If the price of your vanilla ice cream spikes sometime soon, it's likely because a deadly fungus has spread to the majority of vanilla plantations in Madagascar, the world's largest vanilla producer.
The pods bring in hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the impoverished country. It's such a valuable enterprise, in fact, that some farmers brand their beans individually to mark ownership. Most of Madagascar's vanilla is exported to the U.S., where it's used in ice cream, soft drinks and other confectionaries.
Over the years, vanilla prices have followed a "boom-and-bust cycle," according to researchers, who also say "a spike in vanilla prices ten years ago encouraged poor planting practices, which have contributed to the spread of the fungus between plants." Usually vanilla plantations are "meticulously managed" and grown in the shade of trees in the warm forests of northeastern Madagascar. But unregulated plantings led to poor irrigation and vanilla plants being placed too close together, making it easy for the fungus to spread underground.
Planting new varieties will not be a quick fix. Even if a cure for the disease existed, like a fungus-resistant variety, vanilla plants have a long lifecycle, taking a minimum of five years before a vanilla orchid (these are beautiful, by the way) produces beans ready for extract. Instead, vanilla plantations will have to be managed differently, hopefully ecologically, so that disease patterns can be disrupted through means other than toxic fungicides.
The GAO cites steps the three agencies responsible for oversight -- USDA, EPA, and FDA -- can take to enhance coordination and monitoring, including:
establishing a coordinated program for monitoring transgenic crops once they're commercialized to determine if the transgenic traits are contaminating other crops and food, and causing detrimental effects on the environment, conventional and organic markets, or food safety; and
creating a formal method for sharing information that could strengthen FDA's voluntary food safety review. (Notice the word "voluntary." In 2001, FDA proposed a requirement that transgenic food manufacturers notify the agency before putting their products on the market. It hasn't finalized the rule because it thinks the voluntary procedure is good enough, meaning, new transgenic food ingredients can legally be placed on grocery store shelves without FDA's knowledge.)
The GAO recognizes that unauthorized mixing of transgenic crops with non-transgenic crops has "caused controversy and financial harm" and that the "total number of unauthorized releases into the environment is unknown."
Let's hope the new administration starts with these recommendations, followed by even stricter measures that put the burden of contamination on the shoulders of biotech crop manufacturers, not conventional and organic growers and taxpayers.
Just how much pesticide residue mixes with holiday cheer as we huddle around live Christmas trees each year? Nobody knows for sure, experts say, which is why more tree farmers are sparing their customers the risk.
Last year, more than 31 million Christmas trees were sold in the U.S., equaling $1.3 billion. That's a lot of foliage in our foyers.
Thankfully, pesticide use on tree plantations has been cut in half over the last 10 years, says a North Carolina State University plant pathologist who surveyed growers in western North Carolina. Still, families have noticed a difference in their children's allergies when chemical-free trees take the stage compared to those applied with pesticides.
Small-scale growers are more likely to cut their pesticide use before large plantations (though some large-scale operations are making the switch). So, a tip: If you purchase your tree from a local tree farm, you can ask if and how much pesticides were used. You don't have the same luxury when buying a tree from a big box store or garden center lot, which typically stock trees shipped from the largest plantations. Most trees come from farms in Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan and Canada, where they're grown in monocultures and become more susceptible to pests and disease.
What's cool is that some farms are seeing the importance of growing their trees sustainably, including managing added nutrients for waterways and conserving wildlife habitat. In Oregon, two farms started the Coalition of Environmentally Conscious Growers to certify environmentally friendly Christmas trees that are grown under careful management of pests, runoff, and weeds.
For links to local tree farms, see page two of the Times article listed below.
Last week, in a spontaneously decisive move, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared a one part-per-million acceptability level for melamine in infant formulas.Melamine contamination is reason the U.S. FDA banned dried milk products from China, albeit reluctantly, after 50,000 Chinese children grew sick from ingesting tainted formulas.
As recently as October this year, the FDA declared that they were “…unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds...that does not raise public health concerns.”But a few weeks ago, melamine and cyanuric acid (a byproduct of melamine) were found in samples of U.S.-made infant formulas.The samples - from Nestle, Mead Johnson, and Abbott Laboratories, the three companies that control 90% of the U.S. infant formula production - contained levels of 0.137, 0.247, and “less than the new FDA limit” parts per million (Abbott self-reported this information) of melamine or cyanuric acid.
The new FDA limit of one part per million is above the reported levels found in U.S.-made infant formulas.This decision by the FDA seems troublingly arbitrary, however, considering that no new scientific studies have been released in the past few months that further evaluated the health effects of melamine or cyanuric acid.
These new FDA standards are the same as the ones set by China’s Health Ministry, although Taiwan’s standards for these chemicals are 20 times as stringent.
The auto industry in Detroit is crumbling...fast. A city that once boasted two million people now has 800,000, a third of whom live in poverty.
But such crises leave room for opportunity in their wake. Canadian writer Wayne Roberts says the sooner the auto business "is traded in for food, the better."
Roberts is talking about steps a new Detroit food policy council can take, which he calls, "pulling yourself up by your foodstraps." Like using the 103,000 empty lots in Detroit (more than half of which are owned by the city) to produce food: "an urban job bonanza," he says, because food is a "recession-proof job-creation magnet." People must eat. And producing locally can revive cities that have historically relied on large industries. He says the food business has a "multiplier effect," and breaks it down this way:
This gets triggered once cities practise “import substitution” by producing locally instead of importing. Job creation magic happens when a farmer with a new income stream upgrades the barn and pays the builders, who then take their families to dinner, where waiters get money to pay their taxes, which help cover the salaries of teachers, and so on...Then there’s the employment generated when a lively food habitat attracts the “creatives” who will drive the next economy with their intellectual energy, instead of relying on the fossil fuel energy required by yesterday’s industries.
I'm not saying the government shouldn't bail out the auto industry if they come up with a realistic plan that encourages a green ethic -- one that will protect and create jobs. But long-lasting economic security will likely come from creative, community-based solutions, especially when it comes to food. We need to fund (and perhaps even bail out) our food banks and other local food networks that stimulate job creation and produce and process more food closer to home.
Odors from a southwest Missouri hog farm has destroyed a community's quality of life, says more than 30 residents who filed a lawsuit against the two companies that operate the CAFO and the hog farmers themselves. The AP reports:
The lawsuit comes after a judge last year threw out regulations aimed at banning construction of the farm. The judge said township officials lacked the right to regulate agricultural structures, even though zoning regulations to deal with CAFOs passed with 81 percent of the vote in an April 2007 referendum.
Big no-no, Judge. The hogs have only been there a year, yet the lawsuit cites numerous health problems already plaguing local residents, like nausea, vomiting, headaches, and burning skin, eyes and throats. They say they can't spend time in their yards gardening or cooking, and can't hang clothes out to dry, because of foul odors. The waste-holding lagoons, as well as the practice of using hog waste as fertilizer on nearby farmland, are emitting methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide, among other toxic gases.
It's well documented that CAFOs harm human health and contribute to global warming. In a similar vein, a new study out of Johns Hopkins found that the powerful odors trailing trucks hauling chickens also contain potentially harmful airborne bacteria, including that which is antibiotic-resistant.
EPA recently finalized a rule to protect water quality by requiring CAFOs to safely manage their waste, and is working on air quality regulations specific to CAFOs, too. Let's hope the agency comes up with effective and fair regulations, as it hasn't always done what's best for the public and the planet. Otherwise, people neighboring CAFOs will have no other recourse but to take the pigs to court.
Although the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has been publishing farm subsidy data for more than five years, it was only within the last year or two that some of these shocking figures started getting national attention.
For example, many crop subsidies are concentrated in the hands of the largest farm operations. And half of all subsidies have gone to just nine states. EWG's research also found that money was ending up in the pockets of millionaires who didn't farm, like David Letterman (who later said he gave the $8,000 to charity) and retired NBA star Scottie Pippen.
Now a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation provides more evidence of subsidy abuse. The GAO report found that thousands of farmers received subsidies between 2003 and 2006 despite earning more than the $2.5 million gross limit. Nearly $50 million was paid out to ineligible multi-millionaires.
Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind is calling for more oversight, saying the investigators' findings are a "slap in the face" to American families who are struggling. He and other lawmakers question whether the new cap established in the 2008 Farm Bill will be effectively enforced. Kind says he will introduce legislation aimed at implementing one of the GAO's recommendations, which is for the IRS and USDA to come up with a plan to verify income eligibility and perhaps strengthen penalties on those who abuse the subsidy program.
The subsidy debate won't go away anytime soon, and President-elect Obama even cited the GAO report the other day as an example of wasteful spending. Whether you believe the system is working or needs a major overhaul, no silver bullet solution exists. In the meantime, lawmakers and regulators must ensure an equitable distribution of farm payments. Assistance should be given to farmers who need it, not wealthy landowners who "farm" from their desks in Manhatten.
Deer populations in some urban communities are now dubbed a nuisance. In Helena, Montana, for example, one buck charged a teenager traveling on his paper route, forcing him to hide under a truck for 20 minutes. Helena's urban deer population has grown to more than 300 and has led to dozens of trappings and killings by authorities.
It's difficult for communities to find solutions that please both sides of the debate, from animal rights activists opposed to simply exterminating the deer to angry residents who support killing the deer in the name of public safety.
But the town of Amherst in western New York has decided to evaluate a more creative option: deer farming.
This week the board decided to study the possibility of turning their urban deer problem into an agricultural opportunity, much like New Zealand did many years ago. Deer were imported to the country for hunting more than 100 years ago but soon became a problem as their numbers increased. New Zealand now raises a significant amount of deer for meat and supplies 40% of the world's venison.
Officials in Amherst will work with the town's Planning and Law departments, as well as the county Health Department and state Department of Environmental Conservation, to address questions and concerns around trapping and relocating deer to farms, where they'll be managed much like cattle and other domestic livestock.
For years, companies like Frito-Lay have only used non-genetically engineered white corn in its chips, taco shells, and tortillas. But this year farmers grew a small amount of GE white corn after word spread that processors would accept it.
The Kansas Department of Agriculture held its final hearing yesterday on a state plan that would put restrictions on "rBGH-free" labels. More than 90 groups submitted a letter to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius in opposition to the new rule, which is set to take effect in January 2010.
In the face of field trials being sabotaged, Britain's government is planning to grow transgenic crops in "top secret military locations," reports the Evening Standard. Government officials may also toss out a rule that requires scientists to disclose locations of transgenic crop trials on a government website.
Transgenic soybeans with added nutritional value are still years away from the marketplace. Monsanto is developing a soybean engineered to produce omega 3 acids, which are currently mostly consumed through oily fish. And here's something even more fascinating: Monsanto's vice president for consumer traits says, "We'll want to label it...Consumers will have a choice." After a decade of fighting labeling initiatives, this quote by a biotech spokesman is shocking.
USDA is poised to give a green light to transgenic insects engineered to prey on invasive species in agricultural fields. There are risks to unleashing a lab-created insect, of course, and one ironic victim might be synthetic pesticides.
Monsanto has completed its acquisition of the world's largest sugarcane breeding firm, based in Brazil.
It's true what our moms said...we are what we eat. In fact, it's truer than they thought. What I eat doesn't just affect me anymore, it affects all of us.
Unfortunately, the story of food can sometimes be complicated. But envirovores help each other out...which is why this blog will be bringing you news, tips, and information about food and the environment every step of the way.
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