Global Issues, Local Impact

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Global Issues, Local Impact ____________________
__________________ Understanding and Impacting
the Food and Farm Bill
Society for Nutrition Education Annual Conference
July 18, 2006 San Francisco, CA
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Session Overview

• Why should nutrition educators care about the
  Farm Bill?
• What other forces beyond the Farm Bill are at
  play?
• How can the Farm Bill better support public
  health?
• What can we do?

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SNE and the Farm Bill

• Advisory Committee on Public Policy (ACPP)
• Testimony on Farm Bill Hearings
• Committee and Subcommittees in 2006-2007

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SNE and the Farm Bill (cont)

• A Partner of the Healthy Foods and Communities
  (HFC) Workgroup
• Facilitated by the Community Food Security
  Coalition (CFSC)
• Part of the Farm and Food Policy Project
• Linda Berlin Liaison

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Global Issues, Local Impact ____________________
__________________ The Farm Bill Why Should
Consumers and Nutrition Educators Care?
Jennifer Wilkins Food and Society Policy
Fellow Division of Nutritional Sciences Cornell
University jlw15_at_cornell.edu
Society for Nutrition Education Annual Conference
July 18, 2006 San Francisco, CA
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Policy

• Norms that structure the behavior of agents,
  institutions, and markets by allocating resources
  and defining the bounds of action.

Alan Hance, FFPP Food and Society Conference
April, 2006.
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Policy

• A plan of action agreed to by a group of people
  with the power to carry it out and enforce it
• Laws
• Regulations
• Guidelines
• Principles
• Directions

Susan L Roberts, JD,MS,RD
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Policy

• What is to be done
• Who is to do it
• How it is to be done

Susan L Roberts, JD,MS,RD
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Policy can be.

• Personal
• The set of standards to guide ones own actions
• My food choices support local farmers and
  environmental stewardship.
• Organizational / Institutional
• Guides how organizations and businesses operate
• Meadowsweet uses organic milk and locally grown
  fruits in its yogurts. 20 of the produce
  served in the Cornell University dining halls
  will come from NYS farms.
• Public
• Guides how federal, state and municipal
  governments operate and address specific issues
  or problems process involves input from
  citizens, government staff, and elected officials
• Des Moines Public Schools do not allow the sale
  of sugared soft drinks in schools.

Adapted from Susan L Roberts, JD,MS,RD
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The U.S. Farm Bill

• 2007 ??? Act of 2007
• Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002
• Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of
  1996
• Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of
  1990

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Farm Bill Titles

• Commodity
• Conservation
• Trade
• Nutrition
• Credit
• Rural Development
• Research
• Forestry
• Energy
• Miscellaneous

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6-Year Farm Bill Budget Authority
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The Food System
Government / Public Policies
Natural Resources
Production
Recycling/ Compositing
Processing
Health??
Food Systems
Distribution
Preparation
Society Culture
Technological Systems
Purchasing (access)
Adapted from K. Dahlberg, 1993
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Why Should We Care?

• Does the Farm Bill
• impact our ability to be effective nutrition
  educators?
• impact the ability of consumers to make healthful
  food choices?
• make us fat?
• lead to production of foods recommended in the
  Dietary Guidelines?
• impact the development of local, sustainable food
  systems?
• impact public health in other (non-food) ways?

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Take corn, for example
US Ag Policy of Corn Subsidies (5.5 - 7
Billion) Corn Production Cheap Corn Cheap
HFCS Global Dumping HFCS in more of
foods Competitive Imbalance HFCS consumption
Food Insecurity
Domestic Impact
International Impact
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A Sweeter Food Supply(Pounds Per Capita 1966
and 2001)
Glucose syrup, dextrose, pure honey, edible
syrups
Sources S. Haley, et. al, ERS, USDA, June
2003. Table 50--U.S. per capita caloric
sweeteners estimated deliveries for domestic food
and beverage use, by calendar year
(www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/Data/Table50.xls)
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Graph source Food without Thought How U.S. Farm
Policy Contributes to Obesity IATP, 2006
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Graph source Food without Thought How U.S. Farm
Policy Contributes to Obesity IATP, 2006
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U.S. Consumption of Sugars and Fats
Graph source Food without Thought How U.S. Farm
Policy Contributes to Obesity IATP, 2006
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New Food Products by Category 1988-2001
Source New Product News, January 2002
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Introduction of new, larger portions 19701999
Number of Large-Size Portions Introduced
Year
Young UR and Nestle M. 2002. AJPH (92)2 246-249.
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Intake of Nutrient-poor Foods

• Intake of Nutrient-poor energy sources 1
• Soft Drinks 1 energy contributor (7.1)
• Top 10 Foods Soft drinks, cakes, hamburgers,
  pizza, etc. (32.4)
• Food Groups Sweets, desserts Soft drinks
  (19.4)
• Soda intake 576 12-oz servings (53 gallons) per
  year 2

1Block, G. J Food Comp Analysis. 2004 2 National
Soft Drink Assoc. web site, www.nsda.org.
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Intake of Nutrient-rich Foods

• 25 of US adults consume 5 servings of fruits
  and vegetables per day 3
• Only 2 school age children meet Pyramid
  recommendations 4
• lt 15 of elementary school-age children eat five
  or more servings of fruits and vegetables every
  day
• Diet factor in leading causes of death 5

3 Cserdula et al. AJPH, June 2004, 94(6)
10141018, 4 Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Childrens Diets in the Mid-1990s.
2001.NCHS/USDHHS. 5 CDC/USDHHS Profiling
Leading Causes of Death in the U.S. Chronic
Diseases. Nov 30, 2005.
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Junk Food A Real Deal

• Price of fresh fruits and vegetables has
  increased 40 in the past 40 years
• Costs of soda, sweets, fats and oils have gone
  down
• On a per-calorie basis, high-energy,
  low-nutrition junk foods tend to be cheaper
  than those lower in fats and sugars1

1 Drewnowski, A. and Specter, SE. AJCN,
79(1)6-16. 2004.
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Graph source Food without Thought How U.S. Farm
Policy Contributes to Obesity IATP, 2006
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U.S. Food System Partner and Obstacle to Health

• Over-production of commodity foods,
  underproduction of fruits and vegetables
• Regional specialization Lack of seasonality
• Quantity and shelf-life valued over quality
• Proliferation of unhealthy products
• Mono-culture in our fields, mono-consumption,
  mono-palates
• Concentration and consolidation throughout
• Negative health outcomes

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The Real Cost of Food

• We actually pay three times for our food.
• At the supermarket till
• Taxes used to subsidize commodities
• Clean up environmental damage, treat obesity,
  co-morbidities

Pretty, J. Agri-culture. 2004.
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A New Set of Policy Principles?

• Agriculture Policy Should

• Foster agriculture and food systems based on
  family farms that nurture and sustain rural
  communities and environment
• Place health as a central tenet
• Foster open opportunity, entrepreneurship and
  ownership
• Further goals of food sovereignty
• Encourage diversity of foods and diversity in
  fields
• Give equal weight to human and environmental
  health - goals can/should be congruent
• Lead to more dispersed production to foster more
  local access and supply chains

Lang Rayner, 2002. Commodity Policy Dialogue.
National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture,
2005
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Farm and Food Policy Project

• Cross-sector policy dialogue
• Consensus-based decision making process
• Commitment to transparency and accountability
  and to become more diverse and inclusive
• An organizational structure for policy
  development and policy advocacy

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FFPP Workgroups

• New Agricultural Markets
• Healthy Food and Communities
• Family Farm Revitalization
• Farm and Ranch Stewardship

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Healthy Food and Communities Workgroup

• Issues
• Hunger and food-insecurity
• Reliance on emergency feeding system
• Limited access to healthy, affordable foods
• Low nutrient-density of the food supply
• Prevalence of preventable diet-related diseases
• Obesity among U.S. adults and children

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HFC Policy Initiatives

• Strengthen Food Assistance Programs
• Promote Healthier Foods and Communities

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Redirect Commodity Policy

• Shift in direct commodity payments
• Support diversified production
• Encourage shift from feed grains to food crops
• Create a more favorable climate for growing
  fruits and vegetables
• Increase support for environmental stewardship
• Let's join hands as wealthy industrialized
  nations and say to the world, we are going to get
  rid of all our agricultural subsidies
  together.'1

1President George Bush speaking to ITV1
television ahead of the G8 summit in Scotland on
Wednesday, July 6, 2005.
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Strengthen Food Assistance

• Broaden food stamp eligibility
• Simplify food stamp application process,
  streamline
• Encourage greater consumption of fruits and
  vegetables by FS recipients
• Equip farmers markets with Electronic Benefits
  Transfer capability
• Continue and expand WIC Farmers Market Nutrition
  Program
• Encourage Food System innovation
• Community Food Security approach to FSNEP
• Wellness Policies Incentivize nutrition and food
  system education and farm to school

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Promote Healthy Foods and Communities

• Include farm to school and school garden
  provisions
• Expand Fruit and Vegetable Pilot Program to all
  states
• Institute food policy councils for local/regional
  food system development
• Increasing fruit and vegetables availability
• Infrastructure issues - enhance nutrient-density
• Bodegas, Neighborhood grocers, rural small town
  grocers

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Needed

• A Farm Bill thats a Healthy Food Bill
• A Farm Bill thats a Healthy Community Bill
• 2007 Farm Bill Food and Agriculture Systems for
  Health Act

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The key purpose of our Food and Farming system
should be to advance the Health and Wellbeing of
Americans.
Susan Roberts, R.D., J.D.
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What will it take?

• Food and Nutrition Professionals who
• Take an interest in the Food System and impacts
• Use their voice to make it better through
• Personal, Organizational and Public Policy
• Help consumers do the same
• Policy makers who listen and are willing to put
  public interests first

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Global Issues, Local Impact ____________________
__________________ The Food and Farm
Bill Presented at the Society for Nutrition
Education Annual Conference July 18, 2006 San
Francisco, CA Presented by Fred Kirschenmann,
Distinguished Fellow Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture Iowa State
University leopold1_at_iastate.edu www.leopold.iastat
e.edu
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Oligopolies in the food system

• When oligopolies rule unchecked by the state,
  what is perverted is the free market itself, and
  our freedom as individuals within the economy and
  ultimately within our political system as well.
• ---Barry C, Lynn, Breaking the Chain Harpers,
  July 2006

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Industrial Food System Logo

• If the industrial food system were to choose an
  appropriate logo for itself, it would be-----JUST
  EAT IT.
• ----Bill Heffernan

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Power in the food system

• Research has shown that when 15 customers ask the
  manager of a local supermarket for the same
  product during the same week the store will
  invariably stock the product!
• ---Iowa State University Extension Service
• Food is an inelastic market.

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The food/farming system we have

• Currently our food system is divided into two
  tiers - - -
• Direct, differentiated markets
• Undifferentiated, mass commodity markets
• Commodity markets dominate the food system today
  and largely shape our farming system.

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Agriculture and the modern production
paradigm ________________________________________
Modern agriculture has become highly
industrialized in order to reliably produce
the largest amount of plant and animal product
possible while minimizing labor inputs.
Through the incorporation of numerous
components manufactured externally to the farm,
including fertilizers, pesticides, and
technology, the modern system manipulates
the land to make it amenable to industrial
processes.
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Agriculture and the modern production
paradigm ________________________________________
Typically, crops are produced as large-hectarage
monocultures consisting of a single genotype
planted across an entire field. Most farms
using modern agriculture methods cultivate only a
few crops grown in simple rotations such as
wheat-fallow or maize-soybean. Similarly, most
animals are grown in feedlots or
climate-controlled buildings in order to closely
monitor feed efficiency and to guarantee uniform
meat, egg, or milk products. David R.
Keller and E. Charles Brummer, Putting Food
Production in Context Toward a
Postmechanistic Agricultural Ethic,
BioScience, March 2002 These industrial
agriculture objectives largely shape the
agricultural landscape.
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Hansen, MN Exp Sta
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Why?
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Cheap food policy?

• True---we spend less of our earned income on food
  than any nation in the world---a little less than
  10
• But based on the cost per calorie of food 22
  countries have cheaper food than we do.
  ---Chuck Benbrook

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Cheap raw materials and labor policy

• Cheap raw materials and labor lead to cheap
  ingredients.
• Cheap ingredients lead to adding value by
  providing volume.
• we promote all you can eat fare
• put lots of cheap ingredients (like high fructose
  corn syrup) into our food.
• emphasis on quantity dilutes nutrient density
• That combination may have deleterious health
  effects.

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Do we have an appropriate metaphor for todays
industrial food system?
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In addition to obesity and diabetesexplosion, we
are seeing nutrient dilution
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Nutrient Dilution Effect

• Yield enhancing methods tend to decrease nutrient
  density
• Recent studies of fruits, vegetables and wheat
  show a 5 to 35 percent decline in nutrient
  density during past fifty years
• A few nutrients in meat and milk have decreased
  by as much as 60 percent
• ---Donald R. Davis University of Texas

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Trends in 43 garden crops 1950-1999

• Protein ? 6
• Calcium ? 16
• Vitamin C ? 20
• Riboflavin ? 38
• Phosphorus ? 9
• Iron ? 15
• ---Davis, Epp, Riorden, Am. J Coll Nutr

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Cost per nutrient value?

• What we need is a food system that calculates the
  cost of food by its health and nutrient value.
• A sobering thought During the same time that we
  have reduced the percent of our earned income
  spent on food to less than 10 percent, we have
  also increased the percent of our income spent on
  health care to 16 percent!
• ---Gary Schwartz MD, Mayo Clinic

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Another sobering thought

• We can no more achieve human health apart from
  ecosphere health, than the health of a fetus can
  be maintained apart from the health of the
  womans body that encapsulates it. ---Stan Rowe,
  Home Place
• The Law of Ecology applied to food and health
  Either it is all healthy or none of it is healthy

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Good news in the marketplace

• Market demand for highly differentiated foods is
  increasing dramatically.
• The Hartman Group reports that 62 percent of food
  customers now want to by food that is consistent
  with their values.

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What Values?

• Superior Quality Taste, Health Nutrition.
• Food Story Produced with good environmental
  stewardship appropriate animal husbandry fair
  compensation for farmers and farm workers point
  of origin
• Engagement Invites customers to be active
  participants, not passive recipients

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Receding Trends and Implications

• Declining reliance on external authority
• Consumers are relying primarily on their social
  networks (friends, family and colleagues) for
  information
• Consumers have little respect for those companies
  speaking at them, they respect those who speak
  with them
• To speak with consumers, you need to use their
  language. ---The Hartman Group

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A Third Tier in the Food System?

• 1) Commodity markets 2) direct markets AND 3)
  farmer marketing consortia, organized as
  values-based value chains. Examples
• Organic Valley Family of Farms
• Natural Country Beef
• Shepards Grain
• Niman Ranch

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What is a value chain?

• A value chain is long-term network of
  partnering businesses working together to
  maximize value for the partners and the end
  customers of a particular product.

Market
Input Suppliers
Farmers
Packer (Primal cuts)
Fabrication (Portion Cuts)
Food Service Distributor
DELIVERY
DELIVERY
Market
Vet Services
Market
Value chain farmer as partner Supply chain
farmer as input supplier
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Agricultural Quadrants Value Scale
Value- Added
2. Opportunity
1. Direct
Very Small
Very Large
3. Commodity
4. Death Zone
Commodity
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Create New Opportunity for family farms
Value- Added
1. Direct
2. Opportunity

• Differentiate with Value-added Attributes.
• Preserve local / regional focus.
• Aggregate value chains.

Very Small
Very Large
Option
4. Death Zone
Commodity
Commodity Family Farmers
Commodity
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New Markets New Policies

• In an era of food oligopolies new emerging
  markets need to be supported by new public
  policies to create the third tier in the food
  system.

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Time for a FOOD and farm bill?

• Is it time for ALL citizens to become involved in
  helping to shape the next farm bill?
• Public policy in part determines how we produce
  out food.
• How we produce our food in part determines the
  health of the planet, as well as the kind of food
  we eat.
• The food we eat, and the planets health, in part
  determines our health.

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Time to claim the farm bill as everyones
bill---a citizens food and farm bill!
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A Food and Farm Bill we can all support?

• 1. Existing legislation we can support
• 2. New options we might consider supporting.

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Existing programs worthy of our common support

• USDA Community Food Projects provides funds for
  innovative solutions to community food and
  nutrition problems.
• USDA Value-added Producer Grants Provides funds
  for innovative producer marketing consortia.
• Farmers Market Coupon Programs Available to
  seniors and low-income families.

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Existing programs, cont

• USDA Office of Civil Rights and Office of
  Outreach outreach and accountability to ensure
  fair access to services, funds and programs for
  farmers of color, limited resource and other
  socially disadvantaged farmers.
• Food Stamp Program Changes restored partial
  benefits to legal immigrants

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Existing programs, cont

• Conservation Security Program working lands
  conservation program that rewards farmers for
  practices that protect water, soil and air
  quality.

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New Goals

• Bold, new goals are needed to craft new policies
  that address the food and farming challenges of
  the future
• How shall we proceed?

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Its all about collaboration

• The Farm and Food Policy Project provides a
  unique opportunity
• Four Policy Initiatives
• New Agricultural Markets
• Healthy Food and Communities
• Farm and Ranch Stewardship
• Family Farm Revitalization
• ---www.farmandfoodpolicy.org

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5 Healthy Food and Community FFPP Goals

• End Hunger and Increase Healthy Food Access
• Create a Food and Agricultural System that
  Enhances Health
• Increase Local and Regional Food Security
• Orient Research and Development Programs to
  Promote Innovative Solutions to Problems
• Protect the Health and Economic Opportunities of
  Vulnerable People---including family farmers!