Organics in the News

U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two senators.

While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms. Many are high in fat, sugar and calories.

Senators Tom Harkin and Lisa Murkowski said their bill would allow the U.S. Agriculture Department to establish "common-sense nutrition standards" for food and beverages sold in school vending machines, stores and similar outlets.

Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees school lunch and breakfast programs that cost an estimated $11 billion a year in federal money.

U.S. child nutrition programs such as school lunches and the Women, Infants and Children feeding program are due for renewal this year. An Agriculture Committee spokesman said one option would be to include the legislation introduced today as part of the broader reauthorization later in 2009.

Skidmore College students will soon enjoy fresh, organic vegetables at their dining hall, and they won’t have to go far to find the source.

On Sunday, about 35 volunteers broke ground on a 2,400-square-foot garden across from the main campus on North Broadway, next to the Colton Alumni Welcome Center. The 14 raised beds, each 20 feet by 3 feet, will grow a variety of vegetables and herbs to supplement local produce already offered at the dining hall.

Environmental studies major Laura Fralich, a sophomore, initiated the idea in 2007 as a way to make the campus more environmentally sustainable and share her passion for farming with other students. After applying for a $1,000 grant, writing a business plan and getting the go-ahead from administration, Fralich finally saw her work come to fruition this weekend.

“It’s very exciting after all this paperwork we’ve done to see the physical results,” Fralich said after spending Sunday afternoon turning over soil and planting seeds with fellow students and faculty members.

With the hurly-burly of spring well under way, all of us gardeners, organic or otherwise, must, as a priority, tend to our soils. A dry spell through the middle of March was perfect to help get early season cultivation in motion in time for the frantic sowing and planting that comes with April. But how much cultivation? As organic gardeners we are encouraged to look at the soil as ''living'' and therefore in need of feeding and protection.

Surface composting and mulching are regularly flagged as ways to help achieve this. Conversely, cultivation, or the act of turning the soil, should be kept to a minimum as this disturbs the ''soil life''. This is why many organic gardeners use raised beds, particularly in the vegetable garden, where all work can be done from the paths between the beds. The bed itself is rarely walked on, if at all, as if it were a flower border.

So, if possible, the spring cultivation should amount to no more than a light forking rather than a deep digging. Good news for our backs. Other than to remove weeds and level the ground in preparation for seedbeds, direct sowing or planting out, there should be little or no need to do any digging.

In a victory for local dairy farmers and consumers, Gov. Sebelius, President Obama’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, vetoed a controversial bill last Thursday that would have limited rbGH labeling on dairy products in that state. The bill, HB 2121, faced massive opposition from dairy, consumer, health, animal welfare and environmental organizations across the country; nearly 30 of which wrote a letter to Sebelius, urging her to veto HB 2121.

“Supporters of the bill claim it’s necessary to protect consumers from false or misleading information. Yet there has been overwhelming opposition by consumer groups, small dairy producers and retailers to this proposed legislation. Therefore, pursuant to Article 2, Section 14 of the Constitution of the State of Kansas, I veto HB 2121.”

The days of bland chicken, reconstituted potatoes, frozen peas and a side of syrupy, canned peaches appear to be coming to a close at a growing number of hospitals across the U.S.

Spurred by patient demand, concerns about setting a healthful example and a desire to make notoriously bad hospital food nutritious and appetizing, more hospitals are making strides in serving their patients fresh, organic and local produce alongside meats and dairy foods that are hormone- and antibiotic-free, as well as minimally processed.

Some hospitals have taken small steps -- eliminating trans fats from their menus or switching to dairy products free of the growth hormone rBGH. Others have taken on bigger overhauls: The chef at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz cooks with produce from the hospital's on-site vegetable garden; Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital is gradually moving toward meals that are entirely organic.

The U.S. government will make its first in-depth survey of organic farming this spring, an eight-page questionnaire on which crops and livestock are produced, how they are grown and where they are sold.

Questionnaires will be mailed in early May with responses due by mail or Internet by June 17, said the Agriculture Department. A report is expected in early 2010. The 2007 Census of Agriculture counted 20,437 farms with land in organic production and sales of $1.7 billion.

Organic farming is a small part of American agriculture but commonly described as a rapidly growing segment. There are 2.2 million U.S. farms covering 920 million acres (372 million hectares). Organic farming accounted for 2.6 million acres in 2007.

Leaders in the organic movement have pressed for a USDA survey as the first step to more USDA research and aid to their sector.

In another sign that the Department of Agriculture is embracing sustainable food, the agency today will unveil expanded plans for a People's Garden that will include the entire six-acre grounds of the Whitten Building, the department's neoclassic marble headquarters on the Mall.

The plans, to be announced at the agency's Earth Day celebrations, include a 1,300-square-foot organic vegetable garden -- slightly larger than the one at the White House -- as well as ornamental flower gardens and bioswales, or mini-wetlands designed to reduce pollution and surface water runoff. The building grounds now are landscaped with grass, flower borders and trees planted to honor a person or mark an event.

Secretary Tom Vilsack, an avid runner, came up with the idea for the garden during one of his daily runs around the Mall. He noticed tourists stopping to look at the trees and their dedication plaques. A thriving garden, he thought, would be a better way to communicate the agency's mission of sustainability and in particular the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables, a cornerstone of the agency's push to improve school nutrition and reduce childhood obesity.

As the Obama administration has sought to cut farm subsidies for next year's budget they have encountered strong resistance, especially in farm states. However a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that the American public, including in farm states, would favor eliminating most farm subsidies.

Eighty percent of US subsidies go to large farming businesses, however only 36 percent of Americans favor such subsidies while 61 percent oppose them. Opposition to subsidies for large farms was not substantively or statistically different among Republicans (62%), Democrats (60%), and independents (59%).

The Environmental Protection Agency for the first time will require pesticide manufacturers to test 67 chemicals contained in their products to determine whether they disrupt the endocrine system, which regulates animals' and humans' growth, metabolism and reproduction, the agency said yesterday.

Researchers have raised concerns that chemicals released into the environment interfere with animals' hormone systems, citing problems such as male fish in the Potomac River that are bearing eggs. Known as endocrine disruptors, the chemicals may affect the hormones that humans and animals produce or secrete.

"Endocrine disruptors can cause lifelong health problems, especially for children," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement. "Gathering this information will help us work with communities and industry to protect Americans from harmful exposure."

In her new book, “Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness,” journalist and photographer Lisa M. Hamilton takes your hand and leads you down the life path of three unique characters who share one commonality: a passion for stewardship of the land. Hamilton spent two years profiling three families in rural America who are fighting against the groundswell swallowing up farms that are forced to get big, or get out. Her eye for detail of place and people at odds with industrial agriculture is astute and compelling, and she draws the reader into the quiet lives of Americans slowly changing the system. With advanced praise from the incomparable Wendell Berry, this is a must-read book for those who care about the future of farming in America.

In Sulphur Springs, Texas, Hamilton spends times with Harry Lewis, an African-American dairyman who plays David to the Goliath of agribusiness corporations. The loquacious Lewis, who had forsaken his family farm as a young man, is now an unlikely outspoken advocate of organic milk production. Lewis tells Hamilton, “Imagine if people saw where their milk normally comes from. Imagine if people visited a big, concrete dairy. You know what I call that kind of dairy. I call it a penitentiary.” Lewis knows his dairy is different and the difference is pasture. “The word pasture must be practiced,” he says. “And if it’s not practiced, it’s not pasture. And it’s not Godly created.” Lewis, firm in his belief that God and green pasture are one in the same, knows this will put “farming back like it’s supposed to be.”