Food safety recalls and alerts

Though much remains to do, there has been progress in recent years in providing the public with information about food safety recalls.

An important development has been a USDA policy to release information about the retailers where recalled products were sold. Previously, this information was hard to get. Currently, the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) seems to provide retailer information about some but not all recalls.

There is a new widget for food safety recalls and alerts from the federal government's consolidated food safety page (I don't have the widget working right yet, and may add it to the sidebar in the future). Hat tip to Marion Nestle's Food Politics blog.

A long road for farm laborers

The U.S. food system relies fundamentally on hired farm workers. The physical labor is as hard as any in the U.S. economy, it is sometimes dangerous, and it pays little.

From the summary of a recent USDA report:

Hired farm workers make up a third of the total agricultural labor force and are critical to U.S. agricultural production, particularly in labor-intensive sectors such as fruits and vegetables. The hired farm worker labor market is unique because it includes a large population of relatively disadvantaged and often unauthorized workers, a portion of whom migrate to, and within, the United States.

Hired farm workers are usually recent immigrants, and frequently undocumented. Wages remain low, because the supply of laborers is great, and their alternatives to farm labor are limited. Even as a market economist, who usually admires the way a free labor market assigns workers to the jobs where their work is most valuable, I can barely wrap my mind around the gulf between the farm laborer's wage and the consumer value of the food he grows.

Considering these economic fundamentals, hope for higher wages requires either great courage or an active imagination.

This July, I visited Immokalee, Florida, to meet a group of farm workers with that kind of imagination, and ... a strategy. Lucas Benitez, with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, gave a tour including the Coalition's community center, radio station, and cooperative food store. A walk through the neighborhood took in trailer residences for seasonal workers and the site of a compound where workers had been held against their will.

The Coalition focuses on winning concessions from branded retail and restaurant companies, like the Publix supermarket chain or the leading fast food brands such as Taco Bell, Burger King, and, most recently, Chipotle. For example, the CIW might ask Taco Bell for a penny per pound more for tomato pickers, who get paid according to the quantity they pick.

The strategy is clever, because these branded companies have a strong incentive to reach an agreement. The branded companies rely on consumer goodwill toward their brand, and the cost of the agreement is tiny relative to the final retail value of the foods sold. By contrast, the farms in Florida that actually hire the laborers and grow the tomatoes operate in a cutthroat competitive market. The farms are large, as farms go, but still they are very small compared to a supermarket company or a fast food chain. Even for a prosperous farmer, a small wage increase without a commensurate increase in the tomato price is a frightening proposition.

While in Immokalee, I spoke with University of Florida agricultural economist Fritz Roka, who has written about the economics of farm labor in Southwest Florida. He noted the competitive pressures on Florida growers and the possibility that higher costs could shift tomato production to other parts of the country, or overseas.

But perhaps it's not just economics that drives the Florida farmers to fear improved wages. One of the strangest twists in the CIW's campaign came after the Coalition won its first victories from several fast food chains, but then had trouble finding farmers who were willing to pass along the wage premium. Even though it didn't cost the grower anything, because the premium is paid by the fast food chain, most growers refused to collect the premium and pass it along to the workers. The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, an organization of farmers, threatened to fine any member who participated in the premium agreements. In other words, it is not just market economics that keeps the laborer's wage low. The growers actively coordinate their efforts to prevent the premium from being paid.

Casting about in vain for an explanation for the growers' stance, I wonder if the farmers are just offended at the gumption of the immigrant laborers in demanding for a higher wage rather than accepting the natural hierarchy of the local economy. Among Florida's many cultural traditions, a flavor of the pre-Civil-Rights Deep South still has a place. I emailed Reggie Brown at the FTGE in July to get the growers' perspective for this post, but received no response.

The CIW's opponents in the region want to paint the Coalition as too radical, but it may be that any demand for higher wages gets counted as radical. I asked Benitez about the CIW's reputation. He responded that the CIW has many allies when it asks for better working conditions. For example, there is a broad support in Florida for better portable toilets in the field, or access to water to prevent dehydration, or food pantries and social services. But, I get the sense that the CIW occupies a more lonely piece of ground when it imagines that farm workers could ever have higher wages.

Further reading:

Tom Philpott, The human cost of industrial tomatoes.

Barry Estabrook, Politics of the plate: Florida's slave trade.

And, for its detailed word portraits of Immokalee's workers, Carlene Thissen, Immokalee's fields of hope.


Photo by Margaret Wilde.

Update (9/9/2009, 5:15 pm): A press release late this afternoon gives a timely update on the Chipotle situation, emphasizing the key challenge of finding a grower to pass along a per-pound premium to the workers. Chipotle has reached an agreement with East Coast Farms, a tomato grower, to pass along the premium. In the past, the CIW has pressed Chipotle, in addition to establishing the extra payment, to also commit in writing to keeping it (so the decision cannot be reversed). The press release says the new program follows months of discussion with the CIW, though it did not say explicitly whether CIW has yet endorsed the program as adequate.

Child nutrition timeline

According to Congressional Quarterly, the Child Nutrition Law will likely be extended past its September 30th sunset, since no Committee has dropped a reauthorization bill yet. However, no timeline for extension is given in the CQ article. National Sustainable Ag Coalition indicated, in their update today, that the reauthorization likely will not be taken up until the spring, specifically due to disagreement between the House and Senate authorizing committees on how to fund improved nutritional standards for school meals.

National and local groups have begun to take up a variety of positions on provisions in the reauthorization of school meals, WIC and other national feeding programs, ranging from nutritional standards to reimbursement rates for the National School Lunch Program to Farm to School funding, which we will elaborate on in the coming weeks.

10 foods approved by the new Smart Choices program

This week the New York Times wrote an article criticizing the new industry sponsored Smart Choices program which aims to help "strapped for time" consumers make fast choices by way of a front-of-the-label logo. From the Smart Choices website:

The Smart Choices Program™ was created by a diverse group of scientists, nutritionists and food industry leaders, to harmonize existing front-of-pack nutrition labeling icons, symbols and systems. The intent is to provide a single, simple message for the consumer - regardless of which brands they buy or stores they shop in. Our vision is that the Smart Choices Program will be the most widely-used front-of-pack nutrition labeling program in the U.S. across retail channels and brands.

The Smart Choices Program provides a front-of-pack symbol and calorie indicator that helps consumers make smarter choices for products in 19 categories, including: cereals, meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy and snacks.

The categories also include: snack foods and sweets, desserts, water (plain and carbonated), and fats, oils and spreads.

Here are 10 foods approved by the labeling scheme:

10. Breyers Smooth & Dreamy Fat Free Ice Cream (Chocolate Fudge Brownie)- Unilever

9. Frosted Flakes Cereal (Original)- Kellogg

8. Cocoa Puffs Cereal- General Mills

7. Keebler Cookie Crunch (Original)- Kellogg

6. Country Crock (Churn Style)- Unilever

5. BAGEL-FULS Bagel with Cherry Filling & Cream Cheese (Cherry & Cream Cheese) -Kraft Foods

4. Healthy Choice French Bread Pizza (Simple Selections Pepperoni French Bread Pizza)- Conagra

3. Kid Cuisine- (All Star Chicken Nuggets, Campfire Hotdog, Carnival Corn Dog, Constructor Cheeseburger, Magical Cheese Stuffed Crust Cheese Pizza, BBQ Shake - Ups)- Conagra

2. Lunchables- Fun Pack (Chicken Dunks, Turkey and Cheddar Sub, Cheese Pizza)- Kraft

1. Betty Crocker Fruit Roll-Ups Crazy Pix (Cool Chix® Berry Wave)- General Mills

ADA publishes benefits of organic talking points

In July, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) published a meta-analysis on the nutritional quality of organic versus conventional food creating a stir in the media. (See our previous post) This month, the American Dietetic Association (ADA) has published a 'Hot Topic' which takes a more holistic approach to the benefits of organic food. According to ADA, 'Hot Topics' are "short, concise practice and science-based answers to current questions Registered Dietitians (RD) may receive."

The 'Hot Topic' was co-authored by Christine McCullum-Gomez, PhD, RD and Anne-Marie Scott PhD, RD of the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (HEN) Dietetic Practice Group (DPG) of ADA. In their review they challenge the AJCN study for "not examining differences in contaminants (such as pesticide, herbicide or fungicide residues) or the possible environmental consequences of organic versus conventional production practices." Further, the authors claim there are benefits to organic beyond human nutrition.

When considering benefits and costs of organic versus conventional agricultural production, it is important to consider benefits and costs to consumers, farmers, communities and the environment. For example, current research in numerous areas is showing both short-and long-term benefits to our population and the planet with organic and other sustainable production systems. Documented environmental benefits of organic production systems include reduced nutrient pollution, improved soil organic matter, lower energy use, reduced pesticide residues in food and water and enhanced biodiversity.

It is refreshing to see ADA taking this approach.

The challenge for our field (dietetics) is to understand exactly how foods and food products are grown and manufactured and the effects these methods may have on our personal health and the health of the global environment.

Disclosure: I am a HEN member. HEN is currently one of the fastest growing DPG of the ADA. (phew..a lot of acronyms) Congratulations to all of the HEN members who worked hard to get this document written, reviewed and published.

New Entry featured on NPR

The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (NESFP) was featured on NPR's Here and Now last week highlighting two farmers, one from Zimbabwe and the other from Cameroon, that have transitioned to their own farms. The segment is titled Pumpkin Greens Grow in Massachusetts.



NESFP's mission is to

"assist people with limited resources who have an interest in small-scale commercial agriculture, to begin farming in Massachusetts. The broader goals of New Entry are to support the vitality and sustainability of the region's agriculture, to build long term economic self-reliance and food security among participants and their communities, and to expand access to high-quality, culturally appropriate foods in underserved areas through production of locally-grown foods."

You can access their blog here.

McWilliams and locavores

I will certainly read it, but, from the title, I'm not really looking forward to James McWilliams' new book, Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly.

In a recent radio interview, McWilliams really objected to a certain kind of strictly dogmatic 100-mile-circle type food discipline. That seems like a true and fairly bland point. It would be good environmentalism if Americans ate food that has less processing, less meat, and comes from closer to home, on average, but that doesn't mean all food should come from right nearby.

In the meanwhile, Kerry Trueman's review at Eating Liberally certainly was fun. The lead sentence describes the book as "the literary equivalent of a turd blossom, the Texan term for a flower that pops up out of a cow patty."

Kerry reminds the reader of McWilliams' credulous New York Times piece about a study of trichinosis in free-range pork, which was the subject of an editor's note acknowledging that the study's Pork Board funding should have been mentioned.

She gives examples of McWilliams' "pointless ponderings": "What would happen to local traffic patterns if every consumer in Austin made daily trips in their SUVs to visit small local farms to buy locally produced food?" Hmm. I guess I never really wondered that. But, if I had, I would have agreed it was a bad idea.

And, generously, she draws out "the needle in McWilliams' hyperbolic, straw man-stuffed haystack." She says McWilliams' criticism of current meat consumption patterns hits home more strongly than does his caricature of locavores: "McWilliams evidently made the calculus that it would be more lucrative to demonize farmers' market fanatics than mindless meat eaters, but his opportunistic posturing ultimately overwhelms the more thoughtful analyses contained in this book."

I'm just glad McWilliams relented on the originally planned subtitle for the book: "How Locavores Are Endangering The Future of Food." With that title, I would have felt free to skip the book altogether.