Blog Posts

By Ben King 

It’s no secret that big businesses try to influence the political environment and government through lobbying, PAC money and plying elected officials with campaign contributions. After reviewing contributions made by Nestlé Waters, it seems that the company is no stranger to this strategy. 

From Michigan to Florida, Nestlé has been very generous with contributions to members of Congress whose districts include springs and other water sources or bottling facilities. 

In 2007, Nestlé gave thousands in campaign contributions to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels [R], who supported the Great Lakes Compact, a legal agreement among states in the Great Lakes region governing management of the local water supply. The Compact included a loophole that exempted the bottled water industry from following its water withdrawal regulations. Nestlé also received $850,000 in property tax credits from the state for a bottled water facility built in Greenwood, Indiana during his term.

In 2004 and 2008, Nestlé gave big contributions to New York State Senator Carl Marcellino [R], a vociferous opponent of a new bottle deposit bill which would have imposed fees for certain plastic bottles, including those for bottled water, to encourage recycling. Marcellino called the bill a “money grab” out of the pockets of beverage makers.

But it seems that there’s nowhere that Nestlé has spent more money than in the state of Maine. 

As Food & Water Watch blogged last month, Nestlé is trying to enter into a new 25-to 45-year contract with the Fryeburg Water Company, which has been supplying the company with water since 1997. Though Nestlé claims the agreement will benefit the public by generating substantial revenue, there is no certainty that this plan would actually keep water rates down. The State Public Utility Commission is currently reviewing the contract. 

In this contentious environment, Nestlé, its employees and lobbyists have spent nearly $650,000 on campaign contributions and support in the state of Maine. Notably, they spent $218,000 to defeat a state bottled water tax in 2004 and 2005, and another $106,000 to help repeal a state beverage tax in 2008. They’ve also given to dozens of candidates and PACs across the state, from Aroostook County to Portland. Among these legislators are more than a few representing districts where Nestlé’s springs and bottling operations are located, including those in Denmark, Fryeburg, Kingfeld and Poland.

But Nestlé’s influence on state government doesn’t end there. One member of the State Public Utility Commission – the very body deciding whether to allow Nestlé’s new contract – has already recused himself from that decision because of his ties to the company, and the two remaining commission members also have documented ties to the corporation. Maybe that’s not surprising though – two of the commissioners were appointed by Governor Paul LePage [R], the third by former Governor John Baldacci [D]; both candidates received campaign contributions from Nestlé.

Residents of Maine, and all states for that matter, deserves public servants who make decisions based on what’s best for their constituents, not their corporate donors. Communities need to stand up to protect one of their most precious resources–their water–from being subject to corporate takeover. 

Ben King is a Food & Water Watch spring water research and policy intern and a Master of Public Policy student at Georgetown University.  

By Anna Ghosh

Warning: do not read this while eating a chicken sandwich. Discussing the privatization of poultry inspection is gross, but letting the USDA get away with it is even more disgusting, not to mention makes our food less safe and puts workers in danger. Tell Secretary Vilsack not to privatize poultry inspection!

According to the National Chicken Council, “Americans buy more chicken than any other food at the center of the plate.” It’s safe to assume that Americans would like that chicken to be healthy, wholesome and free of fecal matter, bile, scabs, bruises and other unappetizing contamination. But the USDA isn’t concerned about these things. They call them “quality defects” and would rather leave it up the company employees to deal with; compensating for less inspection with more anti-microbial chemicals. But as the Washington Post uncovered, this is a deadly solution.

Since 2011, Food & Water Watch and its allies have been fighting plans to privatize poultry inspection as a matter of consumer and worker safety. In March of 2012, Food & Water Watch analyzed the USDA’s HACCP-based Inspection Models Project (HIMP), the pilot that the current privatization scheme is based on, and found that large numbers of defects are routinely missed when company employees instead of USDA inspectors perform inspection tasks. In April of 2012, inspectors and more than 150,000 consumer spoke out about HIMP, prompting investigative stories from ABC News and the New York Times. We’ve also spent some time fact checking USDA officials, and former officials as Food & Water Watch Senior Lobbyist Tony Corbo did today in Food Safety News:

A year ago, Food & Water Watch was contacted by a consumer in Georgia who had bought a package of chicken that he intended to barbeque for his family on Mother’s Day.  When he opened up the package, he found that some of the chicken breasts had some hard yellow substances on them.  He sent us photos of the packaging and of the suspect chicken breasts.  It turned out that those yellow substances were of partially digested chicken feed or ingesta.  That product should never have been allowed into commerce.  The package wrapper had the USDA-Inspected legend on it with the establishment number P-177.  P-177 happens to be the Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Gainesville, Georgia.  That plant also happens to be one of the 20 HIMP broiler plants that Dr. Raymond is so proud of where the privatized inspection model is being piloted by USDA.   You can take a look at the photo of the ingesta on that chicken on our website and an analysis of the inspection data from some of the HIMP plants we did that revealed that not only feathers were missed by the company employees, but a whole host of other “defects” such as visible fecal contamination.

I showed the photos that we had received from that consumer to Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia who at the time was the Chairman of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee and the main congressional advocate to privatize poultry inspection, and to the current USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen and FSIS Administrator Alfred Almanza.  I explained what the photos represented and I told all of them that when I go to KFC to order fried chicken, the cashier always asks:  “Do you want original recipe or crispy?”  Not “Do you want original recipe or CRUNCHY?”  Yes, Dr. Raymond, I want my taxpayer dollars to go to government inspectors to keep the food I feed my family safe and wholesome.

As Mother Jones Food Blogger Tom Philpott points out, while the Obama administration boasts about the minor government savings and major savings for big poultry companies, the USDA’s claims of food safety are shaky and concern for worker safety nonexistent. No matter how many chemical dunks are used, privatized poultry inspection will lead to unsafe food and unsafe working conditions. Period. Let Secretary Vilsack know how you feel about foul privatized foul here: http://fwwat.ch/ickychix

By Genna Reed

A new review of hundreds of scientific studies surrounding glyphosate—the major component of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide— sheds light on its effects within the human body. The paper describes how all of these effects could work together, and with other variables, trigger health problems in humans, including debilitating diseases like gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease.

Glyphosate impairs the cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene pathway, which creates enzymes that help to form and also break down molecules in cells. There are myriad important CYP enzymes, including aromatase (the enzyme that converts androgen into estrogen) and 21-Hydroxylase, which creates cortisol (stress hormone) and aldosterone (regulates blood pressure). One function of these CYP enzymes is also to detoxify xenobiotics, which are foreign chemicals like drugs, carcinogens or pesticides. Glyphosate inhibits these CYP enzymes, which has rippling effects throughout our body.

Because the CYP pathway is essential for normal functioning of various systems in our bodies, any small change in its expression can lead to disruptions. For example, humans exposed to glyphosate have decreased levels of the amino acid tryptophan, which is necessary for active signaling of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Suppressed serotonin levels have been associated with weight gain, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

This paper does not claim to yield new scientific discoveries. Instead, it looks at older studies in a new light. Critics will say the links between glyphosate and health problems made in this paper are purely correlational, but this work is important because it brings all of the possible health effects of glyphosate together and discusses what could happen: something the USDA, EPA and FDA have failed to do.

Just as Monsanto attempted to discredit Seralini’s study on rats fed GE corn, the company called this peer-reviewed journal article “another bogus study” due to its “bad science.” In a classic pot-calling-the-kettle-black scenario, what Monsanto doesn’t mention is that the majority of research showing glyphosate’s safety has been done by Monsanto itself, which could be called bad science as well due to its limited and biased nature.

The authors of the new review call for more independent research to validate their findings, stating that “glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply, and, contrary to being essentially nontoxic, it may in fact be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.” If the body of independent research on GE foods and the herbicides used with them shows one thing, it is that there are unanswered questions begging for unbiased research. And while these questions remain unanswered, Americans have the right to know how their food was produced – take action to tell your members of Congress to support mandatory GE labeling.

By Tim Schwab

Journalism and agriculture students at public universities, watch out.

Your administrators are laying out the red carpet for corporate junkets at a campus near you. With names like HungerU and Biotech University, these “educational” opportunities amount to little more than a slick propaganda campaign from biotech corporations.

DuPont Crop Protection (translation: herbicides and pesticides) is visiting universities in California and Arizona this week, wooing students with $2,500 grants and embarking on a mission to “educate college students about the significance of modern agriculture.” It’s called HungerU.

That’s a catchy name, but does a profit-driven chemical producer whose goal is to expand herbicide and pesticide sales really have much to offer students on the issue of food security? Something tells me its answer to hunger is more chemicals.

Meanwhile, Biotech U goes beyond the ag school to influence an entirely different set of future professionals: journalism students. Each year, the industry-friendly United Soybean Board partners with our nation’s journalism schools in an effort to “educate” future reporters about the role of biotechnology. The program includes all-expense paid gigs on agricultural reporting in exotic places like Turkey and China. This year, the winner goes to Italy. Who wouldn’t want a trip to Italy?

Noting that these future journalists will be “shaping the public’s perception of biotechnology in the coming decades,” Biotech U is part of a long-term strategic plan by the biotech industry to foster public acceptance of genetically engineered crops. The program also intends to “enlist future biotech advocates identified within university journalism programs to develop a draft program at other journalism schools.”

These insidious efforts by the biotech industry are a very small part of the hundreds of millions of dollars pouring into academia from corporations, distorting the science and perverting the mission of higher education. Our public universities increasingly function like corporate laboratories—taking corporate research money to conduct experiments in corporate-sponsored laboratories, then publishing pro-industry findings in corporate-sponsored “scientific” journals.

Food & Water Watch detailed the ways in which industry is buying influence at our public universities in our report Public Research, Private Gain.

This new era of corporate influence is undermining intellectual freedom and academic independence. Professors that might otherwise pursue research that might challenge the bottom lines of biotech companies—for example, studying the negative health, environmental or economic effects of pesticides and biotech crops—simply choose not to for fear of losing future industry research funding or upsetting tenure-granting administrators. That means federal agencies writing the rules and regulations that govern biotech corporations often base their decisions on a body of science that only says industrial agriculture is safe, good and necessary.

Meanwhile, farmers that might want to want to pursue an alternative production model to agrochemicals, monocultures and factory farms have little research or academic support.

And students—our next generation of journalists, farmers and policy makers—graduate from schools that increasingly offer only the virtues of big business instead of teaching students to think critically about the dominant model of industrial agriculture or consider alternative solutions.

Don’t biotech and pesticide companies already have too much influence over our public universities? If you attend one of these schools, call your university administrators and tell them enough is enough.

By Anna Ghosh

If we had to pick the most prevalent food issue of 2013 so far, the fight to get genetically engineered food labeled is probably it. Citizen-led campaigns have been successful getting legislation introduced in more than 20 states; inspired by California’s Prop 37, which suffered a narrow defeat in November after chemical and Big Food corporations poured millions into the campaign.

But consumer demand for GE labeling is not a new development. For years, polls have shown that the majority of Americans want GE food labeled, just as it is in more than 60 other countries including China, Japan and Russia.

Finally, it appears that Washington is beginning to listen. Yesterday, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) have introduced a bill to order the Food and Drug Administration to mandate the labeling of genetically engineered foods. The bill has bipartisan support with 20 combined co-sponsors between the Senate and the House.

Clearly, the statewide campaigns have played an integral role in getting Congress to pay attention to the fact that their constituents want to know whether or not they’re eating and feeding GE food to their families. And statewide initiatives continue to be critically important to ensure that consumers have the right to make informed choices about the food they buy. This is why Monsanto and its agrochemical colleagues will likely dump millions into misinformation campaigns to defeat Initiative 522 being voted on in Washington in November.

But even if Washingtonians prevail and I-522 makes GE food labels the law in their state, there will still be 49 other states where consumers will continue to be in the dark. This is why in the long run we need strong, uncompromising federal legislation to give all Americans the basic information they want about how their food was produced. Tell your Members of Congress to co-sponsor Boxer/DeFazio’s legislation if they haven’t already.

By Genna Reed

Early this week, USDA announced the availability of a petition for a new GE alfalfa, marking the 20^th GE crop currently awaiting USDA’s approval and eventual commercialization. Since the introduction of GE crops, the USDA has never denied a single petition for commercialization.

Touted as “low-lignin” to make it easier for livestock to digest, Monsanto and Forage Genetics’ new alfalfa variety will likely be stacked with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait (already approved for alfalfa in 2011). Throughout the petition, the companies cite the fact that “extensive review” has already been performed on GE alfalfa with the 2010 Environmental Impact Statement for Roundup Ready alfalfa.

Back then, the Environmental Impact Statement pointed to some negative economic impacts for organic and conventional alfalfa farmers, including increased costs needed to prevent contamination, reduced demand and lost markets due to contamination—which didn’t stop USDA from approving the crop. Those contamination costs are even more pronounced now. Alfalfa is an open-pollinated crop, meaning it is much more likely than corn or soybeans to contaminate nearby non-GE fields with the help of wind or insects. This crop poses special risks for organic alfalfa and for organic dairy farms whose crops may be contaminated.

Additionally, the review was performed three years ago and a lot has changed since then.

Since 2010, the number of Roundup-resistant weeds has grown from 11 to 14 and the amount of land infested with these weeds has grown from a reported 2 million acres in 2010 to industry estimates of more than 60 million acres in 2012. These numbers should raise a red flag, but Monsanto continues to petition for the introduction of more and more glyphosate-tolerant crops.

Herbicide use has escalated since the introduction of GE crops, and will only continue to grow as more of these GE crops are introduced. As the “superweed” problem worsens, the USDA must seriously consider the environmental, health and economic ramifications of this new GE alfalfa, and the agency’s overall system of blanket approvals on herbicide-tolerant GE-crops.

To weigh in on the rocket docket containing seven petitions for approval of new, herbicide-tolerant crops, sign this petition.

By Wenonah Hauter

There is one thing that my new book is about: corporate control of every aspect of our food system, from how it is labeled to the pesticides we are exposed to. The main thesis of Foodopoly is simple — We, the people, must reclaim our democracy. We must reestablish strong anti-trust laws as part of the progressive agenda if we have any hope of fixing our broken, corporate-controlled food system. And to do that, we need to organize and force our elected officials to create laws that result in a food system that works for consumers and farmers—not big agricultural, food processing, retail and chemical conglomerates.

How has consolidation enabled Monsanto, Tyson, Nestle, Kraft, Cargill, McDonalds and other food/ag/chemical companies to write our food policy, and why is about to get worse? The disastrous decision in the landmark Citizens United case now allows corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to buy the political system. This decision comes at the expense of citizens and democracy itself.

Foodopoly delves into the history of food and farm policy to explain how we got to the massive consolidation of the food supply. For example, only four gigantic companies process 80 percent of the beef we eat, and only four retailers sell 50 percent of the groceries (with one out of every three dollars spent on groceries in the U.S. going to Walmart). The top 10 fast food companies control 47 percent of all fast food sales. Together, these industries have commandeered local economies, and now it is clear that the era of family farmers and mom and pop stores has ended. What’s not as clear is the effect this has on our political system. 

Make no mistake: when those companies enjoy near monopolies and vast market power — both domestically and globally thanks to crooked free trade agreements — their profits enable them to contribute large sums of money to groups that lobby Washington very effectively. At Food & Water Watch, our organizational budget to fight the corporate control of the food system annually is about $12 million. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the food industry spent $40 million lobbying the federal government in 2011. And the biotech industry spent over half a billion dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures since 1999. Additionally, special interests spent $173.5 million lobbying on the 2008 Farm Bill. 

Citizens United accelerates the corporate power grab of our democracy. Other issues affecting our essential resources are trade and the financialization of nature. This summer, President Obama will attempt to fast-track two trade deals — the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement —which are permanent power grabs by corporations and their financers. For Americans this means increased gas exports and increased imported foods, an undermining of our domestic laws and increasing corporate ownership of our natural resources. They will forever enshrine the very economic system that has lead to an ever greater imbalance in income and wealth, and increasingly frequent economic crises. And it will all be enforced by new international tribunals akin to the WTO. 

The changes needed to reform our food system and strengthen our democracy can only happen when the people demand better from their leadership. We can’t shop our way out of this problem: we need to address the political reasons our food system is so broken.

This post originally appeared at the Triple Crisis Blog.

By Kate Fried 

When the organization you work for is dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to safe water and good food, every day feels like Earth Day. But today is actually Earth Day, a time to show Mother Earth a little love. Forget flowers and cards; this year, we’re marking the occasion by celebrating the achievements of the schools participating in our first ever Tap-a-palooza contest, in which we challenged colleges across the U.S. to compete with one another to reduce their bottled water consumption. Think March Madness, but with reusable water bottles instead of basketballs and well-hydrated college students in place of really tall people (although we imagine there may be some overlap there). 

The contest first launched in March on World Water Day, and since then, over three-dozen schools have been using our new app Tap Buddy to track their progress. We’re still tallying the pledges, but when they’ve all been counted, the victor will win $1,500 to put towards public water infrastructure improvements on their campus, such as a hydration station, drinking fountain retrofits or reusable bottles for students. 

Feeling inspired? You too can reduce your bottled water consumption with the help of Tap Buddy, even if your college days are but a fond, hazy memory. Download Tap Buddy to your iPhone or Android and use it to find water fountains near you and record the location of water fountains for yourself and others. You remember water fountains, right? 

Sure, they’ve fallen out of popularity due to the rise of the bottled water industry and the decline in federal funding for community water systems, but with the help of Tap Buddy, we think they’re poised to make a comeback. 

By Walker Foley

Goldman Prize winner Jonathan Deal, of Treasure Karoo Action Group in South Africa, undertakes a flag exchange with Darcey O’Callaghan of Food & Water Watch on behalf of Americans Against Fracking. Photo courtesy of the Goldman Prize.

 “It’s the Academy Awards of environmentalism,” explained everyone ad nauseam of the Goldman Environmental Prize. I still wasn’t sure what to expect as I took my seat.

The auditorium was at capacity, buzzing with the excitement of activists, researchers and students representing the gamut of environmental issues. A montage of collapsing icebergs played on the big screen center stage, a reminder of the challenges ahead. 

Read the full article…

By Patty Lovera

Last week, you may have been puzzled by headlines about a new decision to end the use of the antibiotic tetracycline in organic apple and pear production. Since when are organic foods produced with antibiotics? Unbeknownst to most consumers, since the beginning of the USDA’s national organic program in 2002, apple and pear growers have been allowed to use the antibiotics tetracycline and streptomycin to treat a disease called fire blight on organic apple and pear trees.

Food & Water Watch worked with other consumer and environmental groups, and thousands of you who wrote comments to the National Organic Standards Board, to make sure they took a strong stand for public health and the integrity of the organic standards by rejecting an industry petition to allow the use of tetracycline until 2016.  We urged the Board to end the use of tetracycline as soon as possible in order to meet consumer expectations for organic and to respond to mounting evidence that antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a serious threat to public health. Antibiotics are not allowed in any other types of organic food, including production of organic livestock.

At their meeting last week, the Board did reject the petition, which means that the use of tetracycline will not be allowed after October 21, 2014. But they also passed a resolution to encourage the USDA to investigate a transitional option for the emergency use of tetracycline until 2017. So we will be keeping an eye on that process, to make sure that if the USDA sets up an emergency use provision, that it is extremely limited, ends as soon as possible and, most importantly, that apples and pears from treated trees can not be sold as organic.

Even until 2014, when tetracycline will be phased out, organic apples are still a better choice than conventional. Organic growers can’t use synthetic pesticides or herbicides, genetically engineered crops (there is a GE apple variety in the approval pipeline), or sewage sludge on their fields; all practices which conventional orchards can use. And here are a couple of ideas for ways to find organic apples and pears produced without antibiotics:

• Look for apple and pear varieties that are less susceptible to fire blight, and less likely to need treatment. Beyond Pesticides has a list (and a great history of this issue.)   
• Look for apples and pears that are certified with both the USDA Organic and the EU organic seals. The organic standards in the European Union do not allow any use of antibiotics on fruit trees, so U.S. growers who export to the EU are not using the drugs on their orchards.

Stay tuned. We’ll be calling on you to help us make sure we keep the organic standards strong.