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thanks to kalpa for many of the articles that follow. -KS
A New Direction on Research at the USDA? The Experts Weigh In
Paula Crossfield, civileatsvia the Huffington Post
Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave a speech on the role of research at the USDA at the launch of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the research arm of that agency formerly referred to as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES).
Vilsack had this to say in his kick-off speech:
The opportunity to truly transform a field of science happens at best once a generation. Right now, I am convinced, is USDA’s opportunity to work with the Congress, the other science agencies, and with our partners in industry, academia, and the nonprofit sector, to bring about transformative change.
It is hard to reject the idea that our country needs more research on agriculture — specifically, more science-based knowledge from which to make political and regulatory decisions around food. But as his speech continued, Vilsack placed the focus on technology as our aegis. And while technology is not a bad thing, there are still many questions left unanswered that USDA could and should be focusing on — questions that the agribusiness lobby quite possibly doesn’t want answered, as the outcomes could force the public and our politicians to take a harder look at just what it means to build a truly sustainable food system.
NIFA will be headed by a controversial choice, Roger Beachy — formerly of the Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO, which receives funding from Monsanto, and was part of the lobbying effort to create NIFA in the mold of the National Science Foundation. Beachy joins a team that already includes Rajiv Shah, formerly of the Gates Foundation. The re-branding of CSREES worries sustainable food advocates who fear US research priorities could shift with the private sector’s coaxing further towards a more biotechnology-oriented focus in an attempt to end world hunger, even though more viable solutions to hunger — a problem of distribution and not yield — exist on the ground that are both cost-effective and ready to implement now in the developing world…
(15 Oct 2009)
Brief reactions to the speech follow from the likes of Michael Pollan, Tim LaSalle of the Rodale Institute, etc. and related: Government researchers want to peek in grocery carts-KS
USDA and EPA Pushing Coal Ash for Growing Crops
PEER press release, commondreams.org
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency are asking farmers to use coal ash to grow their crops, despite a paucity of research on possible risks, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). USDA endorses use of coal combustion wastes by farmers “for crop production” while acknowledging uncertainty on the extent to which “toxic elements” are absorbed into produce entering the market.
This month, USDA enters the final year of a three-year partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency as part of a larger effort by the American Coal Ash Association, the Electric Power Research Institute and others to “promote appropriate increased use of” coal ash in agriculture. The implementing Memorandum of Understanding obliges USDA to generate “documentation of the effectiveness, safety and environmental benefits, including bioavailability of trace elements such as mercury, arsenic and selenium…to satisfy the concerns of producers, generators, regulators and the public.”
According to EPA, agriculture annually uses more than 180,000 tons of coal ash and other coal combustion byproducts. There are no federal standards governing agricultural applications of coal ash. EPA has publicly vowed to promulgate hazardous waste rules by the end of 2009 for coal ash, one year after last December’s disastrous coal ash spills from Tennessee Valley Authority sludge ponds.
“USDA should pull out of the coal ash business tomorrow morning,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. “USDA does American agriculture no favors by duping farmers into spreading hazardous wastes across their fields.”…
(15 Oct 2009)
‘We need to pay farmers … to protect nature’
Margaret Webb, The Star
When farmer Bryan Gilvesy looks over his 44 acres of native tall-grass prairie in Norfolk County, Ont., on Lake Erie, he sees truly green fields.
By planting this ancient “crop,” which once covered much of Southern Ontario and is now one of the most endangered in North America, he is also showing that farmers can become leaders in combating climate change.
These native grasses thrive in draught, extreme heat and poor soils. The roots, which plunge up to 16 feet into the ground, can sequester as much as 1.8 metric tons of carbon per acre.
The extensive cover, up to seven feet high, can either feed livestock or produce a biofuel that regenerates year after year without damaging inputs, making it far superior to corn. So what the former tobacco farmer turned environmental visionary would also like to see when he looks out over his grand experiment is payment for producing not only food but clean air, water and soil.
Gilvesy is the chair of the Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS) project in Norfolk County, which is developing a new model for farm support that could shift Canadian agriculture into a greener future.
The farmer-driven initiative has cobbled together a small, $1 million budget from 16 funding sources to run a three-year pilot that pays farmers $150 annually for every acre they devote to ecological functions, the rental rate for cropland in the area.
“We need to pay farmers in order to engage them to protect nature,” says Gilvesy. “Farmers are highly skilled water managers. Farmers understand soil. They’re experts at sequestering carbon. Farmers are excellent stewards of the land. Paying farmers attaches a value on ecological services they provide that all of society benefits from.”…
(10 Oct 2009)
Economic crisis exposes fragile global food system, new UN report says
The Mail
The economic turmoil sweeping the globe has lead to a sharp spike in hunger affecting the world’s poorest, uncovering a fragile global food system requiring urgent reform, according to a report issued today by two United Nations agencies.
The combination of the food and economic crises have pushed more people into hunger, with the number of hungry expected to top 1 billion this year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The agency, along with the World Food Programme (WFP), said in their The State of Food Insecurityreport that nearly all of the world’s undernourished live in developing countries.
Even before the onset of the current crises, the number of hungry has been growing slowly and steadily over the past decade, it noted.
Strides in improving access to food were made in the 1980s and early 1990s, thanks to stepped up agricultural investment after the global food crisis of the early 1970s. However, official development assistance (ODA) fell between 1995-1997 and 2004-2006, resulting in surges in the number of undernourished in most regions…
(15 Oct 2009)
You can download the full report here.
