Front page news around the country today that the percentage of households with low "food security" has risen from 11.1% in 2007 to 14.6% in 2008. Nearly 50 million people, including one in four children, struggled in '08 to get enough to eat. In about 6% of households "food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food." To see the Washington Post story, go here. To see the U.S. Department of Agriculture study where these figures come from, go here.
The percentage of households defined as "food insecure" varied by state. Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Georgia and New Mexico had the highest percentage of families having a hard time filling their plates. The most food secure states were North Dakota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, Hawaii, Wyoming, Delaware and Maryland.
In a briefing for reporters, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "These numbers are a wake-up call . . . for us to get very serious about food security and hunger, about nutrition and food safety in this country." Vilsack attributed the growth in food insecurity to rising unemployment.
Dairy farmers in Hungary placed the severed heads of 12 cows in front of the nation's Agriculture Ministry Thursday as part of what is a worldwide protest against low prices for milk producers. The farmers also dumped milk on the street and were promptly charged with defacing a public space. Farmers in the European Union, as in the rest of the world, are selling milk for considerably less than what it costs to produce.
These kinds of protests and fights are happening all over the world, including Tasmania. Here's a story from this week about a Pennsylvania family facing low milk prices. Dairy herd buyouts have been held to try to reduce the herd in the U.S. in order to reduce milk supply. “The past year has been the most difficult since I began farming in 1973,” said Paul Toft, a Rice Lake, Wis., dairy farmer and president of the Associated Milk Producers Inc. “Some say these times rival those of the Great Depression.”
What's bad for the producer on the farm, however, is good for the processor. Dean Foods Co. announced this week that its third quarter net income jumped 32% as the cost of milk declined. The company, the nation's largest dairy processor, increased its profit estimate for the full year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department is looking into claims by U.S. farmers that a lack of competition in the milk market is keeping prices low.
A new book argues that we need genetically modified crops and non-local food supplies. Reviewer and farmer Richard Oswald sees "pragmatism" differently.
Microsoft's Bill Gates gave his first major speech on agriculture today in Des Moines. Gates has committed $1.4 billion from his foundation to agricultural development, reports Philip Brasher in the Des Moines Register. About 5 percent of that amount will go to biotech projects. Gates' speech was a defense of genetically engineered crops as a way to help poor farmers increase food production. Gates criticized those who were "instantly hostile to any emphasis on productivity" while ignoring food production in a world affected by climate change.
“They act as if there is no emergency, even though in the poorest, hungriest places on earth, population is growing faster than productivity, and the climate is changing,” Gates said. The Microsoft founder said transgenic crops "can help address farmers' challenges faster and more efficiently than conventional breeding alone." The Gates Foundation will help develop drought-resistant corn for use in East Africa. Brasher reports that Gates said the seeds would be licensed royalty free to distributors so that there would be no extra cost to farmers.
“Of course, these technologies must be subject to rigorous scientific review to ensure they are safe and effective,” Gates said. “It’s the responsibility of the governments, farmers and citizens, informed by great science, to choose the best and safest way to help feed their countries.” Gates said the next green revolution “must be guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances and sustainable for the economy and the environment.”
Fall brings sights, sounds and smells to my community in West Virginia. There are jar flies at night and on weekends they are cooking apple butter at the church.
If you never want to eat another hamburger, read the New York Times' story about how a young woman (above), a children's dance instructor, will never walk again because she ate, yes, some ground beef in a bun. The very long story by Michael Moss is about meat inspection and how hamburger is made. Stephanie Smith ate a hamber in the early fall of 2007. The meat was tainted with E. coli and within a week she had suffered from seizures and convulsions so violent that doctors placed her in a coma for nine weeks. When she came to, she was paralyzed. The meat was processed by Cargill.
"Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder," Moss wrote. "Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen." The meat Stephanie ate came from Nebraska, Texas, Uruguay and South Dakota.
Remember, Moss is writing about ground beef that comes prepackaged -- not that might be ground at your local meat market. Anyway, our (un)favorite part of the story was the description of "binder," largely fat and meat scraps companies put together and then treat with ammonia to kill bacteria. It's then mixed with other ground beef to make the final product fattier and cheaper. If your hamburger smells like a kitchen floor, that's why.
In the last year, more than 225,000 dairy cows have been "retired" as a way of removing 4.5 billion pounds of milk from the market nationwide. The idea is to reduce the supply as a way of raising prices — and the way to do that is to get rid of dairy herds built up over the years. "Farmers and ranchers who want to participate submit a bid on the number of cows they want to retire," explains Monte Whaley in the Denver Post. "They are paid based on the previous year's production of the cows and on the value of the cows going to slaughter."
This destruction of food-production capacity is seen through the eyes of the Bernhardt family of Milliken, Colorado. The day 11 trucks showed up to haul away the cows was traumatic. "We closed the curtains in his bedroom so he wouldn't have to watch," Dave Bernhardt said of his 87-year-old father. "He knew they were there, but still, we didn't want him to see it all."
The U.S. market has been flooded with milk. Two years ago milk was expensive. It was "white gold." Now prices have collapsed. Consumers are paying the same for a gallon of milk that they paid in the 1970s. So herds are being "retired." The Bernhardts have been farming in northern Colorado since 1920. The reduction program pays well, better than just taking the cows to market. But it will require all dairy farmers to be involved in order for it to effective. So far, only about 70 percent are taking part, according to the Denver Post.