Another round for the revolving door:

Congress is considering a major food safety bill —  more info here — and the scuttlebutt is that Taylor might coordinate the implementation of that bill once it’s passed. It’s not clear whether Taylor will be employed by the agency or will work on contract. Not that it really matters.

If ever there were a poster boy for revolving door, Taylor would be him. In the late 1980s, he left a job at the FDA to work as a lawyer and lobbyist for a company representing biotech giant Monsanto. He’s perhaps best known for his role in Monsanto’s campaign to approve rBGH, a controversial artificial growth hormone given to cows to increase milk production. Taylor sauntered over to the FDA shortly after rBGH was approved for commercial use, where he oversaw the development of guidelines for rBGH milk labeling. Or rather, saw that they were never developed: Milk from rBGH-treated cows does not have to be labeled.

Then it was on to the USDA, back to the private law firm, and over to Monsanto’s DC offices, where he worked until joining GWU. Taylor was named to Obama’s ag transition team late last year, which critics (including us) saw as a boon for the GMO lobby.

Taylor has been riding the revolving door like it’s a carousel so long that Jim Hightower’s 1994 rant about the man sounds positively present-day.

What could this mean for food safety? Perhaps the only good news is that the FDA doesn’t regulate meat; Taylor is on the record opposing government inspection of meat processing facilities. (See this La Vida Locavore post for more info.) But with his hands in FDA pie, we’re guessing that agency’s food work won’t be too safe, either. The agency will soon be considering whether and how to regulate food safety on farms, whether to require electronic tracking of food from farm to retailer, and other questions that could spell disaster for small producers and local food systems if they’re answered incorrectly.  Will Taylor push for tech-heavy fixes that bias the system towards the big guys?

Our money’s on yes.

Coming off of a weekend of non-stop planting, weeding, irrigating, harvesting, and storing, I finally reached one of those exhausting peaks where I asked myself, “Why do I do this?”

And then I looked up at my equally sweaty and exasperated husband and voiced what his eyes questioned back, “Why do we do this?”

“This” meaning working a full-time job and trying to get an organic farm up and running in the evenings and on weekends.

I am often quick to placate my self-questioning. When my back is stridently sore from bending over 100-foot-long rows, I think, “Farmworkers in Florida do this for 10 to 12 hours a day. Bend in solidarity with your brothers and sisters.”

When the pea pods just keep coming, I think, “You dream of this in January when you order pounds of Sugar Ann Snap Peas. Suck it up.”

Then when the mighty pugilist purslane decides to nominate itself again as my arch nemesis, I have thoughts of burning the field. Yes, you can defeat purslane by eating it, as the Ethicurean’s Jennifer recomends sagely — this “weed” is reported to have more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant. And I haven’t paid a cent in seed so I should harvest and enjoy this ubiquitous crop. But I can’t. My taste buds refuse to appreciate this creeping, suffocating weed. Or maybe I haven’t been able to forgive it for choking out my edamame, fennel, or other seeds in the past that fought and failed against its unforgiving taproot.

But it’s not fair to put the blame on purslane. It’s just the nature of small-scale agriculture and being a beginning grower. We make mistakes. We get tired. We get frustrated, really frustrated. We question our systems.

And then, we get lucky, or just do everything good enough that the crop flourishes. We harvest at the peak flavor and nutritional value, and get the goods to the mouths that water at the thought of a fresh succulent Aunt Ruby German Green tomato.

Those mouths include my own — you know, the complaining one. I taste the stir fry of ingredients that were living in the soil just moments before: carrots, onions, garlic, chard, snow peas, and our own pork (once named Petunia). Then dessert: foraged wild raspberries we picked and preserved that day.

This is not a five-star restaurant. It’s better, so much better. Words can’t describe.

I know this food, real food, was nurtured. No pesticides or chemicals applied here. The seeds are organic; the soil replenished last year with a cover crop. The fruits were harvested with care and stored to save the full value of the food. The distance traveled from field to fork is about as far as I can throw an heirloom tomato.

So as we dine with dirt in every pore from a hard day’s work, the smile returns.

Why do we do this? Because we love it.

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