international

As a member of the international team at Food & Water Watch, I am responsible for our work in Africa. I recently spent time at Lake Naivasha, Kenya with Josphat Ngonyo and Dr. Daniel Maingi of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare, who are working on a sustainability management plan for the lake. This region, 62 miles northwest of Nairobi, produces 70% of Kenya's horticultural revenue and is facing environmental problems of tragic proportion.

In the 1970s and '80s, due in part to neoliberal advice from international financial institutions like the World Bank, the Kenyan government began encouraging development of crops for export markets. As a result, the lakefront property surrounding Naivasha was turned into flower farms that have grown to be the largest supplier of flowers to the European market, and have left only a small sliver of access for local Maasai pastoralists to gather water for both their families and their herds. Scientists have concluded that the lake's level is now 10 feet below a healthy level. And while there was once an abundance of fish, lions, antelopes, leopards, giraffes, hippopotamuses and birds, the hippo population alone has decreased by more than 25 percent.

Local population swelled as workers were lured from around the country in spite of tough labor conditions. In 2006, workers rioted over low wages, poor working conditions and mass firings. Tragically, as the lake is being polluted by pesticide-laden farm runoff, farm owners are already relocating to healthier lakes in Ethiopia. To learn more about Lake Naivasha, check out our report, Lake Naivasha: Withering Under the Assault of International Flower Vendors.

Lake Naivasha's plight is soon set to gain international attention. In January 2006, Joan Root, a famed conservation filmmaker who lived on Lake Naivasha and dedicated her time and money to protecting the lake, was murdered at night in her home by those who wanted to stop her work. Joan, 69 at the time of her death, knew her conservation work put her life at risk; she had full-time security staff – though clearly it wasn't enough. Set to film on location at the end of 2008, Julia Roberts will produce and star in a movie about Joan Root's life, and Robert Redford will direct. While making movies is a great way to bring attention to important issues, celebrities have a great opportunity to do even more. I hope Julia Roberts takes every chance she gets to not only highlight the great works of a great woman, but to honor Joan Root's memory by talking about what's happening today at Lake Naivasha and working to advance her cause.

You want safe shrimp to eat; restaurant owners want a good product to sell; chefs want delicious ingredients from which to create a winning menu; and domestic shrimpers need our business to survive as an industry. It’s one big circle – and our choices in one area impact others. This circle was made obvious by voices raised in New Orleans at the 2008 Women Chefs and Restaurateurs National Conference.

The attending women were eager to hear from Food & Water Watch, who sent me to get out the word about the health and environmental price of cheap imported shrimp. Chefs and restaurants got tips and important information about how they can improve their shrimp purchasing practices in the panel, "There’s Something About Shrimp."

 "The only way to make sure that we are getting safe seafood and that we continue to have a domestic industry to supply us with it is to shift demand. "

A lot is at stake for shrimp, and audience members got a well-rounded perspective on the issue from our esteemed panel. Panelists included moderator Leigh Belanger from the Chef’s Collaborative, local New Orleans shrimper Ray Brandhurst, chef of Commander's Palace in New Orleans, Tory McPhail, and Brennan Group operations head Haley Bitterman.

Giant shrimp buffets and growing portion sizes are just two reasons why demand for cheap, imported shrimp has grown immensely (learn more in our report Suspicious Shrimp). The safer, sustainable domestic shrimpers have lost and gone out of business. In addition, natural disasters such as hurricanes have wreaked havoc on shrimpers' boats and the industry’s infrastructure.

Ray, an innovative entrepreneur, talked about how the direct-purchasing relationships that he established with local restaurants have kept him afloat. He’s even begun shipping his shrimp directly to restaurants throughout the country via FedEx.

The overarching message from the panel was clear – eat domestic shrimp. The only way to make sure that we are getting safe seafood and that we continue to have a domestic industry to supply us with it is to shift demand. And we all have a part to play in that – whether we’re consumers, shrimpers, or chefs. To find out more about industrially produced shrimp and why you may want to avoid it, check out our Suspicious Shrimp report.

The fourth infant death from contaminated powdered milk was announced in China Thursday, highlighting once again the sad state of China’s food safety system. So far, more than 6,000 infants have fallen ill with more than a thousand requiring hospitalization since the scandal became public last week. All of the deaths have been traced to milk powder produced by the Sanlu Group, although milk and dairy products made by Yili, Mengniu Dairy, and twenty other companies have tested positive for melamine contamination.

While the first death from the tainted milk powder was reported in May, a recall was not ordered until the information became public in September. This revelation has shaken Chinese confidence in the safety of their own food supply with parents questioning what other foods may be contaminated without their knowledge.

This latest scandal has revealed the corrupt nature of the growing Chinese dairy industry. The Chinese dairy industry routinely dilutes the raw milk with water in order to increase their product while reducing its nutritional content.  Companies add the banned toxic substance melamine, which is used to make plastic, so the watered-down milk will pass chemical tests for protein levels.  Due to its high nitrogen content, melamine appears to be protein during chemical tests. To date, eighteen people have been arrested in connection with the contamination.

While so far the problem seems to be primarily affecting consumers in China, melamine was actually at the center of another food crisis last year involving imported pet food ingredients in the United States. Although the tainted pet food was recalled, some tainted livestock and fish feed made with the same imported ingredients was ignored because it contained only “low” levels of melamine.  Given this latest in a long string of scandals over tainted food in China – a growing source of imported food for the United States – it is past time for Congress and the FDA to establish strong standards (and enforce them) for imported food. 

Learn more.

- William Blakeley

Chinese government and agribusinesses want to send processed chicken to the United States for your consumptive pleasure.  The problem?  This chicken may not be safe.  The main concerns stem from the findings of U.S. inspectors upon visiting Chinese facilities.  Their reports cite defective equipment, lack of employee hygiene, unsanitary conditions, and an absence of regulations requiring pre-shipment testing for Salmonella, E. coli and other contaminants.  Reports of avian flu outbreaks in China also raise questions about the safety of Chinese poultry.
That Chinese imports may compromise the health of consumers is not a new problem (Washington Post, NPR).  In recent years, the FDA has refused to import hundreds of products from China, ranging from seafood to cosmetics, in which it detected dangerous substances or other regulatory violations. 

However, the USDA continues to attempt to approve the importation of Chinese poultry.  The Administration even went so far as to propose an absurd back-and-forth trade system whereby birds would be raised in North America, shipped to China to be processed, and then sent back to be sold.  Having been blocked by Congress last year, the USDA is again trying to open up the American meat market to Chinese chicken.

 Why is the USDA so determined to allow this trade?  Are we facing a national chicken deficit?  On the contrary, the United States has been producing too much chicken.  The real reason seems to lie in the interests of the meat industry.  It is thought that accepting Chinese poultry is an important prerequisite to China opening its markets to U.S. beef and pork.    

 
While it is important that we stay on good terms with China, this should not happen at the expense of your safety.  Sign our petition to tell Congress not to import Chinese Chicken!

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What in the world does irradiation – zapping the life, essence, and nutrients out of our food – have to do with global trade?

Everything. Bombarding fruits, veggies and meat with ionizing radiation that busts molecules and begets new types of matter is part of the global agribusiness agenda to remake farms, both here and abroad, into factories. The corporate cadre’s relentless drive for maximizing profit demands that the mass manufacture of food happen in countries with cheap labor costs and non-existent environmental rules.

Our political leaders and their big business handlers sing the praises of corporate-managed trade, which the media they own prefer to call free trade. Sounds better. They don’t tell us about the fly-infested fruit shipped across the Pacific or the filthy meat trucked over the border. They don’t have to. Irradiation will mask any grossness covering the imported food.

The World Bank works hand-in-hand with the World Trade Organization to pressure developing nations to grow cash crops to export to rich countries. The idea behind the export-oriented orthodoxy is that developing countries could use earnings from selling cotton or cocoa beans to buy imported corn or wheat. Of course, it is an advantage for giant food corporations that are looking for the cheapest place to buy the raw commodities they need. Free trade encourages farmers to abandon growing food to cultivate non-food cash crops like tea, rubber and coffee.

Today, almost half of the world’s population grows food for their families and communities. They grow staples and a mix of diverse crops. They have developed their own seed varieties, fertilizers, and pest management. They live in communities where the concept of the commons is strong, resulting in shared seeds, water, and labor. Unfortunately, this kind of local self-sufficiency is scorned by multinational corporations and the institutions they influence.

Jayson Cainglet, a Filipino activist working to stop irradiation and save family farming in the Philippines, spoke about this in the new book Zapped! Irradiation and the Death of Food: “Irradiation, if widely adopted, will facilitate this type of food production. Irradiation is designed to cover up inherent problems in production methods that agribusiness employs, but small-scale farms do not rely on these technologies.”

-Robert Schubert
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