Sunday afternoon, midwesterners packed a small independent movie theater in Kansas City, Mo., for a screening of the new documentary "Fresh," which takes a close and at times disturbing look at factory farming in the United States. Along with its director, Ana Sofia Joanes, "Fresh" (click the trailer above) is wending its way across the country in the hopes, Joanes said at a panel discussion between two sold-out screenings, of "changing the misconception that we need the industrial food system." This isn't the first new anti-BigFarming flick to hit the silver screen, so we're calling a trend.
"Fresh" follows the lives of four farm families, including a Missouri hog farmer who exterminated his industrial stock after being gored by one of his hogs and doctors found that he was resistant to most antibiotics. Michael Pollan and John E. Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, make cameos as talking heads.
The real star, however, may be the swoon-worthy (if you like the rugged type) sustainable Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, who has the vocabulary of a professor and no shame about embracing "the chickenness" of his hens when greeting them with a "Good morning, girls!" each day.
Farmers everywhere are being squeezed by high production costs and low prices for their products. Even malting barley farmers in Ireland are being hit, but they're trying to do something about it.
The Irish farmers, about 400 of them, converged on the famous Guinness brewery in Dublin to protest their situation. The farmers want the brewer to do more to support the industry (which I suppose means supporting higher grain prices?). However, Guinness maintains that they get their grain from an agricultural supplier and has little say in the prices the farmers are paid.
A company spokesperson says that the beer maker also has to do what it can to compete with other beverage choices in a poor global economy. I feel bad for Guinness being caught in the middle. They won't have the grain they need if all the farmers go under, but they also prefer the lower grain prices to keep their own prices down. What do you think about the situation.
We've all heard about CSAs - Community-Supported Agriculture - and many of us have participated in CSA programs in our towns. Essentially, you fork over some cash (usually from $500 to $800), and each month, you get a bounty of whatever fruits and veggies are in season, courtesy of a locally-owned farm.
For some people, the boxes of produce are as close to they get to the farm, though they can feel secure in knowing that they're supporting their local farmers and not supporting grocery store-sold produce. Other CSA participants go a step further and purchase a small piece of the actual farm, which they visit and keep up themselves.
My question: why is the New York Timesjust now learning about this? A recent article on CSAs calls it "a loose but growing network," making it sound as if they just stumbled upon the movement yesterday. Really? I have friends who have been participating in these programs for years. Perhaps it's just new in more rural areas?
In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy locally-grown veggies, and go back to my love/hate relationship with the Times.
Lately, there have been some raised eyebrows in BK's direction, mainly because they won't agree to pay their tomato pickers an extra penny per pound of tomatoes.
The tomato pickers have to pick 125 buckets worth of the fruit in order to get $50-60 per day, and work 10-12 hours in the hot Florida sun. The new measure would only cost BK an additional $300,000 per year, out of their $11 billion yearly revenue.
Other fast food joints have already agreed to pay their workers more, but BK continues to stall. Some people are afraid that tomato growers would wind up with the money, instead of the pickers, and others are worried the new agreement will violate antitrust rules.
But the shadiness doesn't stop there. BK execs admitted that they have a relationship with Diplomatic Tactical Services, a security firm with a creepy, amorphous name, which helps BK spy on its clients.
Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, recently wrote an op-ed for the Timeson the subject, shedding light on BK's Big Brother tactics.
I always knew there was something hiding behind that awful molded plastic King in the commercials...
Europeans are crazy about labeling where a product is from. In some cases, wine for instance, it is more common for the product to be named after its originating region than it is to be named after what's actually in it. From now on, olive oil will have more specific labeling requirements as well.
The Coldiretti farmersunion pressed the Italian government to pass a new law to include information on the label about where the olives were actually picked and pressed. They were upset about olive oils which claimed to be Italian but used olives from other country's around the Mediterranean. The new labeling information must also include what percentage of different olives were used in each product.
A consumer group called Codacons has endorsed the new law. They say that it helps to protect the consumer from fraud and poor quality olive oil. I say the more information on a label the better. Just make it clear and easy to read. Just because I want to know as much about the product I'm buying as possible doesn't mean I want to spend all day doing it.
I was looking at the Aug./Sept. 2007 issue of Saveur magazine and reading a great article about Hmong farmers in California by Andrea Nguyen, one of my new favorite writers. (If you want to subscribe or buy and download the issue click here.) The Hmong are a semi-nomadic people who have lived in parts of China and Southeast Asia for centuries. Always on the move, recently a large portion ended up leaving Asia and immigrating to the US, especially California, where a great many are farmers growing their fantastic produce. While traveling in Asia I had the chance to try some Hmong cooking. Their cuisine relies on extremely fresh produce and meats that are cooked simply and full of flavor. One thing that I really enjoyed was the Chile-Scallion relish called Kua Txob Tuav Xyaw Dos (pronounced koo-AH za too-AH sher daw.)
It's a spicy, tangy, herbal, slightly salty, rough paste that is used as a relish and condiment. Always made fresh each day and put on the table the relish is put into soups and stir fries, used to boost up the spice level to your own preference, and served by itself as a garnish for plain or sticky rice.
The best way to get the best consistency to the paste is to do it by hand in a mortar and pestle. Preferably a nice solid one like a Thai mortar and pestle. They are an immense and heavy piece of stone that sits solidly on your counter so that you can let the solid pestle thump satisfactorily down on the ingredients. I realized after reading the recipe that I had the few, simple ingredients growing in my garden. It's easy to make and only takes a few minutes. Time to make the Kua Txob Tuav Xyaw Dos.
Starbucks, contrary to popular belief, does not pays less for their coffee than other coffee buyers, using their size to bully their suppliers into meeting extremely low prices (like one here-unnamed major retailer does). In the past year, Starbucks paid about 36% more than the average price per pound of coffee beans, shelling out $1.42 for every pound of beans they bought.
Does this definitively prove that Starbucks is making the world a better place for all coffee growers and that there will be no starving farmers working coffee plantations in the world? Of course not. The latter problem can't be helped because that low average price means that there are companies paying far, far less for their products. What this does mean is that Starbucks is making positive policies that will benefit growers in the long run, setting a higher standard that other buyers will, hopefully, meet at some point.
Last night I was reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair (the one with Dreamgirls on the cover and a really stupid "women aren't funny" article by Christopher Hitchens inside), and I suddenly got a really strong scent of pomegranates. I had no idea where it was coming from until I flipped through the magazine and saw an ad for a pomegranate drink, and it had one of those "lift and smell" flaps that you usually see in cologne ads. Now they're doing it with food and drink. Interesting. Anyway, the smell was overwhelming (in a good way), even when I finished reading the mag and threw it out. I smelled it all last night when I was in bed.
At the moment, there is no federal standard for labeling fish as "organic." While cows, pigs, chickens and all sorts of other animals can easily meet existing standards by being fed specific types of food and not getting any hormones or antibiotics added to them, fish are much harder to pin down. Part of the problem lies in the fact that many fish are carnivorous and because there are currently no organic fish, they cannot eat organic feed. Additionally, to ensure that fish are only eating organically, which is not a problem for herbivorous fish, they must be supervised and receive specific feed. If fish have to be supervised to get the "organic" designation, that means that wild fish will not qualify, which is a sticking point for those who actually fish wild fish.
Scientists and environmentalists, however, agree that the organic label should not be applied to wild fish, reminding people that "organic" refers to a type of agriculture and the catching of wild fish is not agriculture.
The debate on both sides has been ongoing for years now and, even when a consensus is reached, it will probably take a couple more years for fisheries to meet the chosen USDA standards and get their products in the market.
Canada does not have a country-wide organic certification system - not yet, anyway. Organic farming and ranching is an almost $1 billion dollar industry in the country, but currently, the farmers cannot seek certification from a central source. Some are certified by the US Department of Agriculture, which would be required for export to the US anyway, and farms in Quebec and British Colombia are regulated by rules put in place by the individual provinces.
A new system would allow for a "Canada Organic" label, increasing awareness of the farmers nationally and internationally and the country has been working on developing a standard set of guidelines and regulations since 2004. Recently, the process was sped up to meet a deadline set by the EU that would prohibit uncertified organics from trade after December 31st. Such a ban could cost Canada millions of dollars, so after much deliberation, a draft of the new rules was published on September 2. It will be up for discussion and revision for 75 days, at which point it will become law.
If you read a lot of personal food blogs, you will occasionally here someone refer to CSA or a delivery from CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, a cooperative system in which goods from a farm are delivered directly to a consumer. The way it works is that people purchase the rights to part of a farmer's crop prior to the beginning of the season. Once the crops start coming in - and some farmers provide everything from vegetables and herbs to fresh eggs and meat, though most primarily provide produce - a portion of the harvest is delivered to each subscriber each week, either directly or to a central location where it can be picked up. The farmers benefit from having a direct sale, and the consumers benefit because they are getting ultra-fresh produce and supporting their community.
Because everything is so seasonal, consumers don't have a say in what they get each week. It is based strictly on the harvest, so it is possible that you will end up with some foods you don't care for in addition to ones you love.
The season lasts from April or May through October, although it may start a bit later depending on what area of the country you are from. Some farms offer year-round programs. Generally, the subscription is paid in advance, meaning that a subscriber will pay a few hundred dollars at the beginning of the season instead of paying weekly as they might at a grocery store or farmer's market. An average cost seems to be about $22 per week. Use the CSA Finder at Local Harvest to help locate a program in your area.
More dairies may be going organic, but the demand for organic milk is close to exceeding the supply. Dean Foods, a Texas-based company that is the nation's largest producer of dairy and the owner of Horizon Organics, has even gone so far as to say that the sale of organic milk to stores could be rationed this winter. Part of the reason is that the production of organic dairy drops in winter, when cows in some parts of the country must be sheltered and protected from the cold.
One other problem facing the industry is an increased interest, from the customer,s into where the milk specifically comes from. Dean Foods has already dropped some of their larger suppliers and is focusing on mid-sized herds and smaller family farms. In fact, in trying to meet the current demand, Dean Foods is planning for the long term, hoping to avoid situations like this in the future, by spending $20 million in the next 5 years, helping small farmers transition to organic.
Doubtless, the transition will be easier for farmers to make when they are assured of a strong market for their product. For the rest of the year and until spring, however, consumers would be wise just to buy organic milk when it is available and not expect to see any price cuts or special deals on dairy.
A group of farmers from North Dakota opened Agraria Restaurant, a high end restaurant in Washington DC, to show "urban diners" exactly who is raising their food. The restaurant cost $4 million to open and was a big risk for the co-op, which has approximately 40,000 members and almost no experience in the restaurant industry. They felt strongly that there was too much of a disconnect between people and their food, and wanted to bring the two closer together.
The menu uses seasonal produce from family farm suppliers, purchased directly from the farmers and/or their co-ops. For example, most of the their produce comes from Tuscarora Organic Growers, an organic farm co-op in Pennsylvania, flour and beef come from North Dakota, and their seafood is from places like Louisiana and Alaska. The ultimate goal is to expand the "limited bistro menu" of the newly opened restaurant to one that varies widely and changes daily, letting diners know how dependent meals can be on the seasons and how much higher quality the food is when the restaurant stocks don't come from Sysco.
Agraria Restaurant Washington Harbour 3000 K Street NW Washington, DC 20007 202-298-0003
There are so many food issues to think about when you hit the market to do grocery shopping. Store brand versus national brand. Sale versus regular. Organic vs conventional. Locally grown vs imported. Every company is promoting at least one thing (sometimes all things) at a time.With organics going mainstream, and organic farms getting larger and more efficient/industrial, more community and eco-conscious people are turning towards supporting local growers and patronizing farmers markets, rather than blindly opting for organics of unknown origin.
Following this trend and keeping itself ahead of the curve, Whole Foods has just pledged to spend an additional $10 million each year to further support locally grown foods. John Mackey one of the co-founders of Whole Foods said that some stores "would use parts of their parking lots on Sundays to host open-air markets for nearby farms and [all] would redouble efforts to buy from local producers."
The question is, will this move encourage you to shop at Whole Foods, knowing that you are more likely to be supporting local growers/producers that you might not otherwise have access to?
We've all heard about 
Europeans are crazy about labeling where a product is from. In some cases, wine for instance, it is more common for the product to be named after its originating region than it is to be named after what's actually in it. From now on, 
Starbucks, contrary to popular belief, 
Last night I was reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair (the one with Dreamgirls on the cover and a really stupid "women aren't funny" article by Christopher Hitchens inside), and I suddenly got a really strong scent of pomegranates. I had no idea where it was coming from until I flipped through the magazine and saw an ad for a pomegranate drink, and it had one of those "lift and smell" flaps that you usually see in cologne ads. Now they're doing it with food and drink. Interesting. Anyway, the smell was overwhelming (in a good way), even when I finished reading the mag and threw it out. I smelled it all last night when I was in bed.
Some 
At the moment, there is no federal standard for 
Canada does not have a country-wide organic certification system - not yet, anyway. Organic farming and ranching is an almost $1 billion dollar industry in the country, but currently, the farmers cannot seek certification from a central source. Some are certified by the US Department of Agriculture, which would be required for export to the US anyway, and farms in Quebec and British Colombia are regulated by rules put in place by the individual provinces. 
If you read a lot of personal food blogs, you will occasionally here someone refer to CSA or a delivery from CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, a cooperative system in which goods from a farm are delivered directly to a consumer. The way it works is that people purchase the rights to part of a farmer's crop prior to the beginning of the season. Once the crops start coming in - and some farmers provide everything from vegetables and herbs to fresh eggs and meat, though most primarily provide produce - a portion of the harvest is delivered to each subscriber each week, either directly or to a central location where it can be picked up. The farmers benefit from having a direct sale, and the consumers benefit because they are getting ultra-fresh produce and supporting their community. 
More dairies may be 
A 
There are so many food issues to think about when you hit the market to do grocery shopping. Store brand versus national brand. Sale versus regular. Organic vs conventional. Locally grown vs imported. Every company is promoting at least one thing (sometimes all things) at a time.With organics going mainstream, and organic farms getting larger and more efficient/industrial, more community and eco-conscious people are turning towards supporting local growers and patronizing farmers markets, rather than blindly opting for organics of unknown origin.
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