002 farm bill but was never funded.
• Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) and interstate meat shipment: The farm bill includes language to implement long-awaited COOL requirements for produce, beef, pork, chicken, lamb, and goat that will go into effect in September 2008. COOL was included in the 2002 farm bill, but food industry, USDA, and meat packers’ opposition have delayed its implementation. There are also provisions allowing for the interstate shipment of state-inspected beef that meets federal inspection standards. Both of these policies represent victories for consumers and farmers aiming to rebuild local food systems.
• Organic agriculture: The bill provides $78 million in mandatory funds for the Organic Research and Extension Initiative, which enhances the ability of organic producers and processors to grow and market organic food, feed, and fiber. For those transitioning to organic production, $22 million in mandatory funding is provided for the next five years.

The above positive provisions represent alternatives to the current food system without replacing the industrial model, which will take even more advocacy for good food policy in the next farm bill and beyond.

On one of my farm bill lobby visits to Washington, D.C., I spoke to several congressional offices advocating for fair prices on behalf of family farmers. After one of my meetings, a young amiable congressional staffer told me, with a mix of pity and arrogance, “We aren’t looking to revolutionize the food system, Deb, let alone the farm bill.”

Well, I am looking to revolutionize the food system, and I am not alone. Yes, we have an uphill battle. Biotech giant Monsanto Co. spent nearly $1.3 million in just the first quarter of 2008 to lobby on farm bill provisions to protect their investments, but there are thousands of grassroots organizations working for public policy that will protect and strengthen the future of our food supply, environment, public health, and communities.

I’m on the front line of this food revolution as a beginning organic farmer and food justice advocate. Will this farm bill help me with the infrastructure I need to process my chickens? Or provide me with the confidence that my sustainably raised food will be price competitive so that all people with empty and deep pockets alike have access to good, fair, and affordable food?

I’ll let you know in five years, but in the meantime, I’ll keep planting those seeds of change and hope you’ll join me in cultivating more palatable food policy.