Fair trade ‘not doing any favor to the poor’: London

                                                    

Sales of Fairtrade-certified products from Uganda and Ethiopia are not benefiting poor farm workers as profits fail to trickle down to much of the workforce, a groundbreaking study says. The Fairtrade Foundation is committed to “better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.”

                                                       

However, a UK government-sponsored study, which investigated the production of flowers, coffee and tea in Ethiopia and Uganda, found that “where Fairtrade flowers were grown, and where there were farmers’ groups selling coffee and tea into Fairtrade certified markets, wages were very low.”
“Wages in other comparable areas and among comparable employers producing the same crops, but where there was no certification, were usually higher and working conditions better,” said University of London economics professor Christopher Cramer, one of the report’s authors. “In our research sites, Fairtrade has not been an effective mechanism for improving the lives of wage workers, the poorest rural people.”

Researchers who collected detailed information on more than 1,500 people said they also found evidence of the widespread use of children being paid to work on farms growing produce for Britain’s leading ethical label.

                                                       

Fairtrade, started in Britain 25 years ago by development and consumer groups, including Oxfam and the Women’s Institute, has grown into one of the world’s most trusted ethical schemes, with 1.24 million farmers and workers around the world. Fairtrade products contribute to the funding of schools, health clinics, sanitation and other “social projects” in rural areas. In Britain it is a ￡1.78 billion (US$3 billion) enterprise backed by government, Comic Relief, churches and supermarkets.
Fairtrade tea and coffee from Ethiopia and Uganda are popular with millions of British consumers. Starbucks, the British House of Commons and Virgin Atlantic are among many organizations advertising that they serve Fairtrade products from these countries.

Generally, the study found, wages were higher on farms that were larger, commercial and not Fairtrade-certified. Even among smallholder sites, wages were generally lower in the areas dominated by Fairtrade producers.



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Oysters reflects industrial water pollution

                                              

Rock oysters growing along the Taiwan nation’s west coast have been found to contain alarming levels of heavy metals, with the highest concentration of the toxic substances detected in molluscs from the environmental activist Huang Chun-nan., environmental groups and legislators said yesterday.

He first realized there might be a problem when he was collecting data on the nation’s western coastline and noticed a large number of abnormally colored wild rock oysters, prompting him to launch the survey with the help of the groups and a professor.The surveyors collected 20 to 30 wild rock oysters from 42 river mouths along the west coast, but due to budget constraints could only send samples from 14 locations for testing.
                                                     

Intertek Testing Services analyzed the samples for the presence of 12 types of heavy metals, in line with the Food and Drug Administration’s standard testing method, and the results showed that the rock oysters collected near Taoyuan industrial park had the highest levels of lead, copper, zinc and iron among the molluscs tested, as well as the second or third-highest concentrations of nickel, cadmium, mercury and gallium.
                                                     

National Taiwan University Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene professor Dr. Wu said the mollusc samples from industrial park had about 1.4 times as much copper and 2.45 times as much zinc as the infamous “green oysters” found in 1998. Those molluscs’ arresting coloring was the result of the copper wastewater discharged in rivers by the electronics industry. Based on the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization’s acceptable daily intake of heavy metals, and used by the US and Canada to calculate the health risks of eating wild rock oysters, only the oysters inhabiting) in Greater Tainan can be eaten. The daily intake guidelines are based on a person weighing about 60kg eating 50g of the oysters a day.

Wu said that nine of the locations that the groups took oysters from were near the Environmental Protection Administration’s river water quality monitoring stations, which he said was puzzling because nearly all the heavy metals tests carried out by the stations over the past decade found the toxicity levels of the water in these areas to be acceptable, but the survey results showed that about 93 percent of the molluscs the groups took from those sites were inedible.

He said one possible explanation is that the agency tests the water only once per season and heavy metals can easily be diluted or swept into the ocean, but those that do not, can accumulate in the bottom layers of mud in a body of water, thereby contaminating the aquatic animals that live there.


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Aspirin-water solution to induce resistance to pathogens, environmental stresses, and some insects?

                                                           

Although the complete effects of treating plants with an aspirin-water solution are unknown, studies have shown that applying salicylic acid (aspirin is acetyl salicylic acid) to plants can induce resistance to pathogens, environmental stresses, and some insects. This protection should allow the plants to grow more vigorously. Under extremely stressful conditions or those highly favorable to the growth of diseases, however, salicylic acid may not prevent all damage from stress or disease.

Salicylic acid is a naturally occurring compound in plants. When a plant is stressed or attacked by a pathogen, this compound stimulates the plant’s internal defense pathways. Treating a plant with additional salicylic acid appears to trigger the plant’s defense pathways in the same way.

                                               

In the summer of 2005, I directed a group of master gardeners with experiments on tomatoes. We looked at the effects of two strengths of aspirin water and the commercial product Messenger compared to plants sprayed with just water. Messenger activates the same internal defense system as salicylic acid but at a different point along the pathway, which may provide broader protection.
Because of the dry conditions, none of the plants developed any disease. All of the plants grew equally well. We found that the plants treated with a solution of 250 milligrams of aspirin to 1 gallon of water and the plants treated with Messenger yielded more but smaller fruit than the control.

An aspirin-water solution of 250 to 500 milligrams (one or two regular aspirin tablets) of aspirin per gallon of water provides a solution similar to what has been tested; solutions at higher rates have been shown to burn foliage. Any brand of aspirin will work, but plain, uncoated tablets dissolve best. The solution should be applied every two weeks and may be used to water germinating seeds and new transplants.
                                          

Another form of salicylic acid that is gaining attention is willow water, made from steeping fresh-cut willow branches in water. Willows are naturally high in salicylic acid. The exact amount of salicylic acid in willows is unknown, however, so the amount to use and the timing of application is less certain. Willow water might be worth investigating as a source that could meet organic certification guidelines (neither aspirin nor Messenger do).

While there’s no harm in experimenting with these solutions, keep in mind that aspirin water and willow water are not registered pesticides. All of these products need to be applied preventively, before the first sign of disease. They may prevent infection but will not kill fungi or bacteria already infecting the plant. It may also take two weeks for the salicylic acid to activate the pathway and protect the plant.



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Genetically modified foods confuse US consumers

                                             

Though controversy still reigns over genetically modified organisms, there’s no evidence to prove they are harmful?! Genetically modified foods have been around for years, but most Americans have no idea if they are eating them.

The Food and Drug Administration says they don’t need to be labeled. But in the first major victory for consumers who say they have the right to know whether their food contains GMOs, the state of Vermont has moved forward on its own. On Thursday, Governor Peter Shumlin signed legislation making his state the first to require labeling of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Throughout the country, there’s a lot of confusion about genetically modified foods and their safety, and whether labeling matters.The food industry and companies that genetically engineer seeds have pushed back against the labeling laws, saying GMOs are safe and labels would be misleading.“It’s really polarizing,” says New York University’s Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies. “There’s no middle ground.”GMOs are not really a “thing,” Nestle says, and that’s hard for the average consumer to grasp. You can’t touch or feel a GMO.

Genetically modified foods are plants or animals that have had genes copied from other plants or animals inserted into their DNA. It’s not a new idea — humans have been tinkering with genes for centuries through selective breeding. Think dogs bred to be more docile pets, cattle bred to be beefier or tomatoes bred to be sweeter. What’s different about genetically modified or engineered foods is that the manipulation is done in a lab. Engineers don’t need to wait for nature to produce a desired gene; they speed up the process by transferring a gene from one plant or animal to another.
                                                 

Most of the nation’s corn and soybeans are genetically engineered to resist pests and herbicides. A papaya in Hawaii is modified to resist a virus. The FDA is considering an application to approve a genetically engineered salmon that would grow faster than traditional salmon.

Only a small amount of sweet corn, the corn Americans eat, is genetically modified. Most of the genetically modified corn and soybeans are used in cattle feed, or are made into ingredients like corn oil, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup or soybean oil. Even in some of those products, the manufacturing process itself may remove some of the modified genes.
A few fruits and vegetables are engineered — the Hawaiian papaya and some squash and zucchini, for example. But there’s no genetically modified meat or fish, like the fast-growing salmon, currently in the market for human consumption; the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any.

The vast majority of scientific research has found genetically engineered foods to be generally safe. An Italian scientist’s review of 10 years of research, published in 2013, concluded that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected “any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops.” One French research team raised safety questions, but their much-criticized 2012 study linking genetically modified corn to rat tumors was retracted in 2013 by the scientific publisher, who cited weak evidence supporting the conclusions.

Even the food police say they are safe: The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a well-known critic of food companies and artificial and unhealthy ingredients in foods, has not opposed genetically modified foods, on the basis that there’s no evidence they are harmful. The FDA says the foods they have evaluated to this point have not been any more likely to cause an allergic or toxic reaction than foods from traditionally bred plants.Unlike animals, the FDA is not required to approve genetically engineered crops for consumption. However, most companies will go through a voluntary safety review process before they put them on the market.

There are clear benefits for the agricultural industry — the crops that are resistant to pesticides and herbicides, for example. And companies like Monsanto that produce modified seeds say their technologies will be needed to feed a rising world population as they engineer crops to adapt to certain climates and terrains.While most modified foods have so far been grown to resist chemicals, pests or disease, advocates envision engineering crops to make them more nutritious as well. Food animals have been engineered to be bred to be free of diseases, be cleaner in their environments or grow more efficiently, though none has yet been approved in the US.

On the political front, there is an escalating fight between the US labeling advocates and the food industry, which has dug in against labeling. In the absence of a federal labeling standard, GMO opponents have gone to the states to try to get a patchwork of labeling laws approved — a move that could eventually force a national standard. Ballot measures in the states of California and Washington failed, but the legislative effort prevailed in Vermont. Maine and Connecticut also have passed laws requiring labels, but they don’t take effect unless other states follow suit. The food industry is widely expected to challenge the Vermont law in court.

In Congress, the food industry is pushing a House bill that would head off efforts to enact mandatory labeling of genetically modified ingredients by proposing new voluntary labels nationwide — an attempted end run around the state-by-state laws.Currently, the FDA says labeling of genetically modified foods isn’t needed because the nutritional content is the same as non-GMO varieties. Safe or not, consumers are increasingly interested in what is in their food, including GMOs. David Ropeik, the author of the book How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts, says he thinks the food industry should endorse labeling so it can move past the debate.

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Do you really want to see where your food comes from?

                                                        

Transparency in food and agriculture can have different meanings to different groups of people. As Illinois farmer, Katie Pratt, recently discussed on Eatocracy, transparency includes having an open mind for education on both sides of the plate. The issue of animal slaughter is a topic that brings much heated discussion. Recent efforts to improve the transparency in this area continue to be met with much resistance.

The New York Times ran an opinion article titled “Open the Slaughterhouses”, as the author suggests, increasing visibility in slaughterhouses would be a good thing, but there is a problem with that. Americans are so far removed from the reality and graphic nature of the process of death, that images of animal slaughter can stir quite the negative response.

                                                          

A good example of this comes from a California rancher, Megan Brown, sharing her custom exempt (meaning free from continuous inspection as it's only providing meat for the animal's owner) slaughter images and experience when harvesting both cattle and hogs at her family’s farm. Megan received a lot of criticism (some from within the livestock community) for being transparent and explaining how her animals were harvested.

There are several farm-to-fork, local food producers across the country doing a great job of connecting with their customers and answering their questions. However, not all of these messages are a fair representation of larger-scale agriculture. I think we can all admit that there is room for improvement when it comes to transparency across the entire food and agriculture spectrum.
Forrest Pritchard, local farmer in the D.C. area, has done a great job with transparency and communicating with his customers about how food animals are raised, fed, and processed. His blog answers several questions from his Farmer’s Market customers and one of his recent posts took a brief tour of his local custom slaughterhouse. By the way, Forrest’s new book, "Gaining Ground," has been touted as one of the best new reads of the summer.

There is a saying to the effect of: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would stop eating meat.“ Through all of my experiences, I consider myself more aware of how my meat is harvested, and feel safe when consuming products from our American food system. It certainly has not turned me away from meat consumption.

I have had the opportunity to tour both large and small processors, like Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and even regional processors. All of these processors have common goals of keeping the animals calm prior to and during the slaughter process, preventing food safety concerns throughout the entire process, and keeping employees and visitors safe. It is not easy to open access to the slaughter facility and keep these priorities intact, but the meat industry is working to open doors in other ways.

The American Meat Institute and Dr. Temple Grandin are working together to fix a possible disconnect by grasping the "glass walls" approach. Dr. Grandin is an established animal welfare scientists who has had more impact than anyone else on how animals are handled prior to and during the slaughter process.

We may not all be able to visit slaughterhouses in large groups and I do not expect these movements to completely change the perceptions of meat industries, but opportunities to learn from a distance are extremely important. I do hope folks will receive efforts like these as a move toward better transparency.

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London's Tunnel Hydroponics Ranch

                                                 

It’s hard to find enough space for urban farms to grow enough local produce to feed a big city. Unless you put the whole farm below in an abandoned tunnel.

 The newest branch line of the London Underground doesn’t go anywhere. But it does produce a lot of nice food to eat. It’s a hydroponic farm, 100 feet below the surface, launching its debut in March 2014.

                                               

 With sky-high rents in central London, it made sense for the startup behind the project, Zero Carbon Food, to look for an unconventional farm site. And the location, beneath the Northern line, puts the produce near a lot of restaurant customers. That reduces the miles that food has to travel to reach the table. Zero Carbon Food is now selling stock online–you can see its full pitch below:
                         

The 2.5 acre project relies on its location in a tunnel to reduce heating and cooling costs. The temperature stays stable at 60 degrees all year round. There aren’t many airborne pests to worry about either. A simple filter takes out any nasties, and lets the produce–which includes pea shoots, rocket, broccoli, mustard leaf and basil–grow without pesticides.

                                                   

Richard Ballard and Steven Dring came up with the idea two years ago, wanting to reduce agricultural impacts. “Integrating farming into the urban environment makes a huge amount of sense and we’re delighted that we’re going to make it a reality,” Ballard says.

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Do you try to eat ethically?

                                                 

Stop, think and eat ethically.  Do you only eat local produce, using nothing that’s been transported via air travel? Avoid certain products or grow your own? The concepts of eating ethically and watching where our food comes from are hot topics in the  food world.Broadly speaking, eating ethically can cover anything from vegetarianism to eating only local produce and boycotting products which are considered wasteful or exploitative.
                                                           

                           

In Kandi, Sri Lanka, Shari Atukorala said people are very conscious of their eating habits and maintaining a healthy diet. "Most of the stuff we eat is home-grown vegetables, our staple diet is red rice or samba," she said. In the local market, most people try to avoid meat and fatty foods by purchasing fish and vegetables. Eating what is produced locally is part of our culture, which makes it easy to do. "That is what is mostly available here and what people eat."

In Wisconsin, Cindy Schultz credits her son, an organic farmer, for teaching her to be more conscious about what she eats and where it comes from. “If there are more than six or seven ingredients it's usually full of fillers and chemicals. If you can't pronounce it don't buy it,” she said he taught her.
“It takes a little more time and money to eat ‘consciously,’ but it is totally worth it. Just knowing you are taking in less chemicals gives you great peace of mind.” She says she feels happy about her changing ways. “You CAN teach a couple of old dogs new tricks. Thanks, kids!”

                                                   

Marie Sager has been a vegetarian since she was a teen. Her boys grew up with choices, but when Sager divorced and became a single mother, she found it more economical to skip the meat counter entirely. “They had a lot of substitutions; I made lentil patties as opposed to hamburgers. Whatever I could do to save a few pennies,” she said.

 “Gardening takes thought and planning, it takes work, but it also brings me satisfaction that I know what is going in the ground and how it is grown,” writesAndrea Broomfield, a culinary historian and English professor who maintains a large garden with her father-in-law.

“It has also fostered that kind of spiritual and emotional connection with another person, my father-in-law, and that connection brings me well-being, as does the food from the garden that we grow. Most of all, we all agree that Gardening=happiness.”



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Pesticide factory permit revoked in Tainan, Southern Taiwan

                                                  

The Greater Tainan Government on Friday revoked a building permit awarded to a pesticide manufacturer for a new factory following a clash between the company and local residents.
Greater Tainan authorities said in a statement that Rotam Global AgroSciences Ltd’s permit to build a plant in Sinhua District was revoked because of violations of building regulations and to protect public safety.

                                                  
The city appealed for calm and dialogue between Rotam, Sinhua residents and anyone else affected by the project. Rotam produces insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, as well as plant growth regulators and nutrients.

                                            

Company chairman Lo Chang-keng, a Tainan native, said he is hoping to bring 800 job opportunities and a factory with an annual output of NT$10 billion to his hometown through the project.

However, Sinhua residents are opposed to the plant because of pollution fears prompted by speculation on the Internet that China discouraged the new Rotam project after pollution problems at its existing China-based factories, leading the company to return to Taiwan.

On April 1, more than 100 residents gathered at the plant’s groundbreaking ceremony, vowing to stop the plant from opening and clashing with police and security guards. The Tainan government said on Friday that it is dedicated to creating a good investment environment and welcomes enterprises to invest in the city, but added that it will not pursue economic development at the expense of the environment and public health.



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French children surrounding by pesticides

                                                       

French children in agricultural areas are being exposed to a dangerous cocktail of pesticides, some of them banned, a French health and environment group has claimed. Generations Futures carried out independent analysis of hair from young people living or studying near farms or vineyards after parents expressed concern about their children being exposed to poisons that could disrupt their endocrine system.

The group, a nonprofit organization specializing in the use and effects of pesticides on humans and the environment, says its findings confirmed their fears. Researchers took hair samples from a selected group of children aged between three and 10 living or attending schools between 50m and 200m from different agricultural zones. It sent the samples to an independent laboratory in Luxembourg, which used methods similar to those employed by detectives investigating poisoning cases.
                                                

A total of 624 pesticide traces were found in the 29 samples tested — one sample was deemed of insufficient quantity — suggesting that 80 percent of the children had been exposed to agricultural pesticides in the previous three months. In total, the laboratory found traces of 53 pesticides believed to affect hormone system of mammals, leading to cancerous tumors, birth defects, developmental disorders and learning disabilities in humans.

An average of 21.52 different pesticides were found for each child, 35 so-called “endocrine disruptor” pesticides were found at least once, while 13 were discovered in every hair sample. Just under three-quarters of the children ate organic produce regularly, suggesting the contamination came from an outside source and not their food.
                                               

“The presence of more than 21 pesticides, on average, that are endocrine disruptors in the hair that was analyzed shows that our children are exposed to a significant cocktail of these substances,” Generations Futures spokesperson Francois Veillerette said. “Now the European commission must finally make public a clear and protective definition of the endocrine disruptors that have to be banned.”

The report urges urgent action.“Our demand is simple and based on an ambitious goal: No organism should contain endocrine disruptors in order to protect the health of unborn children,” it said.
Generations Futures says the French government’s own national strategy to deal with endocrine disruptors has reached a dead end. The plan was originally to be published last year, but has been repeatedly postponed until the end of this month.




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