Fact Sheets: Food

Since launching its sustainability program in 2005, Walmart has tried to position itself as a leader on corporate environmental responsibility. In frequent press announcements and annual “Global Responsibility” reports, Walmart touts its activities on renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, waste reduction, and product improvements.

While Walmart’s sustainability campaign has done wonders for its public image, it has done little for the environment. In fact, Walmart’s environmental impact has only grown over the last seven years. Its business practices remain highly polluting, while its relentless expansion and consolidation of the market have come at the expense of more sustainable enterprises and systems of production and distribution.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its latest attempt to create a national animal traceability program, despite close to a decade of widespread opposition from ranchers and $100 million allocated on a previous, failed attempt.

Savefarmfamilies.org, a website launched on September 15, 2011, was purportedly created to help Alan and Kristin Hudson, who own a poultry operation located near Maryland’s Eastern Shore, pay their mounting legal bills from a lawsuit filed by the environmental non-profit Waterkeeper Alliance and its local member program, Assateague Coastkeeper. It claims to be a grassroots effort to help save the “family farm,” including the Hudsons’, from radical environmental groups. Unfortunately, it attempts to do so by perpetuating many myths about industrial chicken operations in Maryland and the lawsuit itself. In fact, SaveFarmFamilies.org is an “astroturfing” effort — an industry-generated website used to spread misinformation while purporting to be by farmers, for farmers. This fact sheet is intended to debunk some of the many inaccuracies and misstatements promoted by the website.

From the moment Susana Martinez became New Mexico’s governor on January 1, 2011, she has worked to dismantle protections that benefit New Mexicans and the air, water and land they cherish. Unfortunately, Governor Martinez, who swept into office with the help of campaign donations from oil and gas, mining, mega-dairy and other big industries, has demonstrated little restraint granting the wishes of those who want to see the state’s environmental, safety and public health protections rolled back.

Desde el momento que llegó Susana Martinez a ser la gobernadora de Nuevo Mexico el primero de enero, 2011, ella ha trabajado desmantelar las protecciones al aire, la agua y tierra que benefician y que aprecian los Nuevo Mexicanos. La Gobernadora Martinez, entró con garbo con el apoyo conómico de las industrias de petróleo y gas, minería, súper-lechería y otras. Desafortunadamente ha demostrado poca moderación en concediendo los deseos de aquellos quienes quisieran revocarlas protecciones estatales cuales protegen al medio ambiente, también la seguridad y la salud pública.

Major GM-producing countries, agribusinesses, biotech companies and the World Trade Organisation relentlessly pressure the European Union to lower regulatory legal and political landscape. Here is an overview of EU regulation of GMO cultivation and sales as of Summer 2011.

The earnings of all but the richest people in America have been stagnant for the past four decades, making it harder for both urban and rural families to put healthy food on the table. The recession made the problem of food insecurity worse. By 2009, one in every seven rural residents and one in every nine urban residents received food stamps. How can we turn things around and build a healthier, fairer food system?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is poised to approve genetically engineered (GE) salmon as the first “transgenic” animal allowed into the U.S. food supply. AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. says its GE salmon, which is designed to grow twice as fast an unaltered fish, is safe, healthy and poses little threat to the environment, but there are many reasons to doubt these claims.

The biotechnology industry often touts the environmental sustainability of genetically engineered (GE) crops. The industry claims that GE crops can reduce herbicide use, increase yields to feed a hungry planet, and develop new crops adapted to climate change.

When an earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, a nuclear crisis began unfolding at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi plant. The Japanese government estimates it could be several months before the cooling systems, damaged by the natural disasters, are fully functional. In an effort to thwart a nuclear meltdown at the plant while the cooling system is damaged, hundreds of tons of water has been sprayed into four of the six reactors to cool fuel rods and spent fuel. The radioactive water is pooling in various locations around the plant, inhibiting work to bring the damaged cooling systems back into operation.