Pushback II

It's Baaack!!! photo: PennStateLive/Flickr

Beef Products Inc. has made a splash this past week. After the eating public decided that they didn't really want ammoniated "lean finely textured beef" in their food chain--yes, the "pink slime" issue--BPI's business took a punch to the face. After Jaime Oliver's piece on ammoniated beef ran on ABC, " the firm says that what it describes as unfair coverage caused its sales to drop by 80 per cent, forcing the closure of three of its four plants. Roughly 700 workers were laid off, and the company estimates that it is still losing $20m per month in revenue." (The Independent). So they're taking pretty much everyone who ever used the words "pink slime" to court, having filed a lawsuit asking $1.2 billion (US) in damages from ABC.

Response

Well, the responses are coming in to the Stanford study that suggested that organic foods are nutritionally no better than industrially grown ones.  Typically, they're like this one over at Alternet, talking about the other benefits organic food has, like the reduction on pesticides, or how much better it is for the land.
You can't fault this--the points are all valid. And not everyone (like me) has access to the original paper behind the paywall. Nor are all of us qualified to take on the statistical basis for the study, whether the study (particularly being a meta-study) was designed properly, or decide whether its conclusions are valid. So I said I would wait for those with the necessary academic background and standing to read the report and get back to us.
Well, Charles Benbrook, a professor of agriculture at Washington State University and former chief scientist at The Organic Center, has had a chance to read the study and has reported back. Some of his conclusions?

The team’s answer to the basic question “Is organic food more nutritious or safer?” is based on their judgment of whether published studies provide evidence of a clinically significant impact or improvement in health.  Yet few studies have been designed in a way that could isolate such impacts.
From my read of the same literature, the most significant, proven benefits of organic food and farming are: (1) a reduction in chemical-driven, epigenetic changes during fetal and childhood development, especially from pre-natal exposures to endocrine disrupting pesticides, (2) the markedly more healthy balance of omega-6 and -3 fatty acids in organic dairy products and meat, and (3) the virtual elimination of agriculture’s significant and ongoing contribution to the pool of antibiotic-resistant bacteria currently posing increasing threats to the treatment of human infectious disease.
The Stanford team’s study design precluded assessment of much of the evidence supporting these benefits, and hence their findings understate the health benefits that can follow a switch to a predominantly organic diet, organic farming methods, and the animal health-promoting practices common on organically managed livestock farms.

I'm grateful to Benbrook for providing a publicly accessible copy of his paper (in .pdf format). The problem, of course, is that the response will get no where near the coverage that the press release (not even the original paper) has received. It might, had Benbrook titled his paper something like "Organic Food Study Complete Horseshit." Not, I should note, that he says that. Although, from the  carefulacademic language he does use, he seems to be expressing pretty much that sentiment.

A team of plant and food scientists carried out a sophisticated meta-analysis of the “organic-versus-conventional food” nutrient-content literature. The team was led by Kirsten Brandt, a scientist at the Human Nutrition Research Center, Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.   Their analysis was published in Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences in 2011, under the title, “Agroecosystem Management and Nutritional Quality of Plant Foods: The Case of Organic Fruits and Vegetables” (Vol. 30: 177–197).
The Stanford paper cites this analysis but does not mention its findings, remark on the study’s scope and sophisticated methodology, nor acknowledge the major differences in the conclusions reached.

What I Feared Would Happen...

...seems to be happening. A recent study at Stanford University may indicate that organically produced food is no more or less nutritious than industrially produced food. I say "may" because the study is behind a paywall, making access difficult, to say the least. Most people are reacting to the press release.  But, while access to the study is restricted, the response to it is not. Everyone has piled on board, not the least of whom is Roger Cohen in the op-ed pages of the NY Times, with a piece titled The Organic Fable:

Pushback 1

That's a lovely house, don't you think? And a nice yard in front of it.But Drummondville, Qe. (about 100 km NE of Montreal) doesn't seem to think so. After apparently getting a verbal approval from the town's Environmental Inspector, CBC reports that the couple who planted this lovely garden were served with a notice that they had to tear it out within 7 days or face fines of between $100 and $300 a day.
A follow-up report notes that the tear-out date has been extended to 01 September. It also notes that "Drummondville plans to make it illegal to grow vegetables on front lawns anywhere in the city." Apparently the city "held public consultations on the new rule and it said no one objected."
This is the beginning of push back; expect to see more and more of this. I expect it will be framed as a "property values" argument, and be claimed as being non-discriminatory because the new bylaws will affect everyone the same way (ask the residents of Africville how that worked out for them...).  Drummondville is saying that a 30% grass rule already exists--from the look of the above photo, sodding the paths would come close to taking care of that requirement).
In the US, things are the same. According to an article in Grist, push back is occuring there too:

[In] Tulsa [they] bulldozed the entire thing.
If you start looking for stories like these, you’ll turn them up in droves. In 2010, Clarkston, Ga., fined a gardener named Steve Miller for planting too many vegetables. In 2011, Oak Park, Mich., told Julie Bass she couldn’t grow any vegetables in her front yard because vegetables weren’t “suitable” yard plants. (“You can look all throughout the city and you’ll never find another vegetable garden that consumes the entire front yard,” a city official told the local TV station.) And in Chatham, N.J., Mike Bucuk, a young would-be organic farmer, had to fight with the entire town just to grow some vegetables his family’s property.

Gardens are productive. They serve a purpose, and part of that purpose leads to reduced sales for some businesses (fresh produce markets, or farmer's markets, often face stiff opposition from major supermarket players. Here in BC, Save-On Foods is supposed to be one of the big anti-farmer's-market forces). 
But home gardens breed neither fear nor consumption, the two major drivers of modern society. They encourage independence and self-reliance, neither of which sells industrial food. In fact, farmer's markets and home gardens produce exactly what the industrial food system cannot supply: good quality, good tasting produce.
And don't kid yourself. Industrial food will fight back against the home producers, the small and alternative producers. They have to--their business model is based on compliance, on being unable to see any alternatives. Local food has scared them (there are various talking heads that have produced "studies" showing that best-case New Zealand lamb has a smaller carbon footprint than worst-case local lamb, for instance). Industrial food already sends a private police force into the Canadian prairies to see what you're growing and if they can put a stop to it (check out the Percy Schmeiser story, as one example). Industrial food will continue to follow the Big Tobacco playbook to slow the challenge to its business. Like Big Tobacco, there are billions of dollars a year at stake as long as they can keep us solitary, afraid, and dependent. The solution is straightforward: be fearless (read Farm city : the education of an urban farmer by Novella Carpenter, or her blog). Form community. Grow, raise, or produce anything of your own. Its not your job to keep Industrial Agriculture on the top of the food chain. Its your job to do what's best for you, your family and community, and the planet.

Don't Tick Off The Neighbours

I don't know everything behind this, but it sounds depressingly familiar. I undertand how large volumes of uncomposted horse manure might tick off the neighbours, but why the Lantzville council has such a hate on for the farm baffles me. If it was a bylaw issue, it would have been solved already. As it is, who knows. You can also visit Compassion Farm's website.

Lantzville's Compassion Farm Continues To Be Harassed For Growing Healthy Food

by Kim Goldberg on Monday, 30 April 2012 at 13:49 ·

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 30, 2012, Lantzville, British Columbia 

Last week Dirk Becker and Nicole Shaw of Compassion Farm in Lantzville, BC, founders of the Bowen Road Farmers Market, received another letter from the District of Lantzville (D.O.L.).

This letter states they are contravening the DOL small business bylaw by selling rain barrels.

In January of this year, Becker and Shaw met with the new mayor and signed an agreement to discontinue the importation of any manure onto their property. They were given to understand that this agreement would appease council and were told it would appease their neighbor, Jim Brash, whose campaigning against their use of horse manure is on-going.

This April they were informed that council wants to 'reinspect' their property. Ensuing communication revealed that Council is unwilling to disclose what they are looking for. Therefore, Becker and Shaw responded that they see no point in yet another inspection since nothing of significance has changed since the last inspections--by various levels of government: Regional District of Nanaimo Bylaw Enforcement, the Vancouver Island Health Authority, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Further, no manure has been brought to the property in question since the above-mentioned agreement was signed.

On April 24th they received a letter informing them that council has a problem with their rain barrels.

In the same week, a friend who has donated grass clippings for 10 years shared a letter received from the RDN, threatening legal action if he continues to bring grass clippings to Compassion Farm.

"There doesn't seem to be an end in sight,” says Becker. “The District of Lantzvile has moved the goal posts several times. Urban Farming is a global movement and is moving past being 'allowed' or 'permitted' to being supported, encouraged and protected".