Annie Smithers interview

Annie Smithers is a restaurateur from Australia. What makes her interesting is that she works hard to locally source her supplies--including running her own farm. I recommend reading the whole transcript in The Australian (and thanks to Milkwood Permaculture for the link), but I'll include a few choice quotes here.

There are a lot of producers out there who will tell you that a restaurant has bought something from them once and then listed it on their menu for 18 months. It happens and people do it because it’s about survival. This industry is full of lies - we have to tell lies. It's whether we're lying or just not quite up with their paperwork! The reality of the restaurant industry is that you can be here today and gone tomorrow,  and it's full of small businesses chasing their tails. It's not easy. Even though you might think something's lovely it might be 33-50 per cent more than a stock standard product so you might think "oh well" and never change the status. It's a really tough question.

[...] when you take it to the producer level you run into the problem of constancy of supply. If a supplier doesn't get enough orders they don’t take the animals to the abattoir so all of a sudden you can have two weeks without it. How do you communicate that to your staff and customers? It's quite difficult. There's constant supply of some products, we know their seasonal fluctuations and we know what's good and when, but it's pretty testy. It takes a lot of work.

Producers don’t necessarily come to us. It all comes down to business margins. If someone is producing on a small scale sometimes it's more profitable to sell direct to the consumer via the farmers market because at some point we [restaurateurs] have to pay less for it. So there's a lot of small producers who are now bypassing restaurant land and going direct to the consumer because of the increasing conscience of the eating public. 

This last quote, " there's a lot of small producers who are now bypassing restaurant land and going direct to the consumer," is something I've felt confident about for a long time. When we sold fresh veg at market, we got supermarket or better prices. When I hear producers complaining about not getting a price per pound for animals, or not enough for what they produce, all I can think is "We did better. But we sold direct." There are artificial barricades put up to keep farmers from selling direct--like the BC ban on on-farm killing, where I cannot buy a lamb from a producer and then slaughter it on their land. I can do it at home, but not a lot of neighbours want me to do so. And if I'm a newbie, I might need some direction on best practices--which the producer could give me if I was allowed to slaughter on site.

The other opportunity for producers to cut out the middle man is via the web. This goes to the heart of the whole conversation about supermarkets in the supply chain and the boutique versus mass produced. Take, for example, a family citrus farm that's been beaten up by the big supermarkets for years. The young savvy family members that are coming in to the business say, "Oh bugger this, it's stupid. I'm not going to let them pay $x per kg and for them to sell it at $y. I'll put it online and sell it at a price somewhere in the middle. It'll cost us half as much and earn us four times what it used to”. 

It costs me $85,000 a year to run the garden.  That would be the equivalent to spending about $1200 per week on vegetables. My vegetable bill here should be about $600 a week. I am lucky that I have a restaurant that is able to support that initiative. The only way it's affordable is that everything we sell is value added because we're not selling a carrot for $2 - we're selling a main course for $36.  

$85,000/yr to run the garden seems a bit high to me, but somehow she's making it work. Anyway, have a read, it's good stuff.

A Rare Level of Stupid

*Sigh*  The Harper government's pursuit of ideology over facts is reaching levels of absurdity that I could never have predicted. The Vancouver Sun is reporting:

Health Canada has rejected the advice of its own advisory panel of food experts to renew monitoring of trans-fat levels in processed foods and send a "strong signal" to companies that regulations are on the table if levels don't drop.
The department's Food Expert Advisory Committee made the recommendations in June 2011 after Health Canada asked its external advisers on food policy about how best to manage trans-fat levels in the Canadian food supply.
At the time, departmental officials were revisiting the issue of trans fats after Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq quietly killed a plan drafted in December 2009 to bring in regulations to limit trans-fat levels in processed foods.
Aglukkaq made the decision even though senior officials had briefed her on a cost-benefit analysis commissioned by Health Canada showing a "significant net benefit to Canadian society" of up to $9 billion over 20 years if trans-fat caps were imposed.

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Trans fats, created by pumping hydrogen into liquid oil at an elevated temperature, raise the levels of low-density lipoprotein or "bad" cholesterol in the body and can lead to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The latest development on the trans fat file comes after Aglukkaq prematurely disbanded her much-touted expert panel on sodium in December 2010. The Sodium Working Group was created in 2007 and had unveiled a plan in July 2010 to track, over the next five years, whether companies were reducing the level of salt in processed foods.

A Year Getting Worse II

The US drought is starting to raise eyebrows in the business world. So we can expect our politicians to start noticing soon. That usually means that its going to cost the taxpayer for some ad hoc design program that's intended to be a temporary measure, but has a good chance of becoming a permanent feature distorting markets across the globe. The beginnings of this are in place as the US has declared 1,297 counties in 29 states “disaster areas.” The USDA has cut its corn production forecast by 1.8 billion bushels and lowered yield expectations to 146 b/a from 166 b/a back in June of this year. Corn futures have hit an all time high of $8US a bushel, and as the primary crop in the US is industrial corn, that makes a heck of a difference (all figures current to 19 July/12). So what does this mean for you and I, sitting here in Canada, wondering what to do next? Well, it means some of our industrial farmers will be doing better this year. But with Canada's integration with global markets, it does not mean that Canadians will see any benefit. We will not be seeing any drop or even stability in the prices we pay in the supermarket. About 40% of North American corn production is used for animal feed (regardless of whether or not its good for the animals involved) so we can expect to see a hike in meat prices come through the industrial food system. When? That's a trickier story. If markets are efficient and honest, meat prices should begin to rise over the next six to twelve months. This would mean producers looking at older, cheaper supplies they have in stock and calculating when they will run out and newer, more pricey supplies begin to be used. What is far more likely—as the oil industry has shown us time and time again—is that the old stock will become re-valued at the new international price, and prices will rise immediately, in order to maximize profits. There is actually wiggle room available: about 40% of corn grown in NA is designated for biofuel production. With dramatically increased feed-stock prices, corn-derived fuel will quickly become uneconomic to produce and sell (unless, of course, oil heads well north of $120/bbl in the very near future). Reduced demand from biofuel manufacturers would free up stocks to go for animal feed, and help keep a check on the price rise. The problem, of course, is the ubiquity of corn in the food system. If you're shopping the produce aisles, you might be in reasonable shape. But if you shop the inner aisles you'll find corn or corn-derived products in pretty much everything. For example, the citric acid used as a preservative in tomato sauce: corn-derived. HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup), of course. But also margarine, candies, ketchup (and catsup), peanut butter, and mayonnaise. (And a lot of non-food products like paint, printing inks, and photographic films). But this is going to be the new normal. If not drought, floods. If not floods, tornadoes. Or other extreme weather events. North Americans have had artificially low food prices for decades, and that period is about to come to a close as a result of global climate change. Recent projections have put temperature rise at 8-10 degrees over the rest of the century. This means that all of us are going to be to suffering for a short time, those of us under 40 are really going to notice the changes, and those under twenty might not make it.

The Failure of Genetic Engineering

There's a steady drumbeat that we are not producing enough food, that there must be more food for the growing global population, and that traditional or organic agriculture cannot achieve the necessary volumes. Therefore, continues the argument, we need to shift all our production over to genetically engineered varieties which produce more food per acre than traditional farming techniques. And its a compelling argument. Global population at six billion and due to rise to at least nine billion. Famine conditions popping up all over the place. The future looks grim. Perhaps we should embrace a technological fix.
Just two small problems. Tiny, really. First, The genetically engineered plants we grow aren't really food. The corn and soy we grow are not intended as food, not like, say, a carrot is food. Let's call them “precursor foods”; they are feed-stocks we tear apart into their constituent molecules and then construct “edible food-like products” from them.
And the second problem is just as minor. There's no evidence. At all, really. Down in the United States, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) sponsored a report on production differences between traditionally bred crops and genetically engineered ones, a report written by Doug Gurion-Sherman, a senior scientist in the UCS Food and Environment Program. His conclusions?

Thus a close examination of numerous studies of corn and soybean crop yields since the early 1990s gives us a good gauge of how well GE crops are living up to their promise for increasing yields. Bottom line; They are largely failing to do so. GE soybeans have not increased yields, and GE corn has increased yield only marginally on a crop-wide basis. Overall, corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years, but largely not as a result of the GE traits. Most of the gains are due to traditional breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.1

This is not a minor matter. GE crops are touted as saviour seeds for farmers, for hungry populations, for the world. They are, in fact, the final development of the the Green Revolution, the ultimate expression of the technologization of agriculture. And, like the Green Revolution, not only have they largely failed, but the original goals have been forgotten in a rush to manufacture profit and privatize life. The findings of the report are clear and powerful. First, that

“[g]enetic engineering has not increased intrinsic yield. No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, bu not as a result of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional breeding.”2

Intrinsic, or potential, yield is the highest yield that can be achieved under perfect conditions. This is different from operational yield, the yield obtained under field conditions. About which, the report says:

Genetic engineering has delivered only minimal gains in operational yield.... Based on available data, it is likely that Bt corn provides an operational yield advantage of 7-12 percent compared to typical conventional practices, including insecticide use, when European corn borer infestations are high. Bt corn offers little or no advantage when infestations of European corn borer are low to moderate, even when compared to conventional corn not treated with insecticides.3 [emphasis mine]

The increases we've seen in yields in corn and soy are, primarily, attributable to non-GE plant breeding techniques. The development of salt-tolerant wheat, for example, was done by crop scientists in Australia specifically without the use of GE techniques, in order to ensure free access to the cultivar by the world's farmers.

apis mellifera mellifera

Yeah, I didn't get it either. "apis mellifera mellifera" is a breed of honeybee called the "British Black," long thought to be extinct.But such is not the case.

from The Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is reporting that the "extinct" bee has been discovered living in Whitfield’s Holy Trinity Church in Northumberland. The bee is one of the varieties that was native to the British Isles after the last ice age, but was thought, like 90% of bees in the UK, to have become extinct after being infected with Spanish flu in 1919.
Conservation officer for the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders’ Association Dorian Pritchard, was called in to help.

He said: ‘They are generally a lot darker than the European bee with pale thin strips across the abdomen. It takes a specialist bee keeper to recognise them. ‘These bees were the native bees in Britain after the Ice Age but in the 1830s we started to import foreign bees. ‘An epidemic wiped out 90 per cent of the population after the First World War.’

So, longish Daily Mail story short; bee, thought extinct, recognized by highly observant bee conservation officer Dorian Pritchard. Bees moved out of church and into hives. Prognosis good. World generally a better place.
Right. Just so I'm not always doom and gloom.

A Year Getting Worse

Al Jazeera English is reporting

The US department of agriculture has declared a natural disaster in 26 states where the Midwest drought has done considerable damage to this year's corn crop.

High temperatures and drought in the farm belt have devastated farms and are pushing up the price of corn and other crops.

This is both as bad as it sounds and not quite as bad as it sounds. As  Hannah Poturalski, a staff writer with the Middletown Journal in Ohio puts it: "Ohio is among 29 states with counties now designated as natural disaster areas due to the drought." That is to say, it's not the entire state that has declared drought condition, but counties within it have. Still, when you look at the map, the situation is pretty severe.

According to the US Drought Monitor on July 05, 2012, "Analysis of the latest drought monitor data revealed that 46.84 percent of the nation’s land area is in various stages of drought, up from 42.8 percent a week ago...Looking only at the 48 contiguous states, 55.96 percent of the country’s land area is in moderate drought or worse." in the July 10, 2012 news release, the Drought Monitor notes:

[W]ith the hot weather that covered much of the central and eastern United States, only a few scattered areas of dryness and drought experienced significant improvement. In addition, the areas with the greatest temperature anomalies (average daily maxima 10 to 13 degrees above normal) generally coincided with an area of scant rainfall across the Midwest, northwestern Ohio Valley, and southern Great Plains, resulting in another week of widespread deterioration and expansion of dryness and drought in these regions.
In the hottest areas last week, which were generally dry, crop conditions deteriorated quickly. In the 18 primary corn-growing states, 30 percent of the crop is now in poor or very poor condition, up from 22 percent the previous week. In addition, fully half of the nation’s pastures and ranges are in poor or very poor condition, up from 28 percent in mid-June. The hot, dry conditions have also allowed for a dramatic increase in wildfire activity since mid-June. During the past 3 weeks, the year-to-date acreage burned by wildfires increased from 1.1 million to 3.1 million as of this writing.

That's about 4800 square miles or 12545 square kilometres burned over so far this year.  The Drought Monitor has also produced the following animation of drought conditions in the US over the last 12 weeks:

 There is some hope for rain in some area this week, but overall, this means trouble. With corn crops not producing ears (check out the Al Jazeera footage, above), and with pasture, soy, and other crops affected, the industrial food system is going to be seriously strained this year. Combined with big money building speculative bubbles in the food system, we could be facing a doubling or better of food costs this year.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the period from January through June was "the warmest first half of any year on record for the contiguous United States."
The average temperature was 52.9 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4.5 degrees above average, NOAA said on Monday. Twenty-eight states east of the Rockies set temperature records for the six-month period.
A heat wave blistered most of the United States in June, with more than 170 all-time temperature records broken or tied during the month. On June 28 in Norton, Kan., for instance, the temperature reached 118 degrees, an all-time high. On June 26, Red Willow, Neb., set a temperature record of 115 degrees, eclipsing the 114-degree mark set in 1932.

I'm not saying that it will get as bad as this 1942 Alfred Eisenstaedt photo of the dustbowl, at least not this year.

unpublished, from Life

But don't think it can't happen again. Dr. David Schindler, over at the University of Alberta, has pointed out that the Twentieth Century was the wettest century in the Pallister Triangle in the last 10,000 years. It has also been the only century we've farmed in the Triangle, so our perceptions are kind of skewed. And the past century also had four major drought events, including the one above. So Global Climate Change is going to matter here in North America.

More From Michael

Michael Pollan made his way back to Williams College, just up the road from where he studied, to talk to a room full of people about his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The talk covers two of the major themes from the book, corn and hope. It is long, but can run behind whatever else you're doing. Pollan is an excellent speaker, personable and interesting, making this time just flow by.
He talks, at the end in answer to a student's question, about the price difference between organic food and industrial food, and how we mis-perceive industrial food being cheaper. As he points out, industrial food has a lower proce per calorie in the store, but only after enormous subsidies along the way. All in all, a fascinating talk from a knowledgeable and interesting speaker.

The Pressure's On

Monsanto--Taking The Shot

From Alternet:

A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.
Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.
In a statement issued last month, the Center For Food Safety had this to say about the biotech industry’s latest attempt to circumvent legal and regulatory safeguards:

Ceding broad and unprecedented powers to industry, the rider poses a direct threat to the authority of U.S. courts, jettisons the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) established oversight powers on key agriculture issues and puts the nation’s farmers and food supply at risk.

In other words, if this single line in the 90-page Agricultural Appropriations bill slips through, it’s Independence Day for the biotech industry.

LMFAO (rural version)

All respect to the three young men in this video. Not afraid to let their passion show.