Tag Archives: food and ag

FDA Moves to Ban Trans Fat

by SpencerKarpinsk Posted on November 7, 2013

Mother Jones

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Of all the Food and Drug Administration’s bows to Big Food—examples here, here, here, and here—perhaps the most pernicious is the status it has long bestowed on partially hydrogenated oils, also known as trans fat: “generally regarded as safe.”

With trans fat deemed “GRAS,” the food industry has been free to dump the cheap butter substitute in a whole array of foods for decades. Meanwhile, the public health community generally regards the stuff as quite ruinous to a bodily organ generally regarded as critical to one’s health: the heart. The Harvard School of Public Health calls it the “worst fat for the heart, blood vessels, and rest of the body.”

After decades of fending off demands, the FDA finally required food manufacturers to label trans fats starting in 2006. And just today, the FDA announced it had begun the process of revoking trans fat’s “generally regarded as safe” status. The process begins with a 60-day comment period. If the agency follows through, any foods containing trans fats will be “considered adulterated under U.S. law, meaning they cannot legally be sold,” the FDA wrote in its press release.

For the industry-addled history of the FDA’s effort to reckon with the health menace of trans fats, see this post from last year.

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FDA Moves to Ban Trans Fat

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Washington State’s GMO Labeling Appears Headed for Defeat

by JohnsieaJensen Posted on November 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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Vote counts go slowly in Washington State, where ballots come in via mail and can be sent in as late as election day. But early returns suggest that—like its predecessor, California’s Prop. 37—Washington’s ballot initiative that would have required labeling of genetically modified food has been snuffed out under a fluffy pillow of cash from the agrichemical and food-processing industries.

As in California, the Washington initiative, known as I-522, polled strongly early and then swan-dived as the election approached amid a flurry of anti-labeling TV ads. Again, the anti forces outspent the pro forces by a wide margin; again, they promoted the trumped-up charge that labeling would dramatically ramp up food prices, which I debunked here. Here’s the money-in-politics group Maplight:

Maplight

You’ll note from that list that there are two distinct kinds of corporations that dumped cash into the effort to squash labeling in Washington: agrichemical/GMO seed companies (Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, BASF) and Big Food companies (Pepsi, Nestle, Coca Cola, etc.).

The agrichem firms are united in their zealous opposition to labeling. Their products dominate the corn, soybean, sugar beets, and cotton markets, and GMO versions of these crops suffuse the US food system, making up the great bulk of the sweeteners and fats that end up in processed food. They’d obviously prefer to keep that information off of labels, in fear that consumers might demand non-GMO versions of those products.

The Big Food firms, of course, buy those sweeteners and fats and turn them into highly processed foodstuffs. For them, labeling is inconvenient, but not a major threat. After all, they operate quite happily in Europe, where GMO ingredients are rare and labeling is mandatory. Even before the Washington fight, Big Food was ambivalent about continuing to fight labeling, as Tom Laskawy noted in January. Many of these companies have organic brands, and the cash they devoted to defeating labeling in California put them in a tight spot with fans of their organic lines.

They ended up coming out in force to fund the opposition to I-522, but not without making an awkward and ultimately failed attempt to hide their contributions by funneling them through a powerful trade group called the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the GMA celebrated the likely defeat of labeling in Washington State but left the door open to supporting possible nation-wide labeling that would come from Washington, DC:

Because a 50-state patchwork of GMO labeling laws would be confusing and costly to consumers, GMA will advocate for a federal solution that will protect consumers by ensuring that the FDA, America’s leading food safety authority, sets national standards for the safety and labeling of products made with GMO ingredients.

National labeling? If Big Food does get behind it, it could conceivably happen.

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Washington State’s GMO Labeling Appears Headed for Defeat

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What It’s Like To Sneak Across the Border To Harvest Food

by 2343b4u4u Posted on October 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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For most anthropologists, “field work” means talking to and observing a particular group. But for Seth Holmes, a medical anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, it also literally means working in a field: toiling alongside farm workers from the Triqui indigenous group of Oaxaca, Mexico, in a vast Washington State berry patch. It also means visiting them in their tiny home village—and making the harrowing trek back to US farm fields through a militarized and increasingly perilous border.

Holmes recounts his year and a half among the people who harvest our food in his new book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies. It’s a work of academic anthropology, but written vividly and without jargon. In its unvarnished view into what our easy culinary bounty means for the people burdened with generating it, Fresh Fruit/Broken Bodies has earned its place on a short shelf alongside works like Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating, Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland, and Frank Bardacke‘s Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers.

I recently caught up with Holmes via phone about the view from the depths of our food system.

Mother Jones: What sparked your interest in farm workers—and how did you gain access to the workers you cover in the book?

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What It’s Like To Sneak Across the Border To Harvest Food

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Which Is More Evil: Coke or Pepsi?

by HomerSevttp Posted on October 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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In response to a recent lawsuit, the Grocery Manufacturers Association recently revealed the source of $7.2 million in dark money contributions it had solicited to fight Washington’s Initiative 522, a measure on next week’s ballot that would require food companies to label products with ingredients made from genetically modified organisms. Pepsi was the largest contributor to the trade group’s anti-labeling effort, donating $1.6 million. Coca-Cola wasn’t far behind, chipping in another $1 million.

If you don’t like GMOs, then you probably shouldn’t drink either of America’s leading soda brands. But let’s say Coke and Pepsi products are your only options. How do the two soda giants compare on the social responsibility index? Here’s our totally subjective guide to the relative malevolence of America’s favorite pop-making multinationals.

deadliness in excess

cosal.es

Coke: Guzzling between 6 and 10 liters of Coke daily contributed to the sudden death this February of 31-year-old Natasha Harris of New Zealand, according to her coroner’s report.

Pepsi: Nobody would ever drink this much Pepsi.

Most evil: Coke

Sketchy marketing

Coke: Faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit over the health claims of Glacéau Vitaminwater, which contains eight tablespoons of sugar per bottle. Vitamins? Not so much.

Pepsi: In 2011, settled a $9 million class-action lawsuit over Naked Juice’s claims to contain “all natural” and “non-GMO” ingredients.

Most evil: Tie

Paramilitary death squad hiring?

International Action Center to Stop the War in Colombia

Coke: Two of its bottlers hired a Colombian paramilitary group to murder union organizers, according to a 2001 lawsuit filed in the US by the United Steelworkers union. The case was dismissed in 2009, but these and similar allegations in Guatemala, have sparked boycotts and street protests. Coke denies the claims.

Pepsi: Do people in Latin America even drink Pepsi?

Most evil: Coke

orangutan endangering

Alex Aw/Flickr

Coke: Loved by orangutans, apparently.

Pepsi: Contributes to the killing of orangutans by purchasing conflict palm oil, the Rainforest Action Network alleges.

Most evil: Pepsi

racism

Coke

Coke: In 2000, paid $156 million to 2,000 current and former African-American employees to settle what was then the largest racial discrimination case ever.

Pepsi: Last year paid $3.1 million to resolve a federal charge that it discriminated against 300 African-American job applicants.

Most evil: Coke (Pepsi’s case was more recent, but Coke’s was waaay bigger)

Sexism

Edible Apple

Coke: An interactive online ad that ends, in one scenario, with a woman standing next to a bed in her underwear, was lambasted by Sweden’s sexist ad watchdog for portraying women as “pure sex objects.”

Pepsi: To promote an energy drink, released an iPhone app (above) that coaches men on pickup lines and encourages those who “score” to post details such as name, date, and comments to Facebook and Twitter.

Most evil: Pepsi (Objectifying women = bad. Posting names of sexual conquests online = ick!)

Public-Relations LAMENESS

Coke: Funded a (now discredited) Harvard scientist: One of the sweets’ industry’s biggest allies, he touted sugar as perfectly healthy.

Pepsi: Has funded astroturf-y groups like the Heartland Institute, which questions “how bad the obesity problem is.”

Most evil: Coke (People take Harvard seriously. The Heartland Institute, not so much.)

pro-Gluttony Lobbying

New Yorkers For Beverage Choice

Coke: Spent $9.4 million lobbying against a tax on sugary beverages.

Pepsi: Spent $9.2 million lobbying against the tax.

Most evil: Tie

Evicting farmers from their land

CJ Chanco/Flickr

Coke: Criticized by Oxfam for its links to land disputes that have driven subsistence farmers into poverty.

Pepsi: ditto.

Most evil: Tie

Replacing Jesus with a cola-chugging fat guy

Coca-Cola

Coke: Coca-Cola ads that first appeared in 1931 in the Saturday Evening Post and other national magazines popularized the modern image of Santa Claus as a pudgy guy dressed in red. The rest is history.

Pepsi: Pushes an alternative image of Santa as a party dude who secretly drinks Pepsi when he’s on summer vacation at the beach.

Most evil: Pepsi (At least Coke used its Polar Bears to draw attention to global warming.)

Shameless spin

Coke: Its ad (above) about fighting America’s obesity epidemic may have actually contributed to the problem by spinning Coca-Cola products as components of a healthy lifestyle. Critics responded with a parody video that ends with the exhortation: “Don’t drink Coke.”

Pepsi: “We firmly believe companies have a responsibility to provide consumers with more information and more choices so they can make better decisions,” PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi wrote in a PR essay that appeared in one of the country’s most respected annual reports on obesity. Huh?

Most evil: Coke (There’s a reason the parody video has more YouTube views than the actual ad.)

And the winner is . . .

Index of Soda Evil

Now about that Izze you’re drinking… Oh, dang! PepsiCo owns Izze, too.

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Which Is More Evil: Coke or Pepsi?

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How You Pay Farmers To Watch Their Crop Shrivel Up and Die

by Gina72Ebzwtxbe Posted on October 30, 2013

Mother Jones

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In 2011, Eric Herm’s cantaloupes exploded.

A fourth-generation cotton farmer in West Texas, Herm was experimenting with a home garden to help feed his family during the onset of a drought in the area. Blistering heat, including 100 degree days as early as May, was wilting Herm’s cotton—and in the end, it turned his melons into pressure cookers.

Most of Herm’s neighbors have lost their cotton crop the last three of four growing seasons—part of the most severe regional drought in more than 50 years. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2012 temperatures in the US were the hottest in recorded history. And a May 2013 report by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate concluded that “human-induced climate change” played a statistically significant role in the record-breaking temperatures of 2011, adding that the period from October 2010 to September 2011 “was Texas’s driest 12-month period on record.”

With the exception of scattered irrigation, most farmers in West Texas practice “dryland” farming, meaning they’re entirely dependent on rain. Rainfall on Herm’s acreage had previously averaged 17 inches a year, but in 2011 and 2012 the annual averages were 3 and 8 inches, he said. Even the driest years of the Dust Bowl, which lasted off and on from 1930 to 1940, brought about 9 to 14 inches of rain to Herm’s region, according to Natalie Umphlett of the Nebraska-based High Plains Regional Climate Center.

“In the back of my mind I’m wondering, ‘where do I go if things get that bad,'” Herm said back in May, while planting for the 2013 growing season. “If we do not make a crop this year, I’m going to have to a real serious look at the future.”

The latest news is not reassuring. As of October 2013, more than 80 percent of Herm’s neighbors declared their cotton a failure and collected crop insurance claims, subsidized by US taxpayers.

If recent research by the US Department of Agriculture is any indication, the crop failures will be a sign of the future. In a February 2013 report, the agency rounded up relevant scientific findings from 56 experts from federal service, universities, and non-government organizations. The results cast doubt on the viability of the US heartland in the age of warming—and not just for dryland cotton. “Continued changes by mid-century and beyond,” the report said, “are expected to have generally detrimental effects on most crops and livestock.” Among other problems, “weed control costs total more than $11 billion a year in the US. Those costs are expected to rise with increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations.”

Interviews with more than a dozen climatologists, agronomists, agro-economists, and agricultural statisticians have generally echoed the USDA’s prognosis: after about 30 years, greenhouse gas concentrations will reach critical enough levels to significantly disrupt agriculture. But even the next ten years will probably prove challenging for American farmers, because the weather will be more variable. As Columbia University associate professor of international and public affairs Wolfram Schlenker put it, “there’s more certainty that there will be less certainty.”

In any case, taxpapyers are on the hook for climate-related disruption of US food production—mainly in annual outlays for crop insurance. In February 2013, the same month that the USDA released its bleak assessment on global warming, the Government Accountability Office released a statement warning about the federal government’s “fiscal exposure to climate change,” including the crop insurance program.

Based on USDA data, if the current version of the farm bill were extended ten years into the future, even without expansions under debate, crop insurance would cost $8.41 billion per year, or $84.1 billion total, according to Jim Langley of the Congressional Budget Office. With the expansions the projected costs rise to about $99 billion. And that figure does not account for recent climate-related impacts on crop yields, including the drought of 2011 and 2012 in Texas and the midwest.

“We treated those two years as outliers,” said Langley. “We don’t explicitly take into account climate change. It’s not like something dramatic is going to happen in next ten years. We assume weather going to be normal.”

To be sure, it’s hard to turn estimates about climate impacts on agriculture, and by extension crop insurance outlays into hard numbers. And there’s no consensus that taxpayers will pay more than projected. Advocates of crop insurance claim that the program works better than disaster relief. “It forces farmers to manage risk before, not after it happens, which saves taxpayers money,” Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Services, an industry group, has written.

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How You Pay Farmers To Watch Their Crop Shrivel Up and Die

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Quote of the Day: No More Heinz For You, Minneapolis

by TanyaScribner Posted on October 29, 2013

Mother Jones

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From Lydia DePillis, after reporting the news that McDonald’s will no longer serve Heinz ketchup in its restaurants:

U.S. burger eaters probably won’t notice much of a difference, since McDonald’s was only using Heinz ketchup in its Minneapolis and Pittsburgh markets; the rest is private label.

Wait. What? Minneapolis and Pittsburgh? What’s up with that?

Pittsburgh is easy. Presumably this is a sop to local sentiment since Heinz is headquartered in Pittsburgh. But why does Minneapolis get Heinz ketchup? Is that where it’s made? No: According to Wikipedia, most Heinz ketchup is made in Fremont, Ohio. Nick Halter of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal asked Mickey D’s about this, and could only report that “McDonald’s spokeswoman Lisa McComb did not say why the restaurant still used Heinz in Minneapolis.”

Did not, or could not? We need answers, people.

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Quote of the Day: No More Heinz For You, Minneapolis

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Which 9 Household Items Will Make Your Hormones Go Haywire?

by Micheal Bay Posted on October 28, 2013

Mother Jones

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The other day I found an old T-shirt that had been sucked into the vortex under my bed. When I pulled it out, it was covered with dust bunnies. I grimaced, picked them off, deposited them into the trash, and didn’t give them another thought.

That is, until I read a new report about the hormone-disrupting chemicals lurking in those dust bunnies—and in a whole host of other harmless-seeming things in my house. The Environmental Working Group along with the Keep-A-Breast Foundation just released the Dirty Dozen Endocrine Disruptors list of chemicals that can seriously mess with your hormones, potentially leading to various cancers, growth and reproductive issues, metabolic malfunctioning, and many more health problems.

So I set out to identify some the items in my apartment that might be making my hormones go haywire. Here are just a few of the things that I found:

1. Receipts

I started by inspecting my wallet. According to the report, the thermal paper on which receipts are commonly printed contains BPA—a chemical found in certain plastics—which is known to imitate estrogen. BPA has been linked to breast cancer, reproductive problems, obesity, heart disease and has even been blamed for sparking early onset puberty.

2. Cans

I next wandered into the kitchen, tummy rumbling. First I glanced into the pantry, where I saw cans of chili, soup, beans, tuna, and even sauerkraut. Like the receipts, many cans are lined with BPA, EWG warns.

3. Bacon and eggs

With some hesitation, I next opened the fridge. From the mercury-laden fish in the freezer to the phthalates in the plastic containers storing leftovers, nearly everything in there was at some risk of contamination with hormone-altering chemicals, according to the report. Dioxin, a hormone disruptor produced during industrial processes, has tainted much of the American food supply. Exposure to low levels of the chemical in the womb and early life can permanently affect men’s sperm quality and count. Dioxins are also considered powerful carcinogens. They are extremely hard to avoid if you’re an omnivore like me, since dioxins lurk in many animal products including meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.

4. Non-stick pan

My favorite breakfast seemed a lot less appetizing when I learned that the non-stick pan I use likely contains perflourinated chemicals, another endocrine disruptor known to lead to high cholesterol among other things.

5. Fruit

So maybe I’ll skip the meat products today and have some healthy fruit instead. Not so fast, says EWG: The fruit may be coated with pesticides. In fact apples topped the EWG’s other dirty dozen list of produce most likely to be exposed to pesticides. Those could include organophosphates, chemicals that don’t biodegrade. Exposure to them can negatively effect brain development, behavior, and fertility. Another pesticide, atrazine, may also be present. One of the most commonly used herbicides in the United States, the chemical made a splash a few years ago when scientists observed it turning male frogs into females. It’s been linked to breast tumors, delayed puberty and prostate inflammation in animals.

6. Drinking water

I head to the sink to draw a glass of water. But EWG says my water could contain atrazine contamination from runoff in croplands, along with traces of perchlorate, lead, and arsenic. Perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, can alter the thyroid gland which regulates metabolism and brain and organ development. Arsenic is a powerful poison that in trace amounts can disrupt the glucocorticoid system, which can lead to weight loss or gain, immunosuppression, insulin resistance, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure. And lead, as you probably have heard, is just the worst.

7. Dust

In the living room, I found the TV stand coated with dust bunnies like the ones I found under my bed—not ideal, since polybrominated diphenyl ethers could be clinging to the dust particles. PBDEs, the chemical in fire retardants, are known to mimic thyroid hormones and can lead to lower IQ among other health effects. The EWG (and my parents) advise keeping the house spick and span.

8. Cleaning products

Under the sink is a stockpile of cleaning products. I pick out a blue-tinted all-purpose cleaner and check the label. One of the ingredients is 2-butoxyethanol (EGBE), a glycol ether linked to severe reproductive problems: Guys, think shrunken testicles. Glycol ethers are also found in paints, brake fluid, and cosmetics.

9. Couch

OK, I’m done. There are hormone altering toxins in my food, in the dust in the house, and in the products I use to clean. I sit down on the couch and feel defeated. Then I remember that the foam in the cushions is also likely filled with fire retardants. And I’m forced to face the facts: My once cozy, safe home is a veritable mine field of endocrine disruptors. Short of moving to the wilderness, how can I keep my hormones safe? It would be difficult to avoid all of the chemicals the EWG names, but luckily the group does have a few practical resources; for starters I’ll be perusing the guide to healthy cleaning, advice on finding a good water filter, and a safe cosmetics database.

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Which 9 Household Items Will Make Your Hormones Go Haywire?

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CHARTS: The Hidden Benefits of Food Stamps

by porvluef Posted on October 25, 2013

Mother Jones

In September, just two days after a Census Bureau report showed that food stamps helped keep 4 million Americans out of poverty last year, the US House of Representatives approved a $39 billion cut to the program (known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) over the next decade.

The House proposal, now being negotiated along with smaller, yet still significant, Senate cuts of $4 billion, would result in 3.8 million people being removed from food stamps in 2014, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The haggling comes at a time when more than 15 percent of Americans remain mired in poverty, and more than half are at or near the poverty line when stagnant middle-class wages are matched against rising costs of living, US Census data show.

Although the Republican-controlled House cuts are unlikely, given a promised veto from President Obama, food stamps will still be slashed by $5 billion on Nov. 1, when the 2009 Recovery Act that increased the aid along with other stimulus spending expires. The 13.6 percent temporary boost in food stamp dollars helped more than half a million Americans escape food insecurity, and millions more to climb out of poverty—4.7 million in 2011 alone, according the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Eighty-three percent of food stamps go to households with children, seniors, and nonelderly people with disabilities. The Nov. 1 reduction means $46 less per month for a family of four and $11 less for a single person. In 2012, the average recipient got $133.41 in food stamps per month—that works out to $1.48 per meal. “Without the Recovery Act’s boost, SNAP benefits will average less than $1.40 per person per meal in 2014,” reports the CBPP.

“The Republican attack on food stamps is “totally counter-factual,” says Peter Edelman, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a former Clinton administration official who resigned in protest of the 1996 welfare overhaul. “Millions of people are unemployed and millions more don’t earn enough to pay all their bills. The idea that food stamps, which provide support at one-third of the poverty line, is incentivizing people not to seek jobs that don’t exist anyway is beyond bizarre.”

Extensive research shows food stamps are a highly effective investment delivering big returns for all Americans, not just the poor. SNAP not only provides an economic and nutritional lifeline for low-income Americans, it also creates a significant boon to the wider economy.

The Economic Benefits of Food Stamps

When food stamps get spent, we all benefit. Despite critics’ focus on the costs of SNAP, research has shown that these dollars are among the best forms of government stimulus. Food stamp spending generates local economic activity, jobs in the farm and retail sectors and beyond.

Food Stamps Lift Millions Out of Poverty

In addition to boosting the economy and job creation, food stamps have helped millions of Americans climb out of poverty and away from hunger. The dollars put food on the table, and by covering much of poor people’s food expenses, free up vitally needed cash to cover rent and other necessities. That can help people stabilize their lives and get back on their feet. Since SNAP expanded in 2009, according to the USDA, “food insecurity among likely SNAP-eligible households declined by 2.2 percent, and very low food security declined by 2 percent; food spending rose by 4.8 percent.”

Food Stamps Improve Kids’ Health

Children are especially vulnerable to the lifelong ripple effects of poverty—exposed to hunger, under-nourishment, and a greater likelihood of chronic illnesses and disease. But studies show that when poor families get food stamps, kids’ nutrition and health improve. This can be particularly critical during infancy and early childhood, when brain development and metabolic health get their start. The added food and nutrition from food stamps has been shown to create marked health improvements both in childhood and later years.

Who Gets Food Stamps?

An extraordinary number of Americans have benefited or will benefit directly from food stamps. Half of all adults (pdf) will receive SNAP benefits at some point between the ages of 20 and 65, while half of all children will receive them at some point during their childhood. In 2012, nearly 1 in 7 adults received food stamps.

Graphics by Jaeah Lee

This article was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, an independent, non-profit news organization producing investigative reporting on food, agriculture and environmental health.

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CHARTS: The Hidden Benefits of Food Stamps

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GOP Picks Anti-Food Stamp Crusader to Determine Future of Food Stamps

by pedzacastrzala87 Posted on October 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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Shutting down the government and threatening a default in an attempt to block poor people from getting health insurance isn’t the only thing House Republicans did over the past two weeks. They also continued their push to defund food stamps.

It went unnoticed amidst the debt ceiling fight, but last weekend, Democratic and Republican leaders in the House selected the lawmakers that will negotiate with the Senate to hammer out a final version of the farm bill, the massive bill that funds agriculture and nutrition programs. The main stumbling block for months has been how much money the bill should devote to food stamps; the House wants to strip $39 billion from the program, and the Senate wants to cut just $4 billion. The fact that Republicans in the House named one of the most anti-food stamp members of Congress to the committee that will decide the future of food stamps does not bode well for the program.

Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Florida) has been leading the GOP effort to slash the food stamp program, called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. “For the past six months, Southerland… has delivered 45 speeches about food stamps… and presented his idea to 13 governors,” Eli Saslow wrote in a profile of the congressman in the Washington Post last month. Southerland, who fought for the $39 billion worth of cuts and another provision that imposes new work requirements on food assistance recipients, told state human service secretaries last year that food-stamp reform is “what I’m about.”

Usually, only agriculture committee members negotiate the final farm bill; Southerland is on the leadership committee, not the agriculture committee. His appointment to the committee that’s ironing out the final deal is a sign the House intends to fight tooth and nail to keep the deep food stamp cuts.

Passage of a final bill is already a year overdue. In June, the House failed to pass its measure because both Republicans and Democrats opposed it: Democrats thought the food stamp cuts were “heartless,” while conservative Republicans thought they didn’t go far enough. In September, the House split food stamps from the rest of the agriculture bill and passed the harsh cuts separately, with zero Democratic votes. The House plan would cut 3.8 million people off the program next year.

Democrats countered the Southerland appointment by placing Congressional Black Caucus chair and food stamp advocate Rep. Marsha Fudge (D-Ohio) on the committee. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any farm bill that includes GOP-level food stamp cuts.

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GOP Picks Anti-Food Stamp Crusader to Determine Future of Food Stamps

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Blizzard Catastrophe Kills Tens of Thousands of Cows; Shutdown Leaves Ranchers on Ice

by DeenaBumg Posted on October 10, 2013

Mother Jones

Last Wednesday, the weather was sunny and warm at Bob Fortune’s cattle ranch in Belvidere, S.D. On Thursday, it started raining. By Friday night, the rain had turned to snow. By the weekend, the snow turned to a blizzard with 60 mile an hour winds. By the weekend, Fortune says, “the cattle just couldn’t stand the cold anymore, and they just started dying.”

Only a year after sweeping drought left ranchers across South Dakota desperate for feed, this week they’re just beginning to reckon with a freak early snowstorm, dubbed Winter Storm Atlas, that wiped out an estimated 10 percent of the cattle in the state’s western region, up to 100,000 animals. In the coming weeks they will dig through the mess to try to tally the damage to an industry worth $5.2 billion statewide, that also killed an unknown number of horses, sheep, and wildlife. Fortune, president of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, says losses like this would be enough to cripple many ranchers even in the best of times, especially with the loss of future calves next spring whose would-be mothers were killed. But with the federal Department of Agriculture still shut down, ranchers are cut off from the livestock insurance that would normally keep them afloat following a disaster like this.

“We have no idea if there’ll be federal aid for these ranchers,” Fortune says.

After catastrophes, livestock producers typically turn to the federal Farm Service Agency’s livestock indemnity program, which offers compensation for lost cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and other livestock. As long as the government stays shut, FSA offices nationwide will be shut too, leaving ranchers without support. A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Agriculture said the most their office can do is offer advice on how to document and carry out a cleanup effort. Even before the shutdown, the insurance program was already threatened by delayed passage of a new federal farm bill, which allots money for a range of food and ag-related programs from food stamps to incentives to go organic. While the shutdown debate rages, the Senate and House are still hashing out the farm bill, leaving the livestock indemnity program in midair.

The weekend blizzard, which dumped up to five feet of snow in some places, was “very historic,” according to meteorologist Darren Clabo at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology’s Institute of Atmospheric Sciences. Rapid City, the largest city in the state’s western half, received the most snowfall ever recorded in October, and the third-highest one-day snowfall for any time of year. While South Dakota residents and ranchers are accustomed to brutal winters, Clabo said, “we don’t get these kinds of storms in the first week of October.” That means that cattle were still covered in thin summer coats, and left out in exposed summer pastures.

A snow-covered steer in South Dakota after a blizzard in 1966. Ranchers are still reeling from this weekend’s blizzard. NOAA

The storm, Clabo said, was the result of a strong high-altitude storm that pushed in quickly from the Pacific, gathered energy over the Rockies, and peaked just over Rapid City. While it’s too early to say what role climate change might have played in this particular storm, higher levels of heat trapped in the atmosphere can result in more frequent and severe storms. Last month’s IPCC report found it “very likely” that extreme precipitation events like blizzards will increase over this century.

For now, the South Dakota state Department of Agriculture is picking up the slack as best it can, urging ranchers to fully document their losses so they can get aid if and when it reappears, said spokesperson Jamie Crew. Meanwhile, Fortune and his peers will continue to dispose of dead livestock, which state law requires be cleaned up within 36 hours for public health reasons.

“The more snow melts,” he says, “the more dead cattle they’re finding.”

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Blizzard Catastrophe Kills Tens of Thousands of Cows; Shutdown Leaves Ranchers on Ice

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