Bringing a European Idea Down to Earth: Producers, Farmers Pin Hopes on the Appeal of 'Terroir'
By Jane Black, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, August 22, 2007; F01
It was a risky move back in 2004 for Arlin Wasserman to launch his Minneapolis consultancy, Changing Tastes. His expertise: the esoteric concept of "terroir," a French term that literally translates as terrain but has come to mean the way foods and wine express the soil, climate, culture and tradition of a region. His proposition: show farmers and manufacturers how to sell food based not on price, but on where it comes from and how it is grown.
Americans are familiar with Vidalia onions, Idaho potatoes and Florida oranges. But even in gourmet circles, "people didn't know what 'terroir' meant," Wasserman recalled. "So we had to start to use words that made sense to businesses, like 'identity preservation' or 'geographic identity.' "
Google didn't seem to know what Wasserman was talking about, either. Back then, a search for the term "terroir" turned up almost no results, prompting the search engine to ask whether users had misspelled "terror."
Three years later, Wasserman has a growing roster of clients, from General Mills to a co-op of Amish goat and lamb farmers, as well as a group of Minnesota artisans with a line of charcuterie, preserves and wild rice dishes in the works. Similar projects are taking shape across the country. On Lummi Island, off the coast of Washington, salmon fishermen have formed a co-op to sell local sockeye salmon caught in reef nets, a traditional Native American method. Researchers in Iowa have done feasibility studies on bringing back the Muscatine melon (see "Certified Levels of Terroir," Page F6), a variety of cantaloupe that owes its juicy fragrance to the sandy soil on the banks of the Mississippi, and I-80 beef, ultra-marbled steaks from the northwest corner of the state.
Terroir may sound like just another opportunity for elite gourmets to one-up one another at dinner parties. But Wasserman is at the cutting edge of a new trend to bring the concept into everyday conversation and into the neighborhood grocery store.
Terroir has the potential to promote a variety of interests in ways that simple origin labeling, as with Vidalia onions, can't. Farmers believe that the focus on growing conditions and production methods will make their products stand out in a market where low prices reign supreme.
Economists see terroir as a device to help restore and protect rural communities; if farmers can earn more money, they're more likely to stay on the land. Others believe that promoting terroir could help quell fears about food safety.
The one group that has yet to embrace the concept, however, is the American consumer. Just say terroir (pronounced tare-WAHR) and, even at Whole Foods Market, you're likely to get a blank stare. "Where it comes from doesn't fit into how we think about food," said Amy Trubek, a University of Vermont professor of anthropology and author of the upcoming book "The Taste of Place: Food, Culture and the Pleasures of Terroir."
That's not the case in Europe, where consumers understand that champagne owes its finesse to double fermentation of the wine and the cool climate of the Champagne region of France. Much of the credit goes to European governments, which have stepped up to define, and protect, unique growing areas.
The first protected region in Europe dates to 1855, when Napoleon III established the Grand Crus areas of Bordeaux. Later, other wine regions were recognized, as were areas of traditional food production, such as Parma, which produces prosciutto, and Modena, which is famed for its balsamic vinegar. In 1992, the European Union introduced regulations to protect these so-called designations of origin. Over the past 15 years, the E.U. has identified 746 place-based foods.
Such traditions, and the bureaucracies that protect them, were never established in America. Indeed, the U.S. government remains locked in a battle with the E.U. over its demand that American producers refrain from using product names such as "feta," which by E.U. law is made only in Greece, and "champagne."
"We went to the Industrialized Age almost immediately," Trubek said. "We never had cute little towns with wine-and-cheese traditions. The American experience is all about expansion, to make it bigger, to keep moving."
Two hundred years later, an unlikely coalition is joining forces to invent American tradition by linking foods to the places they come from and, like American winemakers before them, to romance. Their hope is to offer a counterbalance to the commodity mentality that a strawberry from California is interchangeable with one grown in Florida.
Studies show that the strategy can be profitable. According to a May 2004 survey conducted by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, 56 percent of respondents were willing to pay at least 10 percent more for a place-based food, or "produit du terroir." The survey also revealed that 65 percent of respondents preferred products that would give farmers a higher percentage of profits than processors, distributors and retailers.
The theory has borne out for fishermen on Lummi Island. Five years ago, they formed a co-op and agreed to catch salmon with reef nets. The contraptions, a modernized version of a Native American invention, consist of an artificial underwater reef made of plastic ribbons. Fishermen stand on tall towers above the water and watch for salmon to swim into the reef, then pull up the nets, spilling the fish into an underwater pen in the boat's center. The fish are then moved into a separate tank, where their gills are cut and they swim slowly to their deaths.
It sounds cruel, but Lummi Island fishermen claim it's far less stressful than contemporary methods in which fish die full of adrenaline, struggling for breath on the deck of a commercial fishing vessel. "Reef-net fish have this amazing flavor," co-op member Ian Kirouac said. "We wanted to identify ourselves with a strong sense of place. There's a big difference between what we do and what other people do. "
By advertising their technique and the place of origin, this Lummi Island co-op has been able to command a premium for its fish, both from retailers and restaurant clients. Commodity sockeye salmon sell for about $3.25 a pound wholesale, while Lummi Island's fetch as much as $5.25 per pound.
Across the country, Vermont maple syrup producers are exploring how terroir can make their product stand out in a crowded marketplace. Led by Trubek, a team of researchers initiated a program in 2006 to test whether a syrup made from trees sitting on limestone bedrock has a flavor distinctly different from syrup made from trees growing on shale or schist. The researchers have yet to report on their findings, but the Vermont Department of Agriculture is paying close attention.
Cheaper Canadian syrups are now widely available. Many are made using reverse-osmosis technology that drastically reduces the amount of time the syrup needs to be boiled. The result, said Henry Markres, the agency's chief of consumer protection and official maple specialist, is that they taste simply sweet rather than maple-y. "People used to just accept that Vermont maple syrup was the best in the world," Markres said. "Anything we can do to quantify the uniqueness of Vermont will help."
Rural economists looking for alternatives to commodity crops for Midwestern farmers have watched such projects with interest and have conducted research to determine which heartland foods might have broad appeal. For example, researchers at Iowa State University assessed the potential for I-80 beef, terroir-based corn-fed beef from the ranches along Interstate 80, in answer to Japanese customers' clamoring for juicier, more marbled steaks. The project established such feeding standards as a minimum of 180 days on a diet of corn and documented how ranchers could distribute the product and protect the brand.
The project hasn't taken off -- yet. Spurred by fears of mad cow disease, Japan banned imports of American beef a second time in January. "The ideas of what could be profitable shifted," said Rich Pirog, associate director of Iowa State's Leopold Center. "Terroir is a harder sell here than it was a few years ago."
Still, Pirog thinks the concept will slowly become a part of the Midwest's agricultural landscape. Agritourism gives the concept a boost; if you taste a great farmstead cheese in Wisconsin, you're likely to seek it out back at home.
Concerns about food safety will be a motivating factor, too. "There is a demand from consumers who want to know where their food comes from. Place-based foods offer that kind of transparency," Pirog said.
The final driver, ironically, is globalization. "Our farmers are competing in a global market, and everyone else is using the concept to their advantage," said Gary Nabhan, co-founder of Slow Food's Renewing America's Food Tradition program. He cited the success of French cheesemakers, Mexican tequila distillers and Egyptian date and olive growers.
Even here at home: In May, Napa and the Napa Valley became the first American wine regions to be recognized by the E.U.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Houston's ethnic food stores monitored for safety
As immigrant population grows, so do the imports of exotic edibles
August 21, 2007
By JAMES PINKERTON Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Federal food cops in Houston are used to confiscating bizarre concoctions.
In the past year they've seized earthworms from China and untreated lentils from India. And they're still talking about the 2,000 pounds of duck and chicken feet illegally shipped to Houston from Vietnam.
As the immigrant community in Houston continues to expand, so does the number of local ethnic markets where exotic — and sometimes contaminated or untreated — food products are sold, authorities say.
''Without a doubt as the immigrant population grows, we've seen more and more ethnic markets and more imported food come in," said Tom Baker, who supervises Houston inspectors assigned to a component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They focus on smuggling, interdiction and trade compliance. ''Our group has found significant amounts of prohibited food commodities in ethnic markets in the last year."
Baker said his agents monitor more than 1,000 ethnic markets in Houston and surrounding counties, where merchants from Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe sell specialty products to immigrants hungry for a taste of home.
The focus on ethnic outlets has increased in the wake of a series of recalls that began this spring when a chemical used to make plastic was found in pet food imported from China. Other recalls of Chinese products include tainted toothpaste, seafood treated with antibiotics and toys decorated with lead-based paint.
Carolyn Gray, chief sanitarian for the city of Houston's health department, said some of the city's 42 food inspectors speak Chinese or Vietnamese to help monitor ethnic food markets.
Earlier this month, the head of the Food and Drug Administration said more food inspectors will be hired. It was disclosed that less than 1 percent of imported food shipments are inspected.
Removing productsSeveral merchants, including Bill Chu, owner of the Welcome Food Center on Bellaire Boulevard, said products are quickly removed if government food officials say they could be contaminated.
''I'm not going to be so greedy to make one or two bucks and let someone eat something that will hurt them," said Chu.
Officials said most of the tainted food is seized at larger, mainstream grocery outlets because of the sheer volume of products sold there.
There are 14,000 licensed food vendors in Houston, including grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations and school cafeterias, and all must be inspected at least once a year, she said.
City inspectors work closely with USDA and FDA inspectors assigned to Houston, Gray said.
Some of Houston's ethnic markets commit food safety violations, Gray said, especially in failing to store certain food at 41 degrees or cooler in walk-in freezers. She said seizures of questionable food are a weekly occurrence.
Atul Shah, a manager at the India Mart on Hillcroft, said some brands of spices and commodities recently have become difficult to obtain from suppliers.
He suspects they may have been placed on lists of products not allowed into the country.
''Some things are not coming in, and I don't know why," Shah said, adding that no products have been removed from his store by authorities.
Local consumers, including several at Welcome Food on Bellaire, expressed confidence in the products sold at ethnic markets.
Oisheng Zhang, a 23-year-old University of Houston senior, said he has never had a problem with products he's purchased in nearly five years as a customer.
''If I see half of the shelves empty one day, I may get worried," he said.
Preservation is keyDan Sowards, a food safety officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said ethnic markets can pose more of a sanitation hazard because of the way some imported products are processed.
But he said just because a product is exotic, it doesn't mean it is tainted or unsafe.
''You might find dried bats in a Nigerian store, or fried ants," Sowards said.
''You'll find all kinds of things, but they're not necessarily contaminated. ... It depends on how they've been been handled."
Determining if food safety practices at ethnic markets are better or worse than other food establishments is difficult because sanitation inspections are not broken down by ethnicity, Harris County and Houston health department officials explained.
james.pinkerton@chron.com
August 21, 2007
By JAMES PINKERTON Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Federal food cops in Houston are used to confiscating bizarre concoctions.
In the past year they've seized earthworms from China and untreated lentils from India. And they're still talking about the 2,000 pounds of duck and chicken feet illegally shipped to Houston from Vietnam.
As the immigrant community in Houston continues to expand, so does the number of local ethnic markets where exotic — and sometimes contaminated or untreated — food products are sold, authorities say.
''Without a doubt as the immigrant population grows, we've seen more and more ethnic markets and more imported food come in," said Tom Baker, who supervises Houston inspectors assigned to a component of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They focus on smuggling, interdiction and trade compliance. ''Our group has found significant amounts of prohibited food commodities in ethnic markets in the last year."
Baker said his agents monitor more than 1,000 ethnic markets in Houston and surrounding counties, where merchants from Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe sell specialty products to immigrants hungry for a taste of home.
The focus on ethnic outlets has increased in the wake of a series of recalls that began this spring when a chemical used to make plastic was found in pet food imported from China. Other recalls of Chinese products include tainted toothpaste, seafood treated with antibiotics and toys decorated with lead-based paint.
Carolyn Gray, chief sanitarian for the city of Houston's health department, said some of the city's 42 food inspectors speak Chinese or Vietnamese to help monitor ethnic food markets.
Earlier this month, the head of the Food and Drug Administration said more food inspectors will be hired. It was disclosed that less than 1 percent of imported food shipments are inspected.
Removing productsSeveral merchants, including Bill Chu, owner of the Welcome Food Center on Bellaire Boulevard, said products are quickly removed if government food officials say they could be contaminated.
''I'm not going to be so greedy to make one or two bucks and let someone eat something that will hurt them," said Chu.
Officials said most of the tainted food is seized at larger, mainstream grocery outlets because of the sheer volume of products sold there.
There are 14,000 licensed food vendors in Houston, including grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations and school cafeterias, and all must be inspected at least once a year, she said.
City inspectors work closely with USDA and FDA inspectors assigned to Houston, Gray said.
Some of Houston's ethnic markets commit food safety violations, Gray said, especially in failing to store certain food at 41 degrees or cooler in walk-in freezers. She said seizures of questionable food are a weekly occurrence.
Atul Shah, a manager at the India Mart on Hillcroft, said some brands of spices and commodities recently have become difficult to obtain from suppliers.
He suspects they may have been placed on lists of products not allowed into the country.
''Some things are not coming in, and I don't know why," Shah said, adding that no products have been removed from his store by authorities.
Local consumers, including several at Welcome Food on Bellaire, expressed confidence in the products sold at ethnic markets.
Oisheng Zhang, a 23-year-old University of Houston senior, said he has never had a problem with products he's purchased in nearly five years as a customer.
''If I see half of the shelves empty one day, I may get worried," he said.
Preservation is keyDan Sowards, a food safety officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said ethnic markets can pose more of a sanitation hazard because of the way some imported products are processed.
But he said just because a product is exotic, it doesn't mean it is tainted or unsafe.
''You might find dried bats in a Nigerian store, or fried ants," Sowards said.
''You'll find all kinds of things, but they're not necessarily contaminated. ... It depends on how they've been been handled."
Determining if food safety practices at ethnic markets are better or worse than other food establishments is difficult because sanitation inspections are not broken down by ethnicity, Harris County and Houston health department officials explained.
james.pinkerton@chron.com
Friday, August 17, 2007
Cancer panel attacks U.S. food subsidies
By Maggie Fox, Reuters Health and Science Editor, Aug 16, 10:43 AM ET
A new presidential report on cancer takes on not only tobacco companies but the food industry while calling on the federal government to "cease being a purveyor of unhealthy foods" and switch to policies that encourage Americans to eat vegetables and exercise.
The report, issued on Thursday, also urged changes in public and private insurance policies to encourage doctors to spend more time counseling patients on how to stay healthy by eating right, exercising and avoiding tobacco.
Federal, state, and local policies have actually made healthful foods more expensive and less available, have limited physical education in schools and created an environment that discourages physical activity, the report said.
"Ineffective policies, in conjunction with limited regulation of sales and marketing in the food and beverage industry, have spawned a culture that struggles to make healthy choices -- a culture in dire need of change," said the report, available on the Internet at http://pcp.cancer.gov.
Margaret Kripke of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson cancer center, a member of the President's Cancer Panel, said in a telephone interview, "What became clear to me is that we simply don't have the political will to protect the public health."
Several reports have shown that a third of all cancers are caused by tobacco use, and another one-third by obesity and inactivity.
"This country must not ignore its moral obligation to protect the health of all Americans. We can and must empower individuals to make healthy choices through appropriate policy and legislation, and the panel urges you to use the power of your office toward this life-saving goal," the panel, chaired by Howard University's Dr. LaSalle Leffall, wrote in a letter to Bush.
PURVEYOR OF UNHEALTHY FOODS
The report recommended much stricter control of the tobacco industry and urged Congress to authorize the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco.
"The report also supports increasing the federal cigarette tax, which is currently 39 cents per pack," American Cancer Society Chief Executive Officer John Seffrin said in a statement.
"The panel's recommendation runs counter to the president's public opposition to a tobacco tax increase."
The federal government also should "require the elimination of unhealthy foods from school breakfast and lunch programs" and "must cease being a purveyor of unhealthy foods that lead to disease and increased health care costs," the report said.
This includes regulation of food advertising and changing agricultural support policies, it said.
"We heavily subsidize the growth of foods (e.g., corn, soy) that in their processed forms (e.g., high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated corn and soybean oils, grain-fed cattle) are known contributors to obesity and associated chronic diseases, including cancer," the report reads.
"The people who are doing the U.S. agricultural subsidies need to connect their subsidies with the policy on public health and I don't think that has been done," Kripke said.
Yet fresh fruits and vegetables are not subsidized in the same way. "And physical education classes in school have almost disappeared," Kripke said.
The American Cancer Society predicts more than 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and that 559,650 will die.
A new presidential report on cancer takes on not only tobacco companies but the food industry while calling on the federal government to "cease being a purveyor of unhealthy foods" and switch to policies that encourage Americans to eat vegetables and exercise.
The report, issued on Thursday, also urged changes in public and private insurance policies to encourage doctors to spend more time counseling patients on how to stay healthy by eating right, exercising and avoiding tobacco.
Federal, state, and local policies have actually made healthful foods more expensive and less available, have limited physical education in schools and created an environment that discourages physical activity, the report said.
"Ineffective policies, in conjunction with limited regulation of sales and marketing in the food and beverage industry, have spawned a culture that struggles to make healthy choices -- a culture in dire need of change," said the report, available on the Internet at http://pcp.cancer.gov.
Margaret Kripke of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson cancer center, a member of the President's Cancer Panel, said in a telephone interview, "What became clear to me is that we simply don't have the political will to protect the public health."
Several reports have shown that a third of all cancers are caused by tobacco use, and another one-third by obesity and inactivity.
"This country must not ignore its moral obligation to protect the health of all Americans. We can and must empower individuals to make healthy choices through appropriate policy and legislation, and the panel urges you to use the power of your office toward this life-saving goal," the panel, chaired by Howard University's Dr. LaSalle Leffall, wrote in a letter to Bush.
PURVEYOR OF UNHEALTHY FOODS
The report recommended much stricter control of the tobacco industry and urged Congress to authorize the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco.
"The report also supports increasing the federal cigarette tax, which is currently 39 cents per pack," American Cancer Society Chief Executive Officer John Seffrin said in a statement.
"The panel's recommendation runs counter to the president's public opposition to a tobacco tax increase."
The federal government also should "require the elimination of unhealthy foods from school breakfast and lunch programs" and "must cease being a purveyor of unhealthy foods that lead to disease and increased health care costs," the report said.
This includes regulation of food advertising and changing agricultural support policies, it said.
"We heavily subsidize the growth of foods (e.g., corn, soy) that in their processed forms (e.g., high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated corn and soybean oils, grain-fed cattle) are known contributors to obesity and associated chronic diseases, including cancer," the report reads.
"The people who are doing the U.S. agricultural subsidies need to connect their subsidies with the policy on public health and I don't think that has been done," Kripke said.
Yet fresh fruits and vegetables are not subsidized in the same way. "And physical education classes in school have almost disappeared," Kripke said.
The American Cancer Society predicts more than 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and that 559,650 will die.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
More food imports from Mexico, not China, turned away
More food imports from Mexico, not China, turned away. In past year, inspectors found salmonella, other defects in goods entering the U.S.
By CHASE DAVIS Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle, August 16, 2007
Despite widespread alarm over tainted seafood from China making its way to American consumers, federal inspectors during the past year have turned away even more food shipments from Mexico — Texas' largest trading partner, according to a review by the Houston Chronicle.
Citing salmonella, prohibited pesticides and other defects, FDA inspectors refused more than 1,330 Mexican food shipments from July 2006 through last month, including fresh vegetables, processed foods and dietary supplements, according to inspection records from the Food and Drug Administration.
The refusals represent a small share of the roughly $198 billion in goods imported from the country last year, much of which entered through Texas trade hubs such as Laredo and Houston.
As the country's primary trade gateway to Mexico, Texas receives nearly 2 million shipments each year, according to FDA records. But most of that cargo is not inspected by hand — only 1 to 2 percent, according to FDA estimates.
"If it's a commodity that has no history of violations, it'll probably pass right on through," said Dan Sowards, food safety officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which regulates distribution centers that often house imported food. "What the FDA does is a snapshot."
Though FDA refusals account for less than 1 percent of goods entering the country each year, they provide a glimpse into what lawmakers have called an overburdened system for inspecting U.S. food and drug imports.
"If you look at the numbers, it's China and Mexico and India," said U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, whose district includes the Port of Houston. China, which exports less food to the U.S. than Mexico, had about 930 food shipments rejected between July 2006 and July 2007.
"But there's a lack of resources to do more inspections," Green said. "We need to point this out."
Agency criticizedExperts and lawmakers argue that a lack of inspection resources, paired with a growing demand for imports, have exposed more Americans to harm from contaminated food. Food-borne illnesses hospitalize more than 300,000 Americans and kill about 5,000 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In House subcommittee hearings last month, Green and other lawmakers criticized the agency for proposing to close several product testing labs amid budgetary concerns — a plan the FDA has since suspended.
"Instead of laying off microbiologists and chemists, we need to be sure we keep them and expand them," Green said in an interview. "If necessary, if we want to be sure what we're buying is safe, we might need to put an inspection fee on it."
FDA spokeswoman Catherine McDermott said that although inspectors have been stretched thin, "inspections are thoroughly carried out."
Tainted Mexican imports have made headlines several times in recent years. In 2002, the FDA banned the import of Mexican cantaloupes after they were linked to salmonella outbreaks.
Appearances countMore recently, in 2004, certain candies were found to contain dangerous amounts of lead, prompting several state investigations, including one in Texas.
Both products were among the cargo refused during the last year. So too were dirty peppers, salmonella-infected shrimp, and turnip greens treated with prohibited pesticides, according to the FDA records.
In all, inspectors turned away 1,724 Mexican shipments, more than three-fourths of which were foods or food ingredients. Another 17 percent were cosmetics or pharmaceuticals, such as prescription drugs, deodorant and lotions. The rest mostly were medical supplies and electronic devices.
Products were most often refused because they were deemed "filthy," meaning they appeared dirty, putrid or decomposed.
Unapproved drugs also were common refusal targets, as was produce treated with banned pesticides.
Many countries had much higher refusal rates than Mexico based on their quantity of U.S. exports. For example, the Dominican Republic, which exported $4.5 billion to the U.S. last year, saw 895 shipments turned away, mostly for pesticides.
China accounted for the highest number of total refusals with 2,031, but less than half were for food products. The country's exports have attracted attention several times this year, when additives in pet food ingredients were linked to the deaths of several animals, and when a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze turned up in some exported toothpastes.
Despite the refusals, long-standing commercial partnerships and refined production practices have made many Mexican goods safer than their Chinese counterparts, said Mike Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, which works with the food industry to improve product safety.
Food production standards in Mexico are "as good as or often better than what we've had in the U.S.," Doyle said. "It depends on the company. ... There are parts of Mexico that would be equivalent to China."
In response to Chronicle inquiries, the Mexican Embassy in Washington released a statement saying the country continues to work with U.S. officials to ensure the quality of its food exports.
chase.davis@chron.com
By CHASE DAVIS Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle, August 16, 2007
Despite widespread alarm over tainted seafood from China making its way to American consumers, federal inspectors during the past year have turned away even more food shipments from Mexico — Texas' largest trading partner, according to a review by the Houston Chronicle.
Citing salmonella, prohibited pesticides and other defects, FDA inspectors refused more than 1,330 Mexican food shipments from July 2006 through last month, including fresh vegetables, processed foods and dietary supplements, according to inspection records from the Food and Drug Administration.
The refusals represent a small share of the roughly $198 billion in goods imported from the country last year, much of which entered through Texas trade hubs such as Laredo and Houston.
As the country's primary trade gateway to Mexico, Texas receives nearly 2 million shipments each year, according to FDA records. But most of that cargo is not inspected by hand — only 1 to 2 percent, according to FDA estimates.
"If it's a commodity that has no history of violations, it'll probably pass right on through," said Dan Sowards, food safety officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which regulates distribution centers that often house imported food. "What the FDA does is a snapshot."
Though FDA refusals account for less than 1 percent of goods entering the country each year, they provide a glimpse into what lawmakers have called an overburdened system for inspecting U.S. food and drug imports.
"If you look at the numbers, it's China and Mexico and India," said U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, whose district includes the Port of Houston. China, which exports less food to the U.S. than Mexico, had about 930 food shipments rejected between July 2006 and July 2007.
"But there's a lack of resources to do more inspections," Green said. "We need to point this out."
Agency criticizedExperts and lawmakers argue that a lack of inspection resources, paired with a growing demand for imports, have exposed more Americans to harm from contaminated food. Food-borne illnesses hospitalize more than 300,000 Americans and kill about 5,000 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In House subcommittee hearings last month, Green and other lawmakers criticized the agency for proposing to close several product testing labs amid budgetary concerns — a plan the FDA has since suspended.
"Instead of laying off microbiologists and chemists, we need to be sure we keep them and expand them," Green said in an interview. "If necessary, if we want to be sure what we're buying is safe, we might need to put an inspection fee on it."
FDA spokeswoman Catherine McDermott said that although inspectors have been stretched thin, "inspections are thoroughly carried out."
Tainted Mexican imports have made headlines several times in recent years. In 2002, the FDA banned the import of Mexican cantaloupes after they were linked to salmonella outbreaks.
Appearances countMore recently, in 2004, certain candies were found to contain dangerous amounts of lead, prompting several state investigations, including one in Texas.
Both products were among the cargo refused during the last year. So too were dirty peppers, salmonella-infected shrimp, and turnip greens treated with prohibited pesticides, according to the FDA records.
In all, inspectors turned away 1,724 Mexican shipments, more than three-fourths of which were foods or food ingredients. Another 17 percent were cosmetics or pharmaceuticals, such as prescription drugs, deodorant and lotions. The rest mostly were medical supplies and electronic devices.
Products were most often refused because they were deemed "filthy," meaning they appeared dirty, putrid or decomposed.
Unapproved drugs also were common refusal targets, as was produce treated with banned pesticides.
Many countries had much higher refusal rates than Mexico based on their quantity of U.S. exports. For example, the Dominican Republic, which exported $4.5 billion to the U.S. last year, saw 895 shipments turned away, mostly for pesticides.
China accounted for the highest number of total refusals with 2,031, but less than half were for food products. The country's exports have attracted attention several times this year, when additives in pet food ingredients were linked to the deaths of several animals, and when a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze turned up in some exported toothpastes.
Despite the refusals, long-standing commercial partnerships and refined production practices have made many Mexican goods safer than their Chinese counterparts, said Mike Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, which works with the food industry to improve product safety.
Food production standards in Mexico are "as good as or often better than what we've had in the U.S.," Doyle said. "It depends on the company. ... There are parts of Mexico that would be equivalent to China."
In response to Chronicle inquiries, the Mexican Embassy in Washington released a statement saying the country continues to work with U.S. officials to ensure the quality of its food exports.
chase.davis@chron.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
USDA Cracking Down on “Organic” Factory-Farms
Country’s Largest Dairy Likely to Lose Certification
Cornucpia News, August 14, 2007
CORNUCOPIA, WI: The Cornucopia Institute has learned that the USDA appears about to revoke the organic certification of the nation’s largest industrial dairy operator, Aurora Organic Dairy, with corporate headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.
Aurora operates several giant factory dairies milking thousands of cows each in semi-arid areas of Colorado and Texas. The company has been the subject of a series of formal legal complaints filed with the USDA by The Cornucopia Institute. The complaints from the Wisconsin-based farm policy group filed in 2005 and 2006, called for a USDA investigation into allegations of numerous organic livestock management improprieties on Aurora’s facilities.
“After personally inspecting some of Aurora’s dairies in Texas and Colorado, we found 98% of their cattle in feedlots instead of grazing on pasture as the law requires,” stated Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s senior farm policy analyst. Cornucopia also found that Aurora was procuring cattle from a non-certified organic source in apparent violation of the law. “Our sources tell us that the USDA’s investigators found many other violations when conducting their probe of Aurora.”
But Kastel warned that the USDA is under intense pressure to scuttle the Aurora decertification order. “We understand that powerful political influence is being brought to bear on the USDA in an effort to delay or water down the penalties against Aurora,” noted Kastel.
As part of their investigation of Aurora, compliance officers at the USDA took sworn testimony from Cornucopia staff, visited Aurora’s facilities and interviewed their organic certifier, the State of Colorado. The Institute found out about the impending enforcement action, and the potential for its delay, from officials in Colorado, a political appointee at the USDA and a highly placed industry executive.
The organic industry is carefully watching what the USDA does with the Aurora matter because of its size and impact on the marketplace. Aurora doesn’t directly market milk under its own name, but it is the country’s largest private-label producer of organic milk. Aurora packages store-brand organic dairy products for Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Wild Oats, and other grocery chains. “The organic regulations are scale neutral,” added Kastel. “In terms of enforcement it shouldn’t matter if we are talking about a powerful corporate player, with thousands of cows, or a smaller family operation, bad actors in this industry need to be removed from the marketplace.”
Because of the delay in USDA enforcement against Aurora Dairy, The Cornucopia Institute today filed a Freedom of Information request (FOIA) with the USDA to secure documents that could uncover possible influence peddling and favoritism at the Department. “We hope that the USDA will issue tough sanctions, if warranted,” Kastel said. “And we want the agency to know that the organic community is very closely monitoring this case.”
Earlier this spring the 10,000-cow Vander Eyk factory dairy in Pixley, California lost its organic certification after an investigation revealed numerous violations of federal organic rules. The industrial-scale operation had been publicly spotlighted by The Cornucopia Institute for organic management irregularities. The Vander Eyk dairy had been selling its milk to Stremicks (Heritage-Foods) and Dean Foods (Horizon).
Based on documents recently received by Cornucopia through an earlier FOIA request, the Vander Eck dairy lost their ability to market organic milk not only because they lacked pasture for their cattle but also because they violated requirements for careful record-keeping to assure that all cows milked were eligible for organic certification and all the feed they consumed was actually organically grown.
“It now appears that our concerns about the giant industrial dairy cutting corners by confining cattle in a ‘factory-farm’ setting was just the tip of the iceberg,” said Will Fantle, Cornucopia’s research director. “The foundation of the organic certification process is the maintenance of a comprehensive farm audit trail which can be reviewed by independent certification inspectors and the USDA. The fact that Vander Eyk could not produce the documents requested by his certifier, and that he did not appeal the enforcement action, is just damning.”
The controversy about the growing number of factory-farms producing organic milk has come to a head this year as the number of farmers transitioning to organic dairy production has dramatically increased causing a surplus of organic milk for the first time. That surplus, largely attributed to the mega-farms, is now driving down prices to family farmers around the country endangering their livelihoods. It’s also become a tragedy for some family farmers around the country who have gone through the arduous and expensive three-year transition to organic management but now have nowhere to ship their milk.
“With at least 15 of these giant dairies operating, mostly in the arid west, they have succeeded in jeopardizing the livelihood of the 1500 or so ethical dairy farm families who are doing this right,” said Merrill Clark, an organic livestock producer from Cassopolis, Michigan and former member of the USDA’s expert advisory panel, the National Organic Standards Board.
“The good news for consumers is that in our survey of organic dairy brands, a full 90% of namebrand products received very high ratings in our scorecard that critiqued the environmental and animal husbandry practices used in sourcing the organic milk for the dairy products,” the Cornucopia’s Kastel said. “With a small amount of research, consumers who care about maintaining the integrity of organics can easily find organic dairy products they can believe in.”
Aurora is owned by some of the same conventional factory-farm operators that founded the Horizon Organic brand and then later sold it to Dean Foods. Aurora’s largest equity stake is controlled by CharlesBank of Boston, which invests capital for the Harvard endowment fund.
Rumors have also been swirling in the investment community that Aurora’s owners are seeking to sell the company or to take it public.
Cornucpia News, August 14, 2007
CORNUCOPIA, WI: The Cornucopia Institute has learned that the USDA appears about to revoke the organic certification of the nation’s largest industrial dairy operator, Aurora Organic Dairy, with corporate headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.
Aurora operates several giant factory dairies milking thousands of cows each in semi-arid areas of Colorado and Texas. The company has been the subject of a series of formal legal complaints filed with the USDA by The Cornucopia Institute. The complaints from the Wisconsin-based farm policy group filed in 2005 and 2006, called for a USDA investigation into allegations of numerous organic livestock management improprieties on Aurora’s facilities.
“After personally inspecting some of Aurora’s dairies in Texas and Colorado, we found 98% of their cattle in feedlots instead of grazing on pasture as the law requires,” stated Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s senior farm policy analyst. Cornucopia also found that Aurora was procuring cattle from a non-certified organic source in apparent violation of the law. “Our sources tell us that the USDA’s investigators found many other violations when conducting their probe of Aurora.”
But Kastel warned that the USDA is under intense pressure to scuttle the Aurora decertification order. “We understand that powerful political influence is being brought to bear on the USDA in an effort to delay or water down the penalties against Aurora,” noted Kastel.
As part of their investigation of Aurora, compliance officers at the USDA took sworn testimony from Cornucopia staff, visited Aurora’s facilities and interviewed their organic certifier, the State of Colorado. The Institute found out about the impending enforcement action, and the potential for its delay, from officials in Colorado, a political appointee at the USDA and a highly placed industry executive.
The organic industry is carefully watching what the USDA does with the Aurora matter because of its size and impact on the marketplace. Aurora doesn’t directly market milk under its own name, but it is the country’s largest private-label producer of organic milk. Aurora packages store-brand organic dairy products for Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Wild Oats, and other grocery chains. “The organic regulations are scale neutral,” added Kastel. “In terms of enforcement it shouldn’t matter if we are talking about a powerful corporate player, with thousands of cows, or a smaller family operation, bad actors in this industry need to be removed from the marketplace.”
Because of the delay in USDA enforcement against Aurora Dairy, The Cornucopia Institute today filed a Freedom of Information request (FOIA) with the USDA to secure documents that could uncover possible influence peddling and favoritism at the Department. “We hope that the USDA will issue tough sanctions, if warranted,” Kastel said. “And we want the agency to know that the organic community is very closely monitoring this case.”
Earlier this spring the 10,000-cow Vander Eyk factory dairy in Pixley, California lost its organic certification after an investigation revealed numerous violations of federal organic rules. The industrial-scale operation had been publicly spotlighted by The Cornucopia Institute for organic management irregularities. The Vander Eyk dairy had been selling its milk to Stremicks (Heritage-Foods) and Dean Foods (Horizon).
Based on documents recently received by Cornucopia through an earlier FOIA request, the Vander Eck dairy lost their ability to market organic milk not only because they lacked pasture for their cattle but also because they violated requirements for careful record-keeping to assure that all cows milked were eligible for organic certification and all the feed they consumed was actually organically grown.
“It now appears that our concerns about the giant industrial dairy cutting corners by confining cattle in a ‘factory-farm’ setting was just the tip of the iceberg,” said Will Fantle, Cornucopia’s research director. “The foundation of the organic certification process is the maintenance of a comprehensive farm audit trail which can be reviewed by independent certification inspectors and the USDA. The fact that Vander Eyk could not produce the documents requested by his certifier, and that he did not appeal the enforcement action, is just damning.”
The controversy about the growing number of factory-farms producing organic milk has come to a head this year as the number of farmers transitioning to organic dairy production has dramatically increased causing a surplus of organic milk for the first time. That surplus, largely attributed to the mega-farms, is now driving down prices to family farmers around the country endangering their livelihoods. It’s also become a tragedy for some family farmers around the country who have gone through the arduous and expensive three-year transition to organic management but now have nowhere to ship their milk.
“With at least 15 of these giant dairies operating, mostly in the arid west, they have succeeded in jeopardizing the livelihood of the 1500 or so ethical dairy farm families who are doing this right,” said Merrill Clark, an organic livestock producer from Cassopolis, Michigan and former member of the USDA’s expert advisory panel, the National Organic Standards Board.
“The good news for consumers is that in our survey of organic dairy brands, a full 90% of namebrand products received very high ratings in our scorecard that critiqued the environmental and animal husbandry practices used in sourcing the organic milk for the dairy products,” the Cornucopia’s Kastel said. “With a small amount of research, consumers who care about maintaining the integrity of organics can easily find organic dairy products they can believe in.”
Aurora is owned by some of the same conventional factory-farm operators that founded the Horizon Organic brand and then later sold it to Dean Foods. Aurora’s largest equity stake is controlled by CharlesBank of Boston, which invests capital for the Harvard endowment fund.
Rumors have also been swirling in the investment community that Aurora’s owners are seeking to sell the company or to take it public.
UN urges rethink on biofuels
By Javier Blas in London
The Financial Times
Published: August 14 2007 17:42 Last updated: August 14 2007 17:42
The world risks deeper poverty and greater environmental damage unless it fundamentally changes its bioenergy strategy, the United Nations’ top food and agriculture official has warned.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is pushing for a high-level meeting next June to lay down rules for the international bioenergy market.
At present, the bioenergy industry is regulated by domestic policies rather than international agreement.
The FAO is urging the European Union and the US to lower trade barriers against ethanol imports; establish a system for bioenergy environmental standards; and provide more microcredit to farmers in developing countries to develop local biofuels.
Writing in today’s Financial Times, Jacques Diouf, FAO director general, said: “Such measures would allow developing countries – which generally have ecosystems and climates more suited to biomass production than industrialised nations and often have ample reserves of land and labour – to use their comparative advantage.”
Mr Diouf said the objective of the proposed meeting should be to ensure that bioenergy realised its potential to fuel sustainable growth and reduce hunger.
The US, Europe and Brazil last year accounted for almost 95 per cent of the world’s biofuel production. Canada, China and India produced most of the rest, according to the International Energy Agency, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog.
Biofuel production, mostly of corn-derived ethanol in the US and rapeseed-derived biodiesel in Europe, doubled between 2000 and 2005, according to the IEA. In 2005, however, that was still just 1 per cent of global road-transport fuel.
The energy watchdog forecast that would rise to 4 per cent by 2030.
Mr Diouf said the bioenergy sector had a “huge potential to reduce hunger and poverty” if production shifted from rich to poor countries.
At the moment, rich countries’ tariffs make it uneconomic for poor countries to grow biofuel crops.
The problem for developing countries is exacerbated by food prices being pushed up by the biofuel industry’s rising consumption of crops.
Corn prices this year reached an 11-year high of $4.30 a bushel while wheat prices last week rose to $6.96 a bushel, the highest since 1996.
The US biofuel industry last year consumed about 20 per cent of the country’s corn crop, far more than in the past.
“It is clear that the current practice of relying on food crops to produce fuel will be relatively short-lived,” Mr Diouf said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
The Financial Times
Published: August 14 2007 17:42 Last updated: August 14 2007 17:42
The world risks deeper poverty and greater environmental damage unless it fundamentally changes its bioenergy strategy, the United Nations’ top food and agriculture official has warned.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is pushing for a high-level meeting next June to lay down rules for the international bioenergy market.
At present, the bioenergy industry is regulated by domestic policies rather than international agreement.
The FAO is urging the European Union and the US to lower trade barriers against ethanol imports; establish a system for bioenergy environmental standards; and provide more microcredit to farmers in developing countries to develop local biofuels.
Writing in today’s Financial Times, Jacques Diouf, FAO director general, said: “Such measures would allow developing countries – which generally have ecosystems and climates more suited to biomass production than industrialised nations and often have ample reserves of land and labour – to use their comparative advantage.”
Mr Diouf said the objective of the proposed meeting should be to ensure that bioenergy realised its potential to fuel sustainable growth and reduce hunger.
The US, Europe and Brazil last year accounted for almost 95 per cent of the world’s biofuel production. Canada, China and India produced most of the rest, according to the International Energy Agency, the industrialised countries’ energy watchdog.
Biofuel production, mostly of corn-derived ethanol in the US and rapeseed-derived biodiesel in Europe, doubled between 2000 and 2005, according to the IEA. In 2005, however, that was still just 1 per cent of global road-transport fuel.
The energy watchdog forecast that would rise to 4 per cent by 2030.
Mr Diouf said the bioenergy sector had a “huge potential to reduce hunger and poverty” if production shifted from rich to poor countries.
At the moment, rich countries’ tariffs make it uneconomic for poor countries to grow biofuel crops.
The problem for developing countries is exacerbated by food prices being pushed up by the biofuel industry’s rising consumption of crops.
Corn prices this year reached an 11-year high of $4.30 a bushel while wheat prices last week rose to $6.96 a bushel, the highest since 1996.
The US biofuel industry last year consumed about 20 per cent of the country’s corn crop, far more than in the past.
“It is clear that the current practice of relying on food crops to produce fuel will be relatively short-lived,” Mr Diouf said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Food That Travels Well
The New York Times, August 6, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor, JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Austin, Tex.
THE term “food miles” — how far food has traveled before you buy it — has entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in Europe, are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” contemplate the damage wrought by trucking,
shipping and flying food from distant parts of the globe.
There are many good reasons for eating local — freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space — but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.
On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and a chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples sold in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem. In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it seems, is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.
But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment? Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe’s push for “food miles labeling,” recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption. Other scientific studies have undertaken similar investigations. According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling evidence suggests that there is more — or less — to food miles than meets the eye.
It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator. Instead of measuring a product’s carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production — what economists call “factor inputs and externalities” — like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.
Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.
These life-cycle measurements are causing environmentalists worldwide to rethink the logic of food miles. New Zealand’s most prominent environmental research organization, Landcare Research-Manaaki Whenua, explains that localism “is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle than during transport.” The British government’s 2006 Food Industry Sustainability Strategy similarly seeks to consider the environmental costs “across the life cycle of the produce,” not just in transportation.
“Eat local” advocates — a passionate cohort of which I am one — are bound to interpret these findings as a threat. We shouldn’t. Not only do life cycle analyses offer genuine opportunities for environmentally efficient food production, but they also address several problems inherent in the eat-local philosophy.
Consider the most conspicuous ones: it is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively local food production — food will always have to travel; asking people to move to more fertile regions is sensible but alienating and unrealistic; consumers living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand choices beyond what the season has to offer.
Given these problems, wouldn’t it make more sense to stop obsessing over food miles and work to strengthen comparative geographical advantages? And what if we did this while streamlining transportation services according to fuel-efficient standards? Shouldn’t we create development incentives for regional nodes of food production that can provide sustainable produce for the less sustainable parts of the nation and the world as a whole? Might it be more logical to conceptualize a hub-and-spoke system of food production and distribution, with the hubs in a food system’s naturally fertile hot spots and the spokes, which travel through the arid zones, connecting them while using hybrid engines and alternative sources of energy?
As concerned consumers and environmentalists, we must be prepared to seriously entertain these questions. We must also be prepared to accept that buying local is not necessarily beneficial for the environment. As much as this claim violates one of our most sacred assumptions, life cycle assessments offer far more valuable measurements to gauge the environmental impact of eating. While there will always be good reasons to encourage the growth of sustainable local food systems, we must also allow them to develop in tandem with what could be their equally sustainable global counterparts. We must accept the fact, in short, that distance is not the enemy of awareness.
James E. McWilliams is the author of “A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America” and a contributing writer for The Texas Observer.
Op-Ed Contributor, JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Austin, Tex.
THE term “food miles” — how far food has traveled before you buy it — has entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in Europe, are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” contemplate the damage wrought by trucking,
shipping and flying food from distant parts of the globe.
There are many good reasons for eating local — freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space — but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.
On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and a chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples sold in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem. In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it seems, is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.
But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment? Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe’s push for “food miles labeling,” recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption. Other scientific studies have undertaken similar investigations. According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling evidence suggests that there is more — or less — to food miles than meets the eye.
It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator. Instead of measuring a product’s carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production — what economists call “factor inputs and externalities” — like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.
Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.
These life-cycle measurements are causing environmentalists worldwide to rethink the logic of food miles. New Zealand’s most prominent environmental research organization, Landcare Research-Manaaki Whenua, explains that localism “is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle than during transport.” The British government’s 2006 Food Industry Sustainability Strategy similarly seeks to consider the environmental costs “across the life cycle of the produce,” not just in transportation.
“Eat local” advocates — a passionate cohort of which I am one — are bound to interpret these findings as a threat. We shouldn’t. Not only do life cycle analyses offer genuine opportunities for environmentally efficient food production, but they also address several problems inherent in the eat-local philosophy.
Consider the most conspicuous ones: it is impossible for most of the world to feed itself a diverse and healthy diet through exclusively local food production — food will always have to travel; asking people to move to more fertile regions is sensible but alienating and unrealistic; consumers living in developed nations will, for better or worse, always demand choices beyond what the season has to offer.
Given these problems, wouldn’t it make more sense to stop obsessing over food miles and work to strengthen comparative geographical advantages? And what if we did this while streamlining transportation services according to fuel-efficient standards? Shouldn’t we create development incentives for regional nodes of food production that can provide sustainable produce for the less sustainable parts of the nation and the world as a whole? Might it be more logical to conceptualize a hub-and-spoke system of food production and distribution, with the hubs in a food system’s naturally fertile hot spots and the spokes, which travel through the arid zones, connecting them while using hybrid engines and alternative sources of energy?
As concerned consumers and environmentalists, we must be prepared to seriously entertain these questions. We must also be prepared to accept that buying local is not necessarily beneficial for the environment. As much as this claim violates one of our most sacred assumptions, life cycle assessments offer far more valuable measurements to gauge the environmental impact of eating. While there will always be good reasons to encourage the growth of sustainable local food systems, we must also allow them to develop in tandem with what could be their equally sustainable global counterparts. We must accept the fact, in short, that distance is not the enemy of awareness.
James E. McWilliams is the author of “A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America” and a contributing writer for The Texas Observer.
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