This hilarious video does a great job of laying out the basics. Big corporations and special interests have been co-opting the Farm Bill for decades. The result? Subsidies only go to 25% of all farmers, in fact 75% of all crop subsidy payouts go just 10% of American farmers. Subsidies are provided for only five crops leading to overproduction and cheap uber-refined sweeteners and fatty oils like hydrogenated corn-syrup and refined soy-bean oil. Worst of all, the dumping of all the excess crop in other countries destroys the market for native farmers. The current Farm Bill helps Big Corporate Ag like ConAgra and Monsanto do what they love to do: make sure the rich get richer and poor get poorer.

A fair Farm Bill would close loopholes so the legal system could enforce subsidy limits, spreading the subsidy money more fairly among farmers. It would subsidize crops in a way that encourages the production of healthy organic foods instead of unhealthy diabetes and cancer causing substances. A fair Farm Bill would ensure that farmers in Africa, South America and Asia do not suffer when the price of their corn or rice plummets because of subsidized American overproduction. A fair Farm Bill would be fairer and healthier for everyone in the world.

The Farm Bill is only re-written every 5 years. So take action now! Sign OxFam America’s and HealthyFarmBill.org’s open letters to Congress and spread the word far and wide!

Originally posted at Green Options.

Cheers! Have a refreshing sip of an organic beer. Except it’s not organic, but it says it’s organic. But it’s not. What?

The USDA, which certifies organic products, announced a controversial proposal in May which would allow “38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the ‘USDA Organic’ seal. Most of the ingredients are food colorings derived from plants that are supposedly not ‘commercially available’ in organic form.” However, included among these is hops, a critical ingredient in beer. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has raised issue with this “Budweiser exception” and with only a 7 day public comment period, it seemed our organic beer would become not. However, within that short period and with no formal announcement consumers united and filed 1,264 comments.

From the Beer Activist, the rationale of the exception being made is that these 38 ingredients are 1) “minor” ingredients in their products, and 2) not commercially available in organic form.

1. Hops are not essential to the character of beer? Before I even knew what a hop was I knew it was what made beer beer. Not to mention beer cannot be legally labeled as such without hops.

2. Organic hops have been available commercially through such companies as Seven Bridges Cooperative for quite some time. And in a beautifully quick response to demand just a couple weeks ago, Anheuser-Busch began “brewing our nationally available organic beers with 100-percent organic hops.” Why? Because the USDA was stalled, and 100% organic was required before this proposal. Rather than be forced to pull their line of beer A-B suddenly sourced the hops they had previously claimed did not exist. A great push forward for organic hops farmers which is now threatened by this new proposal.

The OCA announced last week that the USDA has extended the comment period by two months, which means there is time to act! In order to preserve the integrity of organic certification, follow these steps and make the USDA remove hops from the list of ingredients:

ACTION STEPS:

1. Click here to file your opposition via the Organic Consumers Association website.

2. To read all 1,264 comments submitted during the original seven day comment period, go to www.regulations.gov, scroll down and click on “Advanced Search.” In the “Agency” pulldown menu, select “Agricultural Marketing Services.” Skip all the rest of the fields until the bottom, where you need to type “ams-tm-07-0062″ in the “Keyword” box and select “any word”. Then hit “submit.” It’ll only give you 14 results, but if you click on the hyperlinked “document ID” “ams-tm-07-0062″ you’ll get all 1,264 comments.

3. Grab a glass of your favorite organic brew and raise a toast to its continued organic status!

I wrote a while back about the USDA’s impending decision to require annual certification for every small organic coffee farm outside the US. I explain in the previous post how the current certification system works for small family farms:

The USDA’s National Organic Program includes farming cooperatives, made up of hundreds and sometimes thousands of small family farms, in its organic certification process by randomly inspecting 20% of each cooperative’s farms every year. By the end of a five year cycle every farm would be inspected and a liaison appointed to monitor the 80% of farms that would not be inspected every year. This provision for “grower groups” allows small farms in the poorer rural areas of poor nations to take part in the booming organics industry by making time consuming and costly inspections feasible for the cooperatives.

Annual certification for every small farm would have been impossible for cooperatives. First they simply would not have enough time to reliably inspect thousands of farms every year and second they could not afford the cost. The USDA’s National Organic Program has released a statement that will maintain its current certification program for grower groups and revisit the issue in the fall after further consideration. Good news for the small farmer.

Write a letter or call the National Organic Program to let them know what you think:

Mark Bradley
Associate Deputy Administrator
USDA-AMS-TMP-NOP
Room 4008-South Building
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20250-0020
Telephone: (202) 720-3252
Fax: (202) 205-7808

Hat tip to Sam Fromartz at Chews Wise (check out his original article on the issue at Salon.com) and the Coffee and Conservation blog.

Supersize Me is a documentary by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock in which he lives on nothing but McDonald’s for one month, following 3 simple rules:

1) No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2) No supersizing unless offered
3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once

In the end, his health deteriorates much faster than any doctors predicted. Not surprising, the golden arches responded to the theory that “if you eat too many carrots you’ll turn orange” with a few changes to the menu and a website arguing against the drastic health deterioration Spurlock experienced. While I find it hard to believe McDonald’s has gained any substantial ground towards the healthy end, it is also equally delusional to believe anyone pulls through those golden arches believing they’ve found a balanced and healthy meal. Can we ultimately villanize only the fast food chains? Do we as consumers not have a bit our increasing weight to carry? McDonald’s, along with all other fast food restaurants, cater to our hectic lives, they are convenient and taste good. Is there no alternative? Is the hope of a place to purchase healthy, organic and local value meals beyond imaging?

Much to Lawrencians joy, Hillary Brown has answered this question in Local Burger, “the next generation of burger joints!” Local Burger “buys its naturally raised meats and vegetables from 45 local vendors, most of which are located in Douglas County or a 20-mile radius of Lawrence.” Brown, along with the Sundance channel, also began a 30 day stint featuring Daniel Fisher, a confessed fast food junkie. Inspired by Spurlock’s adventure eating only McDonalds, Brown and Fisher took a different spin. Fisher would follow Spurlock’s rules, replacing the restaurant with Local Burger. Similar to Spurlock, Fisher received a full physical before and after the experiement.

The final results were weight loss of about 23 pounds and a dramatic drop in cholesterol from 285 to 166. Fisher learned to eat better, but not less. “I think it’s time for people to be aware of what they’re eating,” Brown said. “It doesn’t have to taste bad to be healthy, and it doesn’t have to be fat-free to be healthy.”

In addition to having some fantastic meals, they also host a weekly meat market from local farmers. And Brown is well aware of the impact typical restaurants leave upon the environment, and has addressed by sending all food scarps to a local farm for composting and recycling, as well as the carbon emissions saved from buying locally! They are continuing to strive towards the future with the following goals:

We have our hearts set on a super-high efficiency dishwasher - it’s all about saving a little H2O!

We hope to be using biodegradable to-go containers in the near future

We are looking into the use of solar panels and other ways to be energy efficeint at Local Burger

Also, be sure to check out The Green, a new series on the Sundance channel. Local Burger is featured on April 17th at 8 pm as part of the episode “Eat.”

Dr. Bronner’s famous magic soaps are now even more bewitching for the conscious consumer. The company set a goal to make 95% of the ingredients it uses in its soaps and lotions fair trade. With the addition of fair trade olive oil, one of the main ingredients in the soaps, the company has achieved its goal. The olive oil is sourced from the Holy Land where olives have been grown organically for centuries, about which Israeli born Dr. Bronner would be proud. Palestinian fair trade olive oil cooperative Canaan Fair Trade will provide the vast majority of the oil and a small portion will come from Sindyanna, a particularly special organization as its laborers includes both Arab and Jewish women. Both cooperatives support the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Israelis.

Dr. Bronner’s is an exceptionally cool company. Alicia and I use their Tea Tree Oil soap and love it. The soaps consist of all organic, and now fair trade, oils and while they do not use chemical lathering agents they lather up better than any soap I’ve ever used, which is part of the magic I guess. The stuff goes a long way, one 32 oz. bottle will last you many many months. I even use it as my shampoo and it can also be used to treat a special someone to an aromatic and skin-healthy massage.

Dr. Bronner’s made this video to announce the new fair trade olive oil and proudly introduce their new partner cooperatives.

The USDA’s National Organic Program includes farming cooperatives, made up of hundreds and sometimes thousands of small family farms, in its organic certification process by randomly inspecting 20% of each cooperative’s farms every year. By the end of a five year cycle every farm would be inspected and a liaison appointed to monitor the 80% of farms that would not be inspected every year. This provision for “grower groups” allowed small farms in the poorer rural areas of poor nations to take part in the booming organics industry by making time consuming and costly inspections feasible for the cooperatives.

A recent ruling by the NOP that requires all farms to be inspected every year will likely make inspections impossible for these small farm cooperatives. Inspections range from $150 to $270 per day for the co-ops and the time required to inspect every farm will rise by about 80%. The only farms likely to be able to afford to pay for inspections under the new ruling are large corporate farms.

This will affect coffee more than any other popular organic product. Coffee grows on shady mountain slopes and requires time consuming labor to maintain and harvest. The intensive process is most efficiently carried out by small family farms and very few large organic coffee operations exist, probably not enough to fill the rapidly growing demand in the US.

The ruling was made in reaction to an unnamed Mexican cooperative whose liaison failed to enforce the organic standards and let the use of insecticides and crop storage in fertilizer bags occur on one of its partner farms. While tightening enforcement of the organic standard is not inherently a bad idea its consequences could be grave for the small farmer.