U.S. Food Policy

On Point covers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) today

2013-05-23T07:49:00.002-04:00

An episode today from the syndicated NPR radio show On Point, with Tom Ashbrook, is titled, "Food Stamps: Fighting Hunger or Draining Resources?"

The guests include AP reporter Mary Clare Jalonick, Boston Medical Center researcher and nationally known child health advocate Deborah Frank, and UC Davis agricultural economist Daniel Sumner.

There are good reading suggestions on the On Point website. The episode is at 10 am Eastern.

For further context, the Senate is considering moderate cuts to SNAP of about $4 billion over 10 years. The House of Representatives is considering cuts perhaps five times as large. Here from C-SPAN is Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) arguing unsuccessfully for an amendment to make deeper cuts in the Senate, which would make the two bills more similar.

The Food Police by Jayson Lusk

2013-05-22T15:25:00.001-04:00

For fifteen years, Oklahoma State University economist Jayson Lusk sought to study food regulation issues in a balanced way. As he recounts:

I tried to approach the study of food regulation from an objective standpoint by comparing the costs and benefits of the policies in question -- seeing which actions and policies made the best use of our scarce resources given all our competing desires. I labored under the assumption that this was the key issue in determining the merits of a regulation. I was naive.

The Food Police (Crown Forum, 2013) is the new book Lusk wrote after he outgrew this foolish impartiality.

In the Food Police, every government initiative to address any environmental or social problem within the food system represents misguided overreach. There may be an exception, but I couldn't find one.

In the Food Police, the conventional food system is fine as it is.

Food is highly affordable. There is no need to spend much ink on commodity price spikes, the growing world population, or environmental constraints on food production.
Organic agriculture is foolish, conventional pesticides are safe, and farmers in recent years have replaced dangerous pesticides with safe ones. (How the farmers found any dangerous pesticides to replace is a mystery to me).
Americans live longer because of our "abundant, diverse, and nutritious food supply." Moderate overweight is fine; it probably extends our lives. The connection between obesity and diabetes is doubtful, and diabetes may be genetic, so don't worry about diabetes either.
It would be unhealthy to reduce salt consumption.
Crop yields increased from 1900 to 2010. There is no need to mention that yield growth has slowed in recent years or that agricultural economists are greatly distressed about declining public investment in agricultural research.

Very briefly, at sporadic intervals, Lusk vaguely refers to imperfections in the food system. On page 20, he says, "I'm not saying all food trends are heading in the right direction." On p. 35, he says, "None of this is to say there aren't problems associated with our modern food system." But, in each case, the reader never gets to hear any details about these problems. Lusk quickly moves on to decrying how the Food Police exaggerate whatever problems there might be.

A long-standing principle of the U.S. Food Policy blog is that reasonable people ought to be able to agree on the toughest food policy controversies of the day. When possible, we should avoid letting food policy debates get caught up in the broader divisions that have made American politics so dysfunctional in recent years: Democrat and Republican, heartland and coastal states, religious and secular, black and white.

At every turn, Lusk chooses instead to tie his food policy arguments to seemingly unrelated flame wars. He writes, "The progressives' plan for slow, natural and organic food production has been tried. It's called Africa." The food police ignore personal liberties, even though these are "many of the same people who scream, 'It's a woman's body,' any time the subject of abortion comes up." Lusk calls the food police "fascists." Lusk accuses the San Francisco board of supervisors of astounding hypocrisy for regulating toys for kids in restaurant meals, because the same city values other liberties highly: "'In the City by the Bay, if you want to roller skate naked down Castro Street wearing a phallic -symbol hat and snorting an eight-ball off a transgender hooker's chest while underage kids run behind you handing out free heroin needles, condoms and coupons ... that's your right as a free citizen of the United States.'"

Jayson Lusk is a leading agricultural economist. He co-edited a book from Oxford University Press, to which I contributed a chapter on food security in developed countries. Yet, the new book reminded me of right-wing bloggers, such as Michelle Malkin. I was going to bite my tongue and avoid mentioning this similarity, but then I noticed in footnote 3 of chapter 1 that the casually and irrelevantly homophobic San Francisco anecdote was a direct quote from the blogger Michelle Malkin herself.

The footnote provides reassurance that I may offer my frank summary of this book without giving offense. Jayson Lusk's Food Police is like a Michelle Malkin blog post, but it's 190 pages long and about food policy.

Using the Visual Understanding Environment software from Tufts University to illustrate food industry input-output flows

2013-05-16T09:07:00.001-04:00

This new visualization tool allows you to explore resource flows between industries.

For example, you can see how much meat and poultry flows into the restaurant food industry, and then how much restaurant food flows to the final consumer (all measured in billions of dollars per year). You can create your own diagram showing the industries and flows that you select, in any order you choose.

This project extends the capability of Tufts University’s Visual Understanding Environment (VUE). I worked on this with Rebecca Nemec, Graham Jeffries, Mike Korcynski, and Jonelle Lonergan. Our working paper (.pdf) gives instructions for using several practice data sets, or for downloading your own data from the federal government's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Accompanying data files and a processing program are available on my department's working paper series page.

The best way to understand the capabilities of this visualization tool is to watch this video, also available full-size on Vimeo.

Visualizing Input-Output Data Using VUE from Tufts University - Online on Vimeo.

House and Senate mark up farm bills

2013-05-16T08:44:00.000-04:00

At long last, the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry both marked up farm bills this week. But there are many miles to go before this legislation ever reaches home.

The Associated Press has a summary of several key differences in the main provisions (with dollar amounts stated on a per year basis).

In a partisan division that we saw already last year, when this legislation was still over-optimistically known as the "2012 Farm Bill," the House committee proposes deeper cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) than the Senate committee does. The House committee proposes to cut $2 billion per year, while the Senate committee proposes to cut $0.4 billion per year. The Republican committee leaders in the House sought the deeper SNAP cuts in part so they could move slower on budget cuts to direct payments for cotton farmers (largely in the South), and in part so they could accommodate the strong anti-food-stamp sentiment among some Republican legislators on the floor. Yet, these deep SNAP cuts may make it difficult to reach eventual agreement with the Democratic-led Senate, leading to possible continuation of the years-long impasse over U.S. food and farm policy.

For the Senate committee bill, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition summarizes provisions of interest to producers interested in sustainable production practices, especially at the local and regional level. For the House committee bill, Politico reports on the political angles. The Hagstrom Report (gated, but valuable) is working overtime this week, and the FarmPolicy blog links to many national and regional media sources.

A good question about food aid

2013-05-06T21:28:00.000-04:00

Continuing to follow the food aid reform issue that we discussed in April and last year, it is worthwhile to consider the toughly worded question that Cornell professor Chris Barrett asks on cnn.com this week:

How many of us read a story of disaster striking people half a world away and respond by getting out our checkbooks? Tens of millions of us in any given year, and Americans are especially generous. ... But is anyone foolish enough to go to the local grocery store, buy food and ship it to communities devastated by disaster? Of course not. That would cost much more, take too long to reach people in need, risk spoilage in transit, and likely not provide what is most needed.

Yet with only minor oversimplification, this is precisely what our government’s food aid programs have done since 1954.

Revitalizing Detroit with food and agriculture

2013-05-04T09:27:00.000-04:00

Some amazing good things are happening in Detroit's food system.

Betti Wiggins, Director of Nutrition Services for Detroit Public Schools, is carrying out her vision for converting underutilized land to vegetable gardens. Hear it in her own voice, from the Detroit Stories project.

The Detroit Eastern Market, operating continuously since the 1890s, offers a major regional event each Saturday and serves as a focal point for food business initiatives throughout the city.

Credit: http://www.detroiteasternmarket.com/.

See also the Detroit Food Policy Council, whose annual report (.pdf) provides greater detail about food system initiatives; the Colors Restaurant, an experiment in good food and worker justice; the Kitchen Connect project from Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice; the food system work of Detroit's youth movement; and the role of food initiatives in the broader Detroit Future City community planning initiative.

Any visitor to Detroit is struck by the depth of economic distress, visible in the physical environment and people one meets throughout the city. The city population has declined by 25% in recent years. Detroit is on the brink of bankruptcy (npr) and an emergency manager has been appointed (nytimes).

The remarkable entrepreneurs and innovators who are driving forward with new investments in food businesses and public initiatives are some of the most faithful, dauntless personalities I have ever met.

Upcoming Events: Michigan State University April 30

2013-04-25T19:42:00.001-04:00

I look forward to giving a brown-bag talk about U.S. food policy at the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems, Michigan State University, this Tuesday, April 30, at noon. Location: 338 Natural Resources Building. Come visit and say hello.

Then, I will be in Detroit from April 30 late afternoon to May 2 for a meeting of the AGree agricultural policy initiative.

Josh Balk of HSUS at the Friedman School April 24

2013-04-23T12:31:00.000-04:00

Josh Balk, director of corporate policy for the farm animal protection campaign of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), will speak at the Friedman School, tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24, at 12:15 pm, in the Behrakis Auditorium of the Jaharis Building on Tufts University's Boston Campus.

The abstract says:

His seminar will offer an exceptional opportunity to discuss the controversial strategies and tactics used by HSUS, addressing the vexing issue of animal welfare in a meat-eating society.

You may register to see a live stream of this presentation.

I will introduce the event and moderate a conversation afterwards.

I have been especially interested in the work of HSUS in recent years, following the organization's successful negotiation with leading egg industry associations about egg production practices and labeling. You can read an impartial and even-handed summary of that agreement (.pdf) from the Congressional Research Service.

The Humane Society is one of the few major public interest organizations that shares my curiosity about the semi-governmental National Pork Board's questionable $60 million purchase of the "Other White Meat" brand from a leading pork industry trade association.

Interpreting science at #EB2013 in Boston

2013-04-23T09:56:00.002-04:00

While enjoying the excellent sessions sponsored by the American Society of Nutrition (ASN) at the Experimental Biology 2013 meetings here in Boston this week, I was struck once again by the way actual nutrition science research results are filtered or digested into short memes of conventional wisdom before they reach the public.

This filtering process is necessary, unavoidable, and even healthy. And yet it is a key step, which brings politics and interest into the process of producing nutrition policy and dietary guidance.

Here is a passage from my chapter on Dietary Guidance in Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan).

Filtering is the process of reading a large body of research and concisely summarizing its relevant points. Because the scientific literature is so heterogeneous, its policy impact depends heavily on how the research is filtered.

Filtering may be biased toward certain types of conclusions. Food industry organizations hire scientists and public relations specialists to spread the good word about favorable studies, without mentioning unfavorable studies. The public relations specialists are evaluated according to their success in placing favorable stories in the mass media. Reporters do not purposely seek to serve as a vehicle for industry public relations, but they face intense pressure to generate buzz by reporting novel and surprising findings. Hence, even though the balance of evidence in the scientific literature changes only slowly, headlines each week tell the public that everything they previously believed about nutrition and health was a big fat lie.

To summarize a complex scientific literature with less bias, scientists prefer to rely on systematic evidence reviews. In a systematic evidence review, an inter-disciplinary team establishes a protocol, a document that describes in advance the procedure for selecting relevant research studies, reducing the temptation to concentrate on studies that are favorable to the team’s prior expectations. For each selected study, the team evaluates the strength of the evidence, again using criteria established in advance.

Systematic evidence reviews do have some limitations. While they can avoid errors that stem from selective reading of just favorable parts of the scientific literature, systematic evidence reviews cannot fix misinterpretations that are widespread in the literature. Also, such reviews may not reflect recent improvements in scientific research. Still, because of their transparency and replicability, systematic reviews can clarify the state of the evidence on contentious scientific issues.

If you are attending the Experimental Biology 2013 meetings this week in Boston, the book itself is on display today at the CRC Press booth (#531 in the exhibition hall). Please stop by the booth, and please share your thoughts on whether food policy is a worthy topic of study at a meeting of scientists.

Who favors transparency for artificial sweeteners?

2013-04-23T09:34:00.003-04:00

What organization favors rules to make sure consumers know what artificial sweeteners are in manufactured food and beverages?

Thirty-years ago the number of ingredients used to sweeten foods and beverages could be counted on one hand. Today, there are 25 ingredients used to replace sugar. Regardless whether you think this change benefits our food supply or not, there is no question that consumer understanding of what is sweetening their foods and beverages has failed to keep pace with this dramatic change.

Today many foods, even foods that do not claim to be sugar-free, now contain artificial sweeteners. To assist consumers in making informed choices about what is sweetening the products they purchase, the Sugar Association petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting changes to labeling regulations on sugar and alternative sweeteners. In this petition we asked that artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols be identified on the front of the package along with the amounts, similar to what is required in Canada.

If it is important to you to know if the product you purchase contains artificial sweeteners, let your congressional representatives know that FDA needs to take action on this important consumer issue.

Yes, as Marion Nestle's blog Food Politics points out this week, under the headline "politics makes strange bedfellows," this public interest manifesto comes from the Sugar Association. The sugar industry organization's slogan is "sweet by nature."

See related coverage of artificial sweetener labeling policy on U.S. Food Policy this March.

Monday's attack on Boston

2013-04-18T18:35:00.001-04:00

Thank you, all of you, around the world, who have been sending expressions of love and peace and wishing us well here in Boston this week.

On Monday, I was working in my office on Tufts' Boston Campus a mile away when I heard of the attack. In sadness, I watched the news on the computer screen and listened to the sirens going by outside. Then, I biked home.

Others on my campus, with medical and emergency response training, rushed into action. The Tufts Medical Center staff had trained for such an event and saved lives this day.

Yesterday afternoon, university leaders and chaplains of five faiths met with the Boston Campus community (including the medical and dental schools as well as my nutrition school). Tufts has a big presence in the Boston Marathon, with a large team competing and many people volunteering and cheering on the runners. We said poems and sang prayers in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. People told of their work in the emergency room at Tufts Medical Center, as witnesses to the bombing itself, and as friends of the victims. One student spoke of the third person who was killed, a graduate student in statistics at Boston University, so far from her home and family in China.

This attack did not teach me to feel vulnerable. I have long known this already.

This week's attack on Boston was the second time in my life that I have been so close to a terrorist attack. On September 11, I walked on foot across town and then across the National Mall from my USDA office on M street to pick up my 1-year-old son at the Department of Energy day care center. As I crossed the Mall, I watched the smoke rising over the Pentagon across the Potomac River. The day care center was empty, but there was a sign on the door telling me where to go pick him up from a nearby office. I put my son in my child carrier backpack and walked several miles to my home in Columbia Heights, past block after block of stalled traffic evacuating the city.

And, though we seldom share much about such things in professional blogs, my Christian faith has a considerable focus on vulnerability. I think about Jesus of Nazareth trying, without great success, to explain to his followers that he was not going to be the conquering invulnerable sort of leader they were expecting, or about pastor Martin Luther King in Memphis on the night before his death in 1968 basically explaining to his audience that he might die soon.

Vulnerability makes us stagger, but it needn't stop us outright. I haven't posted here for a couple days, but I won't pause long. Though it might seem oddly trivial, the next post you read on this blog will be about some small matter in U.S. food policy, and it won't be long in coming.

Reason Magazine highlights food policy

2013-04-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

Baylen Linnekin's new column at Reason Magazine this week highlights the nationwide interest in food policy in recent years.

Linnekin gives at least four main examples, with links for more detail.

1. Emily Broad Leib's Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (see our coverage earlier this year).

For example, a recent Harvard Law School news article claims "there may be no hotter topic in law schools right now than food law and policy[.]"

2. My new book Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan).

“As a pundit once said, ‘When we leave farm policy to the experts, we actually leave it to the lobbyists,’” says Wilde, himself the author of the new book Food Policy in the United States. “This book pulls open the curtains and lets any interested reader understand the fundamentals of U.S. food policy.”

The pundit, by the way, was Ezra Klein. Umm, may I say "pundit" is not pejorative?

3. Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Jayson Lusk. I have long admired Jayson's work and enjoyed contributing a chapter on food security to the multi-author handbook on the economics of food consumption and policy that Jayson co-edited for Oxford University Press a couple years ago. After reading Linnekin's column, I have just this very minute pre-ordered Jayson's new book The Food Police. It seems possible that Jayson's book will agree with one key theme of this blog (that government regulation sometimes overreaches badly) and perhaps downplay another (that more vigorous public sector action commonly is needed to advance the public interest, so we should all work together to make government more effective rather than undermining it).

Lusk, too, has a new food policy book out. In The Food Police, Lusk pushes back against what he sees as a dominant, pro-regulatory bent among food writers, which he calls “condescending paternalism.”

4. David Gumpert's forthcoming book, which I also have just pre-ordered.

Still another such book, David Gumpert’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights, is set for release this summer.

As a nice timely hook to close this post, the Consumer Federation of America's annual Food Policy Conference begins today (April 15) in Washington, DC. If you attend, say hello to the two Friedman School graduate students who have set up a table with flyers and copies of Food Policy in the United States.

Obama proposes food aid reforms

2013-04-12T09:33:00.001-04:00

President Obama's budget proposal includes several sensible reforms to U.S. food aid to other countries.

As Eric Muňoz at Oxfam America explains, "The proposal would end the practice of 'monetization' which provides cash to NGOs doing food security programs in developing countries but is highly inefficient and wastes a lot of money."

Also, the administration's proposal appears to reduce, but not eliminate, requirements that a large portion of U.S. food aid be purchased in the United States. These requirements increase the aid programs' support among U.S. farmers, but generally are inefficient for meeting humanitarian assistance and development objectives.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah this week explained why local purchases closer to the recipient countries make more sense:

The President’s proposal reflects the growing, bipartisan consensus that the traditional approach to development must be modernized to help us efficiently meet the economic and moral challenges of our time.

The truth is that for years our practice in food assistance has lagged behind our knowledge. In the last decade, more than 30 different studies—from Cornell University to Lancet medical journal to the Government Accountability Office—have revealed the inefficiencies of the current system.

They’ve shown that buying food locally—instead of in the United States costs—much less—as much as 50 percent for cereals and as much as 31 percent for pulses. That’s because the average prices of buying and delivering American food across an ocean has increased from $390 per metric ton in 2001 to $1,180 today.

These costs eat into precious resources designed to feed hungry people—causing more than 16 percent of Title II funds to be spent on ocean shipping.

Buying food locally can also speed the arrival of life-saving aid by as many as 14 weeks. Those 98 days take on an entirely new meaning when you consider that waiting every additional day—every additional hour—can mean the difference between life and death.

Buying food locally is not only faster. It can also be a more effective approach to achieving our ultimate goal of replacing aid with self-sufficiency. In Bangladesh, we worked with Land o’ Lakes to buy cereal bars locally, helping create a commercially viable and nutritious product for the local market, while supporting U.S. jobs at home.

Shah's speech also highlighted the work of my Friedman School colleagues, led by Patrick Webb and Bea Rogers, to improve the nutritional quality of food aid. Shah said, "In 2011, we completed a two-year food aid quality review in partnership with Tufts University that resulted in the most far-reaching improvements to U.S. food aid since 1966."

Demonstration kitchen at a clinic in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where mothers combine food aid products with local ingredients to help treat child undernutrition. Source: Patrick Webb 2008.

Update (later the same day): Corrected a name spelling as suggested in the comments. Thanks!

An inter-disciplinary approach to U.S. food policy

2013-04-11T13:23:00.001-04:00

An excerpt from the first chapter of Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan).

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is the federal government’s most authoritative official statement on nutrition and health issues (discussed at length in Chapter 8), presents a social and ecological framework for food consumption and physical activity decisions (see Figure). Similar models are found in many other high-profile nutrition policy documents (Institute of Medicine, 2012). To analyze major national problems of obesity and chronic disease, this framework goes far beyond immediate causes such as food and beverage intake and physical activity. Like planetary orbits that are farther from the center, the outer layers list more distant influences on food choices.

The framework calls attention to important topics, including agriculture (Chapter 2), the food and beverage manufacturing industries (Chapter 5), the retailing and restaurant industries (Chapter 6), marketing and the media (Chapter 9) and socioeconomic factors (Chapter 10). Once nutrition and public health professionals begin to explore these more fundamental influences on food and beverage consumption, they find themselves engaged with challenging topics in economics and political science.

At first, this engagement can be unnerving. When interacting with patients, professionals in medical fields are rightly proud of their ability to diagnose problems and prescribe an appropriate remedy. It is tempting at first to adapt this medical patient approach to food policy applications. For example, if expanding food portion sizes contribute to rising rates of obesity, it is tempting to say government agencies should prescribe smaller portion sizes. If nutrient-dense foods cost too much, it is tempting to say government agencies should prescribe a price ceiling for fruits and vegetables. It is disappointing if policy-makers reject such proposals as politically infeasible. It is downright frustrating if policy-makers say with a straight face that a well-intentioned nutrition policy prescription is unwise. Yet, except in special settings such as school meal programs, determining portion sizes may be a decision that people do not want to delegate to their government. A price ceiling for fruits and vegetables may have unintended consequences, such as reducing the incentives to grow fruits and vegetables.

The outer layers of the social ecological framework bring nutrition policy into contact with many other societal objectives, such as a thriving economy, a healthy environment, poverty alleviation and effective political governance. Powerful policy actors in these outer layers do not—and sometimes should not—behave as if food consumption and physical activity stood alone as the sun at the center of the social ecological solar system. Governments balance food and nutrition concerns against other considerations, just as individuals and families do.

As we explore more deeply the normative question of what food policies best serve the public good, it will appear necessary to discern which decisions should be delegated to governments and which decisions should be made by individuals interacting in economic markets. And, as we explore more deeply the positive question of what policies can win political support, it will appear necessary to anticipate how a variety of producer and consumer interests will respond to such proposals.

These inter-disciplinary explorations are more difficult than simply prescribing the right policy medicine, but ultimately they offer both sharper policy insight and greater potential for political success.

Source: Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010.

Food stamp challenge (with abundant talent)

2013-04-10T11:16:00.001-04:00

In my presentation at Virginia Tech last month, I mentioned the food stamp challenge, a short-term exercise in living on the food budget available to a very low-income participant in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

One of the students there began the challenge and documented it on a blog, posting food photography and receipts. Although some people attempt a food stamp challenge using average benefits as the spending benchmark, I think Clara was correct to use the maximum SNAP benefit as a benchmark (this is the benefit amount received by the lowest-income program participants).

Of course, few of us have the talent to make a food stamp challenge look so good. Please do not use Clara's blog posts for the purpose of redesigning federal food stamp policy! Instead, just consider Clara's experience as one example of the diversity of experiences that people have with the economics of food spending, preparation, and ... clearly ... enjoyment.

Farm Bill impact on Western agriculture

2013-04-05T14:31:00.003-04:00

I wish I could attend this conference in Davis, CA. From the organizers' press release:

Farm Bill conference to examine impact on Western Agriculture

May 14, 2013, 8:00 a.m. Conference Center, UC Davis

Agricultural leaders and economists will discuss the new Farm Bill and its impacts on agriculture in the West May 14 at an all-day conference at the UC Davis Conference Center.

Karen Ross, secretary of California Department of Food and Agriculture and former U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture chief of staff, and Katy Coba, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, will share their insights on what the Farm Bill is likely to mean for agriculture in the western states.

“The Farm Bill affects every California commodity,” said Daniel Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center and conference coordinator. “Growers, lenders, agribusiness executives, policy advisors, agricultural leaders, university professionals, students and everyone who values comprehensive and objective information about the upcoming Farm Bill and U.S. farm policy are invited to participate in the conversation.”

Specific sessions include:

“The Farm Bill: What it Does and What it Means.” Joseph Glauber, UCDA chief economist, will explain what the Farm Bill does. Now working on his fifth Farm Bill, Glauber is one of the most objective and knowledgeable experts on U.S. agricultural policy.

"The Expanding Role of Risk Management and Crop Insurance Policy" led by Hyunok Lee, UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, with participation from growers and risk management experts.

"What Changing Federal Dairy Policy Means for Western Dairy and Related Industries" led by Professor Joseph Balagtas, Purdue University, with participation from producers, dairy industry experts and policy advocates.

"How Federal Conservation, Energy and Climate Affects Policy for Western Agriculture" led by Professors John Antle and JunJie Wu, Oregon State University, with participation of scientists and stakeholders.

The conference is sponsored by OreCal, an Agricultural and Resource Policy Research collaboration between the Center for Agricultural & Environmental Policy at Oregon State University and the University of California Agricultural Issues Center.

More information about the conference is online. May 9 is the last day to register online. Registration is $100, $50 for students, and covers conference materials, meals and the post conference reception.

What business model lets a person represent a neighborhood?

2013-04-05T11:17:00.001-04:00

First, consider this 1999 article in the New York Times, which quotes community activist and businessperson Majora Carter on the topic of a garbage transfer station that had been proposed for the South Bronx. This 1999 argument pitted (on the one side) an African American-owned business and a clean-air environmental group in favor of the transfer station against (on the other side) community advocates concerned about pollution from the transfer station.

The opponents shouted down representatives of the garbage company, saying the area already handles more than its share of garbage. They also accused the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, which traditionally has opposed such projects, of accepting money from the company in exchange for its support.

''You are accepting money from them and playing their community partner,'' Majora Carter, an official with the Point Community Development Corporation, shouted at members of the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition. ''This is obscene.'' ...

''I don't care if it's a minority owned business,'' Ms. Carter, of the Point, who is also black, yelled at Mr. Jones at the public meeting. ''I'm a businesswoman too. I would not sell out my brothers and sisters that way.''

Later, but only later, read the harsh article today about Majora Carter in the New York Times. This article may be unfair to Carter. Yet, perhaps, Carter may have been too harsh in her criticism of Robert Jones, 3rd, and the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition in 1999.

For me, the lesson is two-fold: (a) we should have very high expectations for the ethical standards of our public interest organizations and entrepreneurs, and yet (b) these expectations should not be so high as to be impossible for any thriving operation to satisfy in the real world.

Just like for-profit organizations, public interest organizations need a viable business model. They may aim for small local impacts with cobbled together funding, or they may aim for larger impact with more substantial funding. In the latter case, they must be vigilant about conflicts of interest and transparent about funding sources, but being a businessperson is not itself a sign of corruption. Notice that even in the 1999 article, Majora Carter always described herself as a businesswoman.

[I had been thinking about similar issues in this February post.]

IOM's Food Forum announces a workshop on sustainable diets, May 7-8

2013-04-05T10:10:00.000-04:00

The Institute of Medicine's Food Forum announces an upcoming workshop on a great topic:

Sustainable Diets:

Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet

May 7-8, 2013

The National Academies Auditorium

2101 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC

The Institute of Medicine's Food Forum and Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine are holding a 1.5 day workshop on “Sustainable Diets: Food for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet.” We hope you will attend. The workshop will explore current and emerging knowledge on the food and nutrition policy implications of the increasing strain on the natural resources in our food system, and seek to further discussion of how to incorporate environmental sustainability into U.S. dietary guidance policies.

Visit here for more information and to register for the workshop.

The agenda (.pdf) includes former USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan as keynote speaker, my Tufts colleague Christian Peters speaking about land use effects of dietary patterns, and myself speaking about consumer responses to economic incentives.

U.S. meat consumption fell after 2004

2013-04-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

According to USDA data on food consumption per capita, U.S. meat consumption fell from about 2004 to 2010 (the most recent data available).

Beef consumption peaked in 2002 and has fallen about 12% since then. Pork consumption peaked in about 1999 and has fallen about 11% since then. And I had not realized that chicken consumption peaked in about 2006 and has fallen almost 5% since then.

Total combined consumption of beef, pork, and chicken peaked in about 2004 and has fallen more than 6% since then.

I think these trends likely are driven both by economic recession and by increasing health and environmental awareness.

Americans consume substantially more beef, pork, and chicken than is necessary for a balanced and healthy diet. The federal government's mainstream advice on diet and health, MyPlate, suggests that about a quarter of the dinner plate can come from the protein group (which includes fish, seafood, beans, peas, soy foods, nuts, and eggs, in addition to beef, pork, and chicken).

The unusually high U.S. consumption of beef, pork, and chicken also raises environmental concerns, with implications for water quality (when nutrients in manure reach water sources) and land use (because of the large amounts of animal feed that are converted comparatively inefficiently into meat-based foods).

It is worth mentioning that meat is a good source of protein and several other nutrients, but these nutrients are not currently under-supplied in U.S. diets. Similarly, animal agriculture is a particularly sensible use of certain grasslands that are environmentally unsuitable for crop production, but this grass-based production system is not where most of our beef, pork, and chicken comes from.

Overall, I don't think the government should be too pushy when it comes to influencing people's diets. It seems quite wise simply to accept and accomodate the recent market-driven downward trends in meat consumption, without taking government action to oppose them.

These trends are a good thing for our health, environment, and economy.
Source: interactive chart by the author using USDA food availability data.

Update (later the same day): I just saw that Steve Baragona at Voice of America yesterday described this same trend. I had been thinking about this topic, because my colleague Paul McNamara mentioned related work on trends in vegetarian consumption by a student in his department at the University of Illinois, Daniel Karney.

Biotech rider is "very, very bad government"

2013-04-01T11:10:00.000-04:00

Senator Jon Tester and Mother Jones journalist Tom Philpott summarize the problems with the new Senate rider that protects Monsanto technologies from particular consequences of review in the courts, on the TakeAway on National Public Radio today.

Senator Tester says in the audio below, "Congress screwed up.... This isn't the way our government is supposed to work."

As Tom Philpott, food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones, explains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to approve genetically-modified crops before companies could sell the seeds to farmers. In 2008 and 2009, the Center for Food Safety, along with other environmental groups, sued the USDA in federal court, claiming that the USDA approved two genetically engineered crops without a detailed environmental impact statement.

The Center for Food Safety won the suit in both cases, but the rider on this year's continuing resolution would bar environmental groups from suing the USDA for these purposes.

As with the proposed genetically modified (GM) salmon (covered earlier on this blog), my view is that GM supporters and opponents alike should speak up for adequate democratic review of these policies. For GMO supporters in particular, it is foolish to try to slip these policies through Congress as riders to unrelated essential legislation. A key part of the argument in favor of GM technology is supporters' claim that our government is capable of giving these technologies a scientifically credible, independent, and skeptical review. It is unwise for Monsanto to protect its GM technologies from review by proving how easily our federal government can be manipulated. This is the same government on which Monsanto and all other GM supporters depend to reassure the consuming public about the safety of GM foods.

Update (same day). Agricultural economist Darren Hudson says pretty much the same thing I do about this rider. I came across his post on a link from Jayson Lusk's blog.

Improving the nutrition environment in schools

2013-03-27T17:04:00.001-04:00

For just a few more days, you can submit comments to USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) regarding the agency's new proposed regulations for "competitive foods," including vending machines and snacks for sale.

Highlights, according to the FNS summary, include:

More of the foods we should encourage. Promoting availability of healthy snack foods with whole grains, low fat dairy, fruits, vegetables or protein foods as their main ingredients.
Less of the foods we should avoid. Ensuring that snack food items are lower in fat, sugar, and sodium and provide more of the nutrients kids need.
Targeted standards. Allowing variation by age group for factors such as beverage portion size and caffeine content.
Flexibility for important traditions. Preserving the ability for parents to send in bagged lunches of their choosing or treats for activities such as birthday parties, holidays, and other celebrations; and allowing schools to continue traditions like occasional fundraisers and bake sales.
Reasonable limitations on when and where the standards apply. Ensuring that standards only affect foods that are sold on school campus during the school day. Foods sold at an afterschool sporting event or other activity will not be subject to these requirements.
Flexibility for state and local communities. Allowing significant local and regional autonomy by only establishing minimum requirements for schools. States and schools that have stronger standards than what is being proposed will be able to maintain their own policies.
Significant transition period for schools and industry. The standards will not go into effect until at least one full school year after public comment is considered and an implementing rule is published to ensure that schools and vendors have adequate time to adapt.

To me, a fundamental issue is that schools are supposed to act with the child's interest at heart. No matter what your view about other health policy proposals to regulate food sales (such as sales of soda in New York City movie theaters for example), we should all recognize that schools are different. This is not a question of regulatory overreach. This is a question about whether adults in publicly funded institutions should be making money for education programs by selling high-calorie snacks and sugary beverages to young children in the midst of widespread health concerns about childhood obesity.

Current information resources include earlier coverage on this blog, the FNS site, and (if you want to see an example of suggested comments from a leading public interest organization that has studied this issue closely) the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

As deeper background reading, I greatly appreciate Janet Poppendieck's thoughtful book, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California Press).

For local eastern Massachusetts readers, I notice that Poppendieck is giving a free public lecture at Boston University (in the College of Arts and Sciences Building, Room 211, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston, on Tuesday, April 2, 6 pm).

OMG! Sodium!

2013-03-24T09:43:00.003-04:00

I showed this cereal box to my 10-year-old daughter at breakfast this morning, but she couldn't see the pun. At first, I thought maybe she didn't know the text message shorthand, OMG. On the contrary, she could only read the message, "Oh my God, sodium!"

Virginia Tech seminar, March 22

2013-03-21T12:45:00.000-04:00

I will be giving a departmental seminar in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech, tomorrow, March 22, at 3 pm.

The title is: "Not just for farmers: Six ways that agriculture programs affect food, nutrition, and the environment."

Please come visit if you are in Blacksburg, Virginia. The room is Fralin 102.

2013-03-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

Albany Law School professor Timothy Lytton has a new book, Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food. A key point is that this topic is more broadly relevant than one might think, because kosher food is just one of many examples of food regulation systems that can be adopted by the private sector.

Lytton was interviewed on the What is Your Food Worth? blog.

As a general matter, private food safety audits and industry-sponsored nutrition labeling schemes have been a great disappointment. Behind most major food-poisoning outbreaks is some private auditing firm that gave the food producer a phony five-star rating. And when nutritional rating schemes give high marks to sugary cereals and full-fat ice cream, you have to wonder.

As a kosher-observant Orthodox Jew, I realized that kosher certification offers a 2000 year old example of private food certification. My initial suspicion was that kosher certification was full of price gouging and unnecessary, super-stringent standards. As I began to get into my research, however, I found that, although fraud and corruption were rampant a century ago in kosher meat production, today’s kosher system is highly reliable. My book tells the story of how, within the span of a century, kosher certification became the one of the most reliable systems of private certification in the food industry, indeed, perhaps in any industry.

Michael Moss: Salt, Sugar, Fat

2013-03-19T13:48:00.002-04:00

New York Times reporter Michael Moss's book released this year is Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

The book has some older themes and some newer distinctive contributions. The basic indictment of highly palatable processed food is familiar to readers of Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Eric Schlosser, and David Kessler, and to viewers of movies such as Supersize Me and Food, Inc. The novelty and strength of Moss's new book is the persuasive on-the-record interviews with food industry executives and scientists as they try to understand the consequences of their products and even to make improvements.

I ended up with two competing impressions. First, I felt sympathetic to the industry scientists and executives, several of whom really would have preferred to sell better products, but who were defeated by competitive pressures. Second, it seemed that the industry people themselves are usually naive about the possibility of making substantial improvements on a company-by-company voluntary basis. I say "usually" naive, because I think deep down they know their efforts are partly for show, and at key junctures the industry scientists and executives are forced to be blunt about the real situation.

I have seen this pattern in my own conversations with food industry scientists and executives. In nine sentences out of ten, they will express great optimism that their company can make healthy changes in its product mix. Then, in the tenth sentence, especially if pressed with a hard question about whether the proposed changes are sufficiently ambitious to make a real difference, they will say, "Oh, well, don't be unrealistic. You can't expect THAT from us in the real world of competition."

An article-length version of the book was published in the New York Times Magazine. The Grocery Manufacturers Association released a statement treating Moss's book as an "obesity book" with an unfair axe to grind: "Michael Moss’s work misrepresents the strong commitment America’s food and beverage companies have to providing consumers with the products, tools and information they need to achieve and maintain a healthy diet and active lifestyle." But this statement misses a key theme of Moss's book, which focuses above all on the quixotic efforts of industry scientists and executives to make improvements.