The FoodCorps, staffed with 5 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, works with Montana farmers, ranchers, students, parents, teachers, and activists to change how children are fed at school. They develop farm-to-school programs in Montana schools and colleges. They organize farm tours, and plan and publicize events to promote locally grown foods. They are working to create long-term change, so projects are meant to be self-sustaining.

Over this last school year, Grow Montana estimates that over $1 million dollars was returned to the Montana agricultural economy due to FoodCorps projects. The project is continuing, and Grow Montana is hiring five new VISTA staff for the 2008-2009 year. If you are looking for some inspiration, or a great way to spend a year, take a look at this project!

Finally, the goodbye: I am signing off Eat.Drink.Better, and this is my last post. It has been a fun and educational experiment. I’ve decided I don’t have the time and energy to do all the other writing I want to do and be a blogger. Starting in July, I will be posting occasionally on the Huffington Post Green site. I hope you’ll look for me there. Happy summer, and Eat Well!

For someone who loves information, the internet can be both a wonderful temptation and and a hopeless disappointment. The good, the bad, the well-researched and the total garbage all sit side-by-side out there in cyberspace. Information on food and farming is plentiful, but not all of it is accurate, informative, or useful. One site that I have found is really worth keeping an eye on is the Organic Consumer’s Association.

If you are interested in things like organic standards, genetically engineered foods, food safety, worker rights, fair trade, hunger, supporting small farms or nearly any other current food/farming issue, take a look at this web site. The Organic Consumer’s Association was started in 1998 in response to efforts by the USDA and agribusiness to water down organic food standards. The OCA deals with a multitude of topics related to healthy and sustainable farming, food, corporate accountability, and other related areas. Site features include a news feed, a newsletter, action campaigns, tons of informative articles, plus sections on everything from children’s health to climate change.

This site isn’t for everyone. I think they do a good job gathering information on topics important to me, but if their goals aren’t in line with yours, you may feel differently. I’ve learned to always look at the section of a web site on “about us” or “who we are.” The Organic Consumer’s Association says about themselves that they are focused on promoting the views and interests of the nation’s organic and socially responsible consumers. They list a six-point political program, the Organic Agenda 2005-15:

The conversion of American agriculture to at least 30% organic by the year 2015, including major reforms in agricultural subsidies and appropriations to help family farmers make the transition to organic, develop local and regional markets, and adopt renewable energy practices.

Fair Trade and economic justice, not so-called corporate-driven “Free Trade” as the global norm.

A global moratorium on genetically engineered foods and crops.

A phase-out of the most dangerous industrial agriculture and factory farming practices.

Universal health care with an emphasis on prevention, nutrition, and wellness promotion.

Energy independence and the conversion of US and global agriculture, transportation, and utilities to conservation practices and renewable energy.

If this is in line with your beliefs, or if you just want to learn more about these issues, I recommend this web site. Its a great place to go for information, inspiration, and news about efforts to make our food and farming system safe, fair, sustainable and good for the planet and people. Amen to that!

I am irritated by the debate, by well-meaning food folks, about whether eating local food is really a good way to reduce the impact of your food choices on carbon emissions. This debate suggests a phony choice - if food miles matter, then nothing else does. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Food miles” are a measure of the distance food travels from farm to plate. As far as I know, this concept caught fire after a 2003 study came out from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture comparing food miles traveled by local produce in Iowa and conventional produce within the U.S. The study found that the non-local produce had traveled an average of 1500 miles, compared to 56 miles for local produce. Since then, there has been a lot of overgeneralizing of the 1500 mile statistic: the original study looked at only 16 crops, and excluded crops grown outside the U.S.

Local food advocates, including me, have suggested that one of the many benefits of eating from your local area is that it will, in general, reduce the carbon footprint of your food. Others have responded by finding all the other aspects of food production, including chemical inputs of conventional farming, the massive carbon footprint of factory meat production, processing, and food storage, to argue that local food is not important. They are right, of course, that there are many factors that influence how much carbon food contributes to the atmosphere. My answer is, so what? Of course there is often not a simple linear relationship between food miles and carbon emissions. But it does not follow that food miles don’t matter.

A recent study published in Environmental Science and Technology made the following claims:

1. Food accounts for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Most greenhouse gas emissions (83%) from food come from the production phase, while only 11% come from transportation.
3. In an average U.S.household, meat and dairy account for about half of the greenhouse gas emissions from food.
4. Switching away from red meat and dairy to vegetables or even fish, poultry and eggs substantially reduces the carbon footprint of your food.

This is a useful study. But it has been used to argue that food miles are irrelevant, just because other food choices (factory farmed meat versus vegetables) are so important. And, it leaves out all the other factors that so often make locally produced food carbon friendlier. The local food at our farmer’s markets and grocery stores is mostly organic, unprocessed, and, if its meat, grass-fed.

Other articles have questioned the food miles concept, and have suggested it is very difficult to make good choices. I think this is silly.

If you stop for a minute to think, it obvious that many factors will affect the carbon emissions associated with a particular food. Conventional vs. organic techniques, use of fuel in cultivation, mode of transport, processing, storage, and on and on. Trucked, flown, or shipped? Refrigerated, frozen, cooked, or canned? Does this mean food miles are a useless concept? No. But it is overly simplistic as a complete guide of what to eat. I’m sure you can reason this out for yourself.

So rather than argue that food miles are irrelevant, we need to just use our brains a little bit when we decide what to put in our mouths.

Larry Lev, an agricultural economist at Oregon State University, told me once you can sum up the motto of industrial agriculture as: “Just eat it.” He was suggesting, I think, that our entire agricultural system is based on each of us, every day, not considering what we are eating, where it came from, how it was produced, how it makes us feel, what it does to our planet, or even, often, how it really tastes.

I believe he’s right. And once we start to think about these things when we eat, everything will start to change for the better.

But just as awareness is growing about food issues in general, people all over the country are trying to change school food into something we actually WANT our children to eat. So far, these efforts are local, occurring mostly by school or district. But they show that change is possible, and provide some great inspiration to parents and others who want to make things better.

Farm to school programs are being started in many communities across the country. These programs connect schools to local farms. Their goals are multifaceted and ambitious. They try to serve healthier meals in cafeterias, improve student nutrition, educate kids about health and nutrition, and support local small farms. The national Farm to School web site is a great source of information about these efforts, and also serves as a registry for Farm to school programs. According to this web site, Farm to School programs have been started in an estimated 1,986 districts in 38 states. If you want to locate programs in your state or region, this is the best place to start.

The Community Food Security Coalition also has a great web site with resources for those interested in starting a Farm to School program. It has information, funding sources, and success stories.

Two other good sources of inspiration are www.betterschoolfood.org, an online community supporting efforts to improve school food in local communities, and The Center for Ecoliteracy’s Rethinking School Lunch project.

Some states are now getting involved in trying to promote healthier school lunches and promote local and organic foods in school cafeterias. The Illinois state Senate passed a ban on trans fats in school lunches recently. California has this restriction in place, and has some of the most far-reaching and ambitious programs anywhere, including Alice Water’s work with the Berkeley schools. Washington recently passed a bill to promote Washington-grown food in schools. And Oregon has hired a renowned chef to head up the State’s Farm to School efforts.

At this point, finding healthy school food that is sustainably grown, supports local farms, and is good to eat is still a rarity. Where it exists, it seems to depend mostly on a highly motivated, inspired person or group. But these people are growing in numbers and strength. Two angry moms have made a film about some of the worst elements of the National School Lunch Program, and the publicity it has generated is amazing. And, in small school districts with less red tape, wonderful things can happen. I know a woman who grows the most wonderful organic apples. She told me that when she has them, the Corvallis school district will buy her smallest apples, and the kids love them. That is the best thing I’ve heard about school lunches in a long time.

I have to admit that my 3rd grader doesn’t eat school lunches. She has tried what the kids call “hot lunch” exactly 3 times in her entire public school career. She doesn’t like them. At all. Every morning, I fix her lunch, and although I sometimes grumble a little, I am glad to get to choose what she can eat for her midday meal.

But lately, I have been thinking a lot about those hot lunches. For one thing, they feed a lot of children. Many of my daughter’s friends eat them frequently or always. In 2006, more than 30 million children in the U.S. each day ate school lunches. And the school lunch program has been all over the news lately. From downer cows that end up in our kids’ lunches to efforts in districts across the country to combat obesity and bad eating habits in school cafeterias, school lunches seem to be a metaphor for all the bigger issues about food in America today.

Depending on who you talk to, school lunches might be described as anything from a program that nourishes our kids and provides a safety net for poor children to a dumping ground for surplus commodities that promotes childhood obesity, poor health, and lifelong addictions to fast food. I’ve been wanting to write about this since the start of Eat.Drink.Better., but its been hard to know where to start.

Last Sunday, I went to a Forum titled “What’s for Lunch?” about school lunches and farm-to-school programs, which I hoped would clarify things. What it clarified was this: school lunch programs vary by school, district, and state. The federal program does affect what your child is likely to be offered at school, but there are a lot of other factors too. Every evil and inspiring story about food imaginable you can probably find somewhere in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The thing that really struck me was this: school lunches are a reflection of our society, and our society’s relationship to food. And right now, that relationship is kind of crazy.

So this is the first of several posts on the national school lunch program, explaining some of what I’ve learned about how we feed our kids in school at lunch time, and why.

Today, some basic facts:

The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program which provides “nutritionally balanced” low cost or free lunches. School districts that participate get cash subsidies and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. They must offer free or reduced price lunches to eligible children. And they must meet federal nutritional guidelines (two sets) that, according to some, make it difficult to provide healthy affordable meals.

Who qualifies for free or reduced price meals? Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level qualify for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent qualify for reduced price meals, which can cost them no more than 40 cents. (This information comes from the Pennsylvania Department of Education fact sheet on the school lunch program.) In Oregon, where I live, 53% of children in public schools qualify for free or reduced price meals. The other 47% may buy the meals for full price. At my daughter’s school, full price lunches cost $1.75.

How much money do schools get from the USDA per child? If the food served to our children is low quality, a major reason is cost. Here is what the federal government gives schools per meal: $2.47 per free lunch, $2.07 per reduced price lunch, and .23 cents per paid lunch.

Beyond these basic facts, the program varies by state and district. Many parents across the country have protested the poor quality of the food in the NSLP, and many have been working for healthier, tastier, fresher food in school lunches. Next time I’ll focus on some examples of inspiring efforts to improve school lunches, including state legislation, farm-to-school projects, school gardens, and chefs taking over as school lunch coordinators.

And I am not alone in my banana affection. Our natural foods co-op sells more organic bananas on a yearly basis than any other fruit, in spite of all their efforts to promote local produce. But I have some news that makes me feel better about all my winter banana purchases. The carbon-neutral banana is on its way, courtesy of Dole.

Last summer, Dole announced plans to carbon-neutralize its entire banana supply chain. They intend to lower emissions through altering agricultural practices and transportation methods. They will also work with Costa Rica’s forestry financing fund to cancel out emissions through funding reforestation projects with Costa Rican farmers. Dole, the world’s largest producer and distributor of fruits and vegetables, says that in part they are responding to consumer concerns. And Costa Rica is aiming to be a climate-neutral nation!

So if you, too, live in a place where the first spring fruit is still a ways off, try this smoothie recipe, and consider using Dole organic bananas from Costa Rica.

1 or 2 ripe bananas

6-8 frozen strawberries (from last summer’s U-pick stock)

a handful of ice

about 1/2 cup of apple juice, depending on thickness you like

a glob of vanilla yogurt (I like brown cow)

Put it all together in a blender and blend till smooth. Adjust for desired taste and thickness. Enjoy!

When I take stock, I realize I can do without most of the things I buy. Yesterday I bought gas, printer cartridges, and mad libs for my daughter. Food was the only necessity I spent money on. But if David Korten is onto something, access to most of that food is in danger.

Consider: by most estimates, 98% of the food consumed by Americans comes from the industrial food system. This system relies on commodities, factory farms, international production, extensive processing facilities, long-distance transport, storage, refrigeration, and massive inputs of fossil fuel. All kinds of disruptions threaten the safety, cost, and availability of food dependent on this long chain.

Just one example illustrates how relying on industrial agriculture to feed us puts us at risk. Science Daily summarized a string recent reports examining the impacts of climate change on global food production. These reports warn that “global agriculture could go into steep, unanticipated declines…due to complications scientists have so far inadequately considered.” Climate change may cause world food supplies to crash in the coming decades due to the seasonal extremes of heat, drought, and ecological upsets that will accompany the predicted 1 to 5 degrees centigrade temperature rise. Translation: global food supply is in danger in the coming decades. Meaning soon.

So what does David Korten recommend? Self-reliant communities. And the first thing each community needs is food.

Looking in my fridge for things we could still get in the event of globalized economic or agricultural meltdown, I found some good news:

• Milk, from a dairy 20 miles south of us.
• Potatoes, from a nearby organic farmer.
• Blueberries, frozen last summer from a U-pick farm just outside town.
• Lamb and honey, from beekeeper friends who raise lambs and sell honey from their 40-acre farm.
• Lots of products from our region, the Pacific Northwest, including apples, cheese, black beans, onions, frozen veggies, pears, and potato chips.

Not enough to live on perhaps, but it’s a start. It being March, spring greens should be available soon from nearby farmers. I have lettuce and pea starts on the deck. Tomorrow morning is the last winter farmer’s market of the year, and I’ll go and buy what I can. It will comfort me to know that our kitchen is stocked with food that comes from nearby. Even more important, buying local food will support and strengthen those farmers, food producers, and stores that will help feed us even if things in the larger world do begin to fall apart.

I really don’t know if civilization is beginning to unravel. But it seems like a very good idea to help rebuild local food systems that will sustain us if it is. Spring is a great time of year to begin. You can: shop at your local farmer’s market, join a CSA, ask at nearby restaurants and grocery stores for local foods, plant a victory garden, plant a fruit tree, start a compost pile, or join a nearby food security organization. All these things will add to your enjoyment of food and your connection to your community. But even if you don’t believe me, do it anyway, just in case.

Haunting all this milk, filled with calcium, protein, and fat, has been a single question: what is the real story behind recombinant bovine growth hormone?

If you read about food in general, or genetically engineered organisms specifically, it can’t have escaped your notice that there is a battle raging in this country about the use of rBGH in dairy cows. It’s a battle being fought in grocery stores, state legislatures, the corporate offices of Monsanto Corporation and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Consumer groups, dairy farmers, animal welfare folks, and anti-cancer activists are involved. Because of all the milk products we consume, and my passion for food issues, I decided to try to shed some light on recombinant bovine growth hormone (also known as rBGH or rBST).

What is it? rBGH is a genetically engineered variant of a growth hormone in cows. When injected into dairy cows, it increases milk production by as much as 10-15%.

What is its history? The FDA approved the use of rBGH in 1993, and it has been controversial ever since. It is manufactured by the Monsanto Corporation, under the name Posilac. Its use is banned in the European Union, Japan, Australia, and Canada, and many Americans are working to make it illegal. Key U.S. organizations campaigning to stop rBGH include Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, and the Consumer’s Union. In response to consumer demand, an increasing number of U.S. food retailers are rejecting milk from cows treated with rBGH, including Starbucks, Kroger, and Wal-Mart.

Why is it so controversial? There are three chief concerns about the use of rBGH: harm to treated cows, antibiotic resistance, and an increased risk of certain cancers in humans.

Studies have documented that cows injected with rBGH have a 50% increase in lameness, a 25% increase in udder infections, multiple reproductive problems, and shortened life-spans.

Because of higher rates of infection, rBGH cows are treated with more antibiotics, which contributes to the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria, a serious and growing public health threat.

Finally, opponents of rBGH say it causes elevated levels of an insulin-like growth hormone, IFG-1, in treated cows’ milk. According to Dr. Jenny Pompilio, with Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, elevated IGF-1 levels have been linked to breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers in humans. Monsanto vehemently denies there is any difference between milk from cows treated with rBGH and cows that aren’t treated.

What is happening now? In response to growing consumer demand for milk from rBGH-free cows, Monsanto has launched a nation-wide effort to make it illegal to label dairy products that come from untreated cows. They have funded a thinly disguised “grassroots” organization, AFACT, to protect the “rights” of diary farmers to continue injecting cows with rBGH. State-by-state, they have tried to make such labeling illegal, and they have even tried to get the FDA to ban rBGH-free labels nationally. However, there is growing alarm about both the human health threats and the animal cruelty issues surrounding rBGH use. According to a USDA survey, about 17% of dairy cows were injected with rBGH in 2007, down from 22% in 2002.

The bottom line? We should never introduce something into our food system that increases the suffering of livestock we keep, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and possibly cancer risk. As more and more U.S. consumers and food retailers are rejecting milk from cows treated with rBGH, I urge you to do the same.

For a partial list of rBGH-free dairy producers:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/rBGH/rbghlist.cfm

http://www.oregonpsr.org/programs/dairyguide.htm

Certified organic milk must come from cows not treated with rBGH.

Here’s a summary of Jack Hedin’s story. He farms 100 acres in southern Minnesota, and has found that demand for his organic produce is so strong that he can’t meet it on his land. So last year, he rented 25 acres from two nearby corn farmers, and planted fruits and vegetables on the extra land. It wasn’t long before his landlords ran into trouble with the commodity farm program. This program subsidizes commodity crops, paying farmers who grow corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton, and several others.

While the program was set up to guarantee farmers who grow commodity crops a certain income, it turns out that it also penalizes farmers who then switch to growing fruits and vegetables on “commodity base” acres. This is what happened to the farmers who had rented him the 25 acres. They found themselves out of compliance with the commodity farm program, and would be penalized not only for the subsidy that year for that acreage, but also for the market value of the “illicit” crops.

Mr. Hedin paid his landlords the $8771 in fines and losses they incurred. He learned that the reason for the harsh punishment is that large fruit and vegetable growers in California, Florida and Texas don’t want small farmers supplying their local areas with produce. They don’t want the competition, and they have succeeded in getting federal farm policy to help them block it. The farm bill, currently being reauthorized, will extend these financial penalties for switching land from commodities to fruits and vegetables.

As I said, my email inbox was filled with reactions to Mr. Hedin’s Op-Ed. Our local foods group list serve received a flurry of messages, showing how much passion there is about food policy, local food, the farm bill, and agriculture in general right now.

One of the emails came from the Executive Director of the Farm Services Agency in our area. He is responsible for administering the farm subsidy programs here, and felt compelled to respond the the Op-Ed.

Here are a few things I learned from talking to him. Basically, it’s not quite as black and white as it sounds. Yes, there is a rule, put in place in 1990 with support from the fruit and vegetable industry, to discourage farmers from switching commodity acres to produce. But the farm subsidy program is complicated - the way payments are calculated, the types of payments, the rules, and the penalties. Part of Mr. Hedin’s problems might have been avoided with a better understanding of these programs. Without going into great detail, the farmers could have avoided some of the penalties if they had removed the 25 acres from the books as commodity acres in advance, and chosen the right kind of rent agreement.

Still, for us local food advocates, it sure is discouraging that federal farm policy is discouraging farmers from growing fresh organic food for local markets.

Mr. Hedin’s story highlights a few things about food in America right now. The local foods movement in thriving. Demand for organic, sustainable, healthful and low-carbon foods is skyrocketing. At least in some places, suppliers are striving to meet this demand. Meanwhile, Americans are beginning to realize that the farm bill, something few of us understand, has big impacts on our food and farms, and thus on our lives. Mr Hedin touched a nerve because his story shows how U.S. Farm Policy is creating barriers to what many of us are striving for - a better, healthier, safer, more local, more sustainable, lower-carbon farming system.

Click here for a sampling of Editorials about the reauthorization of the Farm Bill.

My decisions - whether to have a baby, where to live, who to marry - are not based solely on logic. They are also based on my heart, or some intuitive notion. Perhaps because I’m a scientist, I sometimes feel this is a weakness. But every now and then, logic and emotion converge. The heart and the head agree, and this is a blessed thing.

That’s how it is, for me, with joining the local foods movement. I have read books, attended meetings, visited farms, and analyzed endless facts about the astounding benefits of re-building vibrant local and regional food systems. I have discovered many reasons to buy food grown nearby, and to support the local food economy however I can.

These reasons include protecting farms, promoting sustainable agriculture, getting in touch with the seasons, reducing carbon emissions, supporting your local economy, knowing where your food comes from, eating food that tastes better and is more nutritious, and improving the safety and security of your food.But if I’m honest, our family’s shift toward local foods is happening mostly for emotional reasons.I want our food to come from nearby because it makes me feel safe, well-fed, and happy.I’ve learned about beekeeping, blueberry picking, wheat varieties, and raising lambs.

I’ve become a huge fan of our farmer’s markets, and I’ve learned that nearby farms still produce over 170 different crops. I am grateful for the winter steelhead my husband catches on occasion, and I know that the giant yellow plums in our back yard make fabulous jam. I’ve met wonderful people who grow apples, own restaurants, brew beer, and fight hunger.

It may sound sappy, but shopping and eating locally has helped me to love my community and appreciate my home. It makes me feel hopeful.I am not talking about restricting my family’s diet to 100% local food. I salute those that do this, and I enjoy the books (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Plenty) and web sites (Eat Local Challenge, Local Harvest, Locavores) that point the way.

My approach has been incremental. I shop for local and organic first. I pick and freeze fruit in summer, buy lamb and beef from farmers I know, and prowl the farmer’s markets. We have a small garden. But I don’t think I’ll ever voluntarily give up either coffee or avocados. My daughter still eats cheerios and Annie’s pasta.

It’s remarkable, though, how many excellent foods are available from nearby. Eggs, milk, lettuce, broccoli, apples, carrots, and potatoes are for sale much of the year. The growing season brings a succession of wonders, my favorites being strawberries, blueberries, peaches, plums, and corn. Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where we live, is certainly a rich land, but everywhere, it seems, has something special to offer.

Discovering the food of your home landscape can be great fun. And its amazing how many problems - environmental, economic, and social - can be addressed through revitalizing local food systems.When the facts and the heart agree, the power of an idea can be truly astonishing. I hope my posts will encourage you to discover your region’s local foods, to start a garden or to meet a nearby farmer. I’m betting that eating locally will make you happy, too!