Yikes! Where do we start?

Maybe it was daylight savings time that threw the world off-kilter since the weekend.  Maybe yesterday's revelation that the crusader for all things worthy has fallen from his pedestal.  Perhaps last week's rare snowfall punctuated our otherwise myopic expectations and revealed everything to be a hoax.  Regardless of the cause, now we've got some 'splaining to do.

That tap water's gonna make you sick.  Or cure you.  As has now been abundantly covered on the blogs, the Associated Press reported yesterday that a comprehensive study of tap water in cities nationwide has resulted in the discovery of an uncomfortably high (that's my interpretation) level of pharmaceutical drugs in our water supply.  This on the heels of thousands of eco-warriors proclaiming bottled water to be a plague on society and defending the quality of our drinking water.  According to the AP article,

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies -- which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public -- have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

Which leaves us with the conclusion that the despoliation of our planet is mostly complete, that we can't look back any longer to a halcyon age of pre-industrial simplicity -- the only way is the way forward, and moving forward means moving through what we've already done to our natural resources.  Whatever portion of them is left that is.  For more insight visit Colin at No Impact Man who reinforces why it is NOT time to convert to bottled water as well as Kat at Eating Liberally who notes "the beverage industry is ramping up production of “enhanced” bottled waters fortified with all kinds of supposedly nifty nutrients. Save your money, folks! Take it from the tap—apparently, it’s got traces of every prescription drug you could possibly need, and then some."  'Nuff said.

Luckily, our food supply is safe and secure.  Right?  Also to be found in yesterday's New York Times was an article by David Streitfeld which looks at the global demand on grain and the implications of shifts in economic power to the U.S.'s economy as well as food prices domestically.  Now, I'd rather be writing here about the ingenious recipe I put together on Sunday for herb-ed quinoa and black beans with sauteed spinach, but it appears that what is more critical to this brief post is an overview of the bird's-eye view of the future of food in America, right from the mouth of a producer:

Read Smith, a farmer in St. John, Wash., thinks a new era is at hand for all sorts of crops. “Price spikes have usually been short-lived,” he said. “I think this one is different.”

His example is plain old mustard. Two years ago, Mr. Smith would have been paid less than 15 cents a pound for mustard seeds. As more lucrative crops began supplanting mustard, dealers raised their offering price to 20 cents, then 30 cents, then 48 cents early this year. Mr. Smith gave in, agreeing to convert up to 100 acres of wheat fields to mustard.

Mr. Smith said it was inevitable that supermarket mustard, just like flour, bread and pasta, would become more expensive.

“We’ve lulled the public with cheap food,” he said. “It’s not going to be a steal anymore.”

If the era of cheap food is coming to a climactic end, let us now usher in the era of good, sustainable, fair food!  Better know your farmer. . .

Jeez.  At least I can count on milk.  Can I?  Sure, prices on milk are rising at pace with everything else in the supermarket, which puts even a greater squeeze on mass producers to find new ways to increase production and maximize efficiencies.  If only we could get the cows to make more and Can't afford to have any fall down on the job.  You get the idea.  Providing a solution is giant agricultural conglomerate Monsanto and its product Prosilac, promising to increase a cow's milk production by 10-40%.  Arguably, the hormone that forms the basis of this additive is naturally occurring, so why should we care?  Because since 1994 Monsanto has been producing genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, or rBST, and they don't want our milk labels to point out its use in the production of our milk.  From an article in the New York Times by Andrew Martin:

Advocates for Posilac, including Monsanto, have been complaining for years about milk labeled as free of artificial bovine growth hormone. In September 2006, Kevin Holloway, president of the Monsanto dairy unit, gave a speech in which he said the “fundamental issue” was dairy farmers’ ability to choose the best technology. “Dairy farmer choice to use a variety of F.D.A.-approved technologies is at risk,” he said.

First of all, no one in my camp is prohibiting any dairy from using whatever technology it wants to use.  We just don't want to buy your products if you chose to inject them with genetically modified materials.  Second, the economics on this are clear:  If you can use the additive that increases output and your competitors can't label their product as being without the additives, you can charge the same price as your competitor even though their product, because of a lower yield, costs more to produce.  Which means you make more profit and, over time, will put your competitor out of business.  What do you need to do?  Only buy milk that is labeled as rBST-free.  Turn the tables on dairies using the genetically-modified growth hormones and show them how it feels when they have to play by the rules of the consumers, when all the cards are laid upon the table.

Yes, I do read publications other than The New York Times.  This week at Plenty Magazine a couple of great articles highlight the challenges and opportunities impacting local food systems.  Ragan Sutterfield writes about the snow that hit his land up the street from us here in Tennessee, and he points out that the interruption of the snow can be a metaphor for the impacts of more drastic interruptions that may well be in our future.  Nathalie Jordi wonders about the government's point-of-view on local food initiatives in the midst of all the Farm Bill proselytizing in Washington.  From where she stands, "The small-farm-local-foods movement, a little David against a big Goliath, has done admirably well on its own, but it’ll take more than a slingshot to change the titanic momentum the food system has created as it industrialized over the past fifty years."

photo courtesy of thrice 18/3 at flickr and is used under a creative commons license.