Blog Posts: World

By Anna Ghosh

Thanks to Michael Pollan’s new book, there’s a lot of buzz right now about Americans’ meals being outsourced, but a connected and equally troubling trend – with even riskier food safety implications – is that Americans’ food is increasingly being imported from countries with abominable track records for food safety. And the country on the top of the list is China. 

This week, Food & Water Watch Assistant Director Patty Lovera testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats to discuss China as the leading producer of many foods Americans eat: apples, tomatoes, peaches, potatoes, garlic, seafood, processed food and food ingredients like xylitol and vitamin C.

Headlines about risky food from China have become all too common – melamine in milk, a chicken for beef swap, toxic juice, exploding watermelons (really, you can’t make this stuff up). Even our pets are threatened. Since 2007, chicken jerky treats imported from China are suspected to have caused more than 600 cases of canine illness and deaths to date.me

In her testimony, Patty explains how combining trade policy with a food safety regulatory system that’s not up to the job of dealing with the rising tide of imports is a recipe for disaster. She warns about the risks involved when cash-strapped agencies turn to third party certifiers (doubly outsourced), and how consumers’ only tool to be able to make informed decisions about where their food comes from – Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) – needs to be improved and expanded.

• Watch Patty’s testimony here (beginning at 00:55:00): http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-threat-china%E2%80%99s-unsafe-consumables
• Read Patty’s testimony (complete with charts and graphs) here: http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/china_house_testimony_may_2013.pdf
• Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute also testified, which you can read more about here: http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/05/not-good-enough-for-pet-food/#more-8370
• Want more background about food imports from China? Read the report A Decade of Dangerous Food Imports from China

By Marcela Olivera

This blog was originally posted at Thebrokeronline.eu.

In the Americas, we have been fighting water privatization since the early 1990s: from Detroit in the United States to Buenos Aires in Argentina. After the infamous 2000 water war in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that led to the expulsion of a multinational corporation, social movements throughout the Americas have organized themselves to protect water from greed.

In August 2003, in El Salvador, several organizations from the Americas assembled and decided to create the Red VIDA (Network for Inter-American Vigilance in Defense of and for the Right to Water).  Through this network, we would launch a coordinated hemispheric campaign to defend water as a common good. 

Since its beginning in 2003, we have worked very hard resisting water privatization and expelling corporations that were profiting from our water sources and water utilities. We have also insured that constitutional amendments were passed that prevent the commodification of water. In Uruguay, for example, the Red VIDA was active in the campaign that led to a constitutional amendment declaring access to water as a human right. 

Read the full article…

By Anna Ghosh

Food labels are a straightforward and fundamental concept but consumer advocates and concerned citizens have been fighting for honest, transparent labels about their food for centuries, and the fight rages on. Food & Water Watch and its allies are fighting hard across the country to make the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food the law. However, there’s another important label that is law, but its fate is hanging in the balance – Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL. After more than a decade of hard work, the COOL rule was included in the 2008 Farm Bill and has had overwhelming support from both consumers and U.S. farmers, despite repeated attempts by the food industry to kill the program and delay its implementation.

Today, because of COOL, consumers know more about where their food comes from, although there are still too many loopholes and limitations. COOL  applies to fresh seafood, cuts of meat (but not processed meats like sausage), fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, and several kinds of nuts. But even before the first COOL label was slapped on a steak or pork chop, the meatpacking industry sought to unravel COOL by challenging theses commonsense consumer labels at the World Trade Organization as an illegal barrier to international trade Read the full article…

By Marcela Olivera and Susan Spronk

Click here to learn more about water privatization in Latin America.

We are sitting in a large Catholic hall nestled in the heart of Mexico City, the type of space where many Latin American social movements have historically sought refuge from dictatorships. Today, we are not fending off the military but big multinationals and our governments who want to sell our water, use it to grow soy or poison it with their mines. 

We have gathered for the general assembly of Red Vida, an inter-American network of social movements working in defense of water from Canada to Argentina. Forty of us are debating political strategy to build on our successes in reversing the tide of privatization of the 1990s (see Struggles for Water Justice in Latin America).

Mexico in hot water

We can’t rest on our laurels. Mexico is just one ‘hot spot’ where our brothers and sisters are fighting private water companies and governments that support them. They have seen how private providers in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina have failed to deliver on their promises for cheaper and higher quality water services, and they can’t let their country make the same mistakes.

In Mexico, a national coalition of environmentalist organizations, COMDA, is currently embroiled in a campaign to reform the water law. COMDA wants the law to respect the right of communities to manage their own water resources and to defend the commons against ‘enclosure’, particularly from contamination by big mining companies.

Debating strategies

One of the productive tensions that has emerged in this meeting is whether we should be pushing our governments to include the ‘right to water’ in legislation or whether we should be focusing our energies on struggles to defend ‘the commons’.

Oscar Olivera from Fundación Abril (Bolivia) spoke eloquently about the need to defend spaces of self-government such as community-run water systems in the peri-urban areas of the Andes. If people have constructed their own water systems with sweat and blood, do we really ‘need’ the state to provide these services? Many members of such autonomous communities, most self-identifying as indigenous, see the state as an alien institution imposed by colonial rule.

By contrast, Adriana Marquisio from Uruguay’s publicly owned and operated water utility OSEhighlighted that state provision in her country has allowed to achieve near universal coverage, and much higher quality services than many of the small community systems could ever provide.

From our conversations it is clear that it is not enough to frame our campaigns around the right to water and we must document concrete alternatives to privatization. Red Vida is better able to do that thanks to collaboration with researchers from the Municipal Services Project, who attended our assemblies as invited observers in Buga, Colombia in May 2009 and are here with us again in Mexico. 

If we can articulate what the alternatives are perhaps we can convince others that privatization is not the solution. We can also demonstrate the negative impact of the more insidious practices of sub-contracting and corporatization, which threaten the ‘public’ nature of our utilities. These trends are affecting every one of us, whether our governments claim to be left-of-center or not.

As our Declaration signed in Mexico by all member organizations of the Red Vida states, in the face of all these struggles, we will continue to fight “like water, in a manner that is transparent, joyful and always in motion…until the final victory.” 

Marcela Olivera is the Latin American coordinator for the Water for All Campaign of Food and Water Watch, and coordinates the Red Vida.

Susan Spronk teaches international development at the University of Ottawa. She is an active participant in several projects of the Red Vida and a research associate with the Municipal Services Project. 

This was originally posted on the blog of the Municipal Services Project.

official White House photo

By Tony Corbo

There has been a lot of tough talk about China in this presidential campaign. Both major party candidates promise to make China a fair trading partner. Frankly, we are skeptical of both candidates because, according to their records, both Democratic and Republican administrations have let China run over the rights of American consumers.

Food imports from China have skyrocketed in recent years despite China’s sketchy food safety track record. Most of the food imports fall within the purview of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and each year, FDA inspectors halt the importation of hundreds of Chinese food items that come to our ports-of-entry for major food safety violations such as microbiological and chemical contamination, filth, and mislabeling. However, the FDA only has the capacity to inspection about 2 percent of imported human food and around 1 percent of animal food, so thousands of Chinese food items come through U.S. borders unchecked. Read the full article…

By Genna Reed

Because of restrictions in technology use agreements, researchers are often unable to get access to seeds for independent feeding trials to test the safety of genetically engineered (GE) food and animal feed. One of the few scientists that has succeeded in obtaining seed and doing longer term feeding studies on rats is Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team from the University of Caen’s Institute of Biology in France.

His new two-year feeding study was just published in the most recent issue of the peer-reviewed academic journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology. Past studies were cited in our GE Foods Overview report including a 2007 study, which found significant liver and kidney impairment of rats that were fed insect-resistant Bt corn, concluding that, “with the present data it cannot be concluded that GE corn MON863 is a safe product.” Another study published in 2009 found that glyphosate caused DNA damage to human cells even at lower exposure levels than those recommended by the herbicide’s manufacturer. Read the full article…

By Mark Schlosberg

The Global Frackdown will unite people on five continents in over 100 events on September 22 to call for a ban on fracking in their communities, and to advocate for the development of clean, sustainable energy solutions. Initiated by Food & Water Watch, over 150 consumer, environmental and public health organizations including CREDO Action, Environment America, Democracy for America, Friends of the Earth and 350.org are taking part in the Global Frackdown.

To find an event in your area, click here.

To endorse the Global Frackdown, click here.

Don’t forget to check out the frackdown on Facebook and Twitter.

By Wenonah Hauter

Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Sometimes the forces working to commoditize our vital natural resources exist in plain sight, flaunting their selfish motives. Other times, they hide behind euphemistic smokescreens, which is far and away more menacing.  Regardless of where you may find them, their actions share a common consequence—undermining our collective right to access safe, clean, affordable water.

Last May, I traveled to Dubai for the Global Water: Oil & Gas Summit where I was surrounded by corporate executives discussing their “drill baby drill” philosophy with abandon and no mention of the environmental or societal costs. Then in August, I traveled to Los Angeles to speak at the premiere of a film about powerful corporate interests who conceal their intentions to privatize California’s water supply behind the guise of conservation and disaster preparedness. 

While half a world apart, these scenarios both represent the global force determined to privatize and commodify water for the sheer benefit of corporate profits. My colleague Scott Edwards says it best: “Water-related death, drought and degradation aren’t calamities; they’re profit opportunities.” This couldn’t be truer for California where political wars have been waged over water since the Gold Rush. Read the full article…

Mitch Jones, Common Resources Program Director

By Mitch Jones 

Although no one in the media seems to be talking about it, a meeting is taking place in Virginia that could cement the same economic interests that lead us to the 2007 crisis. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated by 13 countries would lead to increased gas exports and increased imported foods, while undermining our domestic laws and increasing the financialization of nature.

The secretive talks are in their 14^th round, having begun under George W. Bush in 2008, and have so far managed to avoid real scrutiny. Little of the document being negotiated has been made publicly available, but what we do know is frightening. The TPP would go well beyond NAFTA tearing down protections in the areas of financial services, telecommunications and intellectual property. It would create free trade for dairy, sugar and textiles. American manufacturers and farmers would suffer, while Wall Street banks reap huge profits and move more operations offshore.

The TPP is being sold as just another “free trade” agreement. But don’t be fooled, it’s so much more. Only two of the twenty-six chapters of the agreement are directly trade related. 

Read the full article…

Ballistic BJ (left) and Heidi (right) were healthy dogs who passed away shortly after eating chicken jerky treats from China.

 The Chinese chicken saga continues…

By Walker Foley

Pet owners across America have reason to fear for their furry friends’ safety. Since 2007, the FDA has been conducting an investigation into pet owners’ claims that chicken jerky treats imported from China have been the cause of canine deaths – more than 600 cases of illness and death to date.

In response to a blog by Tony Corbo focusing on questionable Chinese poultry exports, a couple of dog owners contacted Food & Water Watch with their own horror stories detailing how tainted imports sold as treats have victimized their pets.

Rita from Illinois was unable to enjoy Memorial Day this year after her German Shephard, Heidi, died two days after being fed chicken jerky treats imported from China. Unable to contact her vet over the holiday weekend, Rita watched helplessly as Heidi suffered a painful death. In her words,

“The void her passing has left in my life is almost unbearable. I live alone and Heidi was my constant companion, my loyal friend, my fierce protector.”

Terie and Alex had a similar story. In February they fed their four dogs the same jerky treats with mixed results. A day later two of them, Tashi and BJ, refused food, drank water constantly and vomited. Tashi eventually got better, but BJ’s liver, kidneys and heart failed four days later in an animal hospital. Left without any other explanation, Terie only had the treats to blame.

When roughly 62 percent of American households own a dog, it would be reasonable to assume that chicken imports would be better monitored or, failing that, better regulated. As Corbo explained, the politics of international trade are taking priority over the safety and overall quality of food imports. The result? Canine casualties, expensive vet bills and heartbroken families.

Now, it has come to light that Chinese government officials overseeing the plants that make the treats blamed for thousands of illnesses and deaths among American dogs have refused to allow U.S. inspectors to collect samples for independent analysis.

If you are concerned for your pet’s safety, there are a few precautions you can take. Several brands could be in question, but news outlets report that treats made by Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. and the Del Monte Corp. have the most complaints. Always check the country of origin labeling on your pet food containers and avoid products made in China. Commonly seen symptoms among affected dogs are loss of appetite, increased water consumption, lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea and increased urination. The FDA also provides more information on the problem and how to file a formal complaint, and a Facebook group has been started for more information and people whose pets may have been affected.

Join Food & Water Watch in asking FDA Commissioner Hamburg to issue a recall of the chicken jerky treats that are making pets sick, ban further imports of pet food from China and help implement new food safety laws to keep pets and people safe.