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Can Biodiversity and Agriculture Coexist? How Super Metrics Made Wildlife Enemy #1 on the Farm (Day 4)

Think back to a time before agriculture existed. Hawks pounced on squirrels, coyotes chased field mice and bison roamed the Great Plains. Thousands of insects randomly pollinated umpteen numbers of plants, all scattered around having developed specific adaptations to their little hobbits. It wasn’t always a happy place – plenty of ruthless natural selection was taking place – but the species evolved to coexist into a hodgepodge we now call biodiversity.

Then came Homo sapien. As super hunters, we first decimated the populations of any large animals we found in Africa. Nomadically, we spread out of the continent – largely driven by the desire to find more of these animals – but even way back when, our actions caused irreparable damage to the ecosystems we encountered. When we simply ran out of animals to attack, forced to the brink of starvation, we finally settled down into communities and start farming. Only then did agriculture truly begin.

It’s from that background we begin to examine a tough question – can biodiversity exist in a world of monocrop staples like corn and rice, amphibian crushing pesticides, and food safety protocols that explicitly make farmers keep sterile fields free of small animals? The answers are varied from those we have spoken to on the Nutrition Wonderland Tour of America.

Different Approaches, Methods

Sustainability has become such a hot marketing concept that it often gets detached from its meaning, so it helps to define what we are talking about here.

Their logo

If you truly want to engage in the conservation of habitats before humanity ‘adjusted’ them, agriculture has no place. Sanctuaries and national parks serve that role, and perform an increasing important service in preserving these little oases. But that’s not what we are dealing with here says leading sustainable agriculture expert Jo Ann Baumgartner, director of the Wild Farm Alliance.

We spoke with her in the agricultural hotspot of Watsonville, CA, home to some of the most productive lands in the world. Her non-profit helps farmers move towards sustainable agriculture methods, some of which surprised us.

She explains sustainable agriculture is about allowing farms becoming a part of their natural environments, while still maintaining their ability to help feed humanity. Growing smaller, more diverse crops, restoring natural filtering grasses and hedges for wildlife around the periphery, reducing or eliminating chemicals – and allowing animals different pathways between their native habitats is all part of this delicate balancing act.

Many of these methods come into direct conflict with food safety. Exactly how that developed requires us to wind back the clock a few years.

How Wildlife Became the Enemy of the Farm

In 2006, there was a well publicized outbreak of e.coli in the spinach grown in California, causing a dramatic loss of money for farmers, handlers and anyone involved with the leafy greens. No one is quite sure about what exactly caused the contamination, but the best guess we have is that the feces of a feral pig who was harboring the disease came into contact with some spinach in a field.

Greens aplenty for the LGMA

Without a concrete explanation at hand, legislative powers in Sacramento began to rumble about tightening the screws on the spinach trade. This led most major growers to sign onto the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA), a codified set of enhanced food safety standards designed to keep your greens safe and sound. That was a pivotal moment for biodiversity on the farm Baumgartner explained, as habitat removal was drastically accelerated.

The source of the plight? A dirty buzzword among industry vets call supermetrics. This idea is promulgated by private buyers of leafy greens to distinguish certain operations which go beyond regular safety practices and meet a secret list of demands. A superficial look at these rules would make the whole thing seem like a laudable goal for every farmer. The reality though is quite different explained Diane Stuart, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz whose focus deals with the environmental impact of food safety legislation.

Supermetrics have become a key aspect wholesale buyers like grocery store chains use to determine from whom they will buy their crops. The tougher the standards, the more likely your crop is to sell. Consequently, farmers have ripped out native landscapes and hedges at an alarming rate.

Since the LGMA was put into place, the Monterey County Resource Conservation District office put together a survey of leafy greens growers and found that nearly 90% of all farmers questioned had removed a significant amount of native vegetation from their lands. This process is still going on today and it’s a never ending cycle added Stuart. If a farmer wants to sell his crop, he has to meet these standards. Failing to do so could literally mean the farm.

The Cost of Action, Inaction

The case for conservation of pristine habitats is known worldwide at this point, thanks to some very hard working individuals and organizations. But the idea of conserving nature on farms is still in its infancy.

The USDA’s Precious

The Wild Farm Alliance and a rag-tag collection of public interest groups are on the cutting edge of explaining this paradigm. Implementing reform takes the form of localized food systems that decentralize risk, developing biodiversity plans with farmers, farmer education and habitat restoration. Policy changes are also being contemplated with regard to agriculture, reflected in grumbling about the Farm Bill, food safety legislation and some new, aggressive USDA initiatives designed to get farmers to take better care of their lands.

Farming conservation grants are debuting this year at the USDA and they operate with similar logic to big industry. The name of the game is money, so consider the position financially. In economic terms, USDA needed to put a cost on an undesirable externality – in this case habitat destruction – and make that cost offset the lost value of the environment.

Its the same idea behind carbon ‘cap and trade’: heavy-handed government policy shaping land use patterns, anathema to the spirit of American agriculture. But with a projected population of 500 million by 2050 – the way we use land will change regardless. The idea sustainable farming advocates and now the USDA is to shape land use by smoothing out the impact agriculture has on the surrounding environment, a laudable goal much more funding needs to be directed into.

Is a New Way Even Possible?

But the real question is: just how safe do we want our food? What are we willing to lose in the process? Baumgartner put that question to us and its still ringing in our heads over here. Its not an easy question nor does it have a convenient answer.

Should farmers dress in spacesuits to avoid contamination? flick user ginza_line

Sustainable farming methods may not come at a large financial cost (although some definitely do), but the premises would require a sea change from consumers. The USDA can fund whatever it wants but most people want a bag of fresh greens and they want it safe. That choice writhes its way clear up to the farm – and the food system is responding with a product most people want, despite its environmental impact.

Are we willing to go back to heads of lettuce and bunches of spinach? For some, that answer is yes but for most its likely no. Diane Stuart explained how some processors are pioneering new techniques like irradiating the crops, using ozone and requiring more testing to ensure safety. But with large plants capable of processing 5000 bags per hour, there is inherently more risk. The air quality on airplane flights or the germs in a hospital immediately come to mind as examples.

Stuart was especially confident in the ability to change agriculture into a driving force for biodiversity in the environment but we are not so sure. We can adjust the processes all day long but if consumers continue to demand a super safe bag of spinach, someone out there is going to deliver it. Both experts we spoke with have excellent plans on how to get individual farms to use more sustainable methods but serious changes to the food system would be required to get there. For now, these changes impact fractions of a percentage of the farms that feed the US and the world – merely experiments on what could be.

Time will tell if we can reverse the trend of habitat destruction on farms in a substantial way and balance that with food safety measures. Decentralizing the food system as Stuart suggested would go a long way to ensuring one bad batch of food does not find its way across the entire country in a matter of days. Along with the habitat restoration technique, the tools we need to fix the problem are at hand now. The will to do so, however, remains illusive.

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This is Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America – Day 4, Watsonville/Salinas/Santa Cruz, CA

29 September 2009
Food Safety as a Marketing Tool: USDA Monterey Hearings on NLGMA (Day 3)

Nutrition Wonderland is now up in Monterey, CA as part of our Tour of America and today we are attending the first of the USDA’s hearings on nationally adopting the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA). This new proposal, dubbed the NLGMA, would extend the existing agreement that covers California and Arizona across the entire nation – even extending into Canadian and Mexican imports.

Harvesting in Salinas Valley

While it may seem a bit much to cover such a specific agreement, it is important to note that in this case, the USDA is literally borrowing a regulatory framework from industry – which is unusual. In fact industry, in this case Western Growers, is asking the USDA to adopt this policy at a national level. And remember, the LGMA only exists because of the massive consumer boycott that followed the 2006 e.coli outbreak in spinach. Consequently, it has been highly contentious with numerous public interest groups speaking out against the measure. We wanted to take a closer look at what is really being talked about here and how it would impact the small farmers it is largely targeting.

Full Steam Ahead

The first person we saw at the USDA hearing was Laura Mills, representative from Metz Fresh, a major handler/shipper for 10 large leafy greens growers. Most of her testimony was based around the idea of industry specific Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). She talked about the lengths LGMA signatories would go in order to meet – and often exceed – their own guidelines. Remember, LGMA was set up by the growers themselves, large ones at least, so the 2006 e.coli incident would never happen again.

Most of this behavior was fueled by ever pickier buyers says Mills. Don’t think of buyers as consumers, rather buyers refers to actors in the wholesale market – say Whole Foods or Safeway buying from a farm. These same buyers now look to growers who can exceed the LGMA standards by meeting supermetrics, as they were coined throughout the debate. Exceeding those LGMA standards sometimes comes with some severe environmental consequences, a topic we will cover in detail tomorrow but, industry reminds us, the result of this extra work is a safer food supply.

The consumers dictate the market and the buyers relay those signals upstream to the growers, says Mills. Safer food is the message being sent up the supply chain and LGMA is meeting those expectations. The question then becomes – just how safe do we want our food?

Hold Your Horses

One of the best counterpoints of the day was a gentleman named David Runsten, director of the non-profit Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF). This group of both large and small growers said they stand against the NLGMA. Runsten contends some very large leafy greens growers are also members in CAFF but we did not independently verify that. His general idea was completely the opposite of Mills, arguing against different standards for different crops. Small growers may have 1/2 acre plots of up to 100 different types of produce – especially for farmers targeting minority communities, Runsten added.

Case in point, we met the Yang Farm at the Silverlake Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles earlier this week. They had a host of crops catering to an asian tongue, like bitter mellon, chinese eggplant and asian pears. If there were an NLGMA for a variety of different crops, farms like Yang’s could be put into financial jeopardy – or more likely, they would simply stop growing the more regulatory onerous ones. When you see the diversity of crops local growers showcase at farmer’s markets, it gives Runsten’s argument significant weight in our minds.

Runsten’s continued in some other compelling ways. He mentioned the idea of leafy greens itself is a marketing term, a point lost on many in audience it seemed. This gets more contentious when you consider where to place truly leafy greens like cabbage, collard and mustard greens. As of now, they are outside the LGMA but still leafy and green – just not inside the industry fresh cut green packs we see in the stores, so they remain outside of the regulatory framework.

Case Study – California Strawberry Commission

Regulation is not the only path large growers can take to enhance food safety. Annika Forrester, the Food Safety and Grower Communications Specialist for the California Strawberry Commission, spoke with Nutrition Wonderland last week about how she helped develop a major new program to educate migrant farm workers about proper safety and sanitation in the fields.

The Commission became more interested in protecting its industry after a hepatitis outbreak in Guatemalan strawberries decimated the market for strawberries in America during the late 1990s, much the same way greens growers reacted. Couple the loss with the fact strawberries are field packed – that is the field workers literally package the berries you would find in your supermarket – this crop was ready for some food safety attention.

Forrester helped create an educational food safety flip chart which acts as a graphical guide, engineered to overcome language barriers common among migrant farm workers. Forrester mentioned specifically that migrant worker managers, often Mexican, have problems communicating with their employees, now coming from deeper in Mexico – regions like Chiapas and Oaxaca that are traditionally Mayan, where Spanish itself is a second language.

The California Strawberry Commission holds training sessions around California, educating the managerial work force directly, so they can train their farms hand in better sanitation practices. The program has been implemented in early 2009 and so far, over 500 managers have been trained – using the flip chart to educate another 35,000 field workers by Forrester’s estimates.

Is It Really Large Versus Small?

Large organizations, as a whole, do not see food safety as an unnecessary burden. Both the leafy greens growers and strawberry growers are taking steps, albeit very different ones. One point is universal though: everyone is eager to have a more streamlined regulatory framework. We heard from Drew McDonald of Taylor Farms, the largest processor of leafy greens at the USDA hearing, that lacking a coherent food safety agreement was a key reason the LGMA was created in the first place.

In the absence of such an overarching food safety agreement, self regulation becomes a marketing tool. Think of the way Volvo established itself as a car brand: safety IS a marketable aspect of all types of products. With leafy greens, large growers can say they have a procedure where smaller ones cannot and use that to raise prices. The market for local foods is now so strong, smaller farms can differentiate themselves in the market in other ways outside of safety without this agreement – like sustainability or biodiversity for example. Smart industry here would see LGMA as a marketing weapon they can use to establish a competing cache to the local scene.

Instead, what we saw here is that opinions on moving towards a national LGMA, an NLGMA, broke down into familiar categories. Large packers and handlers were strongly supportive of expanding the existing agreement – largely because they have nothing to lose. According to testimony at the USDA’s Monterey hearing, 90% of all leafy greens are currently covered under the agreement already – so applying that protocol nationally costs nothing to large growers/handlers because they are already doing it. Smaller, local farms that have not implemented the extra safety protocol would face substantial costs, estimated at between $25-50/acre (figure given during hearings).

Some Final Thoughts

But the real question here is why apply bother with all of this? Local, small leafy greens operations have not had any reason to implement anything like this because there has never been a large scale outbreak from those operations. Despite being asked by the USDA, no grower or packer could cite an outbreak having come from a farmer’s market. All of the contamination in leafy greens has come large scale producers – think back to the bagged spinach. It was not an isolated incident either.

This all makes some sense if you think about it. Small growers do not have large distribution networks, so even if there was a localized outbreak it would stay localized. In that sense, the CAFF opinion makes the most sense – extend the LGMA solely to fresh cut products and leave the rest out. That view ignores the contentious small/large farm dichotomy and instead focuses extra safety measures on where the problem has been – with distributor fresh cut product.

We will have to see how the situation develops, as there are 7-8 more of these events around the country. Simultaneously, the major food safety legislation before the Congress has now moved over to the senate, changing names from HR 2479 to S 510. As all of this advances, we will continue to look deeply into the issues for you.

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This is coverage for Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America, Day 3.

25 September 2009
David vs. Goliath: A Maasai Warrior, Regional Food Crisis & Agricultural Innovation (The Backpack Farm Program)

Welcome Rachel Zedeck of the Medea Group who explains to a Western Audience some of the problems going on in Eastern Africa, specifically how an inadequate agricultural system fails its own people. She puts forward a new solution – the Backpack Farm Program – and explains how it could help the people. Rachel will be regularly contributing her advice and experience on developing sustainable agricultural systems using a microfinance model in Eastern Africa.

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It was late in 2007 when I first arrived in Southern Sudan by way of Kenya, to research a new model of socially responsible agricultural development. Within a year and half, I was emotionally raw and physically exhausted. My personal battle with African development models had taken its toll. Even with several years of field experience in post conflict countries, I was ready to quit and crawl home.

Moses, a Maasai in modern day Kenya

Then, I got into a taxi driven by Mr. Moses Lenchula Lenkupae. Well dressed, soft spoken and polite, I immediately felt safe in his presence. Perhaps this was because Moses is a Maasai warrior from Samburu, an arid and picturesque region 7 hours drive from Nairobi.

Well educated by Kenyan standards, he came to Nairobi to drive a taxi because it was the easiest way for him to find employment. He explained to me that as the eldest son in his family, he needed to help support his mother, 7 brothers and sisters – and now his father’s second wife and two newborn babies.

Immersion Comes at a Price

During the following months, I learned more about his family as well as the plight of the Maasai people in Samburu. Both groups regularly face raids on their cattle from the neighboring Turkana, Pokot and Borana tribes as well as corrupt police units regularly spilling over into bloodshed. Just last week more than 21 Samburu Maasai were killed in tribal violence.

But the Maasai have struggled since the turn of the century when a viral epidemic killed large herds of cattle and goats. This tragedy was followed by severe drought caused by successive years of short rains. Over half of the Maasai and their animals perished. Soon after, more than two thirds of Maasai lands in Kenya were taken away by the British and Kenya governments to create settler ranches, which are now the well trodden wildlife reserves and national parks of both Kenya and Tanzania.

Drought, a common site in the Horn of Africa – thanks to suburbanbloke on flickr

In 2009, severe drought is once again killing Maasai herds in Samburu. The damage extends throughout Kenya’s pastoralist regions, including Mombassa and the arid North East Province (NEP). Herds of animals are being brought into the cities despite the drought, but they are often sick and dying animals, too weak or poor quality for sale. That has sent the prices of cattle, goats and sheep plummeting, sometimes more than 80%. Local herders have little recourse since they do not know how to diversify their business models during high risk months.

But still Moses continues to drive his taxi through town either in a well pressed oxford and tie or his traditional red robe and beads.

The Grain Crisis

The pain doesn’t stop there for Moses or East Africa though. As a result of drought and short rains, the region’s grain belts are simply not producing enough grain to support regional demand; coupled with disproportionate demand for food aid to support humanitarian emergencies in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan (North and South). In the last 18 months, the grain prices in the East Africa region have fluctuated wildly with average maize price in 2009 some 20-60% higher than historical norms.

Dramatic PRice Fluctuations in Staple Crops, image thanks to isivivane.com

These numbers represent more than simple price fluctuations or the impact of drought, but also the region’s integrated vulnerability. If one country in the East Africa region suffers from short rains and a weak harvest, then the region suffers as a whole. But there are those of us who believe there is always hope.

With an estimated 100 million small landholder farmers in East Africa and an additional 25 million in South Africa, these farmers represent a tangible, practical solution to the region’s food insecurity while increasing rural income as well as impacting the GDP in their prospective countries. How to turn more than 100 million farmers into a productive food system for Africa, capable of overcoming regional conflict and drought, has been out of reach. These economic problems become more real when you see them up close.

My friend Moses’ sister Rose was brought to Nairobi last year with acute Malaria and almost died. There is only one clinic in his community and it refuses to treat anyone who can not prove they can pay at the gate before entering the compound. Luckily Moses can help provide with his taxi income but many others cannot.

Ideally the community could fund their own health clinic, providing the services they need at prices they can afford. But none of that can happen amidst famine, where entire families struggle to survive. Western safety nets are unknown here and the people of this region need to be earning enough from either cattle or subsistence farming to provide for their families. I don’t want to see another Rose go without the care she deserves, which has driven me to find a solution.

A Practical Solution – A Farm in a Backpack

With both the land and a workforce capable of producing food, my organization began to see that maybe the commercial world could succeed where so many UN and NGO programs had failed before.

In April 2009, after two years of frustration, I finally secured what I call my ‘wonder’ team of agriculture experts. Together we have launched the Backpack Farm Program. The program enhances bottom pyramid value chains which target small landholder farmers’ production models with cutting edge agricultural inputs, training and monitoring.

The Drip Irrigation Model

Currently, small landholder farmers lack both the technical capacity and financial equity to enter the wholesale markets – which could substantially alter the food crises of East Africa. Their yields are typically poor, estimated at one-quarter of the global average leading to insidious hunger and poverty. To counter the weak production, our partner Lachlan Agriculture designed the “fusion farming” model, a combination of biological products, botanicals and reduced toxicity pesticides.

By eliminating the need for traditional fertilizers, and distributing a customized and cost effective drip irrigation system and training on green water management (rainwater) techniques, we think the Backpack farm model could potentially create a huge shift the mindset of how to develop rural economies and impact Africa’s food insecurity.

Bringing It Home

Solutions like the Backpack Farm Initiative can’t wait. I often think about Moses. While he isn’t rich, he can help his family and saves to expand his business. His real dream is to attend an American university to study animal husbandry and then return to Samburu to attract new commercial investments in cattle farming.

Moses talks about Samburu like it is his own magical kingdom, one given to him by his ancestors. He reminds me of what real struggle and commitment means in Africa. I have no right to give up on my dream of being part of the solution to feed Africa when he continues to work 18 hour days to help his family survive. I hope to help him lead the warriors in his village to build a new future for his people by using the land they have lived on for thousands of years in a new way that is genuinely sustainable for the people of East Africa.

23 September 2009
Farming on the Edge

22 September 2009
Is the Strawberry the Future of American Agriculture? (Day 1)

Nutrition Wonderland’s first stop of the journey is an exceptionally beautiful place called Oxnard, California. It anchors a rapidly growing area but more importantly, it is the principal city in the Oxnard Plain – one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Known as the Strawberry Capital of the World, Oxnard also grows cucumbers, peppers, herbs, oranges, lemons, tomatoes, lima beans – the list goes on. In short, this place is an agricultural mecca.

The model?

Still, this community is at a turning point. The same beauty that gives the region bumper crops also jeopardizes its agricultural future. As it turns out, a delicately crafted piece of legislation and high yield crops are all that stands between the region turning into a concrete jungle like formerly agricultural Orange County. We spoke with the California Strawberry Commission in the California Strawberry Festival’s Oxnard office this past week about some of the challenges and opportunities facing their industry – and more generally – agriculture.

The Past into the Present

Carolyn O’Donnell, the Communications Director for the California Strawberry Commission, introduced us to some of the background involved with Oxnard and its strawberries. The community gets its name from agriculture; its named after a pair of sugar beet processing brothers that came to the area back in the late 1800s. Today, the region is home to the majority of strawberry production in the United States, an intensive production of continuing harvests that occurs twice annually.

One of the most interesting points in our discussion came from Sue Odgers, resident of the area for 50 years who has watched Oxnard transform from a 1970s population of 26,000 to well over 200,000 today. The region wasn’t always known for its strawberries as it is today, she told us. The community used to be known as the lima bean capital of the world, along with growing a sizable amount of sugar beets.

Crops Growing in Oxnard

Our tour of some of the farms in the area bear out Odgers observation. We saw many fields of red bell peppers ready for the picking, an incredibly sophisticated tomato hothouse and, of course, some early planting of strawberries. The common theme with all these crops? Higher selling prices at market. After all, strawberries are far more sexy than lima beans.

Moving To High Dollar Crops

The move from cheaper crops to high dollar produce mirrored the change in population. Strawberries specifically are a very high dollar crop, so each farm can extract more dollars-per-acre than with lima beans. The switch in crop cover, it turns out, was a vital move in maintaining the area’s agricultural base – and one that could easily be overlooked as other agricultural communities look to emulate Oxnard’s success.

With all the extra strawberry coverage in Oxnard, we asked about pesticide usage, as berries in general regularly score highly in pesticide residues (.pdf link). O’Donnell pointed to continued growth in organics, now over 5% of the crop, and also mentioned that these harvests are inherently more sustainable than other crops simply because multiple harvests can come out of one field in the same year. The Commission is also making a push to replace methyl bromide by funding research into methods that can reduce dependence on the dangerous fumigant.

Connecting to the Community

Sue Odgers, a volunteer who sits on the California Strawberry Festival board, also plays a vital role in connecting the community to its signature crop by helping to organize an annual festival. Now in its 27th year, the two day California Strawberry Festival is a celebration of the food – and the region. Local arts and crafts creators stand shoulder to shoulder with growers, cooks and community leaders.

A Picture of the Festival in Action, thanks to the CSC

Attendance is strong and focused around enjoying a variety of strawberry products, the favorite of which is a build-your-own strawberry shortcake booth. Odgers also described the scholarship fund the festival has setup. Now over $1,000,000 strong, the scholarship goes directly to help the children of migrant farms workers afford higher education.

Creating the connection between the farmers and residents of the cities on the Oxnard Plain is crucial so that residents see sprawl as taking away something meaningful from the communities. Such involvement helped the Ventura County region stay ahead of the development as we learned from Annika Forrester, the Food Safety and Grower Communications Specialist for the California Strawberry Commission.

Ventura County’s Different Plan

Oxnard’s complex farming past has evolved into legislation to stay ahead of the changes wrought by sprawl Forrester explained. Every 10 years, the state of California requires each county to publish its ‘General Plan’ for land use which, taken together, guide growth around the state. California tends to reinforce suburban style land uses which primarily convert agricultural land into tract home and strip mall development, according to sources inside the planning office we contacted.

Image from the S.O.A.R. Intiative

The first community to actively organize against this planned encroachment was Napa Valley back in 1990, whose voters passed the Measure J. Its legal success against developer’s challenges that went all the way to the California Supreme Court provided Ventura County – home to Oxnard and other agricultural communities – a blueprint for how to protect their lands.

This culminated into the S.O.A.R initiative of Ventura County, an amendment to the General Plan passed back in 1998. The initiative locks in land uses primarily so agricultural lands stay that way. Ventura County went a step further and established an urban growth boundary, appropriately called CURB, that restricts all development outside said lines (Learn More Here). Only a simple majority vote can bend the CURB’s restrictions.

All the members of Strawberry Commission referred to the impact this legislation has had on the region. Without it, it seems beyond likely that many more acres of prime farmland would have been lost to development.

A Way Forward

To get people to eat better and practice better nutritional habits, we as a nation must physically have the right foods available for people to eat. Strawberries, along with the myriad of other crops coming out of the Oxnard Plain, are part of that answer. We have all seen the studies associating produce consumption with a reduction in chronic disease [1, 2, 3] – but translating a health answer into development policies is complex and hard to understand at a distance.

From what we saw, the Strawberry Commission is doing a good job of bridging that chasm between frenetic city life and more traditional agricultural farmers with their festival. While we would have hoped to see more than 5% of their total crop as organic, that percentage is surely growing – and its still more important that the crop continues to exist, organic or not. And that’s the real issue facing Oxnard and many other communities – how do we make development and agriculture work together?

Communities will have to assign higher values to agriculture in general. Oxnard is fortunate in that sense. The community came together to draft aggressive legislation that aimed to keep the area’s agricultural history intact. Switching from lima beans to strawberries and other high value crops also helped by driving up the value of agricultural lands, giving local farmers some ammunition against soaring land prices. But not every community can be the strawberry capital of the world.

Balancing population growth while still being able to grow the food for those new mouths will require delicate planning that may change from community to community. Oxnard, with a combination of legislation, community involvement and adoption of higher value crops, is a great example of how to make this work. However, development challenges will continue and forward thinking communities have to get out in front of the issues before land uses change forever.

When we travel up the coast to Santa Cruz, we will explore the other side of this issue: conservation of undeveloped land. The big question we will be asking is how to transition conventional agriculture into a lower impact, sustainable land use that can co-exist with natural open spaces. We will be speaking with the Wild Farm Alliance, the Monterey Aquarium and the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Sustainable Agriculture school to find out how they think it can work.

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This is the story from Day 1 of Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America.

22 September 2009
Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America Begins in California
Nutrition Wonderland’s 2009 Tour of America has begun! We are now in California, visiting with a host of organizations that are changing how agriculture and medicine are practiced. If you want to know more about our tour, check out an overview of our mission on this tour. See our stops in the interactive map below:

View Nutrition Wonderland’s Tour of America – California in a larger map.

Here is the latest list of who we are visiting out on the road during this first stretch of the journey and what we are doing there:
- Hollywood Farmers Market – Hollywood/LA, CA: We will attend the largest farmers market in the Los Angeles metro area and speak with farmers about establishing a directory for all of their wares.
- California Strawberry Association – Oxnard, CA: We will be discussing how Oxnard became the strawberry capital of the world, the renown festival and history of the areas.
- USDA Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Expansion Session – Monterey, CA: We will be attending the USDA’s meeting on expanding this food safety initiative, weighing the pros and cons.
- Wild Farm Alliance – Watsonville, CA: We will be talking with leaders of the organization about how to make conservation and sustainable agriculture co-exist in a world with limited resources.
- University of California, Santa Cruz: Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems – Santa Cruz, CA: We will be discussing many of the complex conservation agreements the University researchers are engaging farmers with.
- Rainbow Light Vitamins – Santa Cruz, CA: We hope to learn about the secret sauce that makes food form vitamins more effective at nutrient absorption than their regular counterparts.
- Farmsreach.com – San Francisco, CA: We will be speaking with the founders of this organization that are using technology to help overcome some of the market obstacles facing better local food distribution for regional restaurants.
- All Edibles Landscapes – Oakland, CA: Leaders of this organization will be teaching us the virtues of building micro-agricultural systems in small homeowner’s gardens.
- University of California, Davis: MIND Institute – Sacramento, CA: UC Davis researchers will be showing us the progress behind the MIND Institute’s groundbreaking Autism Phenome Project, the largest pro
- Lundberg Farms – Richvale, CA: One of the original pioneers in sustainable farming, we will speak to the famous rice farmers in Northern California about why they began promoting this style of farming before so many others.
We will post our pictures, stories and videos as we visit everyone. As you can see, we are already quite booked up but if you are interested in saying hello, drop us a line at mailto:[email protected]
21 September 2009
When You Should Eat

More often than not, dieters focus exclusively on what’s going into their bodies. They cut out food groups, add food groups, count calories and create meal plans. But research has found out that while what you eat does matter, when you eat has a big impact, too. According to new research from Northwestern University published in the journal Obesity, eating at night can increase weight gain by more than 25%!

The Background

Watch the clock when you are eating, thanks Steven Depolo

Our bodies have an innate timing system called the “Circadian Rhythm” or “Circadian Clock.” Hormones and chemical releases tend to tell us when we’re supposed to wake up, when to sleep, and a variety of other day-to-day activities. Some of these can be altered with consistent changes to daily patterns – getting up a few hours earlier, for example, can affect when your body decides it’s time to get up. But others are dependent on external influences and are much harder to shift. It’s been suggested for a long time that our bodies internal clock has a big effect on our weight loss or gain.

Meals eaten in the morning, for example, have different hormonal effects than the same meals eaten in the afternoon. One of the major factors seems to be cortisol levels, which, after not eating all night long, are much lower in the AM.

When dieting, we’re often warned not to eat late at night. This conventional wisdom, however, has generally had little support scientifically. No studies have shown whether the daily effects we see are absolute or simply due to current patterns. In other words, if a person were to change when they normally eat, it’s possible that the effects we see from morning v. afternoon meals would change, too. Specifically, if one were to eat at night, it’s suggested that the increased cortisol levels would negate the effects seen by other meal-timing studies.

So where does the “don’t eat at night” wisdom come from? Well, mostly, scientists have shown that people tend to eat more when they snack later, thus increasing their overall calorie intake and subsequent weight gain.

But Northwestern University researchers started to think there was more to it. They noticed that late-night shift workers who end up regularly eating at odd hours of the day tended to weigh more than their daytime shift counterparts. Were they really just eating more than the daytime shifts, or did the timing of their meals have an effect on their weight?

Northwestern University researchers hypothesized that there was more going on. They wanted to know if our body’s daily rhythms have an impact on how food is processed. So, they designed a study with mice to determine if eating at night has an affect on weight gain.

The Study

Watch those midnight snacks, or fat mouse disease might strike.

To determine how our circadian clock affects weight gain, the researchers took mice and fed them a high fat diet. They split the mice into two groups, allowing both groups of mice to eat as much as they wanted for 12 hours, and recorded how much they ate and their activity levels.

The only difference between the groups was that one group was fed during the normal waking hours, the other, during the night. They gave each group the exact same food with the exact same nutritional values and fat content, to see if timing alone affected weight gain. After six weeks – plenty of time for their mice bodies to adjust to the patterns – the results were staggering.

Both groups ate the same amount of food and had the same levels of activity. And, because they had such a high-fat diet, both groups gained weight. Those fed during the day increased their body mass by an average of 20%. But the nighttime fed mice gained a lot more than that, increasing their body mass by an average of 48%. That’s 28% more weight gain just by eating at night instead of during the day!

The researchers are following up by looking into the molecular mechanisms behind this increased weight gain. Their hunch is that the few hormones that are on strict circadian clocks (ones that don’t change even when you stay up all night repeatedly, for example) might influence how fat is processed in the body.

The Take Home Message

Just like you have to think about your activity levels when working towards weight loss, you have to consider when you eat as much as what you eat. And not eating at night is just one facet of this: how many meals a day, what you eat at which meals, and when you eat those meals during the day also have impacts on the overall success of the diet. Cutting calories isn’t everything!

Arble, D., Bass, J., Laposky, A., Vitaterna, M., & Turek, F. (2009). Circadian Timing of Food Intake Contributes to Weight Gain Obesity, 17 (11), 2100-2102 DOI: 10.1038/oby.2009.264

17 September 2009
Plastic Troubles: Brominated Flame Retardants (PBDEs)
In general, we think of plastics as non-flammable. Sure, the pyromaniacs among us have put a lighter to picnic cutlery to see what happens, but for the most part we know they melt, not burn, and are not exactly the best source of tinder or firewood.

But that’s not actually true. Almost all pure plastics are inherently flammable. When exposed to heat and flame, the polymers in plastics split into smaller, more volatile pieces. As oxygen reacts with these new compounds, more heat is produced, further ensuring a combustion reaction. This chain reaction continues until all of the plastic is broken down.

Even with flame retardants, plastics can burn – Pic by tronics on flickr

On top of the actual flame, burning of plastics can also be dangerous as it can create toxic gasses from the chemical components. Thus, as you can imagine, flammability is a huge problem for plastics used anywhere where heat might occur – near currents in electronics, in the kitchen, even furniture. The only thing that keeps most plastics from going up in smoke are the flame retardants mixed into the plastics themselves.

Keeping the Flame at Bay

Flame retardants act to stop the chain reaction that heat and flame cause, either slowing or preventing the spread of the fire all together. Almost all plastics that we come in contact with have added flame retardants in them to prevent ignition. One of the most popular types of compounds used in plastics are brominated flame retardants. As the name suggests, they all contain bromine. These are applied to 2.5 million tons of plastic polymers annually. One particular group, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDBEs), are used so much that the world consumes 40,000 metric tons of it every year, with 34,000 or so of those being manufactured in North America.

The variety of products that use brominated flame retardants is astounding. They’re in:
- almost every piece of electronics you buy from TVs to computers
- carpets
- paints
- kitchen appliances
- upholstery
- car parts
- building materials
They’re so well used by the industry because they work great. Not only do they prevent ignition, they slow the spread of fire, giving anyone near it precious extra seconds to escape.

Of course, like the other compounds added to plastics, brominated flame retardants and PDBEs don’t all stay neatly wrapped up in the plastics they’re added to. They, like BPA and phthalates we covered earlier, tend to leech out into the environment, which is where the danger sets in.

What Are PBDEs? And why are low levels potentially dangerous?

PBDE, in its chemical glory

With over 209 different compounds used, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDBEs) are the largest group of brominated flame retardants used in plastics. They’re split into two types: “lower brominated,” or containing less than 5 bromines, or “high brominated,” with more than five. The big concern is with the more popular lower brominated PBDEs, as they are known to bioaccumulate.

Most of the time, we worry about acute exposures. That’s when the body has a sudden, high dose of something bad for it, to the point that it can’t deal. For example, if you chug a 24 pack of Bud Light in less than an hour, you’ll probably get acute alcohol exposure and be rushed to the hospital. But, odds are that if you are treated fast enough and have your stomach pumped, you’ll be fine in a few days. Your body processes alcohol fairly quickly – though it might not seem like it when we’re horribly hungover. In that sense, most people don’t have to worry about PBDEs. While common, your daily exposure is pretty low, so unless you go chugging chemicals at a plastics plant you’re not likely to suffer from acute exposure to PBDEs.

Bioaccumulation is Different

Bioaccumulation refers to the amount of a substance, usually toxic, that occurs in an organism over a much greater period of time. It occurs when a substance is absorbed or stored at a faster rate than it is lost, causing it to ‘accumulate’ in the body. When bioaccumulation occurs, smaller environmental levels can have a much larger impact.

Imagine if every time you had a drink, your body simply couldn’t get rid of the alcohol in the beer, and instead, it lingered in your tissues. You could have one drink a week, but still within a few weeks you’d be drunk all the time. That’s what happens with PBDEs – they sit in your body, and don’t go anywhere. Unlike BPA where you have to have a threshold daily dose for effects to occur, PBDEs can be toxic at extraordinary low daily doses – it just takes longer for the effects to show.

If beer bioaccumulated like PBDEs, we’d all be in big trouble, thanks to flickr user tambako for the stunning shot

PBDEs bioaccumulate in blood, breast milk, and fatty tissues. Because they’re so common, the average person is exposed to PDBEs from all kinds of places. You inhale them as they evaporate from building materials in your home and eat them when they leech from your tupperware. For that matter, it’s not just the plastics in your life you have to worry about.

Humans aren’t the only species that PDBEs bioaccumulate in, and as they become more prevalent in the environment, they become more prevalent in our foods. Significant concentrations have been found in popular foods like salmon, ground beef, butter and cheese. The higher up an animal is on the food chain, the more of a bioaccumulating compound it’s likely to have. And that’s not good news for us people, who reside squarely at the top.

There’s reason to fret about PBDEs – their close cousins have already been banned as health risks. You might have heard of them – polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. They, too, were used as flame retardants, as well as other things, starting in the early 20th century.

More deformed fish will pop up unless we get rid of these chemicals

It became clear, though, by the 1970s that PCBs were seriously dangerous organic pollutants, causing birth defects, impairing brain and memory functions, and increasing the risk of some forms of cancers. But that was not before General Electric released up to 1,300,000 lbs of PCBs into the Hudson River, prompting the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to ban all fishing in the upper Hudson due to unacceptably high health risks to anyone who consumed their catch. And, unfortunately, GE was not alone. The effects of PCB use still linger today, especially in aquatic animals. And PBDEs are already accumulating – research has shown that PBDEs are at least as prevalent as PCBs in Lake Michigan salmon, for example.

Effects of PDBEs

Like with all plastic chemicals, kids are at the highest risk (sukanto_debnath credit)

In the United States, PBDE concentrations are rising, especially in children. Toddlers and preschoolers have 3 times higher blood concentrations of flame retardants than their mothers – an average of 62 parts per billion. And adults aren’t off the hook. A study in Spain in 2003 found that adult men there were chowing down 97 nanograms/day in their meals. No study has looked at the daily intake in the United States, although previous studies have shown that Americans rank among the highest in bodily concentrations of PBDEs. U.S. mothers, for example, had concentrations of PBDEs 75 times higher than the average levels in Europe. And no one, anywhere, has studied how much of what we ingest stays in our bodies, accumulating in our fatty tissues.

While “parts per billion” and “nanograms” might sound like a very small amount, it’s still dangerous, especially for kids. Even a single, low dose given to developing mice caused permanent behavioral and neurological changes. Other studies have found that over time, PBDEs alter thyroid function, disrupt brain development, drive cells towards cancerous activity and even cause hyperactivity.

Unfortunately, the study of PBDEs is still fairly new. It wasn’t until after the fiasco with PCBs that PBDEs were phased into use, and research has not had the time to fully study the long-term effects of these chemicals. What we have seen, however, isn’t looking good. Blood concentrations are quickly approaching the EPA’s magical “safety limit” for people, and research continues to show lower and lower doses having detrimental effects on animals.

Where We Go From Here

The good news is governments are taking notice of PBDE and the dangers involved. In the 1990s, the European Union began replacing brominated flame retardants, and levels in breast milk there have decreased in response. They one-upped themselves in 2006 by flat out banning the use of certain PBDEs in electronics. In the U.S., states like California, Hawaii, New York, Michigan and Maine have already passed PBDE banning legislation, and other states are following. But the federal government has yet to listen to the complaints against PBDEs or take any action against them.

The bad news is, if you live where it isn’t banned, there’s not much you can do to avoid it. Even if you do live where it’s no longer added, older furniture and plastics will still contain PBDEs. The best you can do is support organizations like Greenpeace which seek to see PBDEs banned entirely or petition your local politicians to make it an issue. There are alternatives to brominated flame retardants, and new technology continues to find ways around using harsh chemicals to prevent fires. We should to our best to remind industrial companies that being cheaper doesn’t make a chemical better – we need to find new ways to make what we need without poisoning our children and environment in the process.
3 September 2009
Plastic Troubles: Phthalates and Plasticizers
Plastic is a buzzword lately but mostly for the wrong reasons. Medical studies have lined up against the ubiquitous substance and the seas have filled with the jetsam and flotsam of our plastic society. Yet, if there was one compound responsible for this situation more than any other, phthalates might just wear the crown.

Chemistry

Phthalates make plastic, well, plasticy. Many consumer goods are made up of very hard plastic compounds that do not allow finished products to move as required, like the PVC piping you find in many modern homes or the casing to your internet router. And with a little phthalate magic added into the chemical mix, those PVC molecules that were once rigid in the pipes of your home are now free to form the flowing plastic carpet you often find beneath your feet.

Phthalates keep Fish Oil Omega3’s in place – thanks to flickr user Deco Fernandes

In fact, these molecules are so unique and helpful, they have found their way into almost everything we use. Personal care products, mechanical lubricants, paints, modeling clay, shower curtains, food containers and wrappers, even children’s toys all have some phthalates mixed in. Health care items like the coatings of prescription pills and supplements are also guilty.

The magic of phthalates is that they allow the larger polymer plastic molecules to slide against one another more easily. Phthalates move so well because they do not bond directly those large molecules, leaving them roam about in some cases. Roaming phthalates leech away from their plastic motherships, leading to that new car smell, paint fumes and the heavy offgausing associated with new flooring.

Health Risk Debate

With the volume of phthalate in existence, our exposure to such materials is obviously high. Our main exposure is from what we eat but inhalation and absorption through the skin are also important factors. Some scientists suggest that children are so regularly exposed to the plastic that they contain levels up to 20X what is known to be safe [1]. Part of the reason so little has been done about phthalates is that no one is perfectly sure what ‘safe’ really is. So, the real debate with phthalates at this point has to do with quantity required to cause damage.

Suggested exposures depend heavily on body weight and stage of life. On study gave a rough estimate 5-20 micrograms of phthalates per kilogram of body weight, with higher exposures in younger populations [2]. Other studies suggest that we really aren’t quite sure what the exposure levels are, and consequently all of this needs more study [3]. We do know that phthalates have been shown to cross the placenta and transfer from mother to fetus and such exposure has been linked to risk factors and the inital stages of prostate cancer and to changes in emotional stability as adults, all things we could do without.

Newborns are at the greatest risk, thanks to flickr user michelleannb

Scientists classify phthalates as definite endocrine disruptors, a class of chemicals that throws off the body’s hormone signaling system. Studies have shown high doses can cause birth defects in rats and even deformities in people. Phthalates in particular are singled out from other plastics as a very possible epidemiological reason for the lower sperm counts seen across men in the Western world.

Such bold claims come from correlations found between phthalate exposure and young boys with shortened “anogenital distance”, decreased penis size and improperly descended testicles [4], all major public health issues facing 21st century policy makers. Prenatal exposure was also shown to negatively effect reproductive development in young boys.

Youngest at the Greatest Risk

But of any one study, Pediatrics really turned the heat up on phthalates back in early 2008 when they reported that 81% of all infants had significant phthalate exposure from simple household items like shampoos, lotions and powders [5]. Most troublesome was the way in which researchers deduced how young infants might have the highest exposure: by simply being kids. From the study (-ed emphasis mine):

Children have unique development and behavior that may predispose them to higher exposure susceptibility. When children are born, they immediately develop hand-to-mouth behaviors. They cannot move on their own and are therefore exposed predominantly to ambient air exposures, oral ingestion of breast milk/formula, and [skin] exposure to specific infant care products. As infants develop, they begin to move around, crawl, and have increased hand-to-mouth behaviors with the potential for increased exposure to phthalate sources in the environment. But its not just children who have to worry, there is concern with adults too as phthalates have been linked to cancerous activity in adult cells.

Since this publication, the EU and the state of California have effectively banned many phthalates from the consumer market, with California more conservatively banning them from toys and children’s products. These bans have been especially contentious because unsafe exposure levels remain unknown and, more importantly, the size of the industry in question.

The Political Dimension

Despite growing concerns and widespread exposure, phthalate exposure continues almost completely unabated in the United States. One of the cardinal organizations responsible for this is the American Chemistry Council (ACC). This group’s name spoofs the largest and arguably most respected scientific organization in the world – the American Chemical Society (ACS) – but it obeys a very different master: corporations.

The ACC represents all of the plastic companies and it obviously disagrees that phthalates cause problems. They have been way out in front of this debate, publishing smears against phthalate detractors as recently as 2005 in prestigious medical journals. They have even built a special website just for phthalates – http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_phthalate/ – and convened a “The Phthalate Esters Panel” to examine the facts through the warped lens of plastic manufacturers.

The ACC does show that a wide range of products depend upon phthalates, from vinyl siding to medical devices and raincoats. Other important uses like duct tape and protection films for food products have all benefited society. But the ACC stance ignores scientific progress being made by their own members.

Plastics without harmful phthalates have already been developed and deployed by major chemical companies like Dupont, with high customer satisfaction in some of the most demanding industrial environments. Phthalate-free plastic welding is now also possible. So it’s clear the innovations to move past phthalates are here today, giving manufacturers a bridge into the future of safer plastics from previous technologies like PVC. What lacks are proper market forces or government regulation in the US to make the change occur.

Steps To Take

Here are some of the most basic steps you can take to protect yourself from this plastic:
- -Let new carpeting/vinyl flooring off-gas while you are not present
- -If painting, use proper ventilation to avoid excessive phthalate exposure
- -Buy new electronic items that are RoHS compliant (a European standard that bans some phthalates)
- -Buy consumer products in steel/glass when possible
- -Purchase newer toys for kids, as many companies must comply with California’s ban on phthalates
Small consumer purchases add up, so take account of what you are buying and try to avoid bendable plastics when you can.
31 August 2009
Book Review: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

pon searching for research for my last article about the social aspects of eating, I stumbled upon a book with a very intriguing title. It’s called “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think“, and is written by a nutritional scientist by the name of Brian Wansink. He studies the psychology of eating, and has spent his career trying to understand the hidden cues that determine what and how much we eat.

Mindless Eating Quick Facts

It seemed like an intriguing concept: studying the little changes that make us “mindlessly” eat. And at under 300 pages, it is a quick easy read. It promised to show “why you may nor realize how much you’re eating, what you’re eating – or why you’re even eating at all” – a tall order for a short, pop-psych book. I figured if it even half delivered on that promise, it would be an interesting read, so I sat down and dove in. Here’s my thoughts on the book.

One Word: Whoa

This book is simply great. Amazon.com readers have given it the stellar rating of 4 1/2 stars, and I agree. It’s easy to read, completely intelligible, yet delves into the hard science behind psychological nutrition studies. I’m extremely impressed with how fluidly the author explains the science and the meaning of it. You don’t have to have a PhD to understand the research that has been done and what it found. And that’s a good thing, considering how unique and mindblowing the research is that he talks about.

Does food with a brand name taste better? Yes, actually. Does the size of your plate change how much you eat? Um, yeah, it does. Do you change how you eat based on how others eat? Yep. Do you presume that there’s no way you fall into the same silly traps as everyone else? Yes, and yet you do.

The key point that Wansink makes, in my opinion, is that no matter how smart you are, how much you think about food, or how carefully you think you make your decisions – you, too, mindlessly eat. We might acknowledge that others could be tricked, but not us. That is what makes mindless eating so dangerous. We are almost never aware that it is happening to us,” Wansink writes. He’s done studies using students who have just taken a 90 minute class on the subject, intelligent groups of people, experts in a particular profession, and even the very scientists who do the research themselves! All of them mindlessly eat and drink. No one is immune to these small, pervasive influences.

However, that’s no reason to get all upset. Sure, give us a short, wide glass and we’ll drink more than if given a tall skinny one. We’ll eat more from a big package than a little one. But that means you have a way of changing your diet and your eating and drinking habits – just get taller glasses and eat from smaller packages. Throughout the book he gives simple tips that, if followed, allow you to eat and drink 100 less calories a day. 100 calories. That’s it. While it seems slight, it’s what he calls the ‘mindless margin’ – the amount you won’t notice you’re not eating.

Food For Thought

The Cover

As I’ve told you before, your body reacts strongly to what it thinks is starvation – aka a sudden drop in food intake. It doesn’t really matter if you were eating too much before anyhow, your body freaks out and fights against our attempts at weight loss. I’ve warned of the physiological side effects of serious calorie cutting and crash dieting. It’s no surprise that Wansink, too, berates this behavior. The key to successful weight maintenance, he claims, is instead to shed pounds slowly by seemingly not changing a thing. To mindlessly lose weight instead of mindlessly gain it.

And it makes sense, too. If you cut 100-200 calories out a day you’ll be able to drop about a pound a month without even trying. You’ll get slimmer without feeling deprived or frustrated. He suggests picking 3 changes and trying them for one month, tracking daily how you do. You don’t have to be perfect, but the daily, written reminder will help you get on track and follow your goals. After all, it only takes a month to change a habit – 28 days, according to scientists. So if you can make it the first month you’re much more likely to be able to continue it past that.

Just imagine how great you would feel if you do that and eat a little healthier, too.

I think that just about everyone I know can benefit from reading this book. As Wansink writes:

“We may not be able to outlaw every drive-through restaurant or tax every pint of ice cream in our community, but we can re-engineer our personal food environment to help us and our families eat better.” While we may not be able to change all of the ways we mindlessly eat, we can change a few of them, and that’s enough to have a marked impact on our day to day lives. And in doing that, “we turn the food in our life from being a temptation or a regret to something we guiltlessly enjoy.”

After all, as Wansink concludes, “The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.” I agree.

26 August 2009