Canadian Constitution Foundation champions food freedom

Karen Selick litigation director of the CCF

"Michael and I will be asking the court to rule that the Charter right to “life, liberty and security of the person” includes your right to make independent decisions about your health and the food you eat."

read more about this here and at Michael Schmidt's site the Bovine

Is my excitement justified in thinking this could be about a larger issue of food choice freedoms (labeling of cloned meat, transgenics), shall I get out the celebratory beverage?

this food safety bill means business; HR 2749

If I was an American small farmer, I'd be sure worrying about HR 2749. I read it for myself before reading the tangled spectrum of spin out there in cyberspace. Read it for yourself.. This Bill, unlike its predecessors that have languished around for awhile, is speeding through and is now before the House. The cards are coming down.

The FDA will determine the practises for production of all food, trace what it decides to, conduct warrantless searches, and charge you for it..... small farms get 2 years to get it together. Very small farms get 3.. how very nice of them.

Oh, and no one is paying any attention now because there were just too many food safety bills out there and we are too busy in our freedom gardens, even though there are a few very wise sources and clear bells in the cyber muck.

The maddening thing for me is the lack of common sense and the easy morality cloak that a draconian bill about safe food can inspire. Small farmers aren't objecting to sound agricultural practises and healthy safe food, we are objecting to centralized, corporate dictate of what, how and if we grow food. This is misplaced authority which properly belongs to the community. But we have given over this freedom: the lack of gmo or nanotech labeling classically reminds us. This is precisely why people are massing toward known sources of their food.

A food safety guideline, education and reinforcement belongs with regions of eaters. It iocal politic - local food producers and elders and independent scholars/ investigators, research, regional vulnerabilites (Uranium mines) and infrastructure. They don't belong to the corporate, global persons who will profit from the dismantling of regional foodsheds and the fabulous food and farm renaissaince we have been experiencing - a surge which is threatening the survival of agribus as we've know it.


Interesting that the Big Genes are pairing with Produce...getting in while its good.

hogs and the swine flu

flooded hog factory

"In September 1999, almost immediately after receiving two strikes from Hurricane Dennis, Hurricane Floyd came roaring through Eastern North Carolina. In his path lay nearly 2,000 factory farm cesspools loaded with hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic fecal waste, wastewater treatment plants, factories and communities, many of which were in the flood plain." source and photo

And is this a coincidence that the year before this flooding a "highly pathogenic strain" wiped out thousands of sows in North Carolina:

"Since its identification during the Great Depression, H1N1 swine flu had only drifted slightly from its original genome. Then in 1998 a highly pathogenic strain began to decimate sows on a farm in North Carolina and new, more virulent versions began to appear almost yearly, including a variant of H1N1 that contained the internal genes of H3N2 (the other type-A flu circulating among humans)".

From Common Dreams; Swine Flu Crisis Lays Bare the Meat Industry's Monstrous Power

And see Tom Philpott: Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms
regarding the epicenter in big Hog country Vera Cruz

Does pork carry the new H1N1 strain?

Russia may think so as it haults imports of US and Mexican Pork on precaution against swine flu. Bloomberg story here.

Although the official word is that one cannot get swine flu from eating pork (for example the CDC info sheet),
and Vilsack's statement:
"I also wanted to reassure the public that there is no evidence at this time showing that swine have been infected with this virus".

But as Obama Foodorama points out "there's currently no evidence because there hasn't been time to test the hogs".

the pork industry has seen new strains and off season occurances of H1N1 strains:

"Swine influenza virus used to be a seasonal problem as pigs would get sick in the fall and winter and then get over it. Today’s mix of SIV strains has turned swine flu into a year-round problem for pork producers.

Kurt Rossow, Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine, University of Minnesota, says that SIV cases seen in the past 6 months have shown “different H1N1 viruses and changes in H3N2 viruses as well. While it’s still out there and needs to be considered, the classic H1N1 is no longer the predominant SIV type". source

Sebelius supports consumer choice for rBGH milk

Kathleen Sebelius, in her last act as governor of Kansas before joining the Obama team as Secretary of Health and Human Services (which is in charge of the FDA and legalized rBGH to begin with) has vetoed Bill 2121 which would have prohibited labeling milk free of rBGH.


"House Bill 2121 contains a number of provisions relating to pesticide and fertilizer laws and fees as well as dairy inspection and dairy-related fees. Without these fees, Kansas could lose important programs that support essential agricultural business operations in our state. I urge the legislature to send me these components in an independent bill so I can affix my signature and the Department of Agriculture can effectively administer these programs," Sebelius said.

"However, the Bill before me also provides for changes in dairy labeling that could make it more difficult to provide consumers with clear information.

"The milk labeling provisions negatively impact a dairy producer's ability to inform consumers that milk is from cows not treated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBST).

"Supporters of the bill claim it's necessary to protect consumers from false or misleading information. Yet there has been overwhelming opposition by consumer groups, small dairy producers and retailers to this proposed legislation.

"Furthermore, I am concerned that patchwork labeling requirements that differ from state to state will make it too expensive, in an already troubled economy, to provide consumers with information regarding the dairy products they purchase.

"Therefore, pursuant to Article 2, Section 14 of the Constitution of the State of Kansas, I veto HB 2121."

Jill Richardson writes about it here

Resistance not disease; bogus science

Livable futures blog describes the lunacy of some agricultural research in a post about an Op Ed in the NY Times regarding a study of pathogens in free range (324 pigs) vs. confinement pigs (298 pigs) where two free-range pigs were found to carry "the parasite trichinia".

Actually, what they carried was the where-with-all to fight the pathogens naturally - i.e. antibodies. What was also left out of the NY Times piece was that the "research" was paid for by the national pork board.

This is one of a growing waste heap of studies that are unabashedly biased, sloppy and becoming more transparently so. What kind of science is this? The aim is clearly to protect market share, and carry new products to market - they'll find what they need from the studies they pay for.

We are at a cusp now in the very perception of what is safe food.

Why the hyper focus on eradicating pathogenic bacteria "from farm to fork".
Why doesn't the pork board study antibiotics role in assisting to create a super bug? Or the consequences of residual bombardment of antibiotics on our inner family of friendly bacteria?

Having antibodies is a healthy part of being alive. We have many species of bacteria living symbiotically within. This study shows soil bacteria throws off the low down blues, and helps fight allergies.


What about the other urgent aspects of food safety?
Antibiotics in factory meat, hormones in milk, chemical residues, nano transmission, even perhaps slip-ups from engineered phages sprayed on meat or fresh veg.

There is growing public concern for real food safety and the veneer of propaganda is glaring but very thin. Let's use the opportunity to voice our other food safety concerns; I have yet to see discussion of the question of transgenic, chemical or nanoparticle toxicity in the news regarding the food safety bills - are they not mentioned? Where is this discussion?

The real momentum of cause, lobby and money toward food safety appears to be fo traceability. This would entitle government bodies and industry, presumably, insight to what is traveling to our "fork", but without labeling, the consumer would still be in the dark. That is absurdly and profoundly outrageous.

Hat tip to Jill Richardson.





hospital themed restaurant

biosolids in the Annapolis Valley

Plan to fertilize fields with biosolids causes concern
Scientist understands 'ick factor' but says treated sewage is approved for use on farms
By GORDON DELANEY Valley Bureau
Tue. Mar 31 - 2:34 PM

A little bit of the city is coming to the country, and that has some people asking questions.

An Annapolis County farmer is preparing to spread biosolid fertilizer from Halifax Regional Municipality on hay and cornfields in the Clarence area.

Neighbours say they have concerns.

"I don’t think it’s ever been spread in the community before," said one woman who asked not to be named.

She wouldn’t name the farmer but said piles of biosolid fertilizer are appearing on the side of the roads, but the fields are still too wet to spread it.

"It can be quite stinky," said the woman. "Some people have complained that they almost get physically ill from it.


The whole article from the Chronicle Herald seems to have disappeared from the net (but you can buy it for 4 dollars here)

Nova Scotia's Ecology Action Centre's position paper (PDF)

Here is another story for those in the province following the blog - Bio-not-so-solids; Dumping sludge on farmland is a crappy idea, by Chris Benjamin in the Coast.

And here are the Nova Scotia Guidelines For Land Application and Storage of Biosolids in Nova Scotia, where distances from wells. waterways, time and covering (tarping) are clarified.

EU members: cloned meat and nanocaution

Members of the EU want cloned meat prohibited and nanoparticles labeled in the just released report on Novel food rules.

Novel foods, MEPs set new rules Food safety 25-03-2009


"In a legislative report dealing with an update of the EU rules on novel foods, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to interdict the placing on the market of food derived from cloned animals and their descendants. MEPs also want food being produced by nanotechnology processes to undergo a specific risk assessment before being approved for use and be labelled. The report was adopted with 658 votes in favour, 15 against and 11 abstentions"....

..."Food derived from cloned animals to be excluded - new Commission proposal demanded

The Parliament wants to exclude food derived from cloned animals from the scope of this Regulation. MEPs ask the Commission to present a legislative proposal to prohibit the placing on the market of food derived from cloned animals and their offspring.

Food produced with nanotechnology processes must be safe and labelled

MEPs want that foods which have been produced by nanotechnology processes, and which will need specific risk assessment methods, may not be included in the Community list until those risk assessment methods have been approved for use.

The risk assessment methods must not imply the use of vertebrate animals; underline the MEPs, who also support the use of non-animal tests and the intelligent testing strategies.

Furthermore, all ingredients present in the form of nanomaterials shall be clearly indicated in the list of ingredients. The names of the ingredients shall be followed by the word 'nano' in brackets".

Read the report

seagulls scavenging in the transgenic corn stalks

If you have been following my bog since I began in November, you may recall my posts about the neighbour's transgenic corn next door, that was harvested in early winter after a couple of snowfalls (and melts). Very little wildlife has come by to eat the remnants, the geese are feeding elsewhere, but this past few days the field has been full of squawking gulls. They rise and fall together, one giant swarm in the wind over the sea of stubble. I walked in there this morning and it is full of corn husks and kernels.

farm to fork; appropriation of our language

"Farm to fork" has long been a slogan of small scale local food security, in fact, its been around a while. Now it seems to be taking on new meaning and an ideology quite different than the original idea.

It looks more like this:



Sensors, rifd chips and software to trace it from "farm to fork". Industrial agriculture's piece de resistance for control of the food supply. And we can guess who's involved.



But I ask you! Do we want sterility or health? Are we soley concerned about pathogens, or are transgenic hazards and nanoscale toxins important too?

Bioregional small farms and householders gardens will ensure a localized healthy bioecology, where healthy organisms flourish in symbiotic dynamism, pathogens face resistence and health prevents unbalance. Like a good healthy garden.

Ecological and local; know from where your food comes!

Got softwear for those chips?

Valley companies developing products they hope will improve food safety

By Brandon Bailey

Mercury News

"After a series of contamination scares that sent health officials scrambling from one investigation to the next, President Barack Obama is promising to strengthen the nation's food safety net. And though it's no longer a major center for food production, Silicon Valley is developing high-tech tools for that effort.

It's been decades since San Jose was known for growing and canning produce. But IBM has high hopes for selling new software, developed partly at the company's Silicon Valley Lab in South San Jose, that it says will help businesses track ingredients from suppliers to stores by sharing information gleaned from radio frequency identification tags and other sensors".

Read the story here

The food safety bill shuffle

H.R.759, one of a few food safety bills before congress and the one most likely to be passed, isn't receiving the rhetoric and reaction that HR 875 is arousing. Tom Philpot's article Food Scare has reassured me that although very vague, much of the buzz around HR 875 is misdirected.

HR 759 has a good chance, unlike 875 of getting through and as Jill Richardson points out there are a few good things about Dingall's Bill, currently in committee.
But really worrisome is its desire to regulate produce:
"The Secretary (FDA) shall establish by regulation science-based minimum standards for the safe production and harvesting of those types of fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities"
FDA's science based standards for vegetable production? Will Monsanto, Bayer, Cargill, et al, have a hand in designing said standards? What level of sterility will be required in our big gardens and farms as we forgo bacteria for chemical combatants?

All these bills remind me of the cup and coin trick: which one is it under? We know Big Ag wants control of the food supply. We know that they have deep influence in congress. I think these food safety bills need more scrutiny and less hysteria. And yes, I am Canadian. But it seems that what Americans do has that inevitable trickle down effect. And this bill HR 759 is aimed at the global market. Here is the full text of the bill.

Interesting to note that there is no provision or mention of nanoparticles.

green wash: novel viruses sprayed on food and crops

photo
Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria. They have been compared to “space ships that are able to carry genetic material between susceptible cells and then reproduce in those cells” (Kutter, 1997). Bacteriophages are, in fact, very simple organisms that consist of genetic material (DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat, a hollow protein tail and tail fibers". source

" ... recent advances in molecular biology have also allowed for the development of novel phage-derived antimicrobial agents, such as lysins and non-replicative phage-based lethal agents. Much of the research and development of these technologies has been conducted on a small scale, resulting in numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents, but very few commercially available products to date. While the data available on many of these phage-based antimicrobials appears promising on a laboratory or pilot scale, their true efficacy will be explicitly realized once these technologies enter into broad clinical or commercial availability". here

There true "efficacy" may well be "realized", now that this experiment is being conducted in the societial lab with commercial release of several products and this link which also discusses the lack of testing and probable dangers.
.
Interesting note Bacteriophages "are very useful nano-structure tools".
Phages are also being used to produce nanowires: sensors and chips because of the "excellent template" of phages and their ability to self-replicate rapidly. For a startling article of the advances and commercial releases of novel phages and nanotechnology applications see the PDF Biotechnological Exploit of Bacteriophage Research

A leader in the technology: Wageningen, Food Valley Netherlands:
"Convergence of micro systems, fluidics, functional molecular cell design, and supra-molecular chemistry now brings all food size structures within reach, says Dr. Frans Kampers, director of BioNT (www.biont.wur.nl), the Wageningen, Netherlands-based research center focused on the fundamental science and technology of micro- and nanosystems and their applications in food and health. Kampers is the center’s strategic research coordinator in bio-nanotechnology. His remit encompasses quality assurance through sensing and diagnostics, food design, safety monitoring and control, innovative processing, encapsulation and delivery, and packaging and logistics.

The center’s location in Wageningen is no accident. This area aims to become to the food industry what San Jose, Calif., area is to the semiconductor industry. It’s even referred to as Food Valley (www.foodvalley.nl/english/default.aspx).

EBI Food Safety (www.ebifoodsafety.com), also in Wageningen, has developed the first commercial bacteriophage product, ListexTM, which targets Listeria monocytogenes-pathogenics with a 30% mortality rate. ListexTM was granted the U.S. FDA-GRAS (generally regarded as safe) approval in October 2006; organic EU approval in June 2007, and an extension of GRAS approval from the FDA and USDA for use with all food products susceptible to Listeria" read more