I’m in Europe this week so especially interested in its public health efforts. This report is an example.

Healthy and Sustainable Diets for European Countries. Report of a Working Group. EUPHA (European Public Health Association), 2017.

The purpose of this report is to encourage public health professionals to promote policies that will enable individuals to make healthier food choices.  It’s a long report, but summarizes its goals in one quick table:

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has just released its annual report on food security, country-by-country.

After years of decline, the new uptick is alarming.

Why is this happening?  In a word, conflict.

• The number of conflicts is also on the rise.  Exacerbated by climate-related shocks, conflicts seriously affect food security and are a cause of much of the recent increase in food insecurity.
• Conflict is a key driver of situations of severe food crisis and recently re-emerged famines, while hunger and undernutrition are significantly worse where conflicts are prolonged and institutional capacities weak.
• Addressing food insecurity and malnutrition in conflict-affected situations cannot be “business as usual”. It requires a conflict-sensitive approach that aligns actions for immediate humanitarian assistance, long-term development and sustaining peace.

Is sugar under siege?

The sugar industry must think so.

Take a look at these recent industry reports:

• International Sugar Organization: An Evaluation of the Global Sugar Market Environment
• American Sugar Alliance: Sugar Market Outlook
• Sosland Publishing: Consumer Trends and Industry Response 
• Mintel: Trends in sugar, sugar reduction, and sweeteners
• Rabobank: Sweetness and Lite: How Vulnerable is Global Sugar Consumption to Food & Beverage Trends?
• The Sugar Association: The New State of Play for Sugar: Trends, Policy, Consumption and Activism 

Here’s what the sugar industry is worried about, according to The Sugar Association:

I wrote the Foreword to Eric Holt Giménez’s Foodies Guide to Capitalism: Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat.  

His book won’t be out for a few weeks, but Food First, the organization he heads, has published my Foreword as a Backgrounder, titled The Capitalism in Our Food.

Here’s how it begins:

When Eric Holt-Giménez asked me to introduce his Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism, I said yes right away. I love the title, I think the food movement needs this book, and I am tired of having to treat capitalism as the “C-word,”never to be mentioned in polite company. Those of us “foodies” who love to eat and want our food system to produce tastier, healthier, and more sustainable diets—and to provide a decent living to everyone involved in this work—need to bring capitalism out of the closet, understand the problems it causes, and deal with them front and
center. Eric (if I may) has done us an enormous favor by producing this book at this time.

And here’s the pull-quote:

The USDA announces:  2016 Sales of U.S. Certified Organic Agricultural Production Up 23 Percent from Previous Year

Sales of organic agricultural production continued to increase in 2016, when U.S. farms produced and sold $7.6 billion in certified organic commodities….

Results of the 2016 Certified Organic Survey show that 2016 sales were up 23 percent from $6.2 billion in 2015.

During the same year, the number of certified organic farms in the country increased 11 percent to 14,217, and the number of certified acres increased 15 percent to 5.0 million.

The top commodities in 2016 were:

• Milk – $1.4 billion, up 18 percent
• Eggs – $816 million, up 11 percent
• Broiler chickens – $750 million, up 78 percent
• Apples – $327 million, up 8 percent
• Lettuce – $277 million, up 6 percent

And here’s a quick look at the trend:

Carey Gilliam.  Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science.  Island Press, 2017.

I did a blurb for this book (only the last sentence is on the back cover):

Whitewash, says Carey Gilliam, is what Monsanto, Monsanto-paid scientists, and the Monsanto-influenced EPA are trying to do for the herbicide glyphosate (“Roundup”)—make it  appear benign in the face of evidence that glyphosate may be carcinogenic,  strongly promotes weed resistance, and causes genetically modified crops to require even greater use of toxic chemicals.

Gilliam’s deep dive into this industry’s manipulation of science gives us even more reasons to advocate for organic and sustainable agricultural systems.

I don’t write much about  Canadian food politics, but every now and then collect interesting items.

• Weighty Matters: an always informative blog by the Canadian physician, Yoni Freedhoff
• Front of Package labels: the Canadian government has these under consideration
• Food for Life Report, a publication of the Centre for Health Science and Law “helping to make Canadians more savvy eaters, and governments & industry more accountable”
• A report on how NAFTA promotes Canadian obesity and type 2 diabetes through increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup.
• A book about Canadian snack foods .

Bakery & Snacks interviewed the author:

BAS: Who do you really admire in the book?

Janis Thiessen: As a company, I admire Hawkins Cheezies for their rejection of capitalist imperatives like growth and expansion. As an individual, I admire Covered Bridge fryer operator Thomas Broad, who has overcome personal adversity and has pride and autonomy in his work.

When I taught a course on the farm bill some years ago, students were stunned by how crop insurance works.  They wondered how they could break into that business.

Sixteen insurance companies write policies for farmers.  The federal government pays 62% of the premiums to the tune of about $8 billion per year.  Farmers pay 38%.

The lucky insurance companies make out like bandits under this system—an average rate of return of 24.8%.  The Government Accountability Office, no surprise, thinks this exceeds market rates and needs to be readjusted.

Farmers need crop insurance, no question.

But in the wake of Hurricane Irma, we learned that farmers who grow fruits, vegetables, and nuts—in USDA jargon, “specialty crops”—feel that they cannot afford it.

Historically, the program has covered corn, soybean, and other large-scale commodities—about 85% of such acres are covered.

But crop insurance now covers 73% of fruit and tree nut acreage but only 32% percent of vegetable crops, accounting for 8% of premiums.

According to a Risk Management report on specialty crops, insurance covers virtually all of Florida’s sugarcane, cotton, and citrus, but only about half of fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, and bell peppers, and none of fresh beans.

Obviously, plenty is wrong with the crop insurance program.  Will the 2018 farm bill do anything to fix it?

According to Politico Pro Agriculture, Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters that the he favors restructuring the program but that the crop insurance program should not promise farmers profitability.

What about profitability for the crop insurers?  The GAO recommends reducing this industry’s profits to market rates.  That should leave plenty of money to help specialty crop farmers.