The Environmental Working Group recently released a report on the amounts of glyphosate (Roundup) in children’s breakfast cereals, particularly those made with oats and wheat.

Roundup, you may recall, has been judged a probable carcinogen by the International Agency on Research on Cancer (IARC) and California courts.  It is used to kill weeds in fields growing crops genetically modified to resist Roundup.

But oats and wheat grown in the U.S. are not genetically modified.  The FDA’s list of genetically modified foods says nothing about oats and wheat, and the agency does not permit GMO versions to be marketed.

How could Cheerios and Quaker Oats be contaminated with glyphosate at amounts that exceed standards?

The explanation:

Increasingly, glyphosate is also sprayed just before harvest on wheat, barley, oats and beans that are not genetically engineered. Glyphosate kills the crop, drying it out so that it can be harvested sooner than if the plant were allowed to die naturally.

Really?  They spray glyphosate on oats just before harvest?  Yes, they do.

What this means is that more glyphosate gets into your food from the non-GMO wheat and oats sprayed just before harvest, then from GMO corn and soybeans sprayed earlier in their growth.

Whether eating glyphosate is bad for you or your kids is a matter of fierce debate.  As the New York Times explains, the safety of glyphosate is very much at issue:

In fact, it is central to a raging international debate about the chemical that has spawned thousands of lawsuits, allegations of faulty research supporting and opposing the chemical and a vigorous defense of the herbicide from Monsanto, the company that helped develop it 40 years ago and helped turn it into the most popular weedkiller in the world.

Scott Partridge, a vice president at Monsanto, said in an interview on Wednesday that hundreds of studies had validated the safety of glyphosate and that it doesn’t cause cancer. He called the Environmental Working Group an activist group.

“They have an agenda,” he said. “They are fear mongering. They distort science.”

The EWG states its advocacy position on its website:

The Environmental Working Group’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. With breakthrough research and education, we drive consumer choice and civic action. We are a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment.

I do not view this report as distorting science.  If anything, it provides data that the industry is not collecting or does not want released.  This information is useful for making decisions about what to eat.

You don’t want your kids eating glyphosate while scientists are still in disagreement about the extent of its harm to human health?

• Vote with your fork: Buy organic cereals; they have far less or no detectable glyphosate.
• Vote with your vote: Call for policies to get these practices stopped.

Or you can consider a third option now in play: file a lawsuit.

Global Meat News is one of those industry newsletters I subscribe to.  This is a collection of its articles on halal meats—those from animals slaughtered and prepared according to Muslim dietary laws.

The market for halal meats is increasing worldwide.

Global Meat News’ Special Edition: Halal

Halal produce is continuing to grow in demand across the international meat market, with China, Russia and Mexico showing a recent surge of interest in certifications and exploring opportunities for export. Is it time for halal meat to win over its previous critics by embracing the 21^st​ century?

• Demand for halal meats to raise Mexican export market: Mexico is set to open up export opportunities for halal certification into the Muslim market… Read
• Russian meat giants drive up halal exports: Russia exported 50,000 tonnes (t) of halal meat in 2017, up almost twofold compared to 2016, as major agricultural holdings Cherkizovo, Miratorg and GAP Resource have shown increasing interest in this segment, according to the International Center for Halal Standardisation and Certification… Read
• Japan’s halal wagyu industry grows as Asian Muslim tourism increases: Japan’s halal wagyu industry is poised for rapid growth, thanks to demand from an increasing number of Muslim tourists and the opening of new export markets… Read
• Saudi regulatory board concerned over Brazilian chicken slaughter: Saudi Arabia’s regulatory board has expressed concerns about chicken products from Brazilian slaughterhouses and the need for investment from the Brazilian slaughterers to make improvements… Read
• Chinese company steps up halal beef production: A leading Chinese beef firm with overseas halal sales is opening a new plant this month that will double its capacity… Read
• Russia looks to export opportunity for halal venison: A recently opened slaughterhouse in northern Siberia has been certified to sell venison in accordance with Islamic standards (halal) and is currently in negotiations to export commercial batches of premium cuts to Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)… Read
• Lisaili abattoir trials Al Mawashi smart app delivery service during Ramadan: The Dubai Municipality has trialled the Al Mawashi smart application at its Lisaili abattoir, for meat to be delivered to customers during Ramadan… Read
• Russia to promote halal poultry internationally: Around 75-80% of poultry that Russia plans to export in 2020 will be labelled as halal, according to Aidar Gazizov, director general for the International Center for Halal Standardization and Certification, speaking at the international summit Agroinvest Russia-2017 in Moscow… Read

Recall that to mitigate the damage to U.S. agriculture caused by our current tariff disputes, President Trump promised to give affected farmers $12 billion.

The USDA has now set up its Trade Mitigation Programs.  As seems invariably to be the case, these are not simple; they involve three separate programs:

• The Food Purchase and Distribution Program
• The Market Facilitation Program
• The Agricultural Trade Promotion Program

Food Purchase and Distribution Program

The government (taxpayers) will purchase up to $1.2 billion in commodities and then distribute them to food assistance programs.

USDA issued a list.  Here are some selected examples, to which you must add three zeros (amounts are in $1000s):

The big winner here is pork, hit badly by the trade disputes.

The Market Facilitation Program

This one gets a bigger slice—$4.7 billion.

Here, the big winner is soybeans — $3.6 of the $4.7 billion in payments.  Corn producers are lpretty much left out.  I can’t imagine tht they are pleased.

The Agricultural Trade Promotion Program

All I’ve seen about it is that USDA will spend $200 million on foreign market development.

What are we to make of this?

Whether trade groups are for or against this depends on how much of this pie they get.  Overall agricultural losses will be greater than $12 billion, so everyone loses, but some more than others.  The Environmental Working Group has filed a FOIA request for information about how USDA made these decisions.  Can’t wait to see what they get.

Only half of that has been distributed so far.

Let’s hope the lobbying is transparent so we can see who is doing what.

The Documents 

• USDA’s Announcement
• Market Facilitation Program: Final rule
• Market Facilitation Program Payments to Producers
• Agricultural Trade Promotion Program

The proportion of U.S. children living in poverty, says the USDA, is higher than it was before the Great Recession of 2008 and seems to be increasing, particularly in rural areas and the South.

Overall, nearly 20%—one-fifth—of U.S. children were living in poverty, an increase of more than one million children since 2007.

The percentage for rural children is 23.5%.

More than half (56%) of all US counties have high rates of child poverty.

An astonishing 86% of rural counties in the South have high rates.

Mississippi has the highest prevalence of rural child poverty—82% of counties in that state have child poverty rates of 20% or more.

Poverty is not good for health.

We have a lot of work to do.

A group of organizations interested in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, has issued a report spotlighting the goals (and see my previous post on this topic)

The report highlights the barriers and suggests what to do about them.  Here are a few examples related to food goals:

• SDG 1—The increasing concentration of wealth and economic power as an obstacle to sustainable development—and what to do about it. 
• SGD 2—Policies that strengthen the nexus between food, health, ecology, livelihoods and identities.
• SDG 12—Curbing consumption of ultra-processed foods and beverages critical to achieving SDG 12
• SDG 14—Sustainable fishery or blue economy?

I have been trying to track what’s happening in our current tariff war with China.  Politico Morning Agriculture helps a lot, but even so keeping up with the rounds of retaliatory tariff impositions is challenging.

Here is our “second tranche” list of Chinese imports subject to tariffs.

The Chinese are retaliating by imposing tariffs on US agricultural exports.  They publish their lists in Chinese, obviously, meaning that we non-speakers must depend on Google Translate [and see note at end].

• Annex 1: List of 25% tariff items for the United States and Canada . pdf 
• Annex 2: List of 20% tariff items for the United States and Canada . pdf 
• Annex 3: List of 10% tariff items for the United States and Canada . pdf 
• Annex 4: List of 5% tariff items for the United States .pdf

Fortunately, CNN Money has published a partial list in English of US goods hit by Chinese Tariffs

Poultry
— Frozen beef
— Fresh or cold pork
— Dried, smoked or salted pork belly
— Frozen chicken nuggets
— Frozen whole duck

Fruit and vegetables
— Farming potatoes
— Mushrooms
— Truffles
— Apples
— Cherries
— Avocados

Dairy products
— Butter
— Cream
— Yogurt

Fish
— Frozen red salmon
— Frozen mackerel
— Frozen yellowfin tuna

Seafood
— Frozen squid
— Lobster
— Canned shark fin
— Octopus
— Sea urchins

Tobacco
— Tobacco cigarettes
— Tobacco cigars

Pet food
— Canned cat food
— Canned dog food

Beverages
— Whiskey
— Modified ethanol
— Non-frozen orange juice with less than 20% sugar

Its list leaves out baked goods, for example, items of great concern to BakeryAndSnacks.com.

A group called Farmers for Free Trade has launched an advertising campaign, “Tariffs Hurt the Heartland.”

This is a mess and clearly not good for US agriculture.  President Trump, as I noted earlier, has promised $12 billion in relief.  The administration has not said where that money—which in any case will not be nearly enough—is coming from.

Does anyone know where that money will be taken from?  Which budget line?

Note on Google Translate

A reader writes:

Small correction: the annexes you linked in the newsletter should be titled “Annex XX: List of XX% additional tariff items for the United States. pdf ”

Have you wondered why Canada is dragged into this? =)

In Mandarin the character for “additional” is the same as the abbreviated reference to Canada. It’s not surprising that Google Translate failed to catch this.

I am indebted to IEG Agribusiness Intelligence (formerly Food Chemical News) for alerting me to USDA’s latest proposals for GMO labeling—BE (bioengineered) labels, as USDA prefers.

In May, I wrote about the USDA’s initial proposals:

After dealing with 14,000 comments on them, the USDA has revised them and sent the new set to the patent office.

As the National Law Review comments notes,

Interestingly, two of the newly filed symbols include the text, “made with bioengineering,” which was not explicitly contemplated in the proposed rule. Further, the new filing do not utilize the “smiley faces” associated with proposed Alternatives [shown above], which received much attention in the comments to the proposed rule. Whether USDA adopts any of the newly filed symbols remains to be seen….

Julian Agyeman, Caitlin Matthews, and Hannah Sobel, eds.  Food Trucks, Cultural Identity, and Social Justice.  MIT Press, 2017.

I love books about single food topics and how wonderful to have one about food trucks, seemingly ubiquitous these days.  But who knew they were a subject for research.

This book covers anything you might want to know about this phenomenon–from local regulations, to how safe they are, to the politics of who owns them, where they are allowed to park, their role in community development, and their adherence to the authenticity of ethnic and immigrant cuisines.

The editors asked the various chapter writers to discuss the motivations behind a particular city’s promotion of mobile food vending, and to explain how those motivations relate to broad goals of social justice.

The chapters address these issues from academic perspectives.  The book could have been titled “Food Truck Studies.”  From those perspectives, it’s a treasure.