Blog Posts

President Obama's 2012 budget proposal is nothing short of disappointing for food and water advocates.

As you all know, it’s budget time in Washington, D.C. As far as the issues that we work on here at Food & Water Watch, the President’s proposed budget for 2012 is nothing short of disappointing and frustrating. The Obama administration has determined that providing the nation with funds for public services that were once considered vital to our population is no longer a priority for the government. Let’s break it down…

Food Safety

The proposed 2012 budget allocates $1.02 billion for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), $9 million less than 2011. But, according to FSIS’s own report, there will be a need for more inspectors to keep up with increases in food processing in 2012 — the total volume of meat and poultry slaughter will each increase by over 250 million pounds. Even egg production will increase from 4,066 million to 4,074 million pounds. Remember the egg recall last summer? Instead of offering increased funds to FSIS for food safety, the Obama administration decided to offer an increased risk of food contamination by not increasing the number of inspectors in egg processing facilities.

USDA is also responsible for catfish inspections, for which the proposed budget also reduces funding. In 2008, negotiations over the Farm Bill included the creation of a new catfish inspection program, a mandate given to the USDA. The FDA, which only inspects about 2 percent of all imports, was previously responsible for inspection of fish, including catfish. Last year, U.S. catfish farmers united to ask Congress to implement the regulation of catfish at the USDA and demanded tougher inspections. The implementation of this program is now 14 months overdue and, thanks to Obama’s proposed budget, the funding for it has been significantly reduced. Read the full article…

Join us in our national call-in day to ask President Obama to implement fair livestock marketing rules.

A Call for Good and Fair Food

Today, we’d like to ask you to do something very simple that could have a huge and positive impact on the way we access healthy and affordable food.

Due to unfair competition in the marketplace, our small-to-medium-sized farmers don’t have a shot at receiving fair market prices for the food they produce. This lack of fair competition — which I wrote about last summer in “Choice Cuts of Meat—But is the Choice Ours or Theirs?” — squeezes out real farmers and benefits large-scale factory farms.

As a result, we’ve watched many small-to-medium-sized farmers go out of business and many more factory farms pop up across the country and contribute to the consolidation. You can see evidence of this in our Factory Farm Map, which demonstrates the reality of this consolidation. Most importantly, the money that Big Ag companies hang onto from this consolidation doesn’t get passed along to consumers. That’s right, it keeps prices higher. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the beef and pork industries. Considering our farmers are the backbone of a healthy nation, we need to ensure their survival. Read the full article…

Catch shares aren't a "beyond left and right solution." They're a "beyond left and right problem."

With the announcement that a giant media corporation is buying her progressive website, Arianna Huffington’s main talking point has been, “It’s time to move beyond left and right.” It may be stylish to trash partisanship, but how will this mantra translate to specific issues moving forward?

We got a glimpse of what “beyond left and right” might mean a few days prior to her announcement, when Huffington blogged with a similar message from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Her blog defended a dubious policy supported by the Carlyle Group and the Murdoch family, calling it a “beyond left and right solution.” Read the full article…

Two bills banning arsenic in poulty were introduced in the Maryland State Legislature.

There is a critical message that has been slowly stewing within the food movement: don’t put things in our food that are potentially dangerous. You would think this would be obvious, but to some it’s not. You would think that we shouldn’t have to fight to keep risky chemicals out of our food, but we do — every day. Thankfully, a victory occurred in Maryland’s state legislature yesterday that keeps this effort moving in the right direction for the Chesapeake Bay State, which is the seventh largest poultry producer.

Maryland State Senator Paul G. Pinsky (D-22) and State Delegate Tom Hucker (D-20) introduced bills banning the use of arsenic in poultry feed. Arsenic has been used by the poultry industry to protect chickens against intestinal disease and to promote growth — though there is little evidence that its use is necessary — but it comes with hidden costs: it threatens human health and the environment. Read the full article…

President Obama, this is food policy we can't believe in.

As the popular face of the Obama administration’s advocacy for healthy, nutritious food, Michelle Obama has conveniently side-stepped several critical consumer food issues like organics, genetically engineered food, fair markets for farmers and ranchers, and local and regional food economies. But, while Mrs. Obama has remained silent on these topics, the actions of the agencies that regulate our food under President Obama speak volumes. And progressives don’t like what they are hearing.

Last year, the FDA began paving the way for approval of genetically engineered (GE) salmon. They pressed on despite the lack of independent research to determine what the health or environmental impacts of such a product would be, and despite concerns from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the FDA’s process to “fast track” GE salmon’s approval. The first transgenic animal approved for human consumption, GE salmon would open the floodgates for GE cows and pigs, which biotech companies are waiting in the wings to finally commercialize after years of research and development.

But Americans don’t want it: A 2009 Consumer Reports poll revealed that the majority of consumers would not eat genetically engineered food, while a poll we conducted with Lake Research Partners last year showed that 78 percent of Americans were against the approval of a GE salmon for human consumption.

Now, the USDA has approved the unrestricted growing of GE alfalfa, which could destroy the organic dairy industry and block farmers from the export market since many countries won’t accept GE-contaminated crops. The USDA has also “partially deregulated” GE sugar beets. Soon, many candy bars in America could be produced from sugar grown with Monsanto’s dangerous Roundup Ready herbicide. Read the full article…

Salmon cakes from New Jersey? Since salmon aren’t caught off New Jersey, this could be a case of mislabeled seafood. The mislabeling of seafood happens every day in supermarkets, restaurants and even fish markets throughout the country.

Marianne Cufone shook her head when she read the little sign: Local Salmon Cakes, Product of New Jersey. Cufone is the Fish Program Director here at Food & Water Watch. “Working on fisheries issues, you learn about a lot of different types of seafood, it becomes easier over time to tell what kind of fish a product is – and more importantly, what it isn’t, by where it supposedly came from and what it looks like. Salmon aren’t caught off New Jersey, so this label is strange. Maybe they meant it was processed or packaged there?” This happens every day in supermarkets, restaurants and even fish markets throughout the country

Falsely mislabeling fish is illegal and has been a problem in the U.S. for a long time. It hurts consumers when they pay for a specific type of fish and unknowingly receive another, often lower quality product. It also compromises the ability of fishermen to get a fair price for their catch when they have to compete with cheaper fish masquerading as their local fare. While it’s a common problem, little has been done to really fight against these practices. Recently however, NOAA has been stepping up efforts to bust illegal operations that smuggle misbranded fish. When they catch someone, it’s truly a victory for consumers and fishermen alike. Read the full article…

The vetoed natural gas pipeline project in New Jersey would have transported gas from the ocean to shore over approximately 53 miles of pipeline.

Check off a small but critical victory for our organizers in New Jersey. Governor Christie announced that he would veto the construction of a liquefied natural gas port off the coast of New Jersey. Liberty Natural Gas was planning the project, which would have included an onshore pipeline (9.2 miles) and a submerged pipeline (44 miles) to carry gas from an underwater port to the shore.

Christie’s quote of the day sounds like it could have come straight from one of our own press releases: “Offshore LNG poses an unacceptable risk to the state’s residents, natural resources, economy, and security.”

Congratulations to our Jersey crew for their part in stopping the project. This is a campaign they have been working on for some time, and it’s helped develop our program and presence in New Jersey.

Congratulations to our New Jersey organizers on a great victory!

In an attempt to promote aquaculture and the idea of sustainable seafood, a company called Skretting created a video about their fishmeal product. The company proclaims itself, “the world leader in the production and supply of feed for farmed fish,” and has fish food production operations on five continents, bringing in revenues of around $1.5 billion a year.  (Think industrial fish farm food, not the flakes you feed to the family goldfish.)

“Tracing the Truth,” begins with a restaurant patron about to enjoy a piece of salmon. With “miracle of life music” playing in the background, it follows a backwards path, setting out on a journey in reverse to show viewers the true origins of this piece of salmon: fishmeal. Read the full article…

Imagine putting wrapping paper coated with nanotechnology around meat products to kill e-coli bacteria, thus increasing the meat’s shelf life both in the store and in your fridge at home. It may sound a little like science fiction, but this technology could be incorporated into food safety procedures in the near future. But is nanotechnology safe to use in the food industry? Is this really a silver bullet solution to widespread problems in grand-scale food production, or is it another untested, quick fix argument that the food industry will invest in to make us feel safer? Read the full article…

Where there would normally be muffins, now there was nothing... just empty counter space.

Now that we’ve had a chance to take in feedback from our readers, volunteers and activists, it’s time to share what happened last week with our Great Muffin Debate.

First off, we did not polish off all of the mini-muffins as we typically would. More than half of the container remained full, though I’m not exactly sure what happened to the remaining muffins after we left for the day. They mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. It’s the Great Muffin Escape.

Second, and most important: if someone is feeding you treats every week, it is not necessarily in your best interest to potentially insult them by questioning their treat choices. It would be better to gently encourage them to explore new options. Today is a Friday but, sadly, there were no treats to be found on the counter today.

Perhaps, if we hold our tongues next time and wish real hard, the giver of treats might return to our office. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on methylparabens with us!

-Rich Bindell