Department of Agriculture

Twice in one week!

Monsanto has barreled its way toward dominance over the global seed market with strong-arm tactics and friends in high places. As evidence of the former, the roguish company once threatened to sue me — then a neophyte blogger with 30 readers — on the most trivial grounds possible. As for the latter, software monopolist Bill […]

USDA Seeks to fill enviro slot on Organic Board

The United States Department of Agriculture seeks to fill an "environmentalist" slot on the National Organic Standards Board, an opening announced in an April 16th press release. Why should you care? The NOSB makes recommendations to the USDA on what is allowable under USDA Organic Standards. Cloned animals? Recombinant DNA? Sewage sludge? The Board influenced all the decisions to keep these substances out, and will make important future recommendations as well.

Contact Katherine E. Benham, of the National Organic Program. Nominations close August 17, 2007. The position will probably be filled around January, as that's when environmentalist Andrea Caroe's term ends.

More in the press release here. Holla, people! I know you know someone!

Implications of the last organic latte

Fair Trade producers in Mexico depend heavily on organic certification to reap price premiums for both labels, and will be hurt on more than one front by the recently released USDA rule requiring them to change certification practices, researchers say. In a recent article in Salon, later followed by a post on Gristmill, Samuel Fromartz detailed the consequences of a USDA ruling that would force a radical change in the way grower groups in the global South certify their products. The USDA ruling, Fromartz writes:

[T]ightens organic certification requirements to such a degree that it could sharply curtail the ability of small grower co-ops to produce organic coffee -- not to mention organic bananas, cocoa, sugar and even spices.

In his blog on the subject, Fromartz says he only hit the tip of the iceberg. So I hunted around a bit, seeking to find out more about how the ruling would impact producers in developing nations. I contacted Aimee Shreck and Christy Getz, two researchers who have published on organic and Fair Trade in developing nations. And notably, I got in touch with Tad Mutersbaugh, a professor of geography at the University of Kansas. Mutersbaugh's research focuses on international certification standards, and he's worked with organic and Fair Trade certified grower groups in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was familiar with the recent USDA ruling, and expressed his concern about the implications the ruling would have for small farmers in organic and Fair Trade grower groups.

Organic coffee deep-sixed

Due a recent decision over at the USDA's National Organic Program, organic coffee, in the U.S. at least, may be a thing of the past. I wrote about this decision on Salon and did not shout it out to Gristies right away (mea culpa), but I am now.

The USDA decision, which affects the way small farmer cooperatives in the Third World are certified, will also dry up supplies of organic cocoa and curtail bananas. So eat your organic Dagoba bars now while they're still available.

It doesn't look like there's a solution right away, though a friend over at PCC -- in Grist's backyard of Seattle -- tells me the solution might be to build certification organizations in local markets. In the meantime, however, certifiers, coffee farmers and NGOs that work in the Third World are perplexed and upset.

I'll be updating over at Chews Wise blog and post any big moves here.

And what you can do about it

Ask small-scale, sustainable-minded farmers where they go for tips, and invariably they’ll mention ATTRA, an information clearinghouse funded by the USDA. Just this morning, I went to attra.org to get information on how to make organic potting-soil mix for starting seeds. Like many farmers, I’ve printed out copies of ATTRA’s indispensable guides to cover crops […]

Where farm subsidies came from, and why they’re still here

Note: This is the second of a three-column series on the 2007 farm bill. The first article is available here; the third here. Last week, I argued that it makes sense for society to support farming. Everybody needs to eat, and most would prefer to do so without devastating the environment or exploiting labor. Well, […]

A brazen move from an agency shot through with industry players.

Cows that feed solely on pasture perform a valuable service: they transform what's inedible to us -- grass -- into a rich source of protein and other nutrients. And when such cows are raised in moderate numbers, they can actually improve the health and biodiversity of grasslands. Moreover, cows evolved to eat grass, so the pasture model is clearly the most animal-friendly way to create beef.

To me, the grass-fed concept exemplifies responsible agrarianism: it's energy efficient (it relies on no vast, petroleum-guzzling corn fields), it enhances rather than degrades the ecosystems it relies on, and it forces us to eat mindfully and in season.

If we insisted on raising all of our beef on ample pasture, every American would be able to savor the privilege of eating beef only, say, every couple of weeks -- and less during the grazing season, when cows are fattening up.

Which sounds about right to me.

Leave it to the USDA -- that hothouse of food-industry flackery -- to attempt to screw it all up.

It’s time to get serious about reforming school lunches

Playground bullies aren’t the only ones shaking down kids for their milk money. Despite lots of recent fuss about the poor quality of school-cafeteria fare — and mounting evidence of widespread diet-related maladies among kids — corporate interests are still lining up for their cut of the cash the federal government and families spend on […]

USDA will soon decide how much pasture time organic dairy cows should get

With demand for organic milk soaring, the stakes are high in the debate over what exactly "organic milk" is -- and that debate will soon be settled, at least from a legal standpoint, by the USDA's National Organic Program.