JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Special Issue
JHU POLITIK December 2013
THE
POLITICS OF
FOOD
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
the
POLITIK PRESS A publication of
JHU POLITIK jhupolitik.org
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Alex Clearfield & Rachel Cohen MANAGING EDITOR Colette Andrei ASSISTANT EDITORS Julia Allen Katie Botto Christine Server CREATIVE DIRECTOR Victoria Scordato MARKETING & PUBLICITY Rebecca Grenham Audrey Moss WEBMASTER Sihao Lu FACULTY ADVISOR Steven R. David
HEAD WRITER Ari Schaffer MARYLAND EDITOR Adam Roberts COPY EDITOR Peter Lee STAFF WRITERS Akshai Bhatnagar Mike Bodner Adrian Carney Henry Chen Virgil Doyle Dylan Etzel Rosellen Grant Sarallah Salehi Eliza Schultz Abigail Sia Geordan Williams Chris Winer
Special Issue DECEMBER 2013 Cover Photo Courtesy of Cuba Gallery via Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery/6290619091/sizes/l/in/
JHU POLITIK
INTRODUCTION
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
............................................................................................. Page 4
Rachel Cohen & Alex Clearfield, Editors-in-Chief
INTERVIEW with ADAM SHEINGATE .....................................................
Page 5
FOOD STAMP USAGE IN SELECT MARYLAND COUNTIES .......
Page 7
INTERDISCIPLINARY THINKING FOR FOOD JUSTICE IN BALTIMORE ................................................................................................
Page 8
Alex Clearfield & Sam Sands
Christine Server & Victoria Scordato
Emily Nink
STUDENT VOICES ..................................................................................
Page 10, 17, 21
Eliza Schultz, Andrea Michalowsky, Tyler Bryant, Katie Naymon, Frances Loeb, Geordan Williams, Christine Kumar & Christopher Winer
INTERVIEW with KIM KESSLER ..................................................................
Page 11
THE POTENTIAL OF FARMER’S MARKETS AS A POLICY TOOL TO IMPROVE FOOD ACCESS .....................................................
Page 13
BRINGING REAL FOOD TO CAMPUS ...................................................
Page 14
THE PROSPECTS OF MONSANTO’S MONOPOLY ON SEED PRODUCTION ...................................................................................................
Page 16
Eliza Schultz
Elizabeth Campbell
Raychel Santo
Sarallah Salehi
IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN? THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND AGRICULTURE ......................................... Page 18 Adrian Carney
INTERVIEW with MAYA KOSOK ...............................................................
Page 19
Alex Dragone & Dylan Etzel
THE CHALLENGE OF FEEDING 9.6 BILLION PEOPLE .................. Abigail Sia
3
Page 22
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
AN INTRODUCTION Dear Loyal Readers, We are proud to present to you JHU Politik’s fall 2013 Special Issue on The Politics of Food; our staff and writers have spent months working on and thinking about this project. With one in seven Americans on food stamps and an ever-growing international population, it remains an ethically and economically challenging question to figure out how to responsibly feed our planet. Food is both deeply personal and political. The choices we make, and the choices we advocate for others to make, carry far-reaching implications for individuals and families that we ourselves will never even know. Food policy also holds important ramifications for environmental sustainability and the future of the Earth. In this issue you will find a mix of interviews and articles as well as a spectrum of student voices explaining what drives their dietary choices. Enclosed you will find interviews with academics such Professor Adam Sheingate, who teaches the Food Politics course here at Hopkins, and policymakers such as Kim Kessler, who runs the Food Policy office under Mayor Bloomberg’s Administration in New York City. You’ll hear about federal food policy under the Obama Administration as well as local Baltimore initiatives for urban farming, nutrition, food justice and sustainability. The Co-President of Real Food Hopkins will share the significant developments that student activism has achieved for our campus and will soon impact our daily consumption. On an international level, we discuss the challenges of feeding a global population as well as the relationship between our changing climate and agriculture. This is such a consequential topic of which we have only begun to scratch the surface. We hope that this special issue inspires further exploration of food politics from an even wider range of perspectives and lenses. Addressing these problems reflect our values, our past and our future as both a university and as individuals. This has been a great semester for us and we look forward to your continued support and involvement next semester. We hope you enjoy, Rachel Cohen & Alex Clearfield Editors–in–Chief
4
{
“In this issue you will find a mix of interviews and articles as well as a spectrum of student voices explaining what drives their dietary choices.”
JHU POLITIK
{
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
ADAM SHEINGATE
{
By Alex Clearfield ‘14, Editor-in-Chief & Sam Sands ‘17, Contributing Writer
Adam Sheingate is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Sheingate teaches a number of courses, including the extremely popular Food Politics undergraduate seminar.
On November 1st, the average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipient saw their benefits decrease by 13% due to a Stimulus Bill provision sunsetting. What kind of policy effects will we see down the road because of this and do you think continued efforts to cut SNAP benefits could backfire politically? The short-term effect is that it reduces the size of the benefit to a number of people, but there is a larger battle going on that would cut $40 billion from SNAP over 10 years. Right now, there are House and Senate conferees trying to resolve the differences between their versions of the omnibus Farm Bill which usually includes both agricultural subsidies and nutrition programs. It’s too early to tell where it goes; my best guess is they will pass something and pull together a Farm Bill with a nutrition title, and that it will have cuts but not as dramatic as the Republicans want. This year we witnessed a huge change to how Farm Bills get passed in Congress. For the past 50 years support for food stamps was tied to support for farm subsidies, which was important to advocates of nutrition programs and farm programs. They knew that without the support of urban members they couldn’t get a majority for farm subsidies. Some of the most vocal critics of food stamps are Members that benefit the most from farm subsidies. What we don’t know, which is down the road, is if they don’t reconstitute this alliance, and nutrition programs are dealt with separately, then the possibility increases that we would see a future decline in farm subsidies. This would be an unexpected outcome for those advocating cuts to food stamps.
consequences for nutrition programs but less significant ones for farm subsidies than what might appear. The shift to crop insurance will have some cosmetic differences but won’t have a major effect on how much money goes to the agriculture sector.
Can you elaborate on what those differences are with crop insurance? The current system includes something called direct payments, which pay farmers because they’re farmers. It cuts them a check even if they don’t grow anything. It’s not a politically popular or viable policy when you have big budget deficits and parts of the economy are still struggling, so that’s going to go. The House and the Senate have passed legislation to eliminate them, which would be billions of dollars in savings, but they’re being replaced with crop insurance. Crop insurance is where farmers buy insurance products that cover them in case of losses due to bad weather or low prices. But it’s a boondoggle because the government heavily subsidizes the premiums paid, and the insurance companies that provide it are subsidized by the government to provide it. It’s a bit of a shell game, where we’ve taken out one kind of subsidy and replaced it with another. It’s not clear whether it will have much of an effect on the overall cost.
There have been efforts at the local, state and federal level to curb obesity, ranging from New York City’s proposed sugary drink ban to Michelle Obama encouraging people to grow their own fruits and vegetables. What are the most effective levers to pull for governments to tackle obesity? That’s a hard question because the research is wide-ranging and points to a large number of potential causes for increased incidence of obesity. They range from food marketing to physiological explanations of how people respond to foods. From a policy perspective it’s difficult to point to one cause and it’s difficult to get proposals adopted because opponents could always point to some other factor that could cause it. That said, we do have some evidence for the effects of sugary drinks on weight gain, so policies like taxes might have an effect on sales. On the other hand, it tends to punish the poor more because the sales tax is more regressive than other forms of taxation.
This past summer the House passed a bill to split nutrition provisions from the Farm Bill. How will this affect U.S. food policy? In the conference committee they’ll pull them together. I don’t think the Senate is interested in a separate nutrition title. You can look at it as a bargaining position of the Republicans in the House, which is to pass deep cuts so they have room to negotiate for lesser cuts than what the Senate passed to agricultural subsidies. The bottom line is that the policy we will get is one that could have significant
5
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE One promising route could be to pressure industry to ease up on marketing to children—due partially to Michelle Obama’s efforts and partially to the food industry wanting to avoid being painted negatively.
Will government fiat efforts like the soda ban ever be politically viable? It depends. There’s a larger battle, which is how to frame obesity. Do we look at it as the product of a toxic food environment that limits choice and access, or the product of bad individual choices that can be adjusted with incentives and nudges? This impacts what policies are proposed and acceptable. The problem with the soda ban was not just the way in which it was imposed, but that it was not a well-constructed law. Public perceptions were negative towards the soda ban, which suggests that some changes would need to take place in how the public perceives the issue before those kinds of policies were acceptable.
Henry Kissinger was once quoted as saying, “Who controls the food supply, controls the people.” What does that say about companies that control the GMO market and large conglomerates that own many food brands? There are two questions: where we might be going with GMOs and how we view the powerful companies in the food system, which come together around genetic engineering. We have a very concentrated food system. Monsanto is an upstream company in that it provides seeds and production inputs, and someone like Nestle is downstream because it provides products. You also have processors like Archer Daniels Midland. At each stage the process is increasingly concentrated with few companies that have a large market share. That can have negative consequences for the food system and also political repercussions, although I don’t see any signs of that yet besides the negative perceptions people have of Monsanto. If you look historically at the 19th and early 20th centuries you had a much stronger political movement that criticized concentration of economic power, such as the Populist movement and the Progressive era. Most people now don’t think about whether corporate power is too concentrated; it’s not a widespread view but it could be in the future if perceptions of these companies turn increasingly negative. On the other hand, these companies are very astute and know they have to tend to their public relations. Few people really understand that many of the products they buy at the supermarket is produced directly or indirectly by one, two or three companies. Nestle, General Mills, Unilever, Kellogg and the like—many products we buy are made by subsidiaries of those companies.
Within the SNAP program there are many weird rules that seriously impact what people can purchase. I mean you can buy as many candy bars as you want but you can’t buy a cooked chicken. Yeah.
Do you think the government will make future changes to SNAP in light of these loopholes? I think that the question of SNAP and what role it plays in nutrition is a really difficult one because, there are elements of the SNAP program that could be improved, but there’s also a real risk that (I mean I don’t think this is likely to occur) we then look at SNAP as this form of paternalism. Because people are poor, and because people depend on SNAP, they then lose their choice about what kind of food they can eat. I think most people would find that invasive and paternalistic. I think we have to be careful about assuming too much about whether SNAP is an appropriate
6
mechanism for addressing or tackling the problem of improving diet and health. I think there’s other things that could be done with SNAP that haven’t been. For example, making it possible for people to use their SNAP benefits at a farmers market which is now almost universal in places like Baltimore. We can also look more carefully at the kinds of places where people can redeem their SNAP benefits, maybe looking at whether gas stations should be allowed to accept SNAP when they only have candy bars and maybe milk or something like that.
You talked a little bit about how public perception of different foods plays into perceived differences between organic foods and GMOs. Some say the issue, with regards to pesticides between GMOs and organic foods, is not the level of pesticides but the actual levels that are allowed to be in food by the EPA. What do you think? Well, first of all just on the GMO issue there was a really good series of blog entries on the website Grist. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the website Grist but it’s probably some of the best writing I’ve seen on what we know about GMOs and the risks. The main advantage of genetically engineered crops is that it enables farmers to use weed killers, which are herbicides that the genetically engineered plant is resistant or tolerant to so they can kill weeds without killing their plant. The other main benefit is that they don’t have to use pesticides because the plant is genetically engineered to be toxic to certain kinds of insects that would otherwise destroy the plant. So there is actually an environmental benefit in that regard because less pesticides are being used. But on the other hand, there may be an environmental cost because with all of the weed killer that’s being used that may have secondary consequences for the environment and also lead to weeds that are resistant to those weed killers. So it’s kind of a mixed bag. Whether the EPA’s standards are strong enough, I think that’s a question and it’s not just really pesticides, it’s a whole bunch of hazards which our current regulatory system may not be adequately addressing. A real question for our policy going forward is whether we will become better at thinking about risk in a variety of ways and not just as a kind of quantified, sort of a number or a probability of something occurring but also thinking about uncertainties and complex interactions that could have very negative consequences, but may be more difficult to quantify.
During the government shutdown many said the FDA was basically disabled and that food safety efforts took a serious hit because of the lack of funding. In light of these kinds of outbreaks, do you think the best avenue is industry self-regulation or government heavy oversight of industry? I do think that the government needs to do a better job of addressing risks in our food system. There are too many gaps in our system and too much overlap in the number of agencies that have some responsibility for food safety. There’s something like 13 different agencies that have something to do with food safety. We also need to do a better job implementing the policies we have and that meansactually enforcing the law. Unfortunately I think the food industry has been very successful at either watering down regulations or opposing their full implementation. Now, having said that, industry does invest a great deal of money into providing a safe product. But we’re in a situation today where food safety is not really a positive product attribute that industry is willing to present to consumers as maybe costing a little bit more. Consumers might need to pay a little bit more, and think about whether the cheapest food is actually the best for them. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
FOOD STAMP USAGE IN SELECT MARYLAND COUNTIES By Christine Server ‘16, Assistant Editor & Victoria Scordato ‘14, Creative Director
1
in 6 households in Maryland report that they were unable to afford enough food.
People around the state of Maryland participated in a week-long challenge to spend just $30 on food for one week. Of the numerous blog posts, there was a consensus that working with such a limited budget necessitated significant planning: previously thoughtless trips to the grocery became a series of agonizing decisions over which foods provided the best combination of filling, cheap, and nutritional. Below is a sampling of what three people were able to purchase on their $30 budget, along with some of the difficulties they faced in meeting the challenge. This participant felt “sluggish” and “irritable” by mid-week, and “[thought] about food to the point of distraction.” She ruefully commented that an $0.88 pack of Reese’s cup would provide far more caloric energy than the more expensive fruits and vegetables that she purchased.
10
Percent of Marylanders who live below the poverty line.
30
This participant went to great lengths to ensure that her diet included a variety of fruits and vegetables and was nutritionally-balanced, but her calorie count of a little over 1,000 calories a day fell far below her daily recommended intake.
Dollars per week, the average food stamp allocation in Maryland.
38,721
Dollars, the median income/year in Baltimore City.
71,122
During the two hours she spent grocery shopping, this participant used a calculator to figure out the optimal combination of food items to buy.
Dollars, the median income/year in the state of Maryland.
FOOD STAMP USAGE IN A FEW MARYLAND COUNTIES (%) All People
Children
Whites
Blacks
Baltimore City
24
42
8
32
Change 2007-09 36
Baltimore County
7
14
4
14
50
Howard County
3
6
1
10
58
Statistics taken from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/28/us/20091128-foodstamps.html?ref=foodstamps&_r=0
7
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Interdisciplinary Thinking for Food Justice in Baltimore
{
By Emily Nink ‘14, Co-president and founding member of Real Food Hopkins
M
aryland has the highest median income of any state, yet 13.4% of its population is food insecure, meaning 13.4% of our population lacks consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active lifestyle.
While food insecurity is often described as an environmental or public health issue, social scientists are beginning to see this disparity as a justice issue. Food justice, the right of communities to locally grow, sell, and eat food that is fresh, nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate, is more than food security; food justice implies equity and sustainability for the long term rather than consistent short-term access to healthy food. With these interrelated goals of improving availability, access, and utilization, the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is describing the Baltimore City food environment in terms of community food security, in order to incorporate food justice into its analysis of health and development at the local level. The unit of “community” as a measurement of urban food environments can be ambiguous, but it leaves more room for describing qualitative, cultural aspects of the food environment than do quantitative units of “individuals” or “food access locations”. We can no longer rely on quantitative measures alone, such as BMI and heart rate indices, number of corner stores, or percentage of residents with vehicle access, to analyze the Baltimore City food environment, but must qualify these numbers with new tools to assess social disparities in the context of food. That’s one reason why the CLF is partnering with the Mark Steiner Show on WEAA 88.9 to interview SNAP participants in a program called “Voices of Food Insecurity in Maryland: Hunger in a Wealthy State”. Adding sound bites from these interviews to an existing interactive online mapping tool will enhance the visual food environment with firsthand stories of food injustice.
Photos Courtesy of Emily Nink Food insecurity exists when the availability of nutritionally adequate foods or the ability to easily acquire acceptable foods is limited or uncertain.
8 Photo Credit United States National Library of Medicine, Portrait of William L. Poole
“This conceptual model emphasizes the now wellestablished simultaneity of obesity and food insecurity...Food is everywhere, but is it the right kind of food?”
The sound bites from the interview reveal generally neglected neighborhoods in a way that the maps alone can’t show, according to Amanda Behrens of the CLF’s Maryland Food System Mapping Project. Behrens notes the difficulty in finding interventions that address crosssectional neglect in a constantly changing food environment: “The term ‘food deserts’ oversimplifies the problem by only emphasizing availability. There are plenty of food options, but hardly any healthy food, and other interventions, including education, will be needed to improve access to what’s already available.” Behrens is discussing the food environment in terms of availability, access, and utilization. This conceptual model emphasizes the now wellestablished simultaneity of obesity and food insecurity. Baltimore residents are paradoxically nutritionally deficient and overweight at the same time, leading to the overlapping use of the seemingly contradictory terms “food desert” and “food swamp”. Food deserts, according to the CLF, are areas where the distance to a supermarket is more than 1⁄4 mile, the median household income is at or below 185% of the Federal Poverty Level, over 40% of households have no vehicle available, and the average Healthy Food Availability Index score for supermarkets and corner stores lies within the lowest tertile. Researchers now understand that these areas in Baltimore also correspond to high prevalence of convenience stores, corner stores, fast food restaurants, and carry out restaurants, whose high-calorie, lownutrition inventory is emphasized through the term “food swamps”. Food is everywhere, but is it the right kind of food? The CLF has done much in describing the Baltimore City Food Environment and improving availability through projects such as Healthy Food Ambassadors and Maryland Healthy Stores. With this statistical research as a basis, other Hopkins initiatives have set out with the goal of improving actual access to healthy food options. Out of 12 projects in the past two years, the JHU Social Innovation Lab has funded four projects that have to do with food access or food deserts specifically. Healthify, a startup funded by the Social Innovation Lab, seeks to connect
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Photos Courtesy of Baltimore Food Hub The Baltimore Food Hub is a planned campus of facilities, services, and programs focused on enhancing Baltimore’s local food economy. Supported by a team of business partners, nonprofit organizations, state and local agencies, the vision is to build a vibrant local food system that creates employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. patients to resources based on their specific set of psychosocial risks defined by a survey screening tool. The survey asks questions pertaining to food insecurity and, if appropriate, displays information on where one can access food pantries or apply for food stamps by providing contact information. Healthify is unique in that it maintains contact with clients via text message to attain follow-up information. JHU alumnus Manik Bhat, who is CEO of Healthify, notes that Baltimore has the least amount of cars per capita of any U.S. city, a severe limitation in terms of food access. Therefore, the survey also inquires about transportation and tailors the automatic answers to a patient’s individual situation. While Healthify is still in its beginning stages, it is already looking ahead to patient education and incorporating the CLF’s map layers into its tools to continue to ameliorate healthy food access. Other citywide efforts to improve healthy food access have created collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Baltimarket connects lowincome residents to grocery stores through a delivery service to local libraries, senior centers and public housing units. Other mobile markets and food trucks, such as the Real Food Farm Mobile Market, also serve residents without vehicle access, bringing healthy food options into underserved areas. SNAP incentives at farmers’ markets allow Baltimore residents to redeem their federal benefits at local vendors’ stands. It is only recently that producers and researchers have begun to describe their efforts in terms of food justice or community food security. Rather than a quantifiable objective, community food security is perhaps best described as an idealized end on a spectrum of outcomes. Will improving availability of and access to healthy options lead to increased utilization among Baltimore residents? This is where many believe education should play a significant role. Improving diets involves changing engrained habits and creating new default behaviors. And of course, being an educational institution, Hopkins has supported educational initiatives that address food injustice. The JHU Center for Social Concern’s Food as Medicine program provides nutrition workshops in elementary schools. These workshops promote an overall culture of health and wellness, focusing on social aspects of food and inspiring students to think critically about the food system. CLF’s Teaching the Food System curriculum is open courseware, freely offering innovative teaching material concerning the relationships of food systems, the environment, and public health. Food justice is being incorporated into programs for Hopkins students as well. In April of 2012, I coordinated the Center for Social Concern’s Alternative Spring Break Program around the theme of Food Justice
and Poverty in Baltimore. This was a great opportunity for fellow undergraduate students to leave the classroom behind in an experiential exploration of food inequity in Baltimore. We saw for ourselves the food environment in places such as Lexington Market and corner stores on our food desert walking tour. We learned from speakers from Baltimore Healthy Carryouts and Get Fresh, Baltimore! about improving healthy food availability. We volunteered at community kitchens, gardens, and farms to contribute to healthy food access ourselves. Since then, I have begun to think less in terms of food deserts and more in terms of holistic community food security. Moreover, tying urban and rural community food security together through local supply chains provides an end goal of regional food security. Hopkins is partnering with businesses, nonprofits, and state and local agencies in the creation of a Food Hub that will create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities within a vision of a vibrant local food economy. The Food Hub, a planned campus of facilities, services, and programs, will provide healthy options for surrounding East Baltimore, and for other retail and wholesale purchasers. For example, Bon Appetit Management Company, which now serves the Homewood Campus at Hopkins, has expressed interest in purchasing from the Food Hub to reach its commitments to local sourcing. The Food Hub and other regional initiatives are taking place within a wider movement for community food security in the United States. Food policy councils, arising through governmental appointment or grassroots initiative, are changing food environments through local, regional, and state policy. These efforts are not independent, rather taking place in an interrelated network of individuals working to achieve positive change. Through work on the CLF’s newly created Food Policy Network, I have begun to better understand Baltimore’s role in the greater food movement. The inclusion of diverse stakeholders in identifying underserved areas, describing the food environment using both social and scientific analyses, and improving availability, access, and utilization, is essential in creating a more sustainable local food system in Baltimore. Robust systems approaches drawing from both multiple academic disciplines, and the partnership between communities, city government, and research experts, are crucial in continuing to develop projects and programs that are effective, efficient, just and sustainable for the economy, human health, and the environment. PP
9
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Student Vegetarian Voices
http://www.flickr.com/photos/downingstreet/3862150488/sizes/o/in/photolist-6
By Eliza Schultz ‘15, Staff Writer
By Andrea Michalowsky ‘16, Contributing Writer
On the first day of my freshman year, I became a vegetarian. I anticipated a whirlwind four years of life-changing events and self-discovery, and so, in some attempt to gain control over whatever was to come, I decided to make the radical decision to cut meat from my diet.
I obsess over the food I eat, and meat is no exception. I have been through a couple stints of vegetarianism and a few months as a vegan, but the logic never stuck and the health aspects remain flawed. I was vegetarian for sustainability issues, but most of these issues shrink or disappear with local, organic, sustainably raised meat. The environmental concerns that remain are countered with benefits such as fertilizer and balancing of the plant and soil ecosystems. From research I learned that, in addition to providing crucial nutrients like iron and B12, meat and animal products are the easiest proteins for humans to digest (legumes and soy, on the other hand, are extremely hard).
My vegetarianism was not entirely unplanned. I had always been rather squeamish about meat, and had previously attempted to wean myself off of it. In addition, I had struggled to make a fundamental distinction between my beloved dogs and the cows and pigs slaughtered for food. All were quadrupeds, sentient, and, arguably, loveable. Ultimately, I ended my moratorium on seafood. Fish is central to the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, and forgoing it felt unnatural. I rationalized that, because fish are less intelligent than the animals that resemble my pets, I could justify the occasional lox and gefilte fish. It was not long until I began to eat fish of all sorts on secular and religious occasions alike. College, as I predicted, would transform me. My nascent appreciation for the environment, a result of attending such a public health-oriented university, has reaffirmed my commitment to vegetarianism in that I am proud of my relatively sustainable diet. But while raising livestock for eggs and dairy is dangerous for the same reasons that it is unsustainable to raise them for slaughter, I continue to eat non-meat animal product. While environmental factors are compelling reasons to become vegan, they remain abstract to me, as concepts I have learned about in the classroom but have never experienced. My initial decision to become a vegetarian was, admittedly, about myself: my need for control during a time of upheaval, my memories snuggling with my dogs, my aversion to chicken breast. I eat fish because of my religious upbringing, perhaps also because they were never my pet. I acknowledge that such an egocentric outlook on food consumption is weak. But eating is, as I experience it, personal, between my food and me. The farm-to-fork process is not yet among the corporeal-emotional factors that guide my eating, something that, unlike environmental science, I know innately. PP
10
Nonetheless, I almost returned to vegetarianism earlier this year on the grounds of ethics (sparked by a new interest in Buddhism). Is it acceptable to take another creature’s life for a food source that we can all survive without? Pockets of people throughout history (Buddhists, yogis, et cetera) have been vegetarian. So if done properly, it can clearly provide all the necessary nutrients. Still, it is easier to remain balanced with meat. It is more easily digested, and it provides nutrients that plants cannot. So, I looked up what Buddhist philosophy had to say on the matter. I found that it depended on the sect. Some were strictly vegetarian, but others would eat meat only if the animal was not killed for them. This latter idea intrigued me. It reminded me of all the food waste in our system, and all the parts of the animal that never get sold or eaten. Having recently learned about the health benefits of bone broth and liver, I decided it would make sense to follow this philosophy of eating only the meat that wasn’t killed for me. Eating the parts of the animal that otherwise go uneaten does not support the killing of more animals, but rather makes the killing of the animals that have already died more worthwhile. It transfers the question from the ethics of killing animals and the sustainability of raising animals to how we can optimize the animals that have already been raised and killed. And while these cuts of meats can be slightly uncomfortable (it’s hard to forget you’re eating an animal when you’re cutting up the ventricles of its heart), they also remind me where my food comes from. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
INTERVIEW WITH NYC MAYOR’S OFFICE OF FOOD POLICY COORDINATOR
{
KIM KESSLER By Eliza Schultz ‘15, Staff Writer
{
Kim Kessler leads New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Food Policy (MOFP), an office within Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs’ Office of Health and Human Services. The MOFP oversees the City’s policies to address food insecurity, promote healthy food, and create a more sustainable food system. Under an Administration that has placed public health at the forefront of its agenda, the MOFP has helped to implement innovative policies and initiatives that address food-related issues in a comprehensive and often unprecedented manner.
How does the urban environment affect food consumption and contribute to obesity rates? Is New York City’s environment unique in any of these respects? There are both positives and negatives to being located in a city in terms of obesity. Often, city-dwellers are more physically active, for example due to walking more. However, cities also tend to have more density in terms of marketing (especially of junk food), and there has been a challenge in some city neighborhoods where disinvestment and neighborhood changes have resulted in less access to healthy, fresh retail, a problem that is often referred to as “food deserts,” or even “food swamps,” meaning that while one can purchase food in different neighborhoods, the poor choices overwhelm the healthy ones. While the challenge of low access to healthy foods is faced in urban environments across the country as well as in rural environments, New York City is particularly interesting because it is so highly dense that we often deal in micro-neighborhoods. For example, there may be a supermarket within a mile of a resident, but in New York City, where car ownership is low, that can be quite a distance, and certainly inadequate to serve everyone living within a mile of that store.
to the Market Study, they found that three million New Yorkers live in neighborhoods that are underserved by grocery stores. In general we see that it’s the same areas that are impacted by poverty and diet related disease rates and obesity. In many of these neighborhoods, residents are also far more likely to report that they consumed no fruits and vegetables the previous day.
New York City is often considered a pioneer in terms of some of its public health policy. Which of the City’s food policies have become national models? Under Mayor Bloomberg, New York City has pursued very bold, population-level public health policies. Among the well-known policies are the restriction of trans fats, which the FDA just announced they would pursue on the national level, calorie labeling, our sugary drink campaign, “Pouring on the Pounds” - a marketing campaign that gives information to New Yorkers about the amount of sugar and calories in sugary drinks. Those have all been replicated by other cities or looked to by the federal government in policy-making. We have also been very innovative with programs supporting healthy food access, which is not as widely recognized. We were one of the first cities to really try and address the challenge of disparities in access to fresh, healthy food. Our Green Carts program, for example, which created a new class of mobile vendor permits for vendors selling produce, as well as our Health Bucks program, an incentive program for low-income residents to shop at farmers markets, have both been looked to by other localities. Another policy initiative that New York
What are the most striking disparities in food access in New York City? To what extent do these correlate with income levels and health status? We see the greatest disparities in burden of diet-related disease and access to healthy food. In the Department of City Planning’s Going
11
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE City was the first to do is the adoption of City-wide food standards for all of the meals and snacks served through City programs. We set very ambitious standards and have worked with our agencies to implement them over several years.
In what ways did OFPC contribute to the City’s efforts to assist those affected by Hurricane Sandy? Hurricane Sandy had devastating impacts across the City and significantly affected the ability to access food for thousands of residents. The City responded by creating large distribution sites through which more than two million ready-to-eat meals and one million bottles of water were distributed, and also worked with a vendor to establish sites at which more than 700,000 hot meals were provided. The City works with pantries on a regular basis through our Emergency Food Assistance Program and, during the storm, our Human Resources Administration, the agency that oversees that program, pushed out a half-million pounds of food to pantries that were serving in affected neighborhoods. The City also worked with the USDA and state officials both to provide free school lunches to public school students in impacted areas that, in certain Sandy-designated areas, continued all the way through March, and to allow SNAP recipients in designated neighborhoods to receive automatic replacement benefits in the amount of 66 million dollars. People were also able to apply for any specific food items that they lost through the storm. In addition, the City implemented a disaster SNAP program.
{
In the months that followed, my office worked with government agencies and nonprofits to coordinate efforts as people continued to be impacted. Together, we continued to serve meals in affected areas and worked to facilitate grant funding from the Mayor’s Fund for local emergency food providers, such as the pantries and soup kitchens that lost infrastructure through flooding and damage, or had to spend beyond their budget to meet increased demands.
What are some of the alternative policy strategies to the sugary drink portion cap that the City has pursued? The reason that this has been a priority is because of information
that we have about the incredible contribution of sugary drinks to the obesity epidemic. Essentially, because of the significance of diet-related disease burden and obesity in New York City, we have pursued a variety of strategies in order to reduce overconsumption. The portion cap is the most recent of those initiatives. In the past, the City was also very supportive of a tax on sugary drinks and worked with New York State to get a tax adopted at the state level, which did not pass, and we pursued the opportunity to do a demonstration project in which sugary drinks were not eligible for SNAP benefits, which was also ultimately denied by the USDA.
What sorts of public health initiatives have resulted from MOFP’s effort to combine food policy and health care delivery? In our office, we work extensively across many City agencies and one of our partners has been the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest public hospital network in the country. HHC has been a partner in implementing our agency food standards by incorporating nutrition standards for all meals served to their patients. It has also participated in the Health Hospital Food Initiative to try and promote
12
JHU POLITIK
“In the Department of City Planning’ s Going to the Market Study, they found that three million New Yorkers live in neighborhoods that are underserved by grocery stores.”
an overall healthy food environment in the hospital setting including adopting food standards in their cafes and cafeterias and complying with the citywide beverage and snack vending machine standards. More recently, we worked with HHC along with the Department of Health and a nonprofit partner, Wholesome Wave, to pilot a new program about which we are really excited. This program, the Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program provides counseling from physicians to patients who are at risk for obesity. These patients are also given fruit and vegetable coupons with which they can purchase an additional serving of fruits and vegetables for each of their family members per day at a local farmers market.
What percent of New York City residents are enrolled in food stamp programs? How would cuts in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) affect access to food stamps and participation in the other programs through which the City addresses food insecurity? Currently, approximately 1.8 million New Yorkers are enrolled in food stamp programs, nearly a quarter of the City’s population. Through the research that our Center for Economic Opportunity has done, we know that food stamps are a buffer against poverty and are vital for many New Yorkers. Cuts in the SNAP program would be very impactful to New York City and we have consistently fought against benefit cuts in our Farm Bill advocacy. In general, we can expect that cuts to SNAP would put more families at risk for hunger and the need to rely on our emergency food system. In terms of the City’s efforts to support access to healthy food, we administer the SNAP program and also through administration of our school meals program and support of pantries with the Emergency Food Assistance Program. At all New York City public schools, we serve free breakfast every morning and we also promote our subsidized school lunch programs year-round. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Farmers’Markets as a Policy Tool to Improve Food Access By Elizabeth Campbell ‘14, Contributing Writer
T
he United States has the highest rate of obesity in the developed world. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 35.7 percent of U.S. adults were obese in 2010, which is twice the amount that were obese in 1980. Impoverished urban areas and minority communities had the highest rates of obesity and were the most vulnerable to inadequate food access. Non-Hispanic Blacks and Mexican-Americans had the highest rates of obesity among all ethnic groups in 2010 (49.5 percent and 40.4 percent respectively), and a 2008 USDA survey found that 17.7 percent of households in principal cities experienced food insecurity compared with 14.6 percent of households in the entire U.S. population. To combat the nationwide epidemic, the U.S. government has enacted a number of policy measures to address factors that affect obesity such as healthy food affordability and availability, park safety and accessibility, physical activity in schools, and school lunch quality. One major focus of government policy has been improving healthful food access in urban areas. Most recently, the federal government has been implementing more policies that use farmers’ markets as a tool to increase nutritious food availability in cities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program is a nationwide effort to connect urban residents to locally sourced food and advance regional food systems. In addition to connecting consumers to healthier foods, the initiative also improves communities, creates new business opportunities for farmers and ranchers, and promotes urban agriculture and farmers’ markets as viable sources of healthy food in their communities. The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program supports various programs from food pantries, to farmers’ markets, to local food co-operatives that bring healthy food to consumers in cities including Boston, Santa Cruz, and Tuscon. Furthermore, in 2010, the Obama Administration unveiled a $400 million Healthy Food Financing Initiative to bring healthy food retailers to low-income communities to meet the President’s goal of eliminating the nation’s food deserts in seven years. Through the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, the USDA received $50 million to provide aid to increase nutritious food access in underserved areas, expand farmers’ markets, and improve availability of locally and regionally sourced food products. Moreover, the USDA is coordinating a number of initiatives to allow vulnerable populations to use government benefits to purchase healthful foods at farmers’ markets. In 2010, the USDA helped nearly 900,000 seniors and 2.15 million Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefit recipients obtain fresh produce at farmers’ markets. The number of farmers’ markets able to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits increased by 51%, to over 2,400 between 2010 and 201l. Such expansion has provided an economic boost to farmers’ markets and has enabled them to reach an entirely new market of consumers. However, the government’s recent cuts to SNAP benefits has hindered many of the resources available for consumers to purchase healthful food, and time will tell the economic effect that these cuts have on farmers’ markets. Thankfully, the government’s efforts have been successful in supporting local food producers and distributors. Local sources of healthy food such
Photos By Elizabeth Campbell as farmers’ markets, food co-operatives, and food banks now have more resources available to reach consumers than ever before. But despite the increase in available physical resources to support healthful food distributors in low-access areas, government food policies have done little to improve consumer education and motivate consumers to change their buying and eating habits. Without greater awareness of the importance of a healthful diet, food preparation methods, and the ability to use federal benefits at farmers’ markets, low-income consumers will be unable to fully realize the potential benefits of the governments’ progressive food policy programs. PP
13
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
BRINGING“REAL FOOD”TO CAMPUS By Raychel Santo ‘14, Co-founder and co-president of Real Food Hopkins
R
eal Food Hopkins is a student-run chapter of the national Real Food Challenge movement. It is committed to bringing local, sustainable, humane, and fair food to the Johns Hopkins campus and Baltimore through organizing food advocacy and awareness events, cooperating with the larger food movement, promoting communitybased learning about food and where it comes from, helping maintain the Blue Jay’s Perch Community Garden at Johns Hopkins Eastern, and donating fresh produce acquired to organizations that feed the local hungry. The growing movement to establish a food system that is more socially just, humane, ecologically sound, and economically viable is sometimes labeled as an idealistic and fleeting trend. This idea isn’t completely unfounded. Changing the food system is much more complex than simply shopping at farmers’ markets or growing one’s own garden, though I am admittedly a fan of both. Recognizing that the impact of conscious eaters can only go so far, some student food advocates and gardeners assembled in the fall of 2010 to form Real Food Hopkins. We dedicated ourselves to making some of the institutional and structural changes needed to improve the fiscal and environmental sustainability for all. What better place to start with than our own campus food system? Real Food Hopkins thus began its efforts by garnering the support and structure necessary for the sweeping food system changes we envisioned. We created an annual 100 Mile Meal event, a feast of entirely local food aimed to raise awareness about various food system issues. We spearheaded the creation of the Blue Jay’s Perch community garden to help students, faculty, staff, and community members learn about and practice growing food together. We worked extensively with JHU Dining Services to improve Hopkins’ commitment to the global Meatless Monday campaign, launch a special dietary needs feedback committee, and begin more sustainable food sourcing efforts. We gained new food prep skills and life advice from workshops with our food service workers, local gardeners, and celebrity chefs. We even traveled to Guatemala to partake in a community food security service project. Our efforts were not limited to our campus. Real Food Hopkins was founded as a chapter of the national Real Food Challenge (RFC), a network of young people campaigning to get their educational institutions committed to supporting a better food system. After attending a RFC Summit in the winter of 2011, we set a lofty goal to join our peers nationwide in a campaign to have our campus president sign the Real Food Campus Commitment, dedicating our school to purchase at least 20% “real” food by 2020. When every campus signs on, this will represent an annual $1 billion shift out of the total $5 billion spent on food by colleges and universities.
Photos Courtesy of Real Food Hopkins At the Real Food Hopkins 4th Annual 100 Mile Meal, JHU President Ron Daniels signed a commitment to ensure that 35% of food provided on campus will be real food by 2020.
14
To begin this campaign, we first had to determine how much “real food” JHU was already purchasing. To qualify as “real,” the food must meet at least one of the following criteria: local/community-based, fair trade, ecologically sound, and/or humanely raised. In spring of 2011, we started the process of auditing food purchases for the main dining hall on campus, the Fresh Food Cafe (FFC). We conducted this using a standardized tool created by students across the country called the Real Food Calculator. After overcoming obstacles of internal organization and initial hesitation from our previous dining service provider, ARAMARK (whose corporate office had instituted a nationwide policy against working with Real
JHU POLITIK Food Challenge-affiliated students), we finally completed the first calculator run in the spring of 2013. At that point, we found that 7% of the FFC purchases – mostly our milk, eggs, and some salad greens – were “real food.” In the fall of 2012, we started surveying students on the issue. Over 519 students signed their support for more “real food” on campus. We also received endorsements from key faculty, staff, and community stakeholders in our campus food system. In February, we hosted the secondever Real Food Challenge Summit, at which 230 student food advocates from across the country came to our campus to learn, collaborate, and plan for future work in affecting positive food system change. Many of them contributed advice from their own campaigns to help us strengthen ours. In January, we opened an extensive dialogue with our dining administrators to introduce them to the Real Food Campus Commitment and develop a strategy for presenting it to President Daniels for consideration. As the contract with our previous food service provider, ARAMARK, was up for review, we were advised to wait to pursue the campaign until our future provider was chosen. Recognizing the importance of this decision in attaining the Commitment’s goals, we pursued student involvement on the selection committee. When the decision was made in April, we were excited to learn that Bon Appétit Management Company (B.A.M.C.O.), the industry leader in committing to a more sustainable food system, had been chosen to continue our dining service. As B.A.M.C.O. has worked with other RFC chapters across the country and understands the standards we set for each category of “real” food, we knew that our goal was realistic to pursue. With hard-sought research, demonstrated campus support, and a promising dining contract in place, we spent this past summer reaching out to President Daniels. Many meetings, emails, and phone calls later, we were thrilled to hear that President Daniels not only wanted to sign the Commitment, but also would not settle for the minimum national standard of 20%. Thus, on November 1st, at our 4th Annual 100 Mile Meal, President Daniels committed the Homewood Campus to purchasing 35% “real” food by 2020. By signing the Real Food Campus Commitment, the Homewood Campus is joining the ranks of 17 other educational institutions that have signed in the last two years, and one of only five others that have set goals at or above 30%. Signing the Commitment demonstrates the university’s dedication to sustainability, public health, and interdisciplinary collaboration. As one of the first private research universities to sign, and the first in Maryland, Hopkins has solidified its role as
{
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
“We worked extensively with JHU Dining Services to improve Hopkins’ commitment to the global Meatless Monday campaign, launch a special dietary needs feedback committee, and begin more sustainable food sourcing efforts.”
a model for other colleges and universities across the country. Moreover, it is reinforcing our university’s efforts to strengthen the Baltimore community by investing – for the long-term – in a food system that supports local, independent producers. More than a mere numeric goal, this commitment establishes the infrastructure needed to ensure the longevity of a resilient, sustainable local food system, even if the university chooses a different food service provider in the future. In aiming for permanence, the Commitment specifies the creation of a Food Systems Working Group to write a Food Policy for the university, to monitor progress toward the goal of 35% real food, and to continue to run the Real Food Calculator. The Food Systems Working Group will include a wide variety of stakeholders in our campus food system, including students, faculty, dining administrators and workers, and community members. It would be naïve to think that these changes alone will stimulate the large-scale political ones we need to truly create a better food system for consumers, workers, animals, and the planet. However, that does not negate its value. This purchasing commitment is establishing the infrastructure critical for local, sustainable producers in the Mid-Atlantic region to survive and thrive. The Commitment is raising student consciousness of critical food system issues, thereby generating a more knowledgeable electorate that can stimulate the necessary larger-scale political changes. Moreover, combined with the collective efforts of other campuses across the nation, many of whom may be inspired by our leadership, this movement is making a billion dollar dent in the industrial food system that is in so much need of reform. Above all else, our campaign success demonstrates that students have more power than they realize. PP
What does signing the Real Food Campus Commitment mean for Hopkins? 1. Purchasing at least 35%“real”food (meeting at least one of the following four categories: local/ community-based, fair, ecologically sound, humanely raised, and fair trade) by 2020. 2. Establishing a transparent reporting system using the student-created and run Real Food Calculator analysis tool to measure our annual progress. 3. Establishing a Food Systems Working Group (comprised of students, staff, faculty, food service managers and workers, and other stakeholders) which will be responsible for developing and implementing a Real Food Policy and Multi-Year Action Plan to achieve our goal. 4. Continually supporting the Meatless Monday campaign, a global initiative begun at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to improve the health of individuals and the planet.
15
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
The Prospects of Monsanto’ s Monopoly on Seed Production By Sarallah Salehi ‘16, Staff Writer
F
ounded originally as a small business specializing in soft drink ingredients by entrepreneur John Francis Queeny, Monsanto today has transformed itself into one of the most powerful players in the growing agrichemical industry. Responsible for producing herbicideresistant seeds that give rise to a majority of the world’s corn and soybeans, (83% and 90% respectively) Monsanto reaps almost two billion dollars per year from its near-total control over the seed market. But as a result, its consolidation of power has critically reduced the incentives for smaller agricultural firms to continue research in seed products and has effectively excised them from the industry. This trend towards complete monopolization should raise key questions of how much control the world community is willing to cede individual corporations and whether this dominance is actually beneficial to long-term food sustainability and crop diversity. Prior to the emergence of private corporations like Monsanto, the U.S. government provided much of the funding to publicly owned institutions whose research focused on developing improved seed strains. Agriculturallyoriented universities such as Texas A&M were given copious grants to develop seeds that were ultimately distributed--free of charge--to the many farmers in the region and beyond. This system carried many benefits; for example, the discovery of a better corn strain meant that farmers were immediately able to implement the product into their fields without having to worry about the infringement of ownership rights. Moreover, they were free to save, replant, and even sell the subsequent generation of seeds. Yet the rise of private corporate interests, coupled with an acceleration towards the commodification of goods beginning in the Reagan administration, significantly inverted the publicly owned model of seed production. The newly privatized seed industry, headed by Monsanto, increasingly sought to patent their novel seed strains, which barred farmers from utilizing the generationally ingrained custom of saving seeds for future seasonal plants. Consequently, there were many farmers who simply could not afford to purchase a fresh batch of seeds every planting season lest they risk bankruptcy. Monsanto’s response to farmers who infringed on their patents has been the most controversial aspect surrounding its business model. In 2012, Monsanto actively pursued legal action against more than thirty American farmers. This past May, the Supreme Court ruled on the highly consequential case Monsanto v. Bowman--a case where an Indiana farmer was sued for violating Monsanto’s patent on Roundup resistant soybean seeds. The farmer, Vernon Bowman, had purchased the recycled seeds from a local grain retailer to use in a riskier seasonal planting. However, Bowman claimed that he was unaware the purchased seeds contained the genetically modified material. Whether Bowman knowingly decided to dismiss the possibility of the seeds being genetically modified when first purchasing them is open for debate. But he certainly did not attempt to remedy this accident after he sprayed them with herbicide and found that the plants continued to grow. Despite Bowman citing the “patent exhaustion” doctrine, which permits the user to do what he wishes after purchasing a product, Justice Kagan sided with Monsanto. The court’s justification claimed that a decision in favor of Bowman would have completely negated Monsanto’s right to future profits following the first release of a genetically modified seed. On the international stage, Monsanto’s reputation has suffered after several studies indicated a link between the main component in its Roundup spray, glyphosate, and the dramatic rise in cancer and birth defects in Argentina. In provinces where glyphosate is used most heavily, the cancer rates are almost
16
two to four times higher than the national average . But for many Argentinian farmers who compete in an increasingly competitive global food market, the need to artificially enhance crop yields by spraying herbicides is seen as critical to sustaining their profits. Against this backdrop, thousands of protesters living within the provinces have rallied in the capital, Buenos Aires, to voice their discontent at Monsanto’s deceptiveness and to demand Monsanto prevent the contaminant from seeping into their food supply. In response, Monsanto has promised that it would conduct its own field studies to determine whether a legitimate connection exists between the herbicide and related health problems. The problem isn’t black and white. Despite the multitude of criticisms, the massive increase in potential crop yields that Monsanto’s genetically modified products have enabled is a drastic improvement from natural agricultural techniques. In fact, soybean production has, on average, increased by two hundred percent when compared to productivity levels during the 1970’s and 1980’s when the Roundup resistant seed was not yet discovered. Meanwhile, giant farm operations consisting of several hundred acres have also witnessed manifold increases in their profitability by specializing in a single crop and investing heavily in the genetically modified seeds. With global food demands rising exponentially as large population centers such as India and China continue to grow unabated, the future problem of meeting their burgeoning needs will necessitate greater reliance on artificial modes of food production. But society must weigh these benefits against the consequences of relying heavily on a single breed of crop. While the limited strains of staple crops that Monsanto has been able to genetically modify are critical to sustaining future world food demands, relying on these alone bring enormous negative potential effects. This would greatly reduce the rich biodiversity that ensures the genetic stability of whole geneses of plants. By artificially choosing to plant only a certain soybean variety, we slowly attenuate the genetic diversity of the entire species. This reduction in plant variety can be extremely dangerous if a fatal plant disease turns endemic within a particular species because all members will be vulnerable. Thus, investing in a multitude of crop species not only guards against such disastrous situations but also ensures the general diversity of the crop. Monsanto, on the other hand, has countered that the threat to biodiversity that its products pose is not and should not be among their responsibilities as a private owned corporation. For them, the greater reliance by farmers on the genetically modified strains has occurred independent of any coercion. Unfortunately, their point is true: Monsanto has never forced farmers to adopt the improved strains. Still, we must ask whether Monsanto bears some responsibility in promoting biodiversity, even if these novel duties lay outside its obligations. It is unquestionable that future food worries pose significant risks to the sustainability of an entire country’s population. More developed nations are especially worried, particularly those that have trended toward larger mono-crop agriculture. Although this move has unquestionably increased efficiency in total production, the benefit has come at the expense of crop diversity.The evolving debate over the future of food production rages on, particularly as protest movements, led by countless farmers across the globe, continue to fight against the consolidation of Monsanto’s power. Yet it seems that without the input of the consumer, large-scale change will not be possible. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Student Vegan Voices By Tyler Bryant ‘16, Contributing Writer Being vegan for the past five months is probably the best choice I have ever made. I go to bed feeling healthy, ethical, and environmentally friendly. Most people say that they don’t think they can survive without cheese, and I certainly felt the same way at first. Trying my first cheese-less pizza was an adventure I never foresaw myself taking, but it turned out to be just as delicious as any other time. I did not realize how difficult it would be to be vegan when I first started. Finding foods that aren’t cooked with butter, milk, or eggs can sometimes be a pain. If you are willing to try it out, you may be a little frustrated at first. But it is most certainly worthwhile so don’t get discouraged! Just tell the people who try to make you crave a food, “Anything you can do, I can do vegan!” There are so many substitutes out there, some actually more preferable in health and taste than the “real” thing. Also, our taste buds can change to enjoy foods that we once never considered eating. This is one miracle that I have found to be very helpful along my journey. I was a victim of the American diet, full of saturated fats, chemicals, and sugars. After about two months of eating healthy, natural foods free from anything that could cause me to worry about my future risk of developing health issues, I started to enjoy the food that I would typically skip over before. Some people may believe I am weird, hipster, or extreme, but I am really just a guy who doesn’t eat animal products. If you are interested in becoming vegan, my vote is that you give it a try! What harm can it do? (Hint: it definitely won’t be the animals!). PP
By Katie Naymon ‘15, Contributing Writer If you had told me in high school that I would be a kale chip chomping, chia seed eating vegan in college I would have balked at the idea. For years, I ate cheese and ice cream and Thanksgiving leftovers like everyone else. I never even considered becoming vegetarian, much less vegan. But then, I came to college and began experiencing stomach problems that plagued most of freshman year. I felt ill all of the time, and confused why my friends could eat five FFC cookies and gigantic pizza slices and not feel sick too. The health center told me to cut out dairy. I never got tested for lactose intolerance, but I assume that had something to do with it. Within a month, I started feeling a little better. But I was bitter that I couldn’t eat what I wanted to anymore. I lost about ten pounds that fall. In January, my parents invited over a pair of hippie psychologists who showed them the documentary Forks Over Knives. Inspired, my parents decided to try veganism for one month as their New Year’s resolution. Because they weren’t going to cook non-vegan meals for the family that month, I decided to try it, too. I never went back. My mom’s blood pressure decreased significantly, I was feeling better, and suddenly the idea of never eating cheese again didn’t seem so crazy. I found new favorites like chocolate coconut milk ice cream and delicious, indulgent cupcakes. Even the weird soy protein “chicken” wasn’t as gross as it looked. For me, veganism was initially a way of getting rid of my stomach problems. But I’ve stuck with it because of the way it made me feel generally. I feel lighter, cleaner, more energetic and happier. I’ve become an avid baker,
using weird ingredients like black beans in brownies and flax in smoothies and nutritional yeast on pizza. Of course, it’s not easy to be vegan on this campus. Especially in the last year, I’ve become a “don’t ask, don’t tell vegan,” where I eat things that I assume to be vegan but likely are not. Sure enough, I feel sick afterwards. I’m going to Sweden next semester and I think I might have to add fish back into my diet because I’m unsure of how prevalent veganism is. But even with occasional cheating, I eat a plant-based diet that makes me feel great. People always ask me how I do it, and honestly, it’s not difficult when you feel awful after eating fatty meat and butter. But to those who are skeptical, I encourage you to try it for just a week, or go meatless a few times a week. I feel healthier, but I also love that I’m not hurting animals in the process. For me, it’s a win-win. PP
By Frances Loeb ‘15, Contributing Writer I’ve been vegan for almost four years now. Over the four years, my decision has only been further reinforced as more and more reasons for veganism become apparent. Personally, I’m a huge animal lover so I eat vegan in part to boycott the mistreatment of animals. While people understand the aversion to slaughtering animals, some have a more difficult time comprehending the vegan rejection of all animal products, including milk and eggs. People often tell me that “cows have to be milked, so we’re not hurting the cows by milking them.” However, cows only produce milk if they’re having a calf. In nature, calves drink their mother’s milk so they wouldn’t need to be milked. Dairy farms make sure cows are impregnated year after year so they produce a constant supply of milk and take away the calves typically a few days after they’re born so that humans can drink the milk that nature intended for the calves. This is a fundamental mistreatment of the cows, and it’s wrong. Another reason I eat vegan is because I feel eating meat, eggs and milk is unnatural for humans. We’re the only species that drink milk into adulthood, let alone drink another animal’s breast milk at all. Many people become lactose intolerant or at least have some discomfort digesting lactose as they get older. According to PETA, 90% of Asian Americans and 75% of Native Americans and African Americans are lactose intolerant. Also, from an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies have much more in common with plant eaters than meat eaters. As an environmentalist, being vegan is extremely important for me. People often think of environmental activism as participating in marches or growing your own food or buying an electric car. But one of the best, most inexpensive ways to fight climate change is to go vegan. Statistics differ, but it is safe to say that feeding a meat eater takes three times the amount of than that used to feed a vegan. Also, the livestock sector makes up 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions - a higher share than transportation. Agricultural land expansion, mostly used to gaze beef cattle, make up 60% of the worldwide deforestation It’s worth noting that being a vegan is not possible in all parts of the world. I realize that, due to financial and other reasons, not everyone has easy access vegan food. But for me, that’s all the more reason to be vegan. Living in a country where we are fortunate to have the choices we do, I feel a real responsibility to do what is best for the planet, because too many people around the world do not have the luxury to make this choice. Contrary to some misconceptions, I--along with all of the vegans I know--would never look down on people for eating the only food available to them, whether it involves animal products or not. PP
17
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
If Not Now, Then When? The Relationship Between Climate Change and Agriculture By Adrian Carney ‘14, Staff Writer
O
framing the decision as leading to a loss of domestic jobs, or by boldly stating that coal or oil is actually good for the environment, as seen by advertisements for clean coal. Even if some companies make statements supporting or recognizing the effects of climate change, their emissions continue to grow― according to a study by the British non-profit CDP, CO2 emissions from the fifty largest corporations have increased by 1.65% since 2009.
The great missed opportunity of the conference was how to directly address the problems of food security and how they are related to climate change. A leaked report from the conference produced the frightening figure of food production yields decreasing 2% per decade, in contrast to demand rising by 14% per decade. This would have the ripple effect of increasing food prices across the globe, leading to negative economic effects not only in developed countries, but more extreme hazards of food shortages, refugee situations, and further political instability elsewhere.
Based on this information, what is to be done in terms of domestic and international policy? In terms of energy and agricultural policy, the sheer pace of climate change combined with the scale and nature of its possible effects means that policy should include not just preventative measures, but also reactive ones. In the beginning of November, President Obama noted the necessity of reducing greenhouse gases, but also signed executive orders detailing the organization of disaster relief and recognizing state control of infrastructure rebuilding. This is a good start, but legislative action is still necessary. What else could be done?
n November 23rd, the United Nations Climate Change Conference concluded in Warsaw after thirteen days of contentious debate on emissions targets and carbon budgeting. Although these topics were justifiably major focuses of the conference and produced much debate, the questions of food security and agriculture remained largely unaddressed. The only exception was India’s successful blocking of a measure imposing emissions restraints on agriculture.
How would this be possible? In addition to the highly visible and more dramatic effects of climate change such as rising ocean levels, food security could be impacted by multiple possible changes and in multiple ways. These could range from desertification of arable land, drought affecting water supplies, or shortages of fish stocks due to ocean acidification and temperature. Furthermore, extreme weather events could also damage food harvests, such as the rice fields in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. This is only a sampling of some possibilities. The varied economic and social institutions in the world economy also could lead to unforeseen reactions to climate change. The environmental and physical effects of climate change could further precipitate not just a crisis of international security, but also a humanitarian crisis. Those under-developed nations that lack the means to mobilize resources on a larger scale are ipso facto less capable of responding to environmental change. Those nations that already have to deal with migration, food insecurity, and war could conceivably have to endure more frequent and severe versions of these problems in the future. In the worstcase scenario, some countries might be forced to deal with mass population relocation due to permanent loss of arable or livable land. These might include some of the Micronesian islands, the Caribbean, the Maldives, and Bangladesh, but also major coastal cities in developed countries. However, there still remain incentives that would prevent the acceptance of implementing any corrective measures. For example, the question of emissions control is further complicated by the nature of economic development, and whether it would be fair to ask developing or undeveloped countries to forego industrial development, as per the Western model, in the name of multilateral security. Such an agreement would seem especially unfair to those countries. Developed countries have historically increased energy consumption, often in the form of fossil-fuels, to diversify their economies and thus invest in higher standards of living. Although some developed countries, such as Germany and South Korea, have moved towards methods of reducing greenhouse gas production by using more efficient means of power production, others, such as Canada, have openly repudiated past measures like the Kyoto Protocol. Likewise, transnational corporations in the fossil fuels industry have been proactive in using front groups and public relations firms to prevent any legislation from being enforced on the environment. This is often done by
18
First, it will be necessary to further invest in monitoring the effects of climate change, and those areas and materials which are most vulnerable to any climate change events. By further refining present models on climate change, it will be easier to understand what long-term effects are more likely to occur, and to take measures to either counteract them, or more securely endure them. Secondly, it will be necessary to find ways to monitor those metrics of climate change along with food yields and surveys of remaining water supplies and arable land on an international level. This would assist in predicting those areas which could be most vulnerable to further food shortages or political instability, and thus help prepare measures to either prevent extreme climatic events or to act against them when they occur. This would include such measures as agricultural insurance, reinforcing infrastructure, or other forms emergency aid. The third and most extreme possible response entails the development and implementation of large-scale geoengineering projects. These are largescale environmental engineering projects that would aim to directly reduce the effects of global warming, from relatively conventional projects such as tree planting to more experimental ones like spraying non-toxic chemicals in the atmosphere to increase the reflectivity of the earth’s atmosphere against sunlight. These would work either by reducing the number of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, or by reducing the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere. Any future reaction to the problems of climate change and food shortages would probably not be limited to just one of these strategies, but would more likely encompass at least two. In any case, the situation has progressed to such an extent that the effects of human-caused climate change are part of a monolithic and nearly unanimous scientific consensus. Any response will involve not just more precise scientific research and technical innovation, but also multilateral discussions and the building of a global consensus for action. Before the end of the talks at Warsaw, one of the chief negotiators for the Filipino delegation spoke about the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan in his country, and asked, “If not us then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?” There is no other alternative. If there is continued inaction and infighting, there will soon be no other place to retreat. It would end with the last stand of Earth, and, before that, a much tougher food climate. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
INTERVIEW WITH FARM ALLIANCE OF BALTIMORE CITY COORDINATOR
{ MAYA KOSOK { By Alex Dragone ‘16, Contributing Writer & Dylan Etzel ‘17, Staff Writer
What does the Farm Alliance of Baltimore do? We are a network of urban farms, twelve right now, that join together in the city to make urban farming more viable and the food more accessible. That includes a lot of different approaches, but we have a shared farmer’s market stand at the Saturday Waverly market, we are setting up a cooperative greenhouse, we run a double dollars program for low income customers to be able to double how much they purchase, and we work with city government around policy and advocacy issues.
What is competition like trying to run urban farms in Baltimore City and selling to Baltimore City? What’s the nature of competition? Very localized. In general, the farms both in the alliance and urban farms outside of the alliance tend to feel that there is more than enough business to go around. People are very cooperative; the vast majority of the business is direct to consumer. Whether it’s through a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture program, or through a market stand, or if one of the farms has a mobile market program, a lot of the farms are primarily selling directly to people that are taking the food home and cooking it. Some also [sell] to restaurants. It’s really easy to fill customer base.
What do you do? I’m the coordinator of the Farm Alliance. My actual role tends to be herding the farmers. What I do includes marketing and communication, delivering to restaurants each week, balancing out our farmer’s market stands, checking the tools people use, applying for grants, administering our finances and grant reporting, speaking with students doing research, and collaborating with partner organizations on workshops, cross-promoting events, and working with the city government.
What is your perspective in general on the organic movement? How would you say the Farm Alliance fits in? Urban farming, even at its most wildly successful point in the future, will still be a very small portion of any farming that happens nationwide. It’s important to recognize that. Another important factor is that we’re growing food in incredibly close proximity to where people live, much more so than the low-growers are, and it’s even more important to be cognizant of products, chemicals, [how] pesticides are being applied, and how it’s affecting the water management for your neighbors immediately around you. I feel strongly on a personal level, and many if not all of the growers that I work with do too, that in the cities there really isn’t a place for conventional farming.
Why did you decide to form this farm network in a city, instead of a countryside area? The network itself grew out of the existing farms that were already started in the city. There’s a lot of vacant land, there’s a lot of people who live in the city who want to try out farming, and there’s a real need for more access to healthy foods, more jobs, more economic development. Although it’s on a very small scale, at this point there’s economic potential to create a lot of change through small urban farms in the city. The farms begin pretty organically, don’t mind the pun, through either neighborhood groups or individuals who just wanted to try growing things.
I’ve heard that the organic label is something really only wealthy farms manage to get and that it doesn’t mean much; do you have any perspective on the economics of it? I do know small farmers, who are not very wealthy farmers, who have gone through certification and not found it to be impossible, and it’s certainly something that small farms can achieve. But as an urban farmer, like I mentioned, we have such proximity to our buyers and markets that the added value of having certification is a little bit diminished because so many people actually come to our farms for events. The transparency is there that if you come from outside of the state, or even just outside the
Do the farms in the alliance form organically? None of them are certified organic, a couple may get their certification in the next few years, but all of them follow the same processes that are required for certification, so everyone is using the organic method without having the technical certification.
19
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE city, you don’t necessarily have access to your grower. There’s a role for certification; there’s a growing diversity of other certifications popping up, and with some farms seeking those [certifications]. But having not been through the process myself, I can’t really speak to it extensively.
What are regulations like farming in Baltimore City? Are there restrictions or has the government made it very easy for you to try to get food especially to low-income people in general? The city government in Baltimore is as supportive or more than any other city government, in terms of urban farming. A lot of the regulations around zoning that affect farms are in the process of changing; the entire zoning code is being rewritten. I would say [urban farms] are not at risk, but it will create more of an allowance for them than there is now. In terms of animals, that’s all separate from the zoning code; the health department has made several amendments or rewrites to the animal code. That’s getting better and more supportive with each rewrite, but there are still things that people would perceive as possible.
Do you farm in commercial zones of the city? Is that what you fall into? No, actually in the new zoning code there’s two designations for essentially what farms and big gardens would fit into; there’s urban agriculture, which is more commercial, and then there’s communitymanaged open space, which could be a grassroots community farm. It’s a pretty broad definition. The community-managed open space is a permitted use in all but the most industrial areas. The urban agriculture is a conditional use, so you still have to submit some management plan and program items, and people can challenge it, but it’s still allowed.
Does the state of Maryland place regulations on farms and urban farms in particular? Nothing specific on the urban farms, but the one state regulation that does affect farms is the requirement for a nutrient management plan. That’s statewide for any farm that grosses over $2,500 a year. That’s a pretty low bar and does affect some farms in the city. So we actually worked with the Maryland Department of Agriculture to put a nutrient management plan in a class specifically for small businesses. That’s the main regulation that affects us at the state level (Composting is regulated through the Maryland Department of the Environment).
What is it like from the federal government? There aren’t really regulations that directly affect urban farms. There are state and federal programs for farms, like different incentive programs through USBA or the Maryland Department of Agriculture, but they have not started regulating urban farming, and I think that will probably stay in the realm of each city.
Is the Farm Alliance at all political? Is there any lobbying? We do engage in politics with the city government but often it’s at their invitation. We work with the Department of Planning and, within that, the Office of Sustainability. Often they want to know our opinion on the city regulations. They actually hired me on a short-term contract for me to help write the recommendations of the Urban Agriculture Policy Plan, which is in draft form right now. They have a Food Policy Advisory Committee that we sit on, and the Urban Agriculture Subcommittee, so we’re engaged at the city level pretty directly. It’s less lobbying in the sense of trying to get a certain law passed; it’s much more in terms of working with people within the Department of Public Works and the Department
20
of Housing on issues that are going to directly affect growers, so water access, land access, and land purchasing.
For the first time in a while, Congress has stalled on passing a Farm Bill. Would the new Farm Bill affect you at all? I don’t think it would directly affect us except for some of those non-profit grant programs through the USBA, as in if they don’t have funding. SNAP funding does affect us and residents and our neighbors, which is wrapped up into the Farm Bill. SNAP, really known as food stamps, is crucial for Independence Cards in Maryland. We do accept Independence Cards at our food stands, and then we have a program to double what people can spend with their SNAP benefits. I wouldn’t say that our business is in danger, but if we aren’t able to accept SNAP, or if benefits for increased access to healthy food go down, we would be negatively impacted.
You have a mix of commercial and non-profit farms? Yes some are a part of a formal non-profit organization, some are for profit or are just more entrepreneurial in nature, and then there are some in between. Maybe they’ve partnered with a community organization on grant hearings and they’re not really for profit, or they don’t profit but aren’t in a non-profit organization, so they’re in a gray area.
How’s business basically? Are you doing well financially? Has the program proven sustainable? Baltimore farmers and most urban farmers around the country are in a place of generating revenue, more than has been produced in the city before, but generally not fully financially self-sustaining. That will vary operation to operation. At the very least the farms are generating a lot of their own revenue, but not necessarily covering 100% of their costs for labor and outreach.
Can you tell us about what some of your farms do in terms of education? It varies from farm to farm, but some of the programs include after school clubs for middle and elementary school kids, where the kids either have their own plots and gardens or help out and have farm-based lessons. One of the farms has a regular high school internship program, where they actually get paid for their work on the farm and get job training skills, and several of the farms have grouped together for the summer to have youthworks employees or college interns or recent public school graduates paid to work on the farm. Field trips are a big part of a couple of the farms, and for National Food Day we organized Headstart Programs at after-school programs around the city to five of the urban farms for a tour and tasting and educational activities. There are also service-learning requirements for students to graduate, and sometimes students have other mandated service learning hours, so there are a lot of high school students that volunteer on the farms. There are also workshops more geared towards adults and nutrition classes.
What is your outlook on farming in the United States? What is farming going to look like in the United States in the future? In Maryland and the D.C. area there’s a shortage of produce farmers. There’s an ever-growing demand, and we need more young farmers. Something that’s exciting about urban farming it’s where a lot of young people can congregate and get exposed to producing food. We’ve already seen in Baltimore some people getting exposed to urban farming and then moving out to the country to start rural farming. I see rural farming sitting in very well with what we’re trying to do, but I definitely see a need for more sustainable farms, young farmers, more direct market farms, more diverse farms, so I’m hoping that we’re headed in that direction. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
Omnivore Student Voices By Geordan Williams ‘14, Staff Writer As for my food preferences, I have generally been known to eat anything under the sun. When I was living off campus, I actually ate an entire pizza out of a trashcan. That’s what happens when you have to pay for your own food out of a bank account that’s slimming down just as fast as you are. I was raised along with two brothers in a typical Arizonan home where meals were defined by what slab of meat accompanied it, that, and whether the tortillas were corn or wheat. It was not until I had arrived at Hopkins that I had ever encountered a significant number of those with dietary restrictions and individuals who challenged me to think through how my diet affected the world around me. I respect vegetarians for the choices they have made whether it’s for religious or personal reasons. I believe everyone has the right to choose his or her own diet; however, vegetarianism is not a decision that I would make. As omnivores, we are cursed to consume other living material if we wish to survive. Plants are just as alive as animals, composed of living cells and moving parts. It is simply much easier to recognize an animal as a living creature since it moves as we do. Therefore, I feel no guilt in consuming meat. At the same time, I believe that entirely too much meat is consumed here in the U.S. While attending the University of Jordan, I lived with a local host family where I was consuming at most a handful of meat everyday. I realized that a healthy, balanced diet could easily be achieved without the consumption of meat. I also realized that the amount of calories it takes to produce a pound of meat is much higher than it is to produce the same nutrition from vegetables. In a world where malnutrition is a steady concern, the heavy consumption of red meat is detrimental to the world food supply. It also means that large swathes of forest are burned so that it can be used for grazing land. Finally, we are rapidly depleting the world’s oceans of fish. I believe that meat eating can continue into the future, but it needs to be maintained in a sustainable manner conscious of its own consequences. PP
By Christine Kumar ‘16, Contributing Writer A few years ago, my “progressive” older cousin publicly berated me for eating a hot dog at a family barbeque. She argued that by doing so, I contributed to the brutal and cruel murder of dozens of pigs. She said that I should feel ashamed of myself. But instead of throwing away my hot dog and vowing to never eat meat again, I just put more mustard on my food and walked away. What my cousin failed to see, and what I could not forget, was that the hot dog was really delicious. As a meat eater, I completely understand the ethical decision that some people make when they decide to cut meat out of their lives. There are about a hundred solid and incredibly persuasive reasons with sound scientific information to support never touching or even looking at meat ever again. But, even when faced with all these facts, I can’t stop eating meat. Eating meat is a choice that I consciously make because nothing can take away how good meat tastes. From something as simple as a hot dog at a family barbeque to eating sumptuous osso bucco in a restaurant in Italy, meat is just too good to give up.
Now, being a meat-eater doesn’t mean I lack compassion – I agree that more should be done to give animals in meat processing facilities better care. And I’m supportive of any action that can help protect the Earth. But how does depriving myself simple pleasures, such as a burger, help save a cow? Whether I eat an animal or not doesn’t mean that the animal will be saved – it means that some other lucky person gets to dig in. What I would prefer, and wholeheartedly support, is stricter government regulation on what goes into our food and how our animals are treated. If food companies and farms treat the animals more humanely and become proactive about making their facilities more environmentally friendly, then we can all have our meat and eat it too. But for now, I’m going to indulge my natural, predatory tendencies and continue to enjoy and truly appreciate my meat without feeling any guilt. So you can go ahead and eat your tofu burger in the name of cows, but I’m going to have a second hot dog in the name of my stomach and me. PP
By Christopher Winer ‘14, Staff Writer I love food. Any kind will suffice. I have gorged on barbeque in Nashville, jambalaya in New Orleans, and half-smoked hot dogs and a monumental hamburger sub-topped with chili in an eatery in Washington D.C. called Ben’s Chili Bowl. I have never had any moral qualms about eating meat. I have always held the rather libertarian position that people should eat and drink as they please. If it makes you happy, then I say to each his own. I enjoy tasting everything out of curiosity and have a desire to explore different cultures. Critics of my eating habits have legitimate concerns about the treatment of animals and the mode of plant production in our industrialized agricultural system. The breeding of genetically-modified animal and plant species, the overuse of fertilizers, pesticides, and growth hormones, as well as the claimed inhumane treatment of animals in factory farms usually top the list. I think that when dealing with these issues we should keep to scientific facts. The Atlantic recently asked a panel of distinguished inventors, scientists, and historians to rank the greatest inventions since the wheel. The Green Revolution of the mid-20th century, which brought us synthetic fertilizers and scientific plant breeding, came in at 22nd. Norman Borlaug, the agricultural economist who helped develop these techniques, they note, has been credited with saving over a billion lives from starvation. I do not mind that over 70 percent of the food I eat has GMOs in it, probably including some of the delicacies I listed above. Almost all scientists have claimed that these are perfectly safe, as The Economist reports, and given that Americans have been eating them for two decades, I am inclined to agree. They also help reduce pesticide use, boost crop yields, and can help eradicate world hunger. If you want to eat organic, over-priced, fair trade kale from Whole Foods, then go ahead. But, I think I have every right to consume as I do. Given that the Earth’s global population will be rising by about 2.4 billion to 9.6 billion by 2050, I would say that our real moral imperative is investing in scientific developments to find more efficient means to produce food for a growing population. Let us not have pampered upper-class sympathies distract us from our larger moral obligation. PP
21
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
The Challenge of Feeding 9.6 Billion People By Abigail Sia ‘15, Staff Writer
O
n June 13th, the United Nations released a new report that projected the future growth of the world population. After reaching 7 billion people in 2011, the world’s population currently stands at roughly 7.2 billion. The UN projects that the world will add 1 billion more people over the next 12 years. By 2050, the number of people living on this planet is projected to reach 9.6 billion. Most of this growth is expected to come from the world’s underdeveloped regions, and especially from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan. With such a large population, the world will inevitably face problems of pollution, overcrowding, and waste management. But there is an even more basic and troubling question: how in the world will we manage to feed 9.6 billion people? In order to meet the rising demand for food, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN estimates that global agricultural output will have to increase by at least 70 percent, and that agricultural output in the developing world will need to double. These figures make logical sense: as the population grows, we will have more mouths to feed. But a sizeable portion of agricultural energy will have to focus on growing one billion more tons of cereal grains – such as wheat, rice, and most especially corn – in order to sustain the future population. A quick glance at the statistics would suggest that we are well on our way: after all, cereal production peaked this year at a record 2.479 million tons. However, natural events have steadily pushed up the price of grain in the past few years. Climate change and recent extreme weather events have wreaked havoc on cereal grain production in numerous countries. In 2010, Russia (one of the world’s top wheat exporters) experienced one of its most severe droughts in at least 50 years. The drought caused the price of wheat to jump 50 percent. Additionally, as more countries advance in their economic development, standards of living are increasing accordingly. The World Bank often points to China as an example: China, which has been one of the fastestdeveloping countries since it initiated market reforms in 1978, has succeeded in lifting over 500 million people out of poverty between 1981 and 2008. By 2008, only 13 percent of Chinese lived in poverty – a drastic drop from the whopping 84 percent in 1984. As a result, huge amounts of people – both in China and other developing countries, such as India – are starting to move into the middle class. And as their standards of living increase, their lifestyles start to mimic Western ways of living. According to the Earth Policy Institute, China’s meat consumption reached 71 million tons in 2012, twice as much as the US. In 1978, China’s meat consumption was a mere one third of US consumption; however, in 1992, China overtook the US in meat consumption and its demand has skyrocketed since. The FAO estimates that 200 million more tons of beef and other meat must be raised by 2050 to support the growing appetite. The need to increase agricultural production is coinciding with the rise of biofuels, such as ethanol, which have emerged as a “green” alternative to the traditional energy sources based on coal and oil. Major economies including the US, the European Union, and Brazil have invested billions of dollars into its production. The increasing production of biofuels worldwide has been cited as a potential cause of the 2007-2008 food price crisis, which caused worldwide riots in protest of rising food costs. The need to increase agricultural production is complicated by another problem: in order to meet current demand, farmers are already doing everything they can to squeeze more output from their farmland. But many
22
of these practices are unsustainable and are actually harming the earth. Using nitrogen fertilizer to push crop yields beyond their natural limits, for example, leads to increased emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful and dangerous greenhouse gas. These expanded crop yields demand more water, and farmers are tapping into – and draining – underground aquifers to support their crops. Additionally, in order to raise more livestock and meet the ever-increasing demand for meat, farms are also using large amounts of pesticides and generating tons of toxic wastewater and manure that pollutes groundwater and other water sources. Furthermore, as more farmland is lost to expanding cities and urban areas, people are turning to forests to find arable land. Forests, which function as important “carbon sinks” that soak up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are being clear-cut and burned to make room for agriculture and ranching. The FAO estimates that Brazil lost about 163,436 square miles of forested land between 1990 and 2005, an area roughly the size of California. Farmers are also turning to technology to increase their crop yields, especially in developed countries. The use of genetically modified crops and genetically engineered seeds has risen over time, especially as consumers have started to demand higher-quality products. But University of Minnesota agricultural expert Jonathan Foley worries that there is only so much more that farmers can do: “We can sometimes bust through these walls with technology, genetics, better seeds. But at a certain point, we run up against fundamental physiological limits for plants. If billion[s] of years of evolution can’t figure it out, are we going to be able to?” Based on these problems, we will clearly face difficulties in trying to feed 9.6 billion people. So what can we do? How can we increase our food supply without harming the earth even further? For one thing, we should focus on increasing production in currently underutilized areas. Farmland, in developed regions such as North America and Western Europe, is suffering from highly intensive agriculture, resulting in pollution of the soil and loss of biodiversity. But there are other options: 80 percent of Africa’s arable land, for example, is either under-utilized or not used at all. According to Foley, such as China, India, Indonesia, and even former Soviet states can potentially increase their crop yields through comprehensive agricultural investment. Another way to increase our food supply is to simply waste less food. In underdeveloped and developing regions, food often goes to waste due to logistical problems such as storage; in developed regions, food is wasted due to negligence. We should look into improving logistical problems in underdeveloped and developing regions so that food can be adequately stored and used. And in the developed world, we should keep better track of the food that we buy and store in our fridges and cupboards. People in the developed world should also consider altering their diets. Dr. Robert Lawrence, the director for the Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a big advocate for transitioning to lower-meat diets. If we consumed less meat, more cereal grains could go towards feeding humans instead of animals. Land used for ranching could be repurposed to grow more plant food. We would avoid using tons of fertilizer and pesticides as well as producing manure and wastewater. Eating less meat is good for your health, too: consuming large quantities of meat puts your body at risk for high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. The challenges are indeed daunting, but humans have a remarkable capacity for solving difficult problems. PP
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
WRITE FOR the POLITIK PRESS
Photo Courtesy: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division
The Politik Press, originally founded in 2008 as JHU Politik, is a weekly publication of political opinion pieces. We proudly seek to provide the Johns Hopkins campus with student voices and perspectives about important issues of our time. Rather than hide within a cloistered academic bubble, we know we must critically engage with the world that surrounds us. That, we believe, is at the heart of what it means to be learning. We’re lucky to be situated in the city of Baltimore, a city with a rich history and an ever-changing politics. We aim to look at the politics of the Homewood campus, of the city of Baltimore, of the domestic landscape of the United States, and then of the international community as well. While we publish the Politik Press weekly, we work simultaneously on our special issues which come out once per semester. These magazines confront a single topic from multiple angles. We have run issues covering topics like the political nature of research, the Arab Spring, and our city Baltimore.
If interested e-mail us at
JHUPOLITIK@gmail.com Or find us online at
jhupolitik.org 23
JHU POLITIK
FALL 2013 SPECIAL ISSUE
24