Corporate Acountability International takes on McDonald's

Clowning With Kids' Health

So, what's driving the downfall of the local grocery?

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/41994/


Kansas a Food Desert? Absence of Local Groceries Troubling

Saturday, June 26, 2010 :: Staff infoZine
K-State Center, Research to Help Communities Make Food Accessible
Manhattan, KS -

Forgot the hamburger buns? While there was a time when a quick trip to a local grocery could make it easy to complete the meal, in many Kansas communities, the grocery store has closed.

Since 2006, 82 of 213 grocery stores serving Kansas communities with populations of 2,500 or less, have closed, said David Procter, director of the Center for Engagement and Community Development at Kansas State University, which organized and hosted a Rural Grocery Store Summit (at K-State) recently.

The closing of local grocery stores is not unique to Kansas, said Procter, who noted that the summit attracted nearly 200 participants representing 13 states.

The absence of a grocery or other store selling essential food items within a 10-mile radius is termed a "severe food desert," he said.

Such designations dot Kansas' landscape in both urban and rural areas, said Procter, who described the goals for the conference to be initiating dialog, identifying challenges and opportunities, charting a research agenda and networking to overcome the challenges and build on the opportunities.

The local grocery has traditionally fulfilled a key role in the community, Procter said.

In addition to the obvious -- making wholesome food accessible -- grocery stores have typically anchored community businesses and the community.

And, as an employer, the local grocery store has generated full and part-time employment opportunities, often with better benefits than larger employers, and revenue from sales taxes to support education, economic development and community improvements.

So, what's driving the downfall of the local grocery?

The lure of the big-box stores offering lower prices is a factor, but the value of the savings is eroded when travel time and money are factored into the equation.

Driving 10, 15 or 20 miles (each way) to a retail center takes time -- and it costs money. Conference presenter Doug Cunningham (from Norfolk, Neb., representing Affiliated Foods) noted that the American Automobile Association reports the current cost of driving a car is 56 cents a mile. That means the minimal cost for a 20-mile round trip is $11.20.

What often is overlooked, however, is the value of doing business locally, said Leah Tsoodle, K-State Research and Extension agricultural economist and researcher of grocery shopping preferences in Kansas communities.

For every $100 spent within a community, $45 stays within the community and may be circulated within the community as many as seven times, Tsoodle said. For every $100 spent outside the community, only about $15 is likely to return to the community.

"Small businesses drive local economies, yet given the combined loss in sales volume, consolidation of wholesalers, increase in minimum orders for delivery, and rising cost of transportation, smaller retailers face increasing challenges that may mean closing their doors," Procter said.

"Once the grocery store is gone, the closing (or consolidation) of the school often is not far behind," he said. And, without a grocery store and a school, a community will typically have trouble attracting new residents, and that means property values also will decline.

So, what's a community to do?

If Morland, Kan., a Graham County community of 150, is an example, the answer is "plenty."

According to Chris Petty, K-State Research and Extension agricultural agent in the county, the local grocery (Bean's Country Market) closed in 2006, when the owners retired.

The longtime store building needed updating, and the Morland Community Foundation looked into grant and other funds to help fund the renovation, but learned they were not eligible for the funding because the store was located in the flood plain, Petty said.

While some might have backed away from the project, this community of go-getters pooled resources to hire a civil engineer to evaluate existing zoning.

The business district hasn't been flooded since the early 1950s (more than 50 years ago), Petty said, so, after studying the landscape, the engineer updated the map to include a more accurate definition of the flood plain. Updating the zoning is expected to reduce insurance premiums for homeowners in the former flood plain and make building a garage or deck possible, he said.

Re-establishing the local grocery also could increase property values, said Petty, who noted that Morland has a bank, grain elevator, popular restaurant, hair salon and newly opened photography studio.

The local grocery and the restaurant (Prairie Junction) are expected to support each other, and that, too, will make the community stronger, said Petty, who explained that they expect to draw grocery customers from St. Peter, which is located 12 miles south; from Studley, six miles west; and Penokee, six miles east. The combined population of the potential customer service base is 350 people, he said.

Community organizers also have done their homework in working with Tsoodle and Paul Clark, a former K-State ag economist, to develop and conduct a customer survey to learn more about the products and services prospective customers want.

In developing the survey (funded by K-State's Center for Engagement and Community Development), ag economists focused on respondents' preferences in the grocery shopping experience with a follow-up section asking the respondents to rate how their current shopping experiences are meeting their expectations.

With a 30 percent response rate for such surveys considered excellent, the more than 40 percent response rate to the Morland survey reflected strong interest in the question of re-establishing the local grocery, Tsoodle said.

Overall, the responses were positive and encouraging to the Morland community organizers, she said. Eighty percent of the respondents identified quality of food as a reason for choosing to shop at a grocery store; 77 percent cited cleanliness of the store and store personnel, and 57 percent noted customer service as reason to shop at a grocery store.

Results from the survey also indicated that 95 percent of the respondents would likely purchase locally grown foods, the ag economist said.

The community has received verbal approval on the change in zoning, but is waiting for formal (written) approval to move forward, said Faye Minium, president of the Citizens State Bank and member of the Morland Community Foundation.

The foundation has applied for and received a commitment in stimulus funds to cover the majority of the renovations, but the money cannot be awarded until the zoning process is complete, Minium said.

We're ready to move forward, and hope to be open later this year, said Petty, who said the local store is initially expected to employ a manager and one-to-two assistant managers.

"The grocery store is an essential part of a community," Minium said. For now, however, it's not unusual for neighbors to loan a cup of flour, sugar, or, recently, an onion …

Related link
Rural Grocery Store Initiative and Summit - www.ruralgrocery.org

The United States faces challenges to ensuring food safety.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10182r.pdf

The Honorable Brad Miller
Chairman
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
Committee on Science and Technology
House of Representatives
Subject: Food Safety: FDA Has Begun to Take Action to Address Weaknesses in
Food Safety Research, but Gaps Remain
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The United States faces challenges to ensuring food safety. First, imported food
makes up a substantial and growing portion of the U.S. food supply, with 60 percent
of fresh fruits and vegetables and 80 percent of seafood coming from across our
borders. In recent years, there has been an increase in reported outbreaks of
foodborne illness associated with both domestic and imported produce. Second, we
are increasingly eating foods that are consumed raw and that have often been
associated with foodborne illness outbreaks, including leafy greens such as spinach.
Finally, shifting demographics means that more of the U.S. population is, and
increasingly will be, susceptible to foodborne illnesses. The risk of severe and lifethreatening
conditions caused by foodborne illnesses is higher for older adults, young
children, pregnant women, and immune-compromised individuals. In January 2007
GAO designated federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area needing urgent
attention and transformation because of the federal government’s fragmented
oversight of food safety.1

Who knew? Florida - the world's largest producer of watercress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05cress.html

May 5, 2010
Watercress, as Fresh as a Gurgling Spring
By FLORENCE FABRICANT - New York Times

WATERCRESS does not incite the kind of frenzy generated by ramps, those spindly wild onions that nobody bothered to pick until a few chefs began trumpeting their arrival as a major springtime event. But it is starting to show up in farmers’ markets, too, and those who know it, love it.

In a salad, as a garnish or in a sandwich, the first tender watercress of the season puts to shame the fat, often woody, rubber-banded bunches that supermarkets sell year round.

Rick Bishop, of Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in the Catskills, picks his wild right at the source of a spring on his land. Dave Harris, of Max Creek Hatchery just beyond the Catskills, finds his in the overflow of a spring. Because supplies are limited, chefs and home cooks often reserve watercress from these farmers week to week in the season, which can last into September.

Other farmers cultivate cress, like Two Guys in Woodbridge, Conn., hydroponic growers of delicious upland cress, which has a similar flavor but is not related to watercress and grows on land, not in water.

My personal watercress epiphany happened some 35 years ago. I had been visiting Washington Crossing State Park in New Jersey on a warm spring day. The ground was very moist near the Delaware River, and I noticed a carpet of small round leaves. Could it be watercress? Like Alice, I tasted a leaf or two, and it delivered a bright freshness unlike any I had ever had.

Those were the pre-arugula days, when watercress was usually called upon to add a little verve to a salad. After sampling the wild cress, I found it hard to go back to the everyday kind.

But according to Andy Brown, a partner at B & W Quality Growers, which is based in central Florida and is the world’s largest producer, I was lucky. Eating wild watercress can be as risky as nibbling a foraged mushroom.

It’s not the watercress, he said; it’s the environment. To be safe, the plants, which actually grow in water, must be right at the source of a spring before it can be contaminated by parasites carried by tiny snails or livestock or other animals. In some areas, wild cress may also have high levels of heavy metals, like copper. The British post warnings about wild watercress along some streams, according to the Web site wildaboutbritain

.co.uk. The watercress sold in stores should not pose a risk.

Jeff Aldana, a sales representative for Baldor Specialty Foods, a wholesale distributor in the Bronx, said that chefs today tend to use arugula because the cultivated watercress that he sells, from Florida, is twice as expensive.

Still, there are chefs and cooks who adore it. “I love the texture and the heat,” said Sharon Pachter, of the Grocery in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, who was shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket in mid-April. “It’s great sautéed or in a salad.”

Watercress can be quickly blanched and puréed, often with the addition of some spinach in classic recipes, and be turned into a soup, a sauce or the basis of a savory soufflé or custard. And it’s a stir-fry staple. For these uses, the heavy stems may be left on.

The Chinese account for about 60 percent of the market, Mr. Brown said, and they prefer the bigger, woody bunches, stems and all, for dishes like beef with watercress or watercress soup.

“They regard it as a cooling ingredient and a healthful antioxidant,” he said.

In short, watercress is yin. Like other dark leafy green vegetables, it is packed with nutrients. But it’s the flavor that attracts chefs. Like tatsoi, baby mustard and radish sprouts, it is a cruciferous vegetable related to broccoli, standing ready to impart a nice feisty note.

Craig Koketsu pairs it with halibut and a pea purée at Quality Meats in Midtown. At Print, at 11th Avenue and 48th Street, Charles Rodriguez uses it to tie together the flavors of scallops, a red wine onion purée and mushrooms.

Marcus Jernmark, the executive chef at Aquavit in Midtown, folds the purée into a risotto-style dish made with barley, which he calls barlotto. He is partial to its tanginess. “It’s my palate,” he said. “I would use horseradish all the time if I could, but watercress gives a similar effect.”

Supermarket watercress often looks wilted as its shelf life diminishes rapidly. But you can refresh it by untying the bunch and dropping it into a large bowl of cold water. It will perk up. Dry it gently, and you can use it in a salad like the one with Gorgonzola and pears at Frankies Spuntino on the Lower East Side and in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Mr. Brown also said that it is easy to grow at home. Put a bunch in a large bowl of water with some clean gravel in the bottom, and it will begin to put forth roots and grow. Soon it will be ready for a tender harvest, on demand.

Better for them, better for us, better for the environment

Two Florida Farmers Opt Out of Animal Rights Battles
By Gail Shepherd, Tuesday, Apr. 13 2010 @ 12:12PM
Comments (4)
Categories: Environment, Florida, Health, Man and Beast


This week's feature story details the escalating battle between Big Agriculture and the Humane Society, the organization behind a nationwide campaign to legislate the safety and comfort of farm animals. The Humane Society helped push through Florida's "pregnant pigs" constitutional amendment in 2002 -- its first such victory in the nation. It's now illegal for Florida pigs to be kept in "gestation crates" too small to allow them to turn around for the 16 or so weeks before they give birth.

After the amendment passed, the only two large pig farms in Florida went out of business, at least in part because of plummeting pork prices. And no new large-scale pig farms have set up in Florida. But with the recent emphasis on the local and sustainable and on humane, free-range methods of animal husbandry, smaller operators in Florida are making a go of farming.

The Humane Society's Paul Shapiro contends that the Florida amendment may have "helped provide an environment in which family farms can flourish."

Take Matt Thomas, who runs Little Pig Farm in Homosassa, Florida. He says he started the farm five years ago because he and his wife "wanted to know where our food came from."

Thomas was a city boy from Tampa with no farming background. But he started raising Berkshire pigs, a black heritage breed with dark, heavily marbled meat, beloved of chefs for its high-quality flavor. The pigs are raised naturally, without hormones or antibiotics.

Thomas has a boar and three breeding sows, and he's raising four more. The sows produce six to 12 piglets per litter that Thomas raises to adulthood. When they reach 250 to 300 pounds, he sells whole pigs for $650 direct to consumers and chefs.

The sows are treated humanely and range freely during gestation. "We used to keep our pigs in 16-by-16-foot pens," he says, "but honestly it was more trouble than just letting them run free. You'd have to come home from work and muck out the pens. This way we're all happier."

Another rancher who has switched from commodity farming to humane methods is David Strawn, whose family owns the 700-acre Deep Creek Ranch in De Leon Springs. Strawn says they're happier too now that they've turned to free-range and grass-fed ranching.

The Strawn family has been cattle ranchers since 1883: The remnants of the original slaughterhouse still stand on their property. Until five years ago, they were commodity ranchers.

But as the price of petroleum went up in the second half of the 20th Century, David says, it became harder and harder to make a living at large-scale ranching -- shipping cattle across the country to feedlots was sapping profits. So the Strawns turned to producing free-range, grass-fed beef and lamb that they now sell to consumers and to chefs like Zach Bell, who oversees the kitchen at the posh Café Boulud in Palm Beach and to Dean Max at 3030 Ocean in Fort Lauderdale. Their grass-fed Angus and South Poll beef has an added benefit: Studies have shown it's higher in omega 3s and lower in cholesterol than commodity corn-fed beef.

Deep Creek is already so successful that Strawn says the USDA recently alerted the Strawns to an operation selling bogus Deep Creek beef. "They found somebody was buying commodity beef in the supermarket and slapping a Deep Creek label on it," Strawn says. Then they were peddling it around at farmer's markets. We heard about it and we said, here's a sign that we've finally really made it big. Somebody is counterfeiting us!"

Thomas and the Strawns have never felt any pressure from the Humane Society. "They love farms like us!" Thomas says. These farms prove it's possible to raise animals using humane husbandry. But here's the kicker: Smaller farms like Deep Creek and Little Pig are never going to feed a mass market.

As Humane Society-backed legislation puts pressure on farmers to use more expensive methods, meat may become more precious, a luxury for the kind of people who dine at Café Boulud or who can pay $325 for half a free-range Berkshire pig. Some commodity farmers may be able to weather the changes. Others who can't stand the heat, like the Basford family in Florida, may have to get out of the business

You had to know this was coming...

There's no way I'd get a new stove and NOT make pizza.
Our new favorite, prosciutto on the left, pancetta and portobello on the right,

The politics behind our bland-tasting tomatoes

Review | 'Ripe': The politics behind our bland-tasting tomatoes
A former AP reporter delves into farmers' risks, the need for profits and the effect on the American diet.
BY M.L. JOHNSON

Arthur Allen, a former Associated Press writer, focuses on the tomato industry, and he's somewhat more sympathetic to corporate farms and big business than trendsetter Michael Pollan and others writing on similar topics. The first part of Ripe includes a number of derisive comments about members of the ``crunchy left,'' who want cheap, locally grown, organic tomatoes year-round. Allen notes, rightly, that that's almost impossible to provide, given the climate in most of the country.

He visits Mexico, where the American entrepreneurs who run Del Cabo Farms are trying to help local farmers make a living by growing new hybrids to be shipped to U.S. markets. The question, Allen notes, is whether their tasty tomatoes will hold their flavor and form during the long journey north. That musing leads into an examination of U.S. tomato breeding that has created ever firmer, but increasingly bland, fruit. As labor problems and costs grew in California's tomato industry, farmers growing tomatoes for ketchup, sauce and other products turned to mechanical harvesting. Mechanical harvesters require tomatoes that fall off the vine when shaken -- but not before -- and can withstand sorting. Allen recounts how researchers at the University of California, Davis, helped develop these.

In Florida, farmers growing tomatoes for direct sale needed fruit that ripened slowly and wouldn't spoil during shipping. They eventually developed a method of picking tomatoes while they were green and then exposing them to ethylene gas to turn them red when they reached their destination.

But while Allen is understanding of the risks farmers face and their need to make a profit, he becomes increasingly critical of the effect of business interests on the U.S. diet as Ripe progresses. Americans eat tomatoes that fit the needs of Heinz, McDonald's and a few other corporate giants because those companies provide the bulk of farmers' sales. McDonald's and other fast-food companies need firm tomatoes that hold up when sliced thin and look nice on a hamburger bun. Taste, Allen insists, is not a priority.

Allen also delves into labor and trade issues, writing critically about the treatment of farmworkers in California and Florida.

While each chapter is focused, the book as a whole has a meandering feel as Allen jumps from plant breeding to international trade to labor organization. Parts are also heavy with science and Latin plant names. But readers with a strong interest in understanding the politics of food will probably find it enlightening.