Author: Cindy Cotter

Building a Local Food System in Greater Los Angeles

The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is opening a new office in Compton to support urban agriculture in the greater Los Angeles region, and they’re establishing a committee to help.

They’re calling it a committee, but I think of it as a mechanism for Greater LA ag people to meet, listen to each other, find common cause, and work together to grow food and feed people. And please note: “Greater LA includes Los Angeles County and the more urbanized northern portion of Orange County. The USDA will dispense advice and help fund projects; that’s certainly worth a lot. But if we’re lucky, the committee will form a stable platform for people to meet, converse, plan, build relationships and get fruitful things done.

If you’re a farmer, run a food bank, work with community gardens, do community composting, run a farm-to-school program, manage a hydroponic farm, or teach or do research in any of these or related areas, and you’re working in an urban area of Los Angeles or Orange Counties, you may be eligible.

The deadline to apply is April 14. Call now for more information:

Brooke Raffaele

State Outreach Coordinator

California Farm Service Agency

U.S. Department of Agriculture

(530) 219-7747


“The urban and suburban county committees will work to encourage and promote urban, indoor, and other emerging agricultural production practices. Additionally, the county committees may address areas such as food access, community engagement, support of local activities to promote and encourage community compost, and food waste reduction.”


https://www.fsa.usda.gov/news-room/county-committee-elections/index

Competition in the American Economy

Today President Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. It includes the agriculture sector.

  1. He intends for the Department of Agriculture to toughen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act by making rules that clearly identify unfair and unjust practices, reinforce the interpretation that a violation of the act doesn’t need to show harm to the whole industry – just one farmer is enough, dial back the practice of poultry companies controlling every aspect of a contract farmer’s operation while the farmer shoulders all the risk, updating the definitions and criteria for determining what is unfair under the Act, and shore up anti-retaliation protections for complainants under the Act. (The USDA had already announced on June 11 that it would begin work on the Packers and Stockyards Act.)
  2. He wants the USDA to fix country of origin labeling so consumers can tell where their food is from.
  3. He has directed the Department “to devise a plan to ensure that farmers have greater opportunities to access markets and receive a fair return for their products.” The order includes a list of suggested ways of doing this and ends with, “any other means that the Secretary of Agriculture deems appropriate.”
  4. In an attempt to ” to improve farmers’ and smaller food processors’ access to retail markets,” he is asking for a report on the effect of retail concentration “including any practices that may violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Robinson-Patman Act (Public Law 74-692, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. 13 et seq.), or other relevant laws” and also on “on grants, loans, and other support that may enhance access to retail markets by local and regional food enterprises.”
  5. And he’s ordered a report on ways in which intellectual property rights may “unnecessarily reduce competition in seed and other input markets.”

Public Comments to Federal Agencies

I was recently involved in my first attempt at making a public comment to a federal agency, in this case The Department of Agriculture. It was a great learning experience, though I’m sure we could do a much better job the second time around. My first lesson was that we need to allow LOTS of time for any collaborative effort. We were hard-pressed to meet the comment deadline, and that seriously constrained our efforts.

This resource will help us (the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles chapters of the Climate Reality Project) do a better job next time. And there will be a next time. The opportunity for public comment is too good to pass up!

How to Submit a Public Comment to a Federal Agency

My Thoughts on Meat

I don’t have a lot of well-formed opinions on food policy. I’m learning as I go. But I do have thoughts on meat. While I’m opposed to the way animal agriculture is usually done in the United States, I’m not against meat per se, and I’m troubled by the argument that meat, just by virtue of being meat, is bad for the environment. I’m sympathetic to many reasons people give for being vegetarians, but I think the environmental argument is a mistake and does harm.

For me the climate crisis comes down to two related issues. First, there are just too many people. That’s a huge topic, and I’m not going to pursue it any further here other than to say woe be unto us if we try to ignore it indefinitely. Two, industrial civilization is in need of a thoroughgoing overhaul if not a complete replacement. Tinkering isn’t going to cut it. Books have been written about all this, I’m sure; I’m not about to write another one. I’m just talking, briefly, about food and how meat fits into the food puzzle.

Food is a natural outgrowth of a flourishing ecology. Our preferred food production approach shouldn’t be to sacrifice square miles of land, killing every living thing on that land except for corn that’s been engineered to survive an onslaught of herbicides and pesticides in order to produce feed to finish cows in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). I’ve read that corn fields are eerily silent except for the sound of wind rustling in the stalks. No crickets, no toads, no birds. Not even any bees. Corn is sometimes self-pollinated, otherwise cross-pollinated by the wind; who needs bees?

That’s not an ecological system, it’s a corn factory.

One of the basic principles of a healthy ecological system is diversity, and that diversity must include a balance of plant and animal life. In theory you could take the manure and urine of the cow in the CAFO and spread it on the corn field to inch a bit closer to a natural system, but that turns out to be a challenge. Instead farmers rely on synthetic fertilizer.

A simpler approach is to put the cow in the field. Add a few chickens and pigs, sheep and goats. Grow some grain here and some vegetables there. Welcome the toads and the crickets, the ladybugs and gopher snakes and the cattle egrets. Put in an orchard; perennials are good news.

A factory producing fake meat from genetically engineered, industrially raised, trucked-in plant products is NOT a flourishing ecosystem any more than that cornfield is. It’s just another step away from a lifestyle in which people are an intimate part of the natural world around them.

I know. There are arguments, there are opposing facts, there are fears that more people will go hungry… but after mulling the issue for many months, I realized I could never amass enough data or do enough analysis to answer every question or calculate the one right path. I did a lot of reading and thinking, but eventually I chose to rely on what looks to me like common sense: your dinner should be a natural product of your own flourishing ecosystem. That may mean haggis in Scotland, gumbo in New Orleans, or jollof rice and egusi soup in Nigeria — all dishes that draw on foods suitable for the regions from which they spring — but it doesn’t mean artificial meat concocted from industrially-grown plants, packaged in a high-tech facility run by an international corporate giant and transported around the world on ships so big they may have trouble getting through the Suez Canal.

On March 23, 2021, the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic in both directions for 6 days.

AB 125 Passed by Ag Committee

Today AB 125 passed the Assembly Agriculture Committee. The $3 billion agriculture bond is now awaiting hearing by the Committee on Natural Resources.

There seems to be strong support for the bill. Some groups objected to the portions of the bill that deal with meat because, meat. It’s a polarizing issue. And then Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) withheld his support until such time as more is done to ensure water for agriculture. Another legislator, who nonetheless voted to pass, thanked Gray for bringing up the issue. Rivas, who introduced the bill, said he’d handle it. I’m curious to see how that works out. Water is more polarizing than meat.

AB 125 Amended Upwards

$180 million added to bill

Yesterday AB 125, a multi-billion dollar bond proposal creating an entirely new agriculture-related division in California’s Public Resources Code, was amended in the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, increasing it by $180 million to a new total of $3,302,000,000.

What next?

Making it out of the Agriculture Committee where it was introduced by committee chair Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) is the first step in a long slog through both the Assembly and the Senate, which, if successful, will culminate in a vote of the California citizenry in the general election of November, 2022.

What’s the new money for?

Thirty million dollars of the new money is earmarked for prescribed grazing (a method of grazing animals that promotes soil health and the sequestration of carbon), $100 million to upgrade food processing plants, and $50 million for fire-related improvements.

Countdown to Destruction

This is the first of three videos in a series by Greenpeace called Countdown to Destruction. This episode, Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?, is about the environmental danger posed by commodity agriculture. Below the video are links to the remaining two episodes.

Episode 2: Can we fix our broken food system?

Episode 3: Food for people, not for profits

I appreciate that they’ve defined the topic as commodity agriculture rather than meat. That means they include the industrial production of soy right up there with industrial production of meat, leaving room for the truth that both soy and cows, raised properly, can be beneficial to the environment.

Climate Change and Food Production

We often think about agriculture as a cause of global warming (which it is) and as a possible solution (which it can be), but it is also a victim. However you view it, our food supply should be an important part of any discussion about climate change.

Anthropogenic climate change has reduced agriculture productivity by about 20% since 1961.

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/04/climate-change-has-cost-7-years-ag-productivity-growth

County Urban Agriculture Committees

County Committees have deep roots

The US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency had its origins (under another name) in the 1930s as part of an effort by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help farmers during the Great Depression. County committees of farmers have been a significant means for the agency to keep in touch with farmers on the ground since very early in that effort–so for nearly a century.

… and they matter

Today I listened to part of a hearing to review the state of Black farmers in the U.S. in which members of the House Agriculture Committee questioned Tom Vilsack, Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture. He also served as Secretary under Obama. One of the questions was from Alma Adams, a Democratic representative from North Carolina.

“What do you think might account for the steep drop in direct farm loans to Black producers and what steps is the USDA willing to take to increase that participation?” she asked.

Secretary Vilsack led off his reply by saying: “We have to have people in the Farm Service Agency offices and in the County Committees that reflect the population that they serve. When I was Secretary the last time, I did for the first time ever appoint minority members to County Committees that did not have minority membership. I think it’s important that we take a look a that County Committee structure.”

From this I draw the conclusion that County Committees matter.

Urban ag committees are born

That brings me to the most recent iteration of the Farm Bill in 2018. (There’s a new one every five years, more or less. I guess the Soviets weren’t the only ones enamored of five year plans.) It includes a pilot program to test the concept of County Urban Agriculture Committees. This was part of a larger plan to respond to the hitherto neglected topic of urban agriculture. By now there should be 10 of these pilot programs, but so far as I know, there are only 6, and none of them is in California. Will they create more? Will one be in Los Angeles?

Will Los Angeles get a committee?

I called our local Farm Service Agency (FSA) in Lancaster. Oddly no one in the Farm Service Agency there knew what I was talking about, but they eventually referred me to the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), another USDA agency with whom they share office space. The NRCS woman I spoke to was very helpful. I mean, really, she was great. But her answer on the question about urban ag committees was that they’re a pilot program run out of Washington, so no one local knows much about them. She, too, would love to see a committee formed in Los Angeles, but her take was it’s up to the guys in D.C.

Then I found an email address on a flyer having to do with the urban committees, so I shot off a quick note. I got a response from a USDA office in Puerto Rico. Why Puerto Rico? I have no idea. Certainly not because my correspondent there was a fount of useful information. The most germane tidbit he had to offer was the email address of someone else he said could provide more information on the off chance I was still curious.

I was.

So I emailed contact number 3, who turns out to work on county urban ag committees for the NRCS. Now I’m thinking that even though the ag committees for everyone else are handled out of the Farm Services Agency, the pilot for the urban ag committees is the National Resource Conservation Service’s baby, which, I suppose, is why my question to the Farm Service Agency in Lancaster was referred to the NRCS.

Why would the NRCS be running county urban ag committees when all the original county ag committees are under FSA’s umbrella? I’m guessing it’s because, after all, urban farms aren’t real farms, right? In farming circles, small farms are sometimes referred to, rather dismissively, as hobby farms, and hobby farms are not always taken very seriously by real farmers. I see their point, but from my perspective small farms have one very big factor making them interesting — they’re hotbeds of innovation. Urban farms suffer, though, not only from being small, but also urban. Maybe that’s more than the FSA can wrap its mind around? But that’s another story.

And my email to Washington? It’s been two weeks and I’m still waiting, but I’m guessing the guy is pretty busy. Maybe tomorrow, or next week. Better late than never.

Maybe Vilsack will know!

That brings me to an email invite I got a couple of days ago to a “teletownhall” with American Farmland Trust President and CEO John Piotti talking to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. When I registered to attend, the site gave me the opportunity to submit a question, so I did. I asked if they’d be forming any new county urban agriculture committees and, if so, was there any chance Los Angeles would get one.

I’m not sure where to turn next if he doesn’t have a satisfying answer, but I’ll think of something. Never say die.

Update (4/14/21)

There were over 5500 people in attendance at the teletownhall with Secretary Vilsack; my question wasn’t among the chosen. Most of what he said wasn’t of great interest to me, but one point caught my attention. A caller asked if we could farm sustainably and still produce enough food for export. My sense was that the caller imagined sustainable farming would mean the end of industrial agriculture. Vilsack’s answer seemed to be that we could keep doing what we’re doing (industrial ag), but tweak it enough to be sustainable without sacrificing production. Maybe I’m reading too much into his comments, but I’m not looking to Vilsack to launch the crusade against concentration in agriculture that I’d like to see. He’s also keen on some kind of carbon bank, a means by which money would be collected from GHG emitters (a carbon tax?) and then doled out to farmers who engaged in carbon sequestering practices.