The Ongoing Horsemeat Scandal

As we've been taught by Yes, Minister, if you don't want to get to the bottom of things, send it to a committee. Well, the horsemeat scandal in the UK has been sent to committee, and the complaints that the work is too slow, not getting anywhere, and generally not getting to the bottom of things shows that the committee is doing its job.
The Guardian is reporting:

A complex and highly organised network of companies mislabelling meat and trading it fraudulently is behind the horsemeat scandal, according to an influential group of MPs. They are critical that UK and Irish authorities have failed to acknowledge the extent of the network or prosecute any companies involved.
MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs (Efra) select committee said they were "dismayed at the slow pace of investigations" into how horsemeat came to be passed off as beef in millions of "beefburgers" and ready meals.
The committee also found that the official UK response to the adulteration was hampered by the fact that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) did not have sufficient powers to deal with the scandal because part of its responsibilities had been taken away and given to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

So things are going exactly as planned.

England v. Canada on Climate Change

Via Wikipedia

From the Guardian:

Droughts could devastate food production in the England by the 2020s, according to a report from the government's official climate change advisers. Without action, increasingly hot and dry summers may mean farmers will face shortfalls of 50% of the water they currently use to grow crops. The report, from the climate change committee (CCC), also warns that current farming practices may be allowing the country's richest soils to be washed or blown away.
The future risks to England's food supply are becoming more apparent, with MPs warningthis month that the government's failure to protect the most valuable farmland from flooding "poses a long-term risk to the security of UK food production" and food experts cautioning that crop yields are reaching their maximum biological limits. Extreme recent weather – the wettest recorded autumn followed by the coldest spring in half a century – cut wheat yields by one third, leading to the import of 2.5m tonnes of wheat, the same amount that is usually exported.
"If we don't start acting now we will be in serious trouble," said Lord John Krebs, who led the CCC report. "We already rely on food imports to a significant extent." About 40% of the UK's food is imported.
[...]
Friends of the Earth's Andrew Pendleton said: "Climate change poses a devastating threat to our environment, food supplies and security, which could trigger future economic crises. Urgent government measures are needed."

Friday Food Link-straveganza

With a warning that Canada should be paying particular attention to--but won't--the Guardian is reporting on the public policy failure around floods.

A high proportion of the most valuable agricultural land is at risk of flooding, the MPs said. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images  via The Guardian

Ministers are failing to protect the UK's most valuable farmland from flooding, posing a long-term risk to the security of UK food production, according to an influential group of MPs.
A run of poor weather since 2011 has led to extensive flooding of properties but has also severely dented the production of many foods, with the UK now being a net importer of wheat.
The environment select committee's report also said the government's spending by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to protect homes from flooding is not keeping pace with the rising risk, which is increasing as climate change intensifies downpours, and were also failing to act effectively to block the building of new homes on floodplains.
"Record rainfall in the past two years has led to extensive flooding, cost the economy millions and caused disruption and distress to householders and communities across the UK," said Anne McIntosh, a Conservative MP, and chair of the commons select committee on environment, food and rural affairs.
Extreme weather events are not just a problem for the UK. In a related article, the Guardian reports on the new UN World Meteorological Organization report that points out the unprecedented climate extremes seen around the world over the last decade.

If you think the world is warming and the weather getting nastier, you're right, according to the United Nations agency committed to understanding weather and climate.
The World Meteorological Organization says the planet "experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes" in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850.
Those ten years also continued an extended period of accelerating global warming, with more national temperature records reported broken than in any previous decade. Sea levels rose about twice as fast as the trend in the last century.
A WMO report, The Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Climate Extremes, analyses global and regional temperatures and precipitation, and extreme weather such as the heat waves in Europe and Russia, Hurricane Katrina in the US, tropical cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, droughts in the Amazon basin, Australia and East Africa, and floods in Pakistan.

Looking at something a bit lighter, let's learn how to make an excellent lamb kofte, shall we?  Felicity Cloake writes in the Word of Mouth blog about the process. As an aside, this is part of a series of posts; How to Cook the Perfect. And this is how you present a recipe in a blog post, people. We've really got to up our game. This gives you the information you need, the context to work from, and a sense that maybe the writer has actually tried to make the recipe (I'm reminded of the scene in Julie and Julia where Julia Child discovers that Ms. Rombauer hasn't checked the recipes in Joy of Cooking to see if they even work). It's like linking to source articles when writing an opinion piece--it adds a level of verifiability to your work.

So here's Felicity herself to tell you about the process of making kofte.

There's also a report that world food prices have fallen--not much, but still...

Global food prices fell 1% in June due to improving supply prospects, the United Nations' food agency has said , raising forecasts for wheat and maize output in the new season.
Food prices spiked during the summer of 2012 due to a historic drought in the US but prospects for a rebound in global grain supply and good weather forecasts are now weighing on markets.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index that measures price changes for a basket of cereals, oil seeds, dairy, meat and sugar, fell for a second month running to 211.3 points in June – its lowest level since February.

 That puts food prices below the threshold for civil unrest, according to NECSI--the New England Complex Systems Institute, about whom I've blogged before.

If you haven't discovered it yet, there's a lovely interactive map  sponsored by The economist that lets you see where you--and pretty much everyone else, ranks in terms of food security. Click on your country (or the country you're interested in) and pull up the world ranking of food security and what went into generating that rank. Canada, by the way, ranks 8th worldwide. Among the key findings?

Falling national incomes hurt food security in some developed countries over the past year.

Greece recorded the steepest fall among developed nations, dropping six places. Greece’s GDP has plummeted by more than 20% since the 2008-09 global recession. Income per person dropped in most advanced economies in the past year, the result of weak economies. Although this reduced food security in these countries, they remain, for the most part, in the top 20% of the index and thus are not in serious danger of food insecurity.

And, finally, if you're not following the Journal of Peasant Studies, you're missing out. Open source, peer reviewed.

Overwhelmed Monday Link-straveganza

via Saanich Fair website

Seriously, there is so much going on this past week. I attended the Farmer2Farmer conference at the Saanich fairgrounds, which was a great day, which I really want to talk at length about, and which left me with some hope. But that will have to wait for another post.
Pink slime--mechanically seperated lean beef that 's been treated with ammonia--is still around.

graphic via republicreport.org

Reuters is carrying a special report (.pdf) on Beef Product Inc.'s lawsuit against ABC, Diane Sawyer and others on their reporting of the use of "lean finely textured beef" in ground beef products like hamburgers. The suit has all the earmarks of a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit, particularly with the potential damages heading north of a billion dollars.

The lawsuit, originally filed in South Dakota state court, is hinged partly on a state product-disparagement statute designed to protect farming interests. Twelve other states have similar laws - dubbed "veggie libel" measures by critics - but they have rarely been invoked.

Under the South Dakota version of the law, plaintiffs must show that defendants publicly spread information they knew to be false and stated or implied "that an agricultural food product is not safe for consumption by the public."

If BPI were to win on that claim, under the law it could be awarded triple the damages that were caused. That means that the company's claim of more than $400 million in projected lost profits could balloon to damages of more than $1.2 billion.

But you can see why they feel they have to silence criticism--BPI has gone from 4 plants and about $650 milliion (US) in revenue to 1 plant and about $130 million (US) in revenue. And, as usual, buy direct from a farmer--make sure they get whatever profit's to be made and have the security of knowing where your food comes from.

image via inhabitat.com

NewsRx Science is reporting on the potential for urban agriculture in one of the US' most depressed cities: Detroit.

Transforming vacant urban lots into farms and community gardens could provide Detroit residents with a majority of their fruits and vegetables.

As city officials ponder proposals for urban farms, a Michigan State University study indicates that a combination of urban farms, community gardens, storage facilities and hoop houses - greenhouses used to extend the growing season - could supply local residents with more than 75 percent of their vegetables and more than 40 percent of their fruits.

The study, which appears in the current issue of The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, evaluates many aspects of the production potential of the Motor City's vacant properties, from identifying available parcels of land to addressing residents' attitudes toward blending agrarian traits with their urban lifestyles.

"What's clear from our production analysis is that even with a limited growing season, significant quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables eaten by Detroiters could be grown locally," said Kathryn Colasanti, the graduate student who led the study for the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU. "And investments in produce storage facilities and hoop houses would increase this capacity substantially."

Now we just need some political will. CBC is reporting that Sudbury's city planning staff is getting onboard, but the councilors are dragging their heels.

It is just an idea at this point — and something many other cities are considering — but city Coun. André Rivest said right now his vote would be a no.
"You got houses that are worth a lot of dollars and you want to keep that,” he said.
“You start having chickens in backyards ... I sense that wouldn't be well received."
But city planner Kris Longston said Sudbury's long-range plans should focus more on urban agriculture.

You can listen to the report here.
And that's the problem, innit? Political will.In a city you have to be willing to stare down local developers--who carry a lot of political and financial weight. And the ability to scare the public with the thought that the value of our homes may decrease. Canadians have become utterly reliant on their homes as their savings accounts--and on increasing home prices fueling consumer purchases--so any threat to house prices threatens the entire myth that we currently function under. The question of just who is expected to pay inflated prices for houses when all the boomers decide to retire isn't one that gets asked--because there is no real good answer. Wealth inequity is becoming more and more pronounced in Canada, and the middle class is starting to lose people off the bottom. The Fear, as Hunter Thompson used to describe it, is starting to set in.

Feeling a Little Horse...

via BBC

The last couple of weeks have seen a growing awareness of how horse meat has entered the British food chain in an unregulated and unexpected manner. It has been blamed on organized crime and lax inspectors and what not all.
From the Guardian:

Europe's unfolding horsemeat scandal took a new twist on Saturday when it emerged that key intermediaries involved in the trade appeared to be using a similar secretive network of companies to the convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) identified an intermediary firm, Draap Trading, based in Limassol, Cyprus, as playing a pivotal role in shipping horsemeat across Europe.
Draap has confirmed that it bought horsemeat from two Romanian abattoirs. The company sold the meat to French food processors including Spanghero, which supplied another French company, Comigel, that turned it into frozen meals for the likes of food firm Findus, some of which had a meat content that was almost 100% horse.
Draap, which is owned by a trust in the British Virgin Islands tax haven, insists the meat it sold into France was labelled as horse. Spanghero says the meat arrived labelled "beef". Jan Fasen, who runs Draap and has denied any wrongdoing, was convicted last year of selling South American horsemeat as German and Dutch beef.

But It is a good opportunity to reflect on just how complex the food system is--and how that complexity breeds potential failure points. Each link in the chain above is another point at which inspection or regulation failed. Draap claims it labelled its product "horse." Spanghero (which is back in operation), claims it wasn't. Even within the European Union, this is a pretty complicated supply chain; by my count, it involves a minimum of six countries.
Supply chains for food map over supply chains for illegal arms. In Meat: a benign extravagance, Simon Fairlie describes how recapturing British food waste into the food system could provide a daily serving of pork for every Briton. But it won't happen--the  current system is too entrenched, too powerful. At least until they get caught serving horse to people....

This news report from 1948 from the British Pathé archives shows how horses were killed and sold on the black market to back-street restaurants, who then served it to customers who thought they eating steak or veal. The problem was so bad that some breeds of horse were even threatened with extinction

In the video, it is interesting to see how consumer demand for meat is characterized as being "so offensive to the British character". Horse was clearly doing damage to the legitimate slaughter trade, and consent needed to be manufactured. Because there isn't anything inherently wrong with eating horse, or dog, or whatever. There are only cultural issues--like the love of horses the filmmakers exploit here.

Will Hutton, in The Observer, has tied the introduction of horsemeat into the foodchain to the anti-government actions of post-Thatcher Thatcherites:

Paterson is one of the Tories who joyfully shared the scorched earth months of the summer of 2010 when war was declared on quangos and the bloated, as they saw it, "Brownian" state. The Food Standards Agency was a natural candidate for dismemberment. Of course an integrated agency inspecting, advising and enforcing food safety and hygiene should be broken up. As an effective regulator, it was disliked by "wealth-generating" supermarkets and food companies. Its 1,700 inspectors were agents of the state terrifying honest-to-God entrepreneurs with unannounced spot checks and enforced "gold-plated" food labelling. Regulation should be "light touch".
No Tory would say that now, not even Paterson, one of the less sharp knives in the political drawer. He runs the ministry that took over the FSA's inspecting function at the same time as it was reeling from massive budget cuts, which he also joyfully cheered on. He finds himself with no answer to the charge that his hollowed-out department, a gutted FSA with 800 fewer inspectors and eviscerated local government were and are incapable of ensuring public health.
Paterson, beneath the ideological bluster, is as innocent about business as Bambi. Even the most callow observer could predict that with the wholesale slaughter of horses across the continent as recession hit the racing industry – horsemeat production jumped by 52% in 2012 – some was bound to enter the pan-European network of abattoirs, just-in-time buying, industrial refrigeration units, food brokers and giant supermarkets that deliver British and European consumers their food.