Out of Touch Senators

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is getting some things right in Washington. He turned part of the Dept of Agriculture parking lot into a "People's Garden," aided by the delivery of a truckload of organic compost from the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania. One of his latest initiatives is called "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food"—an effort to support local agriculture, small farms, and helping consumers understand more about the sources of their food. Here's a video he made to accompany the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative:

Not bad, right? A healthy direction for a federal government department that just a few decades ago told farmers to "get big or get out" of the business. (The words of Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Nixon and Ford.)

Save the celebration. Just in time to throw ice water on an otherwise positive move by Vilsack come three Republican senators: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia (ranking minority member of the Senate Agriculture Committee), John McCain of Arizona (who was profiled during the last presidential campaign as living on candy bars and potato chips on his campaign bus -- a real junk food junkie), and Pat Roberts of Kansas (a huge commercial agriculture state -- grains and livestock).

These three teamed up and wrote a letter to Secretary Vilsack challenging the reasonableness of the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program. From the Agriculture Law blog comes this summary of their complaint:

While the letter requests information, its assault on the program is clear. The letter notes that "while the concept of educating consumers about production agriculture is a worthwhile endeavor, we have serious misgivings about the direction of the Know Your Farmers program." The Senators complain that the program does not direct funding to "conventional farmers" but instead is "aimed at small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets."

There are so many things wrong with their words that it's hard to know where to begin -- so I won't. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time you can imagine how infuriating and condescending this kind of language is. I don't know much about Chambliss and Roberts, but there is NOTHING in John McCain's background that would qualify him to judge what is happening agriculturally in America -- or in his personal lifestyle and habits. I'm bordering on an ad hominem attack here, so I'll stop.

Except for this: When this kind of movement is made by lawmakers, the first smell one gets is of money. If it were possible to "follow the money" in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if it led directly or indirectly to corporate lobbyists for the agribusiness industries of America who make huge campaign contributions to lawmakers. The movie Food Inc. demonstrated clearly the connection between the federal government and corporate agribusiness interests. There is a revolving door between the offices of FDA, USDA, EPA, and other agencies in Washington, and lawyers, executives, and board members of major agribusiness companies. In short, these companies cast a huge, intimidating shadow over Washington. I have no proof that these three senators are responding to such pressure, but who would be surprised if they were? The "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program is one of the healthiest, sanest initiatives on behalf of family and small farmers—and consumers who need healthy food—to ever come out of Washington.

Why would any lawmaker, on the face of it, be opposed to such a program? What could be wrong with a program that supports local food production, especially since the average fruit or vegetable consumed today travels 1,500 miles from field to fork? What's wrong with a program that encouragers citizens to learn more about their food, how it can nourish their health, and the people who devote their personal (not corporate) lives to growing it? Something doesn't smell right here.

You can read the Agricultural Law evaluation of the senators' letter on the AgLaw web site. And more about the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" program here.

[Thanks to my son, David, for the heads-up on this issue.]

Alien Rule

Robert Weissberg is Professor of Political Science-Emeritus at the University of Illinois-Urbana. He has written a great piece (April 29; AmericanThinker.com) on what it is about the presidency of Barack Obama that unsettles so many people. He calls it "alien rule"—the idea that America is now being run by an invader, an outsider; someone who doesn't "get" America; someone who is doing things in ways that we are becoming rapidly more uncomfortable with. It is well worth a few minutes. It helps explain why a man who was elected by a majority of Americans now has such a low approval rating going into his second year. Obama is making an increasing number of Americans nervous.

Why the Arizona Immigration Law Is Not Unjust

A law professor who helped draft the recent Arizona immigration law explains away the myths and untruths that have arisen about the law in this New York Times op-ed.

CSA First Harvest

Picked up the first delivery from the New Town Farms CSA today -- an amazing bounty for this early in the Spring. On the back row, left to right, is a big bag of two varieties of spinach, then a bag of arugula; middle row is a big bunch of kale followed by four HUGE heads of different lettuce varieties; front row is a bundle of baby boc choy, followed by a bundle of radishes, then a bundle of white turnips. I made a huge salad for lunch. Amazing to eat food that was picked just a few hours before:

I stood a couple of the heads of lettuce up with a yardstick behind them—the one on the right was 15" tall:

This little friend was relaxing in a chair on my front porch when I drove up. S/he roams around the neighborhood like a stray, though I think she belongs to somebody. Doesn't have too much interest in people, but I got close enough two days ago to give him/her a good scratching. Maybe that encouraged her to come back for more. I had always been highly allergic to most cats, but since switching to a plant-based diet that is no longer a problem. Cause/effect? I don't know, but I'm happy now to be around cats without the itching and watery eyes.

"The Last Crop" Movie

It's exciting to see how many independent documentaries and films about food and health are being made. The Last Crop is a film about the struggle to preserve small sustainable farms from being lost to developers who turn them into parking lots. The film's tag line is, "Asphalt is the land's last crop." (As if often true with Vimeo videos, this one's streaming isn't great.)

The Last Crop - Trailer from Chuck Schultz on Vimeo.

Noah's Ark Discovered?

London's Daily Mail is reporting a story this morning on a team of Chinese and American researchers who are "99.9" percent sure they have discovered Noah's Ark. There are some pretty amazing photographs taken inside the structure they discovered at 12,000 feet elevation on Mt. Ararat in Eastern Turkey. Their exploration was the first sanctioned by the Turkish government. Read the story and see the pictures here.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer

Happy Birthday (yesterday) to Jennifer -- wife to my son, mom to my granddaughters, and good friend to me! Dancer, homeschool teacher, vegan chef, gardener, photographer, and cheerful spirit -- may your days be long in the land!

New Town Farms 2010 CSA

Hooray! -- the New Town Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program begins this week! Farmer Sammy Koenigsberg is anticipating a harvest of kale (red Russian, lacinato, or curly), a variety of lettuces for salad, a big bag of arugula, some radishes, maybe some turnips (baby white oriental turnips), spinach, and some boc choy. Here's a shot of Sammy's fields in early production this spring: (picture courtesy of Sammy K.)

I have written extensively about New Town Farms with lots of pictures. You can use the SEARCH fields to find previous posts.

South River Miso

I have written before ("Miso Happy") about South River Miso in Conway, Massachusetts -- a very small company that carefully hand-makes, in Japanese tradition, fine miso. (I was talking with a health/fitness consultant recently who is extremely knowledgeable about healthy foods, and discovered she buys her miso from South River as well.) South River is so careful about their miso that they don't ship during the hot summer months for fear of the heat harming the living bacteria in the miso. So I ordered enough recently to get me through the summer.

In case the print is too small in the picture, left to right is Dandelion Leek, Chickpea, Sweet White, and Three Year Barley misos, and a small jug of their own miso tamari -- the richest "soy sauce" I've ever tasted. There are other flavors of miso available. Any of the flavors make a delicious hot "tea" -- a spoonful of miso in a cup of "hot" (≈140 degrees or so; not boiling!) water, and add valuable flora to the digestive track. An order from South River is accompanied by a recipe/information book about miso and its uses (recipes, etc.).

Making Lovely Music

For Mary Chapin Carpenter fans, her new album will be released tomorrow (April 27)—The Age of Miracles. The more she records, the more gentle and introspective her music becomes. Her songs seem to reflect her non-concert, non-touring, living-on-her-Virginia-farm-with-husband-and-dogs lifestyle. On Amazon's page for the album is a lovely video shot in the studio as she recorded "I Have a Need for Solitude" from the new album. For all of us wanna-be musicians who would trade a year at the desk for a day in the studio, it doesn't get much nicer than this video -- MCC on guitar, plus percussion, bass, and piano. Besides being a great singer-songwriter, Carpenter handles her gorgeous Huss and Dalton 00-SP with aplomb.

Where Are the Philosophers and Priests?

"Obligations have no meaning without conscience, and the problem we face is the extension of the social conscience from people to land [including animals that live on the land]. No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The proof that conservation [of land and animals] has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial." (my italics added)

From Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac—and Sketches Here and There (Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 209-210.

Where are the philosophers and priests when we need them?