U.S. Food Policy

World Resources Institute: The Great Balancing Act

2013-06-12T09:45:00.001-04:00

World Resources Institute has a new report series on food and environment issues. The first installment is on balancing food needs, food production, and environmental constraints. The second installment is on food waste.

The infographic below accompanies the first report. Even more than this graphic, I liked the final Table 1 in that report, which contemplates a long list of proposed constructive responses and concisely summarizes how each proposed response might appear to people concerned more specifically with poverty reduction or gender justice, for example, in addition to the basic environmental concerns such as climate change and water pollution. It is both substantially correct and politically astute to anticipate how proposed environmental measures will be received by people who care about diverse public interest goals.

Graeme Wood in the National Review on U.S. hunger

2013-06-11T13:47:00.004-04:00

Graeme Wood writes in the National Review June 3 (gated, but inexpensive) about hunger in the United States.

Wood argues that the new documentary, A Place at the Table, overstates the extent of hunger. Citing recent research by Hattori, An, and Sturm, Wood casts doubt on claims that food deserts are widespread or that they cause overweight.

Then, the later sections of the article draw on an interesting wide-ranging telephone conversation Wood and I had about the connections between hunger and poverty. Wood quotes me saying food insecurity is not really just about food, but largely about poverty:

Wilde, the Tufts professor, says that we could theoretically just pay for the missing and potentially missing meals of the food-insecure, for a price of a few billion a year. But if you think, as he does, that the problem will persist as long as poverty does, then this solution won’t be enough.

“With the food-centered approach, the common theme is If only we had the heart,” Wilde says. “But hunger is a more daunting problem.” Whatever you think can be done to make people richer (tax cuts? tax increases?), that’s probably going to be your best guess about how to get rid of hunger. But given that we can’t agree on how to end poverty, we probably shouldn’t assume that the solution to hunger is any simpler.

In pursuing a poverty-centered approach to understanding hunger, I'm influenced by Mark Winne and Janet Poppendieck. It could make some readers uneasy to see these ideas make their way to the National Review, where the predominantly conservative readership may receive these themes in a different key from their original transmission. But, it doesn't bother me. I am glad to see both conservatives and liberals thinking seriously about U.S. poverty. And I talk to anybody.

Revolution Foods in school meals

2013-06-10T21:29:00.003-04:00

At the Menus of Change conference in Boston this evening, I especially appreciated the presentation by Kirsten Saenz Tobey, the Chief Innovation Officer of the ambitious new school food service company Revolution Foods.

The presentation took the form of an interview of Tobey by her former business school professor Will Rosenzweig, whose questions led her through the remarkable growth of her company from social entrepreneurship projects at university to a multi-million dollar corporation serving millions of meals.

Although Tobey and her collaborators had originally envisioned a not-for-profit corporation, perhaps principally with foundation funding, an instructive turning point happened when they realized that the amounts of capital required for kitchen renovations and other investments could not be raised except on a for-profit basis.

The company has had good coverage recently by Forbes, Take Part, and the Economist. A difficult challenge is cost. Revolution Foods may cost more, and San Francisco columnist Dana Woldow has been pressing for transparency on the full cost of the company's contract with that city's school system (and also rapping the company's knuckles for run-of-the-mill puffery in hinting at claims of improving student test scores).

Tobey says the company soon wants to challenge a major brand-name provider of packaged lunch meals sold in grocery stores (I can only think of Lunchables). That is a worthy villain, and, at the same time, one can't help wondering if plain lunch ingredients sold as non-brand-name ordinary food might really be the more sustainable competitor to over-packaged brand-name lunches.

This is a company whose progress I want to watch in coming years.

See for yourself

2013-06-10T13:12:00.000-04:00

In a class session on hunger measurement each fall, I advise not relying on statistical measures alone. These measures are important, but it also is valuable to "see for yourself," by visiting anti-hunger efforts on the ground, getting to know all neighborhoods in your community, participating in activities that involve people from diverse income backgrounds, and basically by living life in an unsheltered way.

Perhaps Betsy Comstock and Carolyn Pesheck were thinking of something similar when they decided to spend the first part of their retirement years working in at least one anti-hunger program in each of the 50 states. I enjoyed meeting Betsy last week and hearing about this ambitious undertaking.

Ractopamine and the proposed Chinese purchase of Smithfield Foods

2013-06-08T13:48:00.000-04:00

Helena Bottemiller reported at the end of May for NBC News that the proposed purchase of Smithfield Foods by a Chinese company may be related to the fact that China has stricter standards than the United States does for a growth promoting drug:

The proposed $4.7 billion sale of Smithfield Foods, America’s largest pork producer, to China’s biggest meat processing company comes amid significant trade friction between the two countries over meat and livestock.

China bans ractopamine, a controversial growth-promoting drug that is widely used by U.S. livestock producers. Russia also bans the feed additive and both countries have recently stepped up residue testing in meat, worried about the health effects of the drug. The actions have constrained American meat exports.

Bottemiller's feature was supported by the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

The 10th Anniversary Edition of Marion Nestle's Food Politics

2013-06-07T10:56:00.000-04:00

For people in the nutrition world who care about public policy, Marion Nestle's 2002 book Food Politics is the single most useful source there is.

I thought about several other important sources before making that statement. The federal government's dietary guidance may be authoritative, but it is tamed and diluted in ways that Nestle explains precisely. Eric Schlosser covers labor issues passionately, Michael Pollan addresses the techno-skeptical mood of the local food movement, and Wendell Berry is poetic, but Nestle is the steadiest and most solid critic of the modern food industry and its nutritional shortcomings.

A highlight of Nestle's revised and expanded 10th Anniversary Edition of Food Politics is the new 50-page Afterword. It brings the book up to date by covering MyPlate, Let's Move, front-of-pack labeling, children's advertising initiatives, school meals reforms, and soda taxes. I will certainly add it to my course syllabus.

In some ways, these topics in the Afterword are new. In other ways, they are minor variations on themes that already were central in the earlier 2002 edition. These themes usually involve the food industry's success in resisting and reversing proposed improvements in food and nutrition policy. Nestle insists that she remains optimistic, but the reason she gives has little to do with the nutrition policy initiatives she covers at greatest length, and more to do with the grassroots food movement that has grown up in response to dissatisfaction with the status quo:

I am often asked how I remain optimistic in light of the food industry's power to control and corrupt government. That's easy: the food movement. Everywhere I look, I see positive signs of change.

Though Nestle doesn't give up hope, re-reading this book ten years later tempts me to give up more profoundly on the "politics" in Food Politics. Not yet, but maybe some day.

Agribusiness reviews Food Policy in the United States

2013-06-04T17:59:00.004-04:00

In the forthcoming issue of the journal Agribusiness, Neal Hooker reviews my book, Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan, 2013). Neal is an economist, a nationally known food policy expert, and professor at The Ohio State University. He recommends the book warmly for university classes in food policy at the upper-level undergraduate and graduate levels.

So returning to the goal of comprehension, does this book deliver? Having taught food policy courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels and being faced with the challenge of an appropriate text with a strong disciplinary base, I believe the answer is yes. Detailed and timely enough to give more than a cursory description of the economics of policy in an important and salient area (food, always a good pedagogical vehicle for students), the book encourages the reader to learn more. Clearly enthusiastic and knowledgeable, Parke has distilled his understanding of the often complex U.S. food policy environment for many to explore.

Asset limits for SNAP eligibility

2013-06-04T15:54:00.000-04:00

Julie Siple at Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) this week discusses the role of asset limits in determining who is eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps.

To be eligible, according to USDA rules, program applicants generally must have net income below the poverty line. Middle-income and high-income Americans are ineligible for SNAP. This is uncontroversial.

Program applicants also generally must have financial assets below $2000 (or below $3250 if they are elderly). In recent years, states have been allowed some flexibility regarding this rule. Many states effectively have set a more generous higher limit. This is more controversial.

A provision of the farm bill in the U.S. House of Representatives proposes to reduce states' flexibility to determine what asset standard to use. Siple's report for MPR explores several sides of this issue.

Without an asset test, conservative program critics say, the program may grow too big: "No one wants to see people bear financial hardship, but we have a real financial problem in this country, with the federal government running trillion dollar deficits," Siple quotes CATO scholar Chris Edwards saying. "You know, we can't keep subsidizing everyone like we have been in recent years or we'll simply go bankrupt."

On the other hand, with the strict asset test under the House proposal, imagine the hardship for an elderly person who must spend down her savings to a very low level before becoming eligible for nutrition assistance. The radio report includes an interview with an 88-year-old Minnesota resident who lost much of her savings due to medical issues, and who worries about having to use up her remaining savings before becoming eligible for food stamps. The question at stake: is it okay for somebody in her position to still hold $80000 in assets while applying for food stamps, or should she spend down her life savings to 3250 before becoming eligible?

AGree policy initiative encourages comprehensive immigration reform

2013-06-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

The co-chairs of the AGree agricultural policy initiative today sent a letter to U.S. Senators encouraging comprehensive immigration reform.

Dan Glickman (former Secretary of Agriculture under the Clinton administration), Gary Hirshberg (Stonyfield Farm), Jim Moseley (former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture under the Bush administration), and Emmy Simmons (former senior U.S. international aid official) wrote:

We applaud the Senate Judiciary Committee’s leadership in moving forward on the bipartisan legislation. This presents a huge opportunity for foreign-born agricultural workers who want to build a better future for themselves and their families and for American farmers and ranchers struggling with serious labor shortages. AGree has initiated and supported efforts to overcome volatile and divisive differences that have doomed past reform efforts and we will continue to use our convening powers and work in tandem with other groups to help achieve a new national immigration policy.

AGree has four principles for immigration policy reform. These principles seem politically astute, including key themes that one hears both from agricultural producer groups and from immigrant labor advocates:

Build a legal, more stable workforce in agriculture;
Develop a practical and economically viable guest worker program that allows employers to hire legal foreign workers and protects foreign and U.S. farm workers;
Ensure quality of life, good working conditions, and opportunities for food and agriculture workers; and
Provide more opportunities for farm workers to develop skills and advance their careers within the food and agriculture sector.

The Senate legislation that the AGree co-chairs support is the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. It is very much a compromise piece of legislation. This week is critical in the Senate, and, even after passing the Senate, the House is even more challenging.

From the perspective of immigrant labor advocates, farm producers and managers are a complicated group of allies. On the one hand, farmers are a terrific helpful voice, because they speak of immigrant farm workers with respect, articulate the great value that the workers bring to the American agricultural economy, and oppose a deportation-centered immigration policy.

On the other hand, the farm groups insist on an awful tough stipulation in their support for a path to legal status for illegal workers. The farm groups insist that newly legalized workers be prohibited from moving quickly into non-farm jobs such as construction or food service. For the farmers, the whole point is that these newly legal workers should stay on the farm, keeping wages in check.

By and large, the Senate bill represents the best possible compromise that immigrant labor advocates could strike with farm groups, so that they could speak with one voice in the political debate. If immigrant labor advocates and farm groups split, they will be soundly beaten by the anti-immigrant and nativist folks in Congress.

I participate in AGree as part of its Research Committee, but had no role in the organization's immigration position. For a scholarly but highly readable account of the current issues, see Philip Martin's article (may be gated) in the January edition of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

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.