Arnie Terminates Farm Overtime Bill

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:54:36 +0000

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would have made the state's 700,000 farmworkers the only ones in the country to get overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week or eight hours a day.

"The governor had a chance to make history," said state Sen. Dean Florez, the Democrat who wrote the bill. "He had a chance to wipe a 70-year-old shame off the books of California. Instead, he has decided to side with the shameful."

That "shame," though, is on the books of the whole country. Federal law exempts farmworkers from overtime pay, as Schwarzenegger noted. He also noted that forcing farms to pay overtime at that level could put some of them out of business. And he noted that some workers would get less pay because farmers would simply hire more people and cut hours for everybody.

No doubt, this is all true. The question is how true. I could find no recent, independent economic analysis of how farmers might actually react to having overtime forced on them. It's hard to believe, though, that they wouldn't react just how Schwarzenegger describes, to some degree.

But it really doesn't matter because there are better arguments against the bill—arguments that explain why such strict overtime rules aren't imposed on farmers anywhere in the country. Those arguments are made even by people like Paul Underhill, a crunchy, organic farmer who wrote an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee in December. Agriculture, he noted, "needs different rules governing overtime pay than industries where people work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year regardless of the weather and the season. It's not an issue of fairness or discrimination. It's a simple, practical recognition that farmers cannot control the weather or the growth of their crops. There's simply more work to be done on farms during the summer."

And very little to be done during the winter. "Farmworkers make up for their lower incomes and shorter hours in the winter by working more in the summer," Underhill wrote, underscoring what should be an elementary point.

For Florez, though, such arguments are merely a defense of "a labor practice derived from the segregationist South."

There is one provision in the vetoed bill that should have been passed years ago—allowing farmworkers to take one day off after working six days. Because we live in a civilized country, and people need to rest, even during harvest time.

Farmers Provide Migratory Motels Near Spill

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:43:22 +0000

The Gulf oil gusher is benefiting some farmers in southern states. They are getting paid to provide alternative wetlands for migratory ducks and geese that can't hang out in oil-befouled, food-deprived waters on their way south.

The $20 million program is meant to make about 150,000 acres available by mid-August in the five Gulf states as well as Arkansas, Georgia, and Missouri, the Associated Press reports. One farmer of rice and crawfish in Louisiana will get $132,441 over three years to turn 762 acres into wetlands.

That's far from lucrative. The AP reports that his contract with the government will "cover his costs but provide little if any profit."

Given the relative lack of largesse, this is obviously not your typical federal farm-subsidy program. Nevertheless, the USDA program "is so popular that Texas and Louisiana exhausted their initial funding within weeks and lobbied for more," the AP says.

Beware of Stadium Snacks

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:33:44 +0000

In case attending sporting events weren't problematic enough already, with the crowds, the obnoxious and drunken fans, the outrageous ticket prices and whatnot, ESPN now offers a report indicating that the food might be dangerous.

The report is full of anecdotes like "mold in ice machines at six stands at Miller Park in Milwaukee and "a cockroach crawling over a soda dispenser in a private club at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh."

But those kinds of things happen in a lot of places. As ESPN reports, they were found during health inspections, and, hopefully, corrected.

But are such incidents more common at sports stadiums than they are in other food-service venues? Apparently, yes, but the problem seems to vary widely by stadium. ESPN examined the 2009 inspection records of food and beverage concessions at all 107 stadiums used by the Big Four major-league sports: baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. In 30 of the stadiums, or 28 percent, at least one "critical" or "major" violation was reported in more than half of the foodservice operations. That means they pose a risk to health.

At least one expert says the numbers indicate a problem. "That number, based on comparisons of the data I've been able to find on restaurants in general, is substantially higher than I would have expected," Dr. Robert Buchanan told ESPN. "Certainly, if you have a high rate of facilities within a stadium coming up with critical deficiencies, that to me strikes of systemic errors in either management of the stadium or in the infrastructure of the stadium, and both of them need to be corrected."

Buchanan is director of the University of Maryland's Center for Food Safety and Security Systems.

Of course, stadium food operations differ in many ways from most restaurants. They're busier, faster, and more ad-hoc. So food-safety advocates say it's even more important to apply more rigor to enforcement of safety regulations there.

The worst offender was Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team. Every single one of its 47 food and drink operations was found to have a critical violation over the year, ESPN reports.

Bob Pascal, a vice president at Centerplate, which runs that stadium's concessions, told ESPN that the word critical makes what are mostly minor violations sound worse than they really are. Which might be true to a point, but it's still the case that Tropicana Field is, according to the report, the worst offender in the country. And it's still true that "slime" was found in its ice machines, and that toxic chemicals were stored too close to food-preparation areas. And on and on.

It should be noted that many stadiums have excellent health-inspection records. Stadiums in Chicago and California, for example, generally boast pretty clean bills of health. ESPN's site breaks down every stadium's records, sorted by state.

It should also be noted that, as ESPN says, while there have been plenty of complaints of illness from eating stadium food, "there hasn't been a documented mass outbreak of foodborne illness at a professional sports stadium." But then, it only takes one.

When Brewers Become Shock Jocks

Dan Mitchell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:30:30 +0000

In the latest publicity stunt to rely on offending people to get attention, the Scottish brewer BrewDog has created a beer with 55 percent alcohol, stuffed the bottles inside dead small animals, and offered it for sale.

Just 12 bottles are available. Some of the animals, which include seven stoats, four squirrels, and a rabbit, are dressed in kilts, others in top hats.

"In true BrewDog fashion," says company co-founder James Watt, "we've torn up convention, blurred distinctions and pushed brewing and beer packaging to its absolute limits. "This is the beer to end all beers. It's an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion; changing the general perception of beer, one stuffed animal at a time."

It's in-your-face. It's over the top and off the hook. I've never met Mr. Watt, but I already find him tedious.

This isn't the first time BrewDog has tried to draw attention to itself not by making quality brews but rather by essentially pulling its pants down and screaming at a busy intersection. And it's not the first time I've accommodated the brewer by writing about it. Last year, it introduced a beer called Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which has a 32 percent alcohol content, and another called Tokyo that contained 18 percent.

That drew criticism from public watchdogs and so has this and blah, blah, blah. Tonight, in honor of Watt and his predictable inanity, I'm going to enjoy a nice Pyramid Ale, a brew made for adults by people who care about quality.

Mapping the Global Food System

Dan Mitchell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:20:29 +0000

The site Food + Tech Connect has a map that "visualizes the global interconnections among food, agriculture, water, energy, soil, and humans that comprise our food system."

As you can imagine, it's both bewildering and fascinating. It's also brilliant. If you follow the interconnected maze of arrows from one end to the other, you can see, just for example, how "pest control" is, eventually, related to "marketing intelligence."

My only complaint is that it's a bit hard to read, and increasing the size doesn't help much—it just gets fuzzier.

Presented By:

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:20:29 +0000

Coke's Mini-Explosion

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:11:28 +0000

Coca-Cola's North American sales are up for the first time in more than two years. And CEO Muhtar Kent says this turnaround is "not an aberration." North America "will be a growth market of great opportunity for the next 10 years and beyond," he said during a conference call with analysts.

But is Coke (KO) projecting growth based on how successfully it can continue to dupe Americans into thinking that Coke products are healthier than they once were?

The sales growth, Coke says, is thanks to smaller package sizes on some products, such as the new, 7.5 oz. mini-cans of Coca-Cola, as well as lower-calorie products like PowerAde Zero.

The package-size thing might seem a bit surprising, given America's reputation for super-sizing everything, but it shows that Americans are trying to downsize a bit, even if they seem a little confused about how to go about it.

When it introduced mini-cans last fall, Coke said they fit into Americans' "healthy, active lifestyles." The can "supports the idea of moderation" one executive said.

In Slate at the time, William Saletan compared the mini-cans to "light" cigarettes—basically a way for Coke to keep its customers hooked on its products while making them think they're doing something healthy. Or at least less bad for them.

He wrote:

So you'll drink Coke mini for the same reason you already drink Coke: to sate your addiction. And if you don't get enough "sparkle" from the smaller can, no problem. The mini containers "will be sold in eight-packs," says the company. Just open a second 7.5-ounce can, and you'll get 20 percent more sparkle than you used to get from a 12-ounce hit…But you'll feel better about yourself, because now you're practicing "portion control" and "a healthy lifestyle." Just like you felt better about smoking light cigarettes.

For Coke, the strategy seems to be working.

FarmVille Will Find You at the Supermarket

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:10:13 +0000

If you're on Facebook and you don't play FarmVille, you know how hard it can be to keep the online game out of your life. Now FarmVille is coming to grocery stores, in the form of stickers on some Green Giant brand fruits and vegetables. And you can't hit the "hide" button in the produce section. General Mills (GIS), owner of the Green Giant brand of canned and frozen veggies, licenses the brand to Growers Express for fresh produce.

Fortune.com reports that the stickers will bear a redeemable code for FarmVille currency, the money people spend on the game's virtual goods rather than trying to earn more real money for their actual lives. The stickers will appear in 4,000 stores nationally.

Are More People Really Butchering Their Own Meat?

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:50:23 +0000

Allow me to put on my Jack Shafer hat for a moment: The Associated Press has published an astonishingly weakly sourced article asserting that there is a "growing trend" of people butchering their own meat. Reporter Terence Chea doesn't even pretend to back up the conclusions he draws. He simply draws them and goes on to offer a few anecdotes about home butchers.

He writes flatly that, "more Americans are learning how to butcher their own meat." It is "the latest trend" because of the "growing interest" in hacking up pigs and lambs, which is "inspired by books such as Michael Pollan's bestseller, The Omnivore's Dilemma." (That book was about home butchering in about the same way that Catch-22 is about military hospitals. Which is to say, it's in there, and it's important, but it's far from the focal point. A better example would be Novella Carpenter's more recent Farm City, a book that's drenched in the blood of turkeys, rabbits, and pigs.)

"The demand for healthy, sustainably produced foods is driving more people to shop at their local farmers market and even raise chickens in their backyards," Chea writes, apparently having missed Shafer's takedown of the very real trend of the media reporting on the bogus trend of backward chicken-raising.

Chea gives a couple of examples of classes and workshops on home butchery, and he asserts that farms, "butcher shops and gourmet grocery stores around the country are trying to meet demand for butchering lessons," but he doesn't say that demand for them has increased, much less by how much. One market manager who offers classes says all his classes are sold out, but maybe they were sold out five years ago, too. We don't know.

A Must-Read on the Future of Fish

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:33:21 +0000

You might have heard the great interview on Fresh Air the other day with Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food (that is, unless you live in Mississippi, where Fresh Air is banned from the public-radio airwaves). This is a guy who knows his fish.

Barry Estabrook read the book and says it lives up to the expectations most Fresh Air listeners likely developed. It is "required reading for anyone who eats seafood," he said. Though I haven't read it yet, I would add that if it's must reading, it's must reading for everyone, since the environmental issues surrounding fishing affect us all.

Estabrook calls Greenberg "an unfailingly entertaining writer."

The Better Business Bureau Is Useless!

Dan Mitchell — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:39:22 +0000

Starbucks (SBUX) gets an "F" grade from the Better Business Bureau. But this means nothing, since the terrorist group Hamas gets an "A-" And Goldline International—the cheesy, perhaps fraudulent company hawked by Glenn Beck to his Dale Gribble-like fans—gets an "A+."

All of which is to say that the Better Business Bureau is worse than useless as a source of honest information for consumers, just as Beck is worse than useless as a source of sane information for news consumers or would-be investors in gold.

Hamas earned its "A" rating after "Jimmie Rivers" (a nom de Web), author of BBBRoundup (sort of a BBB for the BBB) registered it with the organization as a group offering "educational services to troubled youth." By paying the BBB $425, Rivers was able to land Hamas an official designation as an "accredited business."

Rivers also registered a fake company, Moore's Sushi, and paid for accreditation. It got an "A-" (I think the minuses and pluses are the funniest part of all this), while Starbucks, not a BBB member, got an "F."

Goldline International is under media and government scrutiny for allegedly defrauding its customers. In response to an ABC News story about the company, Goldline posted a letter to ABC, in part citing its good grades from the BBB as proof that it's legit.

"Rivers" describes himself as a former journalist who quit the business in disgust "when it became clear that packaging the product was more important than the product—in journalism's case, the product being the story." I'm liking this guy more and more.

On the Hamas item, Rivers writes that if "the BBB follows past behavior, these grades or business listings will be be disappeared sometime on July 20th, 2010."

Sure enough, the BBB's Web page for Hamas has been disappeared.

Inside America's Meat Factories

Dan Mitchell — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:10:04 +0000

Daniel Imhoff is the editor of a new book, The CAFO Reader, which features essays by writers like Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and Fred Kirschenmann, about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations—meat factories.

They aren't called factories, though, they're called "farms." Legally. Which is a big part of the problem. Though they are as industrial as any tire factory, and perhaps do even more harm to the environment, many of the laws and regulations that apply to industrial operations don't apply to them. In an interview with Paula Crossfield of Civil Eats, Imhoff notes that the "industry has been fighting for many years to retain this agricultural status. Agriculture developed as this interaction between the appropriate number of animals creating fertility for a diverse number of crops. It was a whole closed production system. With this intensive concentration of animals it’s rare when the surrounding land can absorb the waste."

There are lots of other problems with CAFOs, and Imhoff gets into several of them with Crossfield. Two of his answers stuck out for me. One was when he noted the chicken farmer who recently said that he paid $26.95 for one bucket of fried chicken, for the makings of which he'd been paid 30 cents. "And in the meantime the CEOs of Purdue, Tyson, and KFC are making millions," Imhoff said.

These are the kinds of facts that make me scratch my head when I hear farmers complaining about being under assault by critics of industrial food. In many cases, they're the biggest victims. Crossfield asked Imhoff about that. "The only way that we can help that disconnection is to bring more farmers into the discussion," he said. "For many years, what we’ve seen is corporations hiding behind this facade of the rancher or the farmer with his cows ambling around the pasture, a few hogs and a couple chickens." But "the corporations that are dominating food production right now are extremely anti-farmer. They’ve basically wiped out the small livestock producer in the United States. And anyone who remains, who can sell to these huge corporate interests is either massive or they’re a corporate contractor and they are barely surviving."

Bringing farmers into the discussion is difficult, though, thanks to all the lobbying groups that purport to represent farmers, but really represent corporate interests. Not to mention the intimidation of farmers by those same interests.

Is Raw Milk Really Dangerous?

Dan Mitchell — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:47:05 +0000

The best thing about Deborah Blum's attempted takedown of raw milk in Slate today is how she describes the quasi-religious attitudes found among enthusiasts for a product that is unadulterated except when it's adulterated with potentially deadly bacteria. Such attitudes are present among enthusiasts of all manner of supposedly "pure," unprocessed, or locally grown foods—but raw milk seems to attract the nuttier ones.

It's really just another venue for what seems like an alarming trend toward anti-intellectualism. Confront some people with facts that counter their beliefs, and they hold even tighter to those beliefs. This is the kind of thing that brings us "birthers" and "truthers" and makes national heroes out of people like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

In some cases, there's nothing "quasi" about the religion at all. Blum quotes a farmer in Washington state whose own cattle were responsible for a recent E. coli outbreak. It didn't matter that people got sick, he told the Seattle Times, because "everything God designed is good for you." I wonder if he pours diseased milk in his hemlock tea. I guess not, since he's still around to say insane things.

Others sound militant, like the Tea Partiers. And, like the Tea Partiers, they cast themselves as victims of oppressors who are shoving all this "science" and "reason" down their throats. "The bacteria theory's a total myth," says "raw milk champion" Max Kane. "It allows us to have an enemy to go after similar to how it is with terrorism. It's food terrorism."

Blum didn't really get into the raw milk proponents whose main argument is a rational, libertarian one: Let us have our milk, they say—we'll take the risk. Their arguments, which seem more common than the crazier ones, are harder to make fun of, certainly, though they are far from unassailable. We regulate and ban all kinds of things in the interest of public health. If raw milk is truly dangerous, maybe it should be banned.

But is it that much more dangerous than, say, raw spinach or peanut butter? Both have sickened lots of people in just a handful of the many outbreaks of foodborne disease that have occurred in recent years. If production were more carefully monitored (like, by the federal government), is it possible that raw milk could actually be a lot safer than other foods, or at least a lot safer than it currently is? I am looking into all these questions now. If you want to weigh in (with rational arguments or advice), please contact me at the e-mail address linked from my name at the bottom of this post.

Blum, a science journalist, devotes a lot of her argument to history, but not all that much to current science. She notes that outbreaks from infected raw milk have "doubled in recent years" and that, even though unpasteurized milk makes up less than 1 percent of the total supply, it caused at least 85 disease outbreaks from 1998 through 2008. And she offers some anecdotes about recent outbreaks of E. Coli and salmonella poisoning.

There is little question that raw milk is dangerous. The question—not an easy one to answer—is exactly how dangerous, and whether it has to be particularly dangerous at all. Watch this space for answers.

In the meantime, I can attest to the accuracy of one of the main arguments of raw-milk enthusiasts: The stuff is good. I recently tried it for the first time since I visited a dairy farm when I was a little kid. Oh, my, but it's tasty. Much, much better than the pasteurized stuff we've all grown used to. For me, it has been hard to go back. I live in California, where raw milk is legal but hard to find because so many grocers are, understandably, worried about legal liability.

If we have to forgo such a superior product (that might also have health benefits of its own) in the interest of public health and safety, then that's just how it is. But I don't know how clear it is that public health and safety can't be protected while also allowing us to enjoy fresh, raw milk—something humans did for thousands of years, and still do.

Is Your Olive Oil Really Virginal?

Dan Mitchell — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:20:45 +0000

Ever bought olive oil, only to find it somewhat disappointing or just downright bad? Sure you have.

There are reasons for that. Researchers at the Olive Center at the University of California, Davis claim their tests show that some olive oils sold in the state with labels that say "extra virgin" aren't extra virgin at all. Ten percent of the domestic varieties—and a whopping 69 percent of the imported ones—don't meet the international standards to earn that designation, according to the study.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was already working on another labeling problems—devising regulations for claims such as "extra light," which mean essentially nothing. When I wrote about that initiative last month, I said: "If you require quality, look for oils with labels bearing the words 'extra virgin' and 'first cold press.' Ignore pretty much any other label claim."

But now it looks like all label claims might be worthy of suspicion, at least for imported oils. And the USDA standards that take effect in October might not be much help—they're voluntary. It is illegal, however, to sell olive oil labeled as pure when it has actually been blended with canola or other oils. No such oils were discovered by the U.C.-Davis researchers.

Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association, told the L.A. Times that he was "somewhat skeptical" of the results. Despite his outfit's name, it represents importers, not makers of domestic olive oil. His only gripe, though, was that the research was financed in part by several olive oil makers in California and the California Olive Oil Council. That didn't prevent the team from identifying some California oils as substandard, however.

A bigger problem with the study is the small sample size: Just 19 randomly chosen oils were tested. They were purchased from stores in Sacramento, the Bay Area, and L.A., including Wal-Mart (WMT), Safeway, Whole Foods (WFMI), and Ralph's.

The researchers gathered enough data (PDF) to indicate that there's a problem. But until a study is done coast-to-coast, involving many more brands, we don't actually know, despite the researchers' very precise numbers, how big the problem really is.

The Huffington Post lists the products tested, along with results for each.

The New Yorker Nails the Food Wars

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:58:39 +0000

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg chimed in this week on both the "food wars" and on New York City's decision to force restaurants to display their health-department letter grades.

He refreshingly recognizes the flaws of both sides of the debates. On the food wars, he allows that "foodists" tend to be "relatively privileged and comparatively well-educated" types who "shop at Whole Foods, support farmers markets, and patronize restaurants that have "executive chefs." But at the same time, he notes, "the benefits have trickled down, as a visit to any midrange chain supermarket will confirm."

On the letter grades, which he supports, he writes:

Like Mayor Bloomberg’s trans-fats bans, smoking bans, and posted calorie counts, awarding A’s, B’s, and C’s for hygiene is an emanation of the liberal Nanny State so scorned by libertarians and conservatives—who, it seems, would prefer a Neglectful/Abusive Parent State and a Tyrannical Stepfather State, respectively.

Brilliant stuff.

Eat 'Roo, Save the World!

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:54:02 +0000

The New York Times this week reported on efforts by Australian scientists to make cow digestion mimic that of kangaroos. Cow burps, you see, are responsible for a lot of greenhouse gases (really). Kangaroos don't have that problem.

Bradford Plumer at the New Republic suggested that instead of all the scientific engineering, maybe we should just get people to switch from beef to 'roo meat.

Then the comments started coming in, and Plumer tweeted: "Commenters bring up a key objection to substituting kangaroo for cow—it doesn't taste very good."

Oh, well. It was worth a shot. Back to the lab!

Presented By:

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:54:02 +0000

Why Urban Farms Need Subsidies

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:00:53 +0000

The thing to always keep in mind about farming is that it is almost never a money-making business. Not without help, anyway.

So does it matter that urban farms will probably never be economically self-sufficient? Tom Philpott at Grist asks a great question: Does it matter that conventional farms aren't?

Critics of things like urban farming and environmentally sustainable, organic agriculture like to make fun of such initiatives by arguing that they can't reach the scale, or profitability, needed to provide enough food to a hungry world, or a hungry neighborhood. Only big agriculture can do that, they say. But they usually downplay or omit the fact that big, conventional agriculture relies on massive government subsidies.

Urban farming relies on subsidies, too, but most of them come from private grants. Riffing on an article by Sana Christian published in the Earth Island Journal, Philpott argues that it doesn't really matter that much that, as the article put it, urban farms "haven't yet found a way to thrive in the market economy."

Neither have giant Nebraska corn farms. But, as Philpott says, they do "produce more than food for consumers and money for farmers" (along with, of course, environmental degradation). Not enough money for farmers, of course, but at least they are able to live, and keep farming thanks to subsidies. They also produce viable soil, open spaces, and rural community. (It would be better if more of the subsidy money made it into the hands of the farmers themselves, but that's an argument for another time.)

Similarly, urban farms produce things that aren't easily measured in economic terms, Philpott writes: "interesting, learning-oriented jobs for teens who would otherwise be consigned to the fast-food or narcotics trades; high-quality produce in low-income neighborhoods with limited food access; open public spaces in neighborhoods that lack parks; community organizing opportunities; a mechanism through which food expenditures can circulate within communities, building wealth; and more."

I would argue that the produce is economically measurable, and indeed is the whole idea, but his point is that urban farms, like rural ones, are a force for good whether or not they need to be propped up by outside money.

And anyway, few argue that urban farms are the whole answer to urban food insecurity and poor eating habits. But they are surely a part of it, and a growing one at that.

Is KFC Planning To Trim Its Feathers?

Dan Mitchell — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:13:27 +0000

KFC might close 10 percent of its U.S. stores to increase profit margins, the chief of parent company Yum Brands said on Wednesday.

Well, it could be 10 percent. Or it could be more. Or less. Or none. But Chairman and CEO David Novak said during a conference call with industry analysts: "I'd rather have 4,500 great-looking KFCs than 5,000 with 500 looking at being drive-by assets." Meaning not that people would shoot at them from cars but that people would keep driving until they saw the Golden Arches.

Is he just floating the idea for now to gauge reaction? It's hard to say. Wall Street traded Yum's shares down on Wednesday.

Such a reduction would be a major step for the chain, not to mention the franchises whose stores would be closed. Yum owns just 853 of its 5,040 KFC outlets. The chain's U.S. revenue fell by 7 percent in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, business is going gangbusters in China, where Yum's total profits rose 33 percent in the same period. That came mainly from KFC, which is opening new stores there at a fast clip.

Yum's other two chains, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, are doing better. The company says that's because they serve cheaper food, and people are still hunting bargains.

Haitian Orphans Go Hungry Despite Aid

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:17:44 +0000

Six months after the earthquake, Haiti is filled with donated food from all over the world. But in some cases, kids are going without. That's because, while it's easy to donate food, there often aren't proper distribution mechanisms to deliver it to the people who need it.

On CNN, Sanjay Gupta visited an orphanage with about 50 kids ranging in age from a few months to 18 years. The day he was there, they had one pot of beans to share—their diet for an entire day.

But there are warehouses all over Haiti filled with food. One of them, a particularly huge one housing stacks and stacks of donated food, was just three miles from the orphanage. Gupta made a call and a truck was sent.

Gupta reports that donated food does generally get distributed. But because distribution is carried out largely by volunteers, and because there is a seeming lack of coordination, "hundreds of thousands of Haitian children are malnourished." There are an estimated 350,000 orphans in Haiti.

Will Europe Go Solo on GM Crops?

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:49:23 +0000

The European Commission on Tuesday recommended that each of the European Union's 27 member countries should have the freedom to decide whether to allow the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops.

As the BBC put it, the Commission "says different local conditions mean EU countries need more flexibility to decide where, if at all, GM crops are grown."

For now, just one GM crop, a type of corn, is grown commercially in the EU for human consumption.

As things stand, France and Germany, in particular, are able to block other countries that wish to grow GM crops, such as Spain.

The Commission's decision must still be approved by individual national governments and by the European Parliament. The parliament will retain the power to approve which GM crops can be grown. But under the Commission's recommendation, individual countries can decide whether to allow their cultivation or not.

The Commission was acting because "experience with GMOs so far shows that member states need more flexibility to organise the co-existence of GM and other types of crops such as conventional and organic crops," according to health representative John Dalli.

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace oppose the decision.

Julie Girling, a member of the European Parliament's Environment Committee, cautioned that "the scientific safeguards must be 110 percent if we are to permit them entering our food chain." But she applauded the decision, according to the BBC. The issue "is deeply divisive and brings with it a raft of concerns... As such, any decision on whether to permit, tolerate or ban GMOs must be taken at individual national government level."

If that's the case, one wonders what the point of the EU is at all. Does it exist solely to deal with matters on which the entire continent agrees?

The Associated Press's Robert Wielaard characterized the decision as the Commission having "backed away from the debate," which has been going on for more than a decade.

Fish Sniffers Stop Sickness

Dan Mitchell — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:38:16 +0000

Those people who are sniffing fish in the Gulf of Mexico to determine whether they've been tainted by the oil gusher sound like particularly snooty wine connoisseurs. But instead of saying things like "redolent of butter" or "overtones of pepper," they say, and I quote from Bob Drogin's great L.A. Times piece, "Diesel oil. Bunker oil. Asphalt. Rubber-band-like. Tar."

"Each olfactory analyst has a super schnoz, able to smell oil diluted to one part per million," Drogin writes. "That's 40 times more sensitive than your average proboscis."

Unlike their oenophile counterparts, these people are actually serving an important purpose. "Last month, the team caught a faint scent in a red snapper that chemists and toxicologists could not confirm despite three days of testing at an NOAA marine science lab in Seattle. The result: A rich fishing area off Louisiana's coast stayed off-limits."

The smellers have played a big part in getting fishing banned in more than a third of the Gulf, which is a damned shame but necessary nonetheless. So far, there have been no reports of anyone eating fish tainted by the gusher.

How Much of Your Food Dollar Goes to Farmers?

Dan Mitchell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:03:23 +0000

As if you needed more reasons to buy fresh produce: If a bunch of carrots costs you $1.98, the farmer who grew them gets 82 cents, or 41 percent. Compare that with a box of cereal that costs $5.09. The farmer in that case gets 7 cents, or just 1.4 percent.

Of course, the more a company processes a food, the farther it has to travel. And the more it is marketed, the more you pay for it, and the less of a share of the retail price the farmer gets.

These figures, and several more, come from the National Farmer's Union. Farmers on average do a lot better than the pittance some grain farmers get from cereal (or beer, or many other processed consumables), but also a lot worse than carrot farmers do. The average is about 20 percent, according to the NFU.

But Jennifer Fahy at the Farm Aid blog notes: "If we look at historical data, we find that the farmers’ share of the food dollar has been slipping for years." And of course, the amount farmers get as a cut of retail sales is a gross figure from which expenses must be subtracted, so it's not like there are all kinds of rich carrot farmers running around.

Obama's Big Ag Helpers

Dan Mitchell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:51:33 +0000

The Organic Consumers Association is assembling a list of Obama appointees to various food- and ag-related posts, all of whom come from "big ag." It's a handy list, even if you don't buy into the Association's default assumption that this is a bad thing.

The thing about the "revolving door" between government and industry is that, well, industry people have a lot of expertise. It can be hard to find qualified people when you restrict the candidate pool to those who haven't worked in the industries they'll be regulating. The tradeoff, of course, is that hiring people from within regulated industries carries a heavy risk of conflicts of interest.

The latest Obama nominee to make the list is Romona Romero, a DuPont corporate lawyer, whom Obama wants as the Department of Agriculture's general counsel.

"Big Ag’s Big Pal in the Oval Office" is the headline of Barry Estabrook's post about the nominations. And the OCA says it wants to "keep DuPont's lawyer out of USDA."

Appointments that also concern OCA, Estabrook, and others include: Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture, who Estabrook notes is "pro-biotech"; Michael Taylor, the FDA's top food regulator, who is a former vice president of Monsanto; Roger Beachy, director of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, who is former director of a Monsanto-financed research outfit; Islam Siddiqui, the top ag negotiator in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative; and Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, who was formerly the ag-development director for the Gates Foundation.

A common thread here is that these appointees all worked for companies or organizations involved in, or supportive of, genetically modified foods. So if you oppose biotech crops, you're naturally going to find them worrisome. But even if not, we should all be aware of what is apparently becoming a trend.

Revealed! The Source of the Stinky Cereal Bag Recall

Dan Mitchell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:07:28 +0000

The source of the stinky smell that caused Kellogg (K) to recall 28 million boxes of cereal has been discovered: It's a chemical made from coal tar and crude oil.

The Environmental Working Group says Kellogg informed it that the company had identified methylnaphthalene as the culprit.

Kellogg says the chemical is safe. But should we be packaging cereal in this stuff? It's hard to know.

EWG examined records kept by the Environmental Protection Agency and found that the chemical has been in production since at least 1986. "Numerous health agencies have sought basic safety data on the compound, but the government still has very little information about this widely used chemical," according to an EWG statement.

In 1998, the EPA said the chemical "lacked basic safety data in the public literature." The EWG says a group of petrochemical companies volunteered to provide data. They included BP, Chevron(CVX), Exxon, Shell, and several others. "Eleven years later, however, EPA’s website shows no data whatsoever submitted by these companies," EWG says.

The recall included Kellogg's Corn Pops, Honey Smacks, Froot Loops, and Apple Jacks. The company said some people experienced "nausea and diarrhea."

Pennsylvania Samples Wine From Vending Machines

Dan Mitchell — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:18:00 +0000

Pennsylvania is one of those weird states where you can only buy wine and booze from state-run stores, and it's testing vending machines for wine.

To buy wine, you have to swipe your driver's license, have your picture taken, and blow into a breath sensor.

Most consumers seem to like the machines so far, the Associated Press reports. But Keith Wallace, founder of the Wine School of Philadelphia, is not a fan. "The process is cumbersome and assumes the worst in Pennsylvania's wine consumers—that we are a bunch of conniving underage drunks," he said. Members of the state's liquor board, he added, "are clearly detached from reality if they think these machines offer any value to the consumer."

The New Ocean's 11: Restaurants

Dan Mitchell — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:15:22 +0000

When it's in their interests, big companies will gladly sign on to efforts to save the environment. The Wall Street Journal reports today that "companies such as McDonald's, Long John Silver's owner Yum Brands and Red Lobster parent Darden Restaurants have embraced the growing movement toward more eco-friendly seafood-buying practices."

They aren't motivated by an intrinsic concern for the health of the world's oceans, of course, but by their desire for a reliable supply of cheap fish.

So they are "working with scientists and nonprofit groups to ensure the fish they buy is sustainable, meaning caught in a way that doesn't damage the ability of the species to reproduce."

The Journal cites a recent United Nations study concluding that by mid-century, almost every commercial fishery on the planet will be yielding less than 10 percent of its former potential. A third of the fisheries are already at that point, thanks mostly to soaring demand.

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Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:15:22 +0000

Archives

Arnie Terminates Farm Overtime Bill

Farmers Provide Migratory Motels Near Spill

Beware of Stadium Snacks

When Brewers Become Shock Jocks

Mapping the Global Food System

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Coke's Mini-Explosion

FarmVille Will Find You at the Supermarket

Are More People Really Butchering Their Own Meat?

A Must-Read on the Future of Fish

The Better Business Bureau Is Useless!

Inside America's Meat Factories

Is Raw Milk Really Dangerous?

Is Your Olive Oil Really Virginal?

The New Yorker Nails the Food Wars

Eat 'Roo, Save the World!

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Why Urban Farms Need Subsidies

Is KFC Planning To Trim Its Feathers?

Haitian Orphans Go Hungry Despite Aid

Will Europe Go Solo on GM Crops?

Fish Sniffers Stop Sickness

How Much of Your Food Dollar Goes to Farmers?

Obama's Big Ag Helpers

Revealed! The Source of the Stinky Cereal Bag Recall

Pennsylvania Samples Wine From Vending Machines

The New Ocean's 11: Restaurants

Presented By: