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"disqusTitle": "The System Supplying America's Chickens Pits Farmer vs. Farmer",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78429\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1672px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8673_new2_wide-b3f908a99e476f5a6323f8fcf24d2b7b6f505cc7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8673_new2_wide-b3f908a99e476f5a6323f8fcf24d2b7b6f505cc7.jpg\" alt=\"Benny Bunting, a farm advocate for Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, in front of one of his old chicken houses in Oak City, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1672\" height=\"941\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78429\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Benny Bunting, a farm advocate for Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, in front of one of his old chicken houses in Oak City, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/20/279040721/the-system-that-supplies-our-chickens-pits-farmer-against-farmer\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/20/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/20/279040721/the-system-that-supplies-our-chickens-pits-farmer-against-farmer\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/02/20140220_me_the_system_that_supplies_our_chickens_pits_farmer_against_farmer.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After reading Christopher Leonard's \u003cem>The Meat Racket\u003c/em>, a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2014/02/19/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket/\">broadside\u003c/a> against the contract-farming system, I decided to take a closer look at it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I drove to North Carolina and ended up in the kind of place that supplies practically all of our chickens: a metal-sided, 500-foot-long structure near the town of Fairmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the dim light, I see 30,000 little chicks scuttling around on the floor. \"They're 12 days old,\" explains Craig Watts, who's growing these birds for Perdue Farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perdue owns the chickens. It also supplies the feed that they eat. About a month from now, when the birds have grown to about 4.5 pounds, the company will send a truck to carry them away, and Watts will get paid. But he never knows how big his check will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like that test you took in school — you kind of want to know how you did, but you really don't? It's that kind of feeling,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uncertainty is part of a peculiar payment system that the chicken industry uses. It's often called a tournament. Critics say it's more like a lottery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78430\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8648_new-7d5fe3cca2adb6ca16b0615fc77b511fd162bbc6.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8648_new-7d5fe3cca2adb6ca16b0615fc77b511fd162bbc6.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Watts produces chickens for Perdue on his farm in Fairmont, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1448\" height=\"1087\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78430\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Watts produces chickens for Perdue on his farm in Fairmont, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The companies set an average price that they will pay for raising the chickens — in this case, 5 cents per pound. But some farmers will get more than that, and others less, depending on a formula that measures their performance. It's mainly based on feed efficiency: how much weight the chickens gained, compared to how much feed the company supplied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The farmers are ranked, like teams competing in a sports league. The top-ranked farmer can get paid up to 50 percent more, per pound of chicken delivered, than the one at the bottom. \"The pie doesn't change,\" Watts says. It's just divided into bigger and smaller slices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The entire chicken industry uses this system, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/profile/tom-vukina/\">Tom Vukina\u003c/a>, an economist at North Carolina State University who's studied it, says that from an economic point of view, it's beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is really brilliant,\" says Vukina. It solves problems that academic economists have examined with high-powered theory. Problems such as how companies can make sure workers do a good job when they can't be monitored, or how to convince independent contractors to invest in new equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This thing has phenomenal, theoretically correct design features that [the industry] came up with knowing absolutely nothing about contract theory,\" Vukina says, chuckling. \"It's actually remarkable! Totally mind-boggling!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the result is efficient production, and society as a whole is better off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some people involved in contract farming say it doesn't benefit everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's at the expense of the farmer, because the farmer's not the one making money. The company is making money,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/benny-bunting/\">Benny Bunting\u003c/a>, a former chicken farmer who now works for \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/\">Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA\u003c/a>, an organization devoted to farmers' rights. His job is to provide advice to farmers who find themselves in financial trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We're sitting in Bunting's home in the small town of Oak City, N.C. Across from us is a wall of shelves filled with thick binders. Each binder bears the name of a farm family that ended up deeply in debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Every one of them is a person's life,\" says Bunting. \"The thing about my job is, most times, I meet people at the lowest time in their life, when they're in financial problems. That's what this represents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of those farmers raised chickens. Bunting says they discovered, too late, that raising chickens is a raw deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain, he pulls out a brochure that \u003ca href=\"http://www.sandersonfarms.com/\">Sanderson Farms\u003c/a>, another poultry company, passed out while recruiting new farmers a few years ago. The cover shows brand-new chicken houses, gleaming and clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turn the page, and the document shows how much a farmer can earn, in one year, from four big chicken houses: $222,856.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine you're a farmer, Bunting says. Here's what you're thinking: \"I'm going to make that, but I'm going to get a bonus on top of that. Because I'm going to be the \u003cem>top\u003c/em> grower.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's the perception,\" Bunting continues. \"Everyone thinks that they're going to be in the top percentile.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The brochure does lay out costs. There's one huge one: Building the chicken houses will cost a million dollars, which means taking on a mountain of debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after making payments on that loan, the brochure estimates a farmer can clear $60,000 in profits. \"That looks really good,\" Bunting says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then you get into the business, he says, and you discover that there are expenses the brochure didn't really mention, such as repairs, a tractor and additional labor. That can eat up your profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of that, there's the uncertainty created by the tournament. This is not Lake Wobegon. No matter how hard the farmers work, half of them will be below average and make less money than the numbers in the brochure. According to Bunting, it means they won't be making enough to service that debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really unfair thing, according to Craig Watts, is that whether he ends up at the top or the bottom of the rankings is out of his control. It seems to depend mainly on which birds the company sent him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've been a good grower, I've been a bad grower, and I've been an every-point-in-between grower, and I'm the same guy doing the same thing,\" he says. \"I'm the only thing that's constant on that farm.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once you owe all that money, he says, you're stuck, because those loans are secured by the land on your farm, or by your home. \"We've got ties to the land, and they exploit that, because we're going to do whatever it takes not to lose our farm,\" Watts says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's one more aspect of contract farming, beyond the simple arithmetic of income and expenses, that makes some farmers angry. It's the feeling that this is not a deal between equals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We've got to bite our tongue and do what they say, or face the consequences of being bankrupt,\" says Benny Bunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chicken companies, for their part, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Meat-Racket-Myths-and-Facts.pdf\">say\u003c/a> the contracts they offer farmers are, in fact, fair. William Roenigk, a senior vice president at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/\">Chicken Council\u003c/a>, which represents the poultry industry, points out that contract farming has been around for 50 years. Farmers know exactly how it works, he says. And new farmers still want to sign up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If this was not a good contractual relationship, overall, why would farmers who are not in the chicken business want to get into the chicken business?\" he asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Postles has raised chickens for 30 years in Milford, Del. He says it has been a good choice, and he has no problem with the tournament payment system. \"It encourages producers to be efficient and to be vigilant in their management,\" he says. \"I think that's a fair system.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's hard to know how many contract farmers agree with Postles. In one survey of poultry farmers in Delaware, three-quarters of those who responded were satisfied with their arrangement. But more than half of them also said that, in their opinion, the companies will retaliate if a farmer raises concerns. Many farmers didn't respond to the \u003ca href=\"http://udel.edu/~ilvento/SUMMARY.PDF\">survey\u003c/a>, which was commissioned by the chicken industry and conducted by the University of Delaware.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Complaints have been common enough that several years ago, the Obama administration proposed new rules to address them. The rules were supposed to give contract farmers more predictable minimum pay, and a better chance of getting compensation if a company treated them unfairly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chicken industry lobbied hard against those rules, and blocked many of them from going into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, contract farming is still expanding. It's now the way that most pork is produced, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Most of the nation's chicken meat is grown by contract farmers who get ranked against each other when it's time to get paid. Critics say someone always ends up losing — and, too often, deep in debt.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78429\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1672px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8673_new2_wide-b3f908a99e476f5a6323f8fcf24d2b7b6f505cc7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8673_new2_wide-b3f908a99e476f5a6323f8fcf24d2b7b6f505cc7.jpg\" alt=\"Benny Bunting, a farm advocate for Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, in front of one of his old chicken houses in Oak City, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1672\" height=\"941\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78429\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Benny Bunting, a farm advocate for Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, in front of one of his old chicken houses in Oak City, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/20/279040721/the-system-that-supplies-our-chickens-pits-farmer-against-farmer\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/20/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/20/279040721/the-system-that-supplies-our-chickens-pits-farmer-against-farmer\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After reading Christopher Leonard's \u003cem>The Meat Racket\u003c/em>, a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2014/02/19/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket/\">broadside\u003c/a> against the contract-farming system, I decided to take a closer look at it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I drove to North Carolina and ended up in the kind of place that supplies practically all of our chickens: a metal-sided, 500-foot-long structure near the town of Fairmont.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the dim light, I see 30,000 little chicks scuttling around on the floor. \"They're 12 days old,\" explains Craig Watts, who's growing these birds for Perdue Farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perdue owns the chickens. It also supplies the feed that they eat. About a month from now, when the birds have grown to about 4.5 pounds, the company will send a truck to carry them away, and Watts will get paid. But he never knows how big his check will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like that test you took in school — you kind of want to know how you did, but you really don't? It's that kind of feeling,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The uncertainty is part of a peculiar payment system that the chicken industry uses. It's often called a tournament. Critics say it's more like a lottery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78430\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8648_new-7d5fe3cca2adb6ca16b0615fc77b511fd162bbc6.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8648_new-7d5fe3cca2adb6ca16b0615fc77b511fd162bbc6.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Watts produces chickens for Perdue on his farm in Fairmont, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1448\" height=\"1087\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78430\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Watts produces chickens for Perdue on his farm in Fairmont, N.C. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The companies set an average price that they will pay for raising the chickens — in this case, 5 cents per pound. But some farmers will get more than that, and others less, depending on a formula that measures their performance. It's mainly based on feed efficiency: how much weight the chickens gained, compared to how much feed the company supplied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The farmers are ranked, like teams competing in a sports league. The top-ranked farmer can get paid up to 50 percent more, per pound of chicken delivered, than the one at the bottom. \"The pie doesn't change,\" Watts says. It's just divided into bigger and smaller slices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The entire chicken industry uses this system, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/profile/tom-vukina/\">Tom Vukina\u003c/a>, an economist at North Carolina State University who's studied it, says that from an economic point of view, it's beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is really brilliant,\" says Vukina. It solves problems that academic economists have examined with high-powered theory. Problems such as how companies can make sure workers do a good job when they can't be monitored, or how to convince independent contractors to invest in new equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This thing has phenomenal, theoretically correct design features that [the industry] came up with knowing absolutely nothing about contract theory,\" Vukina says, chuckling. \"It's actually remarkable! Totally mind-boggling!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the result is efficient production, and society as a whole is better off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some people involved in contract farming say it doesn't benefit everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's at the expense of the farmer, because the farmer's not the one making money. The company is making money,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/benny-bunting/\">Benny Bunting\u003c/a>, a former chicken farmer who now works for \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/\">Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA\u003c/a>, an organization devoted to farmers' rights. His job is to provide advice to farmers who find themselves in financial trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We're sitting in Bunting's home in the small town of Oak City, N.C. Across from us is a wall of shelves filled with thick binders. Each binder bears the name of a farm family that ended up deeply in debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Every one of them is a person's life,\" says Bunting. \"The thing about my job is, most times, I meet people at the lowest time in their life, when they're in financial problems. That's what this represents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of those farmers raised chickens. Bunting says they discovered, too late, that raising chickens is a raw deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain, he pulls out a brochure that \u003ca href=\"http://www.sandersonfarms.com/\">Sanderson Farms\u003c/a>, another poultry company, passed out while recruiting new farmers a few years ago. The cover shows brand-new chicken houses, gleaming and clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turn the page, and the document shows how much a farmer can earn, in one year, from four big chicken houses: $222,856.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine you're a farmer, Bunting says. Here's what you're thinking: \"I'm going to make that, but I'm going to get a bonus on top of that. Because I'm going to be the \u003cem>top\u003c/em> grower.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"That's the perception,\" Bunting continues. \"Everyone thinks that they're going to be in the top percentile.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The brochure does lay out costs. There's one huge one: Building the chicken houses will cost a million dollars, which means taking on a mountain of debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after making payments on that loan, the brochure estimates a farmer can clear $60,000 in profits. \"That looks really good,\" Bunting says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then you get into the business, he says, and you discover that there are expenses the brochure didn't really mention, such as repairs, a tractor and additional labor. That can eat up your profit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On top of that, there's the uncertainty created by the tournament. This is not Lake Wobegon. No matter how hard the farmers work, half of them will be below average and make less money than the numbers in the brochure. According to Bunting, it means they won't be making enough to service that debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really unfair thing, according to Craig Watts, is that whether he ends up at the top or the bottom of the rankings is out of his control. It seems to depend mainly on which birds the company sent him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've been a good grower, I've been a bad grower, and I've been an every-point-in-between grower, and I'm the same guy doing the same thing,\" he says. \"I'm the only thing that's constant on that farm.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once you owe all that money, he says, you're stuck, because those loans are secured by the land on your farm, or by your home. \"We've got ties to the land, and they exploit that, because we're going to do whatever it takes not to lose our farm,\" Watts says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's one more aspect of contract farming, beyond the simple arithmetic of income and expenses, that makes some farmers angry. It's the feeling that this is not a deal between equals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We've got to bite our tongue and do what they say, or face the consequences of being bankrupt,\" says Benny Bunting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chicken companies, for their part, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Meat-Racket-Myths-and-Facts.pdf\">say\u003c/a> the contracts they offer farmers are, in fact, fair. William Roenigk, a senior vice president at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/\">Chicken Council\u003c/a>, which represents the poultry industry, points out that contract farming has been around for 50 years. Farmers know exactly how it works, he says. And new farmers still want to sign up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If this was not a good contractual relationship, overall, why would farmers who are not in the chicken business want to get into the chicken business?\" he asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charles Postles has raised chickens for 30 years in Milford, Del. He says it has been a good choice, and he has no problem with the tournament payment system. \"It encourages producers to be efficient and to be vigilant in their management,\" he says. \"I think that's a fair system.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's hard to know how many contract farmers agree with Postles. In one survey of poultry farmers in Delaware, three-quarters of those who responded were satisfied with their arrangement. But more than half of them also said that, in their opinion, the companies will retaliate if a farmer raises concerns. Many farmers didn't respond to the \u003ca href=\"http://udel.edu/~ilvento/SUMMARY.PDF\">survey\u003c/a>, which was commissioned by the chicken industry and conducted by the University of Delaware.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Complaints have been common enough that several years ago, the Obama administration proposed new rules to address them. The rules were supposed to give contract farmers more predictable minimum pay, and a better chance of getting compensation if a company treated them unfairly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chicken industry lobbied hard against those rules, and blocked many of them from going into effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, contract farming is still expanding. It's now the way that most pork is produced, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv>\u003ciframe src=\"http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365168370\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"560\" height=\"403\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., nearly 40% of the food we grow, distribute, put on store shelves then ultimately buy as consumers \u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/fighting-food-waste/\" target=\"_blank\">never gets eaten\u003c/a>. But cooperative associations of organic food producers like \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinorganic.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Marin Organic\u003c/a> based in Point Reyes Station are striving to cut down on food waste. They organize \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinorganic.org/food-justice/\" target=\"_blank\">volunteer-driven events\u003c/a> for individuals to glean, or gather up leftover crops from local farms, that can be donated to food banks, school lunch programs and other non-profits. Learn more about gleaning and other efforts to combat food waste in this new video from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.lexiconofsustainability.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Lexicon of Sustainability\u003c/a> project and filmmaker \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2012/05/15/the-lexicon-of-sustainability-q-a-with-filmmaker-douglas-gayeton/\" target=\"_blank\">Douglas Gayeton\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/LEXISHORT13-FoodWaste_roughcut_09-4.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-77111\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/LEXISHORT13-FoodWaste_roughcut_09-4.jpg\" alt=\"Organic Gleaning Team\" width=\"1673\" height=\"941\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>All images, artwork and video by Douglas Gayeton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"disqusTitle": "Americans Want Antibiotic-Free Chicken, and the Industry is Listening",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1674px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/istock_000023604746medium_wide-72382fd547b55268f978f384fb48625a75d97885.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/istock_000023604746medium_wide-72382fd547b55268f978f384fb48625a75d97885.jpg\" alt=\"Do these chickens look medicated? Photo: iStockphoto\" width=\"1674\" height=\"940\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78401\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Do these chickens look medicated? Photo: iStockphoto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Maria Godoy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/14/276976353/americans-want-antibiotic-free-chicken-and-the-industry-is-listening\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/19/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an age when consumers want transparency in how their food is produced, meat producers are under the microscope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the meat industry is responding: Antibiotic free chicken is showing up everywhere you look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry leviathans Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods have both come out with their own antibiotic-free brands of chicken – something that might have seemed practically unthinkable several years back. In fact, this week Perdue is launching its first consumer advertising campaign for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.harvestlandbrand.com/\">Harvestland\u003c/a> product line – which the company claims is the nation's leading antibiotic-free brand of chicken. The ads urge shoppers to \"eat like our ancestors.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78402\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 223px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/hl_print_family_custom-5551cfeb2a2018d771ff220cf325279864e71555.jpe\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/hl_print_family_custom-5551cfeb2a2018d771ff220cf325279864e71555-223x290.jpe\" alt=\"Perdue's new ad campaign for its Harvestland brand of antibiotic-free chicken urges consumers to "eat like our ancestors." Photo: Courtesy of Harvestland\" width=\"223\" height=\"290\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78402\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Perdue's new ad campaign for its Harvestland brand of antibiotic-free chicken urges consumers to \"eat like our ancestors.\" Photo: Courtesy of Harvestland\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a recent reporting trip to eastern North Carolina, my colleague Dan Charles found that all of the contract growers for Perdue in the region were already raising chickens without antibiotics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wave of naturalness is also hitting restaurants. Just last week, chicken-and-waffle-fry purveyor \u003ca href=\"http://media.chick-fil-a.com/Media/PDF/Chick-fil-A%20to%20Serve%20ABF%20Chicken.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Chick-fil-A announced\u003c/a> it will completely phase out the use of chickens raised with antibiotics within five years. With some 1,800 retail outlets nationwide, the restaurant bills itself as the country' s largest chicken chain by domestic sales volume, which makes Chick-fil-A's decision big news in the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Chick-fil-A move does signal an important market change in responding to what consumers have been demanding for some time — that we stop feeding healthy animals daily antibiotics,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://consumersunion.org/experts/urvashi-rangan/\">Urvashi Rangan\u003c/a>, director of the food safety and sustainability group at \u003cem>Consumer Reports. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, while antibiotic-free chicken is still a relatively small fraction of the market – accounting for about 9 percent of all fresh chicken sales in 2013 – it's a \"fast-growing sector,\" says Joe Kolano with \u003ca href=\"http://www.freshlookmarketing.com/index.htm\">IRI/FreshLook,\u003c/a> which tracks retail sales of perishable groceries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving that growth is concern about the risks associated with routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/about/staff/Bios/martin.html\">Bob Martin\u003c/a>, director of food systems at the Center for Sustainable Living at Johns Hopkins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we've reported in our series \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/tags/243035549/pharmed-food\">Pharmed Food,\u003c/a> use of antibiotics in livestock – especially in the low doses used for growth promotion – could lead to more antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and, eventually, in people too. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration released long-awaited \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/12/12/drug-companies-accept-fda-plan-to-phase-out-some-animal-antibiotic-uses/\">voluntary guidelines\u003c/a> that are intended to end the use of medically important antibiotics to fuel growth or improve feed efficiency within three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's easier to make the switch\" away from antibiotics with chickens, Martin notes, because the animals have a relatively short life cycle: A broiler can reach market weight in less than two months, while hogs and cattle take a lot longer. \u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think it is good for public health that the industry is switching from antibiotic use,\" Martin says, \"because we consume a lot more chicken than any other meat.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the challenges of raising chickens free of antibiotics comes while the birds are still just eggs at the hatchery. As Tom Philpott \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/organic-chicken-and-egg-antibiotics-edition\">reported recently\u003c/a> for \u003cem>Mother Jones\u003c/em>, eggs that will go on to become broiler birds (the kind raised for their meat) are routinely injected with a small dose of the antibiotic gentamicin before getting vaccinated against a common, deadly herpes virus that attacks chickens. The idea is that the antibiotic sterilizes the vaccination site. And guess what? Under USDA rules, even eggs that will go on to be sold as organic chickens can receive this dose of antibiotics on their first day of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's one reason why \"it takes more effort than people realize\" to raise broiler birds completely free of antibiotics, Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung tells The Salt. Over the last five years, she says, Perdue has converted about 80 percent of its hatcheries to be completely antibiotic free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another year or so, all of Perdue's hatcheries will be antibiotics-free, DeYoung says. While most of those birds will go on to be sold as conventional chicken – they will receive antibiotics if a flock is sick or at risk – they will at least start off antibiotic free, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, raising birds without antibiotics doesn't address all of the issues that critics raise with industrial chicken production. For instance, \u003cem>Consumer Reports'\u003c/em> Rangan notes, it doesn't necessarily mean that chickens will be kept in cleaner or roomier houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Chipotle Mexican Grill \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/31/154084442/antibiotic-free-meat-business-is-booming-thanks-to-chipotle\">went\u003c/a> antibiotic-free more than a decade ago, it also required its suppliers to meet what it calls humane housing standards for chickens. Chick-fil-A isn't planning on doing that with its suppliers. Even so, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold welcomed the competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's great to see other people getting into this game, even if they aren't going as far as we do,\" Arnold tells us. \"The more people are raising the bar, the more the food chain will shift, and the more consumers will become knowledgeable about issues surrounding food production and why these things matter.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1674px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/istock_000023604746medium_wide-72382fd547b55268f978f384fb48625a75d97885.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/istock_000023604746medium_wide-72382fd547b55268f978f384fb48625a75d97885.jpg\" alt=\"Do these chickens look medicated? Photo: iStockphoto\" width=\"1674\" height=\"940\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78401\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Do these chickens look medicated? Photo: iStockphoto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Maria Godoy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/14/276976353/americans-want-antibiotic-free-chicken-and-the-industry-is-listening\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/19/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an age when consumers want transparency in how their food is produced, meat producers are under the microscope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the meat industry is responding: Antibiotic free chicken is showing up everywhere you look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry leviathans Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods have both come out with their own antibiotic-free brands of chicken – something that might have seemed practically unthinkable several years back. In fact, this week Perdue is launching its first consumer advertising campaign for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.harvestlandbrand.com/\">Harvestland\u003c/a> product line – which the company claims is the nation's leading antibiotic-free brand of chicken. The ads urge shoppers to \"eat like our ancestors.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78402\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 223px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/hl_print_family_custom-5551cfeb2a2018d771ff220cf325279864e71555.jpe\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/hl_print_family_custom-5551cfeb2a2018d771ff220cf325279864e71555-223x290.jpe\" alt=\"Perdue's new ad campaign for its Harvestland brand of antibiotic-free chicken urges consumers to "eat like our ancestors." Photo: Courtesy of Harvestland\" width=\"223\" height=\"290\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78402\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Perdue's new ad campaign for its Harvestland brand of antibiotic-free chicken urges consumers to \"eat like our ancestors.\" Photo: Courtesy of Harvestland\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On a recent reporting trip to eastern North Carolina, my colleague Dan Charles found that all of the contract growers for Perdue in the region were already raising chickens without antibiotics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wave of naturalness is also hitting restaurants. Just last week, chicken-and-waffle-fry purveyor \u003ca href=\"http://media.chick-fil-a.com/Media/PDF/Chick-fil-A%20to%20Serve%20ABF%20Chicken.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Chick-fil-A announced\u003c/a> it will completely phase out the use of chickens raised with antibiotics within five years. With some 1,800 retail outlets nationwide, the restaurant bills itself as the country' s largest chicken chain by domestic sales volume, which makes Chick-fil-A's decision big news in the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Chick-fil-A move does signal an important market change in responding to what consumers have been demanding for some time — that we stop feeding healthy animals daily antibiotics,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://consumersunion.org/experts/urvashi-rangan/\">Urvashi Rangan\u003c/a>, director of the food safety and sustainability group at \u003cem>Consumer Reports. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, while antibiotic-free chicken is still a relatively small fraction of the market – accounting for about 9 percent of all fresh chicken sales in 2013 – it's a \"fast-growing sector,\" says Joe Kolano with \u003ca href=\"http://www.freshlookmarketing.com/index.htm\">IRI/FreshLook,\u003c/a> which tracks retail sales of perishable groceries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving that growth is concern about the risks associated with routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-a-livable-future/about/staff/Bios/martin.html\">Bob Martin\u003c/a>, director of food systems at the Center for Sustainable Living at Johns Hopkins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we've reported in our series \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/tags/243035549/pharmed-food\">Pharmed Food,\u003c/a> use of antibiotics in livestock – especially in the low doses used for growth promotion – could lead to more antibiotic-resistant bacteria in animals and, eventually, in people too. Last fall, the Food and Drug Administration released long-awaited \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/12/12/drug-companies-accept-fda-plan-to-phase-out-some-animal-antibiotic-uses/\">voluntary guidelines\u003c/a> that are intended to end the use of medically important antibiotics to fuel growth or improve feed efficiency within three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's easier to make the switch\" away from antibiotics with chickens, Martin notes, because the animals have a relatively short life cycle: A broiler can reach market weight in less than two months, while hogs and cattle take a lot longer. \u003cem>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think it is good for public health that the industry is switching from antibiotic use,\" Martin says, \"because we consume a lot more chicken than any other meat.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the challenges of raising chickens free of antibiotics comes while the birds are still just eggs at the hatchery. As Tom Philpott \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/organic-chicken-and-egg-antibiotics-edition\">reported recently\u003c/a> for \u003cem>Mother Jones\u003c/em>, eggs that will go on to become broiler birds (the kind raised for their meat) are routinely injected with a small dose of the antibiotic gentamicin before getting vaccinated against a common, deadly herpes virus that attacks chickens. The idea is that the antibiotic sterilizes the vaccination site. And guess what? Under USDA rules, even eggs that will go on to be sold as organic chickens can receive this dose of antibiotics on their first day of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's one reason why \"it takes more effort than people realize\" to raise broiler birds completely free of antibiotics, Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung tells The Salt. Over the last five years, she says, Perdue has converted about 80 percent of its hatcheries to be completely antibiotic free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another year or so, all of Perdue's hatcheries will be antibiotics-free, DeYoung says. While most of those birds will go on to be sold as conventional chicken – they will receive antibiotics if a flock is sick or at risk – they will at least start off antibiotic free, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, raising birds without antibiotics doesn't address all of the issues that critics raise with industrial chicken production. For instance, \u003cem>Consumer Reports'\u003c/em> Rangan notes, it doesn't necessarily mean that chickens will be kept in cleaner or roomier houses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Chipotle Mexican Grill \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/31/154084442/antibiotic-free-meat-business-is-booming-thanks-to-chipotle\">went\u003c/a> antibiotic-free more than a decade ago, it also required its suppliers to meet what it calls humane housing standards for chickens. Chick-fil-A isn't planning on doing that with its suppliers. Even so, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold welcomed the competition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's great to see other people getting into this game, even if they aren't going as far as we do,\" Arnold tells us. \"The more people are raising the bar, the more the food chain will shift, and the more consumers will become knowledgeable about issues surrounding food production and why these things matter.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Is Tyson Foods' Chicken Empire a 'Meat Racket'?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78388\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1672px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap03061904596-copy_wide-04e046a71a76521f2db3a98d6057ea0534e9dc32.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap03061904596-copy_wide-04e046a71a76521f2db3a98d6057ea0534e9dc32.jpg\" alt=\"Chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods poultry house in Washington County, Ark. Photo: April L. Brown/AP\" width=\"1672\" height=\"940\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78388\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods poultry house in Washington County, Ark. Photo: April L. Brown/AP\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/19/276981085/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/19/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/19/276981085/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/02/20140219_me_is_tyson_foods_chicken_empire_a_meat_racket.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Leonard's new exposé on the chicken industry, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas/dp/1451645813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392403784&sr=8-1&keywords=meat+racket\">The Meat Racket\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, doesn't devote much ink to the physical object on our plate, the chicken meat itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Leonard focuses on the economic machinery that delivers the meat to us, or, as he puts it, \"the hidden power structure that has quietly reshaped U.S. rural economies while gaining unprecedented control over the nation's meat supply.\" His book aims a spotlight at Tyson Foods, which helped create the modern chicken industry. And it recounts the stories of people, mostly farmers, whom Leonard contends Tyson has chewed up and cast aside since its incorporation in 1947.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard, now a fellow at the \u003ca href=\"http://newamerica.net/\">New America Foundation\u003c/a>, once worked for the \u003cem>Arkansas Democrat-Gazette\u003c/em>, covering business news in Tyson's home territory. And there's a note of admiration in Leonard's description of Don Tyson, the man who drove the company's rise to global superpower of meat after taking over the company when his father, John, died in 1967.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78392\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 252px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/dontyson_custom-e4e436a506d04f6a9af7b42019bbcb4bdef0520a-s3-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/dontyson_custom-e4e436a506d04f6a9af7b42019bbcb4bdef0520a-s3-c85-252x290.jpg\" alt=\"Don Tyson took over as president of Tyson Foods in 1967 and ran the company until his death in 2011. Photo: Hudson Photography Inc./Wikimedia Commons\" width=\"252\" height=\"290\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78392\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don Tyson took over as president of Tyson Foods in 1967 and ran the company until his death in 2011. Photo: Hudson Photography Inc./Wikimedia Commons\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I think he was a genius,\" Leonard tells NPR's Renée Montagne on \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>. \"Don Tyson had the ability to see the world as it did not yet exist. He saw that chicken would soon replace beef or pork as the most popular meat in the United States.\" (For more, listen to the entire interview.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard has no admiration at all, though, for the system of chicken production that Tyson built, which \"keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude, living like modern-day sharecroppers on the ragged edge of bankruptcy.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard's criticisms are not new. Activist groups devoted to farmers' rights, such as \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/\">Rural Advancement Foundation International\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iatp.org/\">Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy\u003c/a>, have been fighting against concentration in the poultry and meat-packing industries for many years. In the early days of the Obama administration, the Department of Agriculture and the Justice Department held public \u003ca href=\"http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/\">hearings\u003c/a> on alleged abuses by companies that dominate the meat business. Just a few weeks ago, the Pew Charitable Trusts released its own \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/reports/the-business-of-broilers-hidden-costs-of-putting-a-chicken-on-every-grill-85899528152\">critique\u003c/a> of the broiler industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard's book, however, is probably the most detailed account of the inner workings of Tyson, as well as the relationship between poultry companies and the not-so-independent farmers who actually raise the birds. That relationship is often called \"contract farming.\" It was invented by the poultry industry, but is now gaining ground in the pork and beef industries, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this system, the farmer owns the chicken houses, but the poultry companies are very much in control. They deliver the chicks on their own schedule — in fact, they aren't required to deliver any flocks at all. They supply the feed, and the feed additives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78393\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-chicken-tons-624.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-chicken-tons-624.png\" alt=\"Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service Credit: NPR\" width=\"624\" height=\"354\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78393\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service\u003cbr>Credit: NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Leonard depicts that relationship as something like a con game run by the companies for their own benefit. \"Almost invariably, from everything I've seen, the farmer loses,\" he told \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>. \"The farmer takes the brunt of the volatility; the farmer swallows the worst of the losses when there is a problem with their chickens.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard tells the stories of farmers who've fallen into bankruptcy, and implies that this outcome is almost inevitable. The National Chicken Council, an industry lobbying group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/new-book-misses-mark-nothing-educate-consumers-realities-modern-poultry-production/\">responded\u003c/a> with two pages of quotes from poultry producers who stoutly defend the contract growing systems. It also pointed out that when grain prices spiked a few years ago, chicken companies ate huge losses, while contract farmers, who didn't have to pay directly for the feed, were protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyson, in a separate statement, said \"we depend on [contract farmers] and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-revenue-624.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-revenue-624.png\" alt=\"Source: SEC filings Credit: NPR\" width=\"624\" height=\"354\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: SEC filings\u003cbr>Credit: NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Meat Racket\u003c/em>'s description of the problems with contract farming is more convincing than its ideas for how to build a better, more equitable alternative. Leonard, for instance, endorses the modest reforms put in place in Iowa, which guarantee farmers certain rights, such as the right to share contract information. But those reforms don't touch the basic shape of the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His more ambitious hope is for a revival of free markets in meat production instead of vertically integrated supply chains run by big companies. Yet it's unclear whether this would really improve things. Competition among farmers is a brutal reality of commodity production; as farmers push to become more efficient, it drives down prices and pushes the weakest out of the business. In poultry, the companies run that competition; in many other commodities, free markets do the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few American consumers seem to care very much about that. After all, if competition keeps prices low, why should they complain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard thinks the situation has changed, and that poultry superpowers now are using their power to raise chicken prices, squeezing consumers as well as farmers. Yet the industry's ability to protect its profits still seems limited. Five years ago, one of the biggest poultry companies in the country, Pilgrim's Pride, actually went bankrupt when feed prices soared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilgrim's Pride was snapped up by JBS, a Brazil-based multinational. It's now the biggest producer of meat in the world, ahead of Tyson. Increasing concentration in the meat industry, once fueled by Don Tyson's ambition, continues even without him.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tyson Responds\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Tyson Foods' emailed statement to NPR responding to Christopher Leonard's observations.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Contrary to critics like Mr. Leonard, we provide opportunities for farmers to prosper and consumers to buy safe, affordable food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Tyson Foods is \u003ca href=\"http://www.tysonfoods.com/Our-Story/Farmers.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">one of the leading supporters of American farmers\u003c/a>, paying more than $15 billion last year alone to the thousands of independent farmers who supply us. We depend on them and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations. They own and operate their own farms and either sell their livestock to us or raise our chickens for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our business is structured to meet the needs of our customers and ultimately consumers. We sell our products to retail and food service companies; however, we don't set consumer prices. What we ask for our products is determined by supply and demand. No one company is big enough to control the market, especially in today's global food environment. U.S. consumers still spend a smaller percentage of their total income on food than consumers in most other countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Meat production is already one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the country with laws covering such important areas as food and worker safety, livestock price reporting and product labeling as well as rules governing our business relationship with the farmers. But for us, it's not just about regulations, it's about people trying to do the right thing in every aspect of what we do, including how we work with farmers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78388\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1672px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap03061904596-copy_wide-04e046a71a76521f2db3a98d6057ea0534e9dc32.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap03061904596-copy_wide-04e046a71a76521f2db3a98d6057ea0534e9dc32.jpg\" alt=\"Chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods poultry house in Washington County, Ark. Photo: April L. Brown/AP\" width=\"1672\" height=\"940\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78388\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods poultry house in Washington County, Ark. Photo: April L. Brown/AP\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/19/276981085/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/19/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/19/276981085/is-tyson-foods-chicken-empire-a-meat-racket\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Leonard's new exposé on the chicken industry, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Meat-Racket-Takeover-Americas/dp/1451645813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392403784&sr=8-1&keywords=meat+racket\">The Meat Racket\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, doesn't devote much ink to the physical object on our plate, the chicken meat itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Leonard focuses on the economic machinery that delivers the meat to us, or, as he puts it, \"the hidden power structure that has quietly reshaped U.S. rural economies while gaining unprecedented control over the nation's meat supply.\" His book aims a spotlight at Tyson Foods, which helped create the modern chicken industry. And it recounts the stories of people, mostly farmers, whom Leonard contends Tyson has chewed up and cast aside since its incorporation in 1947.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard, now a fellow at the \u003ca href=\"http://newamerica.net/\">New America Foundation\u003c/a>, once worked for the \u003cem>Arkansas Democrat-Gazette\u003c/em>, covering business news in Tyson's home territory. And there's a note of admiration in Leonard's description of Don Tyson, the man who drove the company's rise to global superpower of meat after taking over the company when his father, John, died in 1967.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78392\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 252px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/dontyson_custom-e4e436a506d04f6a9af7b42019bbcb4bdef0520a-s3-c85.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/dontyson_custom-e4e436a506d04f6a9af7b42019bbcb4bdef0520a-s3-c85-252x290.jpg\" alt=\"Don Tyson took over as president of Tyson Foods in 1967 and ran the company until his death in 2011. Photo: Hudson Photography Inc./Wikimedia Commons\" width=\"252\" height=\"290\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78392\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don Tyson took over as president of Tyson Foods in 1967 and ran the company until his death in 2011. Photo: Hudson Photography Inc./Wikimedia Commons\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I think he was a genius,\" Leonard tells NPR's Renée Montagne on \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>. \"Don Tyson had the ability to see the world as it did not yet exist. He saw that chicken would soon replace beef or pork as the most popular meat in the United States.\" (For more, listen to the entire interview.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard has no admiration at all, though, for the system of chicken production that Tyson built, which \"keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude, living like modern-day sharecroppers on the ragged edge of bankruptcy.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard's criticisms are not new. Activist groups devoted to farmers' rights, such as \u003ca href=\"http://rafiusa.org/\">Rural Advancement Foundation International\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.iatp.org/\">Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy\u003c/a>, have been fighting against concentration in the poultry and meat-packing industries for many years. In the early days of the Obama administration, the Department of Agriculture and the Justice Department held public \u003ca href=\"http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/\">hearings\u003c/a> on alleged abuses by companies that dominate the meat business. Just a few weeks ago, the Pew Charitable Trusts released its own \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/reports/the-business-of-broilers-hidden-costs-of-putting-a-chicken-on-every-grill-85899528152\">critique\u003c/a> of the broiler industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard's book, however, is probably the most detailed account of the inner workings of Tyson, as well as the relationship between poultry companies and the not-so-independent farmers who actually raise the birds. That relationship is often called \"contract farming.\" It was invented by the poultry industry, but is now gaining ground in the pork and beef industries, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this system, the farmer owns the chicken houses, but the poultry companies are very much in control. They deliver the chicks on their own schedule — in fact, they aren't required to deliver any flocks at all. They supply the feed, and the feed additives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78393\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-chicken-tons-624.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-chicken-tons-624.png\" alt=\"Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service Credit: NPR\" width=\"624\" height=\"354\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78393\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service\u003cbr>Credit: NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Leonard depicts that relationship as something like a con game run by the companies for their own benefit. \"Almost invariably, from everything I've seen, the farmer loses,\" he told \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em>. \"The farmer takes the brunt of the volatility; the farmer swallows the worst of the losses when there is a problem with their chickens.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard tells the stories of farmers who've fallen into bankruptcy, and implies that this outcome is almost inevitable. The National Chicken Council, an industry lobbying group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/new-book-misses-mark-nothing-educate-consumers-realities-modern-poultry-production/\">responded\u003c/a> with two pages of quotes from poultry producers who stoutly defend the contract growing systems. It also pointed out that when grain prices spiked a few years ago, chicken companies ate huge losses, while contract farmers, who didn't have to pay directly for the feed, were protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tyson, in a separate statement, said \"we depend on [contract farmers] and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-revenue-624.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/gr-tyson-revenue-624.png\" alt=\"Source: SEC filings Credit: NPR\" width=\"624\" height=\"354\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: SEC filings\u003cbr>Credit: NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Meat Racket\u003c/em>'s description of the problems with contract farming is more convincing than its ideas for how to build a better, more equitable alternative. Leonard, for instance, endorses the modest reforms put in place in Iowa, which guarantee farmers certain rights, such as the right to share contract information. But those reforms don't touch the basic shape of the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His more ambitious hope is for a revival of free markets in meat production instead of vertically integrated supply chains run by big companies. Yet it's unclear whether this would really improve things. Competition among farmers is a brutal reality of commodity production; as farmers push to become more efficient, it drives down prices and pushes the weakest out of the business. In poultry, the companies run that competition; in many other commodities, free markets do the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few American consumers seem to care very much about that. After all, if competition keeps prices low, why should they complain?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leonard thinks the situation has changed, and that poultry superpowers now are using their power to raise chicken prices, squeezing consumers as well as farmers. Yet the industry's ability to protect its profits still seems limited. Five years ago, one of the biggest poultry companies in the country, Pilgrim's Pride, actually went bankrupt when feed prices soared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilgrim's Pride was snapped up by JBS, a Brazil-based multinational. It's now the biggest producer of meat in the world, ahead of Tyson. Increasing concentration in the meat industry, once fueled by Don Tyson's ambition, continues even without him.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tyson Responds\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Tyson Foods' emailed statement to NPR responding to Christopher Leonard's observations.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Contrary to critics like Mr. Leonard, we provide opportunities for farmers to prosper and consumers to buy safe, affordable food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Tyson Foods is \u003ca href=\"http://www.tysonfoods.com/Our-Story/Farmers.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">one of the leading supporters of American farmers\u003c/a>, paying more than $15 billion last year alone to the thousands of independent farmers who supply us. We depend on them and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations. They own and operate their own farms and either sell their livestock to us or raise our chickens for us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our business is structured to meet the needs of our customers and ultimately consumers. We sell our products to retail and food service companies; however, we don't set consumer prices. What we ask for our products is determined by supply and demand. No one company is big enough to control the market, especially in today's global food environment. U.S. consumers still spend a smaller percentage of their total income on food than consumers in most other countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Meat production is already one of the most heavily-regulated industries in the country with laws covering such important areas as food and worker safety, livestock price reporting and product labeling as well as rules governing our business relationship with the farmers. But for us, it's not just about regulations, it's about people trying to do the right thing in every aspect of what we do, including how we work with farmers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "California Toasts 2013's Record Wine Grape Harvest",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_78354\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1672px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap298912867717-copy_wide-b846d5e790cbac3d42e60ca4055045e96e483416.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/ap298912867717-copy_wide-b846d5e790cbac3d42e60ca4055045e96e483416.jpg\" alt=\"Chardonnay grapes are picked in the Stelling Vineyard at Far Niente winery Wednesday morning, Aug. 28, 2013 in Oakville, Calif. Photo: Eric Risberg/AP\" width=\"1672\" height=\"940\" class=\"size-full wp-image-78354\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chardonnay grapes are picked in the Stelling Vineyard at Far Niente winery Wednesday morning, Aug. 28, 2013 in Oakville, Calif. Photo: Eric Risberg/AP\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by NPR Staff, \u003ca href=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/02/20140218_me_california_toasts_2013s_record_wine_grape_harvest.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1053&ft=3&f=278952357\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/18/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/18/278952357/california-toasts-2013s-record-wine-grape-harvest\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/02/20140218_me_long-empty_air_raid_shelter_in_london_becomes_vegetable_farm.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California may be stricken by \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/01/16/california-drought-update-governor-jerry-brown-declaring-drought-emergency\">drought\u003c/a>, but this month it's also celebrating a record wine grape harvest for 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.winebusiness.com/company/management.cfm\">Cyril Penn\u003c/a>, editor of Wine Business Monthly, tells \u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> that the state's \u003ca href=\"http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Grape_Crush/Reports/\">preliminary crush report\u003c/a> says 4.23 million tons of wine grapes were crushed in 2013, an increase of 5 percent over the 4.02 million tons crushed in 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the reasons for California's second bumper crop in a row is that growers have been planting more grapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There was the old adage that the less quantity the greater the quality, but as there's been more demand for grapes, the myth about quality and quantity is not there anymore,\" says Penn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The record harvest also benefited from good weather for grape growing in recent years. In places like Napa Valley, there is still water enough water underground to keep the vineyards thriving despite the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Penn says that luck might not hold much longer. The severe drought is likely to force growers top make some tough choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are some grape growers that are making contingency plans for if they don't have enough water which blocks of grapes will they water and which ones won't they water,\" says Penn. \"Fortunately grapes use relatively little water compared to a lot of other crops.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, wine lovers can raise a glass. The record harvest will produce more wine, likely meaning California wine will cost less. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There was the old adage that the less quantity the greater the quality, but as there's been more demand for grapes, the myth about quality and quantity is not there anymore,\" says Penn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The record harvest also benefited from good weather for grape growing in recent years. In places like Napa Valley, there is still water enough water underground to keep the vineyards thriving despite the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Penn says that luck might not hold much longer. The severe drought is likely to force growers top make some tough choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are some grape growers that are making contingency plans for if they don't have enough water which blocks of grapes will they water and which ones won't they water,\" says Penn. \"Fortunately grapes use relatively little water compared to a lot of other crops.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, wine lovers can raise a glass. The record harvest will produce more wine, likely meaning California wine will cost less. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "How American Food Companies Go GMO-Free In A GMO World",
"title": "How American Food Companies Go GMO-Free In A GMO World",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1449px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8629-468dd35768d45afd8b5fc16a6702714163845b46.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8629-468dd35768d45afd8b5fc16a6702714163845b46.jpg\" alt=\"Allen Williams grows corn and soybeans for Clarkson Grain, which has been selling GMO-free grain to Japan for years. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1449\" height=\"1086\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77623\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Allen Williams grows corn and soybeans for Clarkson Grain, which has been selling GMO-free grain to Japan for years. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/04/269479079/how-american-food-companies-go-gmo-free-in-a-gmo-world\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/4/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/04/269479079/how-american-food-companies-go-gmo-free-in-a-gmo-world\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/02/20140204_me_how_american_food_companies_go_gmo-free_in_a_gmo_world.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite possibly, you've noticed some new food labels out there, like \"Not made with genetically modified ingredients\" or \"GMO-free.\" You might have seen them on boxes of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cheerios.com/en/Articles/cheerios-and-gmos#.UvAOhD1dV8E\">Cheerios\u003c/a>, or on \u003ca href=\"http://murrayschicken.com/images/poop/Non-GMO_Chicken_Card_New.pdf\">chicken meat\u003c/a>. If you've shopped at Whole Foods, that retailer \u003ca href=\"http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/gmo-labeling-coming-whole-foods-market\">says\u003c/a> it now sells more than 3,000 products that have been certified as \"non-GMO.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But where does non-GMO food come from? After all, 90 percent of America's corn and soybeans are genetically modified, and producers of eggs, milk and meat rely on those crops to feed their animals. Soy oil and corn starch are used throughout the industry. Can big food companies really avoid GMOs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking for the answer, I ended up at one of the first links in the non-GMO supply chain: a corn processing facility just north of the small town of Cerro Gordo, in west-central Illinois.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77624\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8582-65425013cf64e8b9d0446e5f0c8cada94772adc9.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8582-65425013cf64e8b9d0446e5f0c8cada94772adc9-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"A robotic arm at Clarkson Grain takes a sample of blue corn to be tested for GMOs. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77624\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A robotic arm at Clarkson Grain takes a sample of blue corn to be tested for GMOs. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Truckloads of corn arrive here and stop at the \"scale house,\" where they're weighed. A remote-controlled steel probe dives into each load and sucks out some grain for testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's all standard at any corn handling facility. But at this processing plant, operated by \u003ca href=\"http://www.clarksongrain.com/\">Clarkson Grain\u003c/a>, there's one more test: a quick, five-minute check to see if this corn contains specific proteins that are the signature of genetic modification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers have embraced these novel proteins; they protect a growing cornstalk from some insects, or weedkillers. So, at almost any corn processing facility in America, this test would come up positive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here, a positive test means rejection; the truck has to turn around and leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson Grain only accepts GMO-free grain because that's what its customers want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We don't tell people what their values should be. We inquire, and then we do our best to support those values,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.clarksongrain.com/about-us.php\">Lynn Clarkson\u003c/a>, the company's founder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson has been in the grain business for 40 years. He doesn't seem terribly excited about prices and profits, but he loves to talk about relationships: about the customers and suppliers who've stayed with him for decades, or the telegram of thanks he got, years ago, after his first foreign deal. \"That was the first compliment I had ever received in the grain business in 20 years,\" he recalls. \"Most of us want to make money, but we also want to do something that somebody appreciates.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77625\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8599-c749a296cc42c882cb30db2fdd4a4ffd5f1e78d7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8599-c749a296cc42c882cb30db2fdd4a4ffd5f1e78d7-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Lynn Clarkson founded Clarkson Grain, which accepts only non-GMO grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77625\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lynn Clarkson founded Clarkson Grain, which accepts only non-GMO grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That story, and the story of Lynn Clarkson's company, helps explain how American food companies can, in fact, go GMO-free in a world filled with GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the story starts years ago, long before any GMOs existed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynn Clarkson was a small-town grain dealer looking for new buyers for his corn. He drove to Chicago to talk to food companies, and he realized that they had a problem. \"If you ask food processors anywhere in the world, 90 percent of them will tell you there's too much variation in incoming raw materials,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The corn that these food processors were buying wasn't consistent. They'd cook it and get widely varying results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson told them that this problem had a simple cause. They were getting perhaps 30 different genetic types of corn in each shipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson also proposed a solution: \"buying a single variety, a single hybrid, delivered at any one time, so you're not mixing different cooking characteristics.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson set up a system that allowed him to deliver exactly that. He signed contracts with farmers near his hometown of Cerro Gordo, agreeing to pay them a little extra to supply specific corn hybrids, or particular varieties of soybeans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He delivered this uniform, predictable grain to food companies, first in Chicago and then to those appreciative foreign buyers — in particular, in Japan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When GMOs came on the scene about 20 years ago, it turned out that his Japanese customers didn't want them. Japanese food companies were suspicious of the new technology and didn't want to risk a hostile consumer reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Clarkson tweaked his supply chain to deliver what the Japanese wanted. He made sure his farmers grew varieties that weren't genetically engineered. The non-GMO niche was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn't the only one doing this. Clarkson shows me, on a wall map, the concentration of farmers who supply the Japanese market. Many are along the Illinois and Ohio rivers, with easy access to ships heading toward Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are thousands of them, and they're now happy to supply customers in the U.S., too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"U.S. buyers often think that we're starting from scratch\" with non-GMO grain, Clarkson says. \"Well, we're not. We're starting from millions of bushels of demand that are in place and being satisfied on a regular basis for Asian clients.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these farmers don't have any philosophical objection to genetic engineering. In fact, most of them grow both GMO and non-GMO crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen Williams, who grows grain for Lynn Clarkson, says the choice to grow non-GMO grain simply comes down to money. \"You're just trying to improve your profit,\" he says. \"There's not a lot of ways to do that, if you're growing commodities. This is one way to do that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He'll sell his non-GMO grain for 10 percent or 15 percent more than the standard market price. But there are complications. Some of the extra income gets eaten up by extra costs. He'll spend more money on pesticides, for instance, for his non-GMO soybean fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also has to make sure the grain he sends to Clarkson Grain doesn't contain any traces of his GMO crops. So when he finishes harvesting one of his GMO fields, he has to spend hours cleaning out his combine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, time is of the essence during harvest,\" he says. \"So to take time during harvest to clean out equipment and storage locations and transportation equipment is very expensive for a farmer.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77626\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_85631-48099a9eb9629c29fd26c12e603c62305bf7f6b7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_85631-48099a9eb9629c29fd26c12e603c62305bf7f6b7-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"A GMO test kit in use at Clarkson Grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77626\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A GMO test kit in use at Clarkson Grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Also, because corn pollen blows in the wind, he has to make sure his non-GMO fields of corn are a hundred feet from any GMO corn fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The separation doesn't always work perfectly. But Lynn Clarkson says the food industry is pragmatic; companies know that they have to tolerate small traces of GMOs. \"It always comes down to: How do you define GMO-free?\" he says. \"What's the tolerance level? If it's zero, we might as well have a drink and part friendly, because we can't do business. We cannot hit a zero standard.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People just need to know, he says, that in the U.S., \"GMO-free\" means that something contains no more than 0.9 percent GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demand for non-GMO grain is growing. Lynn Clarkson has told farmers that he'll buy about 25 percent more non-GMO grain next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the company's modest offices beside the railroad tracks in the small town of Cerro Gordo, Wyatt Muse is fielding calls and emails. \"We have everything from the home survivalist wanting a 5-gallon bucket for their basement, up to people wanting a Panamax vessel to ship it into East Asia,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest query, sitting on Muse's desk, is from a snack food company in Europe. It wants non-GMO corn. \"We're going to send one container next week, and assuming they like the quality, we would probably be doing a 100 to 120 containers over the next few months,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the world of international grain trading, that's still pretty small. But there's a potential development that could transform this small niche market, Clarkson says: a surge in orders for animal feed. A few poultry and egg producers already are going GMO-free; if others do the same, the non-GMO wave could turn into a tsunami.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77623\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1449px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8629-468dd35768d45afd8b5fc16a6702714163845b46.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8629-468dd35768d45afd8b5fc16a6702714163845b46.jpg\" alt=\"Allen Williams grows corn and soybeans for Clarkson Grain, which has been selling GMO-free grain to Japan for years. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"1449\" height=\"1086\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77623\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Allen Williams grows corn and soybeans for Clarkson Grain, which has been selling GMO-free grain to Japan for years. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/04/269479079/how-american-food-companies-go-gmo-free-in-a-gmo-world\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (2/4/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/04/269479079/how-american-food-companies-go-gmo-free-in-a-gmo-world\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quite possibly, you've noticed some new food labels out there, like \"Not made with genetically modified ingredients\" or \"GMO-free.\" You might have seen them on boxes of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cheerios.com/en/Articles/cheerios-and-gmos#.UvAOhD1dV8E\">Cheerios\u003c/a>, or on \u003ca href=\"http://murrayschicken.com/images/poop/Non-GMO_Chicken_Card_New.pdf\">chicken meat\u003c/a>. If you've shopped at Whole Foods, that retailer \u003ca href=\"http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/gmo-labeling-coming-whole-foods-market\">says\u003c/a> it now sells more than 3,000 products that have been certified as \"non-GMO.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But where does non-GMO food come from? After all, 90 percent of America's corn and soybeans are genetically modified, and producers of eggs, milk and meat rely on those crops to feed their animals. Soy oil and corn starch are used throughout the industry. Can big food companies really avoid GMOs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking for the answer, I ended up at one of the first links in the non-GMO supply chain: a corn processing facility just north of the small town of Cerro Gordo, in west-central Illinois.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77624\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8582-65425013cf64e8b9d0446e5f0c8cada94772adc9.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8582-65425013cf64e8b9d0446e5f0c8cada94772adc9-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"A robotic arm at Clarkson Grain takes a sample of blue corn to be tested for GMOs. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77624\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A robotic arm at Clarkson Grain takes a sample of blue corn to be tested for GMOs. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Truckloads of corn arrive here and stop at the \"scale house,\" where they're weighed. A remote-controlled steel probe dives into each load and sucks out some grain for testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's all standard at any corn handling facility. But at this processing plant, operated by \u003ca href=\"http://www.clarksongrain.com/\">Clarkson Grain\u003c/a>, there's one more test: a quick, five-minute check to see if this corn contains specific proteins that are the signature of genetic modification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers have embraced these novel proteins; they protect a growing cornstalk from some insects, or weedkillers. So, at almost any corn processing facility in America, this test would come up positive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But here, a positive test means rejection; the truck has to turn around and leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson Grain only accepts GMO-free grain because that's what its customers want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We don't tell people what their values should be. We inquire, and then we do our best to support those values,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.clarksongrain.com/about-us.php\">Lynn Clarkson\u003c/a>, the company's founder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson has been in the grain business for 40 years. He doesn't seem terribly excited about prices and profits, but he loves to talk about relationships: about the customers and suppliers who've stayed with him for decades, or the telegram of thanks he got, years ago, after his first foreign deal. \"That was the first compliment I had ever received in the grain business in 20 years,\" he recalls. \"Most of us want to make money, but we also want to do something that somebody appreciates.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77625\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8599-c749a296cc42c882cb30db2fdd4a4ffd5f1e78d7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_8599-c749a296cc42c882cb30db2fdd4a4ffd5f1e78d7-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Lynn Clarkson founded Clarkson Grain, which accepts only non-GMO grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77625\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lynn Clarkson founded Clarkson Grain, which accepts only non-GMO grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That story, and the story of Lynn Clarkson's company, helps explain how American food companies can, in fact, go GMO-free in a world filled with GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the story starts years ago, long before any GMOs existed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynn Clarkson was a small-town grain dealer looking for new buyers for his corn. He drove to Chicago to talk to food companies, and he realized that they had a problem. \"If you ask food processors anywhere in the world, 90 percent of them will tell you there's too much variation in incoming raw materials,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The corn that these food processors were buying wasn't consistent. They'd cook it and get widely varying results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson told them that this problem had a simple cause. They were getting perhaps 30 different genetic types of corn in each shipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson also proposed a solution: \"buying a single variety, a single hybrid, delivered at any one time, so you're not mixing different cooking characteristics.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clarkson set up a system that allowed him to deliver exactly that. He signed contracts with farmers near his hometown of Cerro Gordo, agreeing to pay them a little extra to supply specific corn hybrids, or particular varieties of soybeans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He delivered this uniform, predictable grain to food companies, first in Chicago and then to those appreciative foreign buyers — in particular, in Japan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When GMOs came on the scene about 20 years ago, it turned out that his Japanese customers didn't want them. Japanese food companies were suspicious of the new technology and didn't want to risk a hostile consumer reaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Clarkson tweaked his supply chain to deliver what the Japanese wanted. He made sure his farmers grew varieties that weren't genetically engineered. The non-GMO niche was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He wasn't the only one doing this. Clarkson shows me, on a wall map, the concentration of farmers who supply the Japanese market. Many are along the Illinois and Ohio rivers, with easy access to ships heading toward Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are thousands of them, and they're now happy to supply customers in the U.S., too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"U.S. buyers often think that we're starting from scratch\" with non-GMO grain, Clarkson says. \"Well, we're not. We're starting from millions of bushels of demand that are in place and being satisfied on a regular basis for Asian clients.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these farmers don't have any philosophical objection to genetic engineering. In fact, most of them grow both GMO and non-GMO crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Allen Williams, who grows grain for Lynn Clarkson, says the choice to grow non-GMO grain simply comes down to money. \"You're just trying to improve your profit,\" he says. \"There's not a lot of ways to do that, if you're growing commodities. This is one way to do that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He'll sell his non-GMO grain for 10 percent or 15 percent more than the standard market price. But there are complications. Some of the extra income gets eaten up by extra costs. He'll spend more money on pesticides, for instance, for his non-GMO soybean fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also has to make sure the grain he sends to Clarkson Grain doesn't contain any traces of his GMO crops. So when he finishes harvesting one of his GMO fields, he has to spend hours cleaning out his combine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, time is of the essence during harvest,\" he says. \"So to take time during harvest to clean out equipment and storage locations and transportation equipment is very expensive for a farmer.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77626\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_85631-48099a9eb9629c29fd26c12e603c62305bf7f6b7.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/02/img_85631-48099a9eb9629c29fd26c12e603c62305bf7f6b7-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"A GMO test kit in use at Clarkson Grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-77626\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A GMO test kit in use at Clarkson Grain. Photo: Dan Charles/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Also, because corn pollen blows in the wind, he has to make sure his non-GMO fields of corn are a hundred feet from any GMO corn fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The separation doesn't always work perfectly. But Lynn Clarkson says the food industry is pragmatic; companies know that they have to tolerate small traces of GMOs. \"It always comes down to: How do you define GMO-free?\" he says. \"What's the tolerance level? If it's zero, we might as well have a drink and part friendly, because we can't do business. We cannot hit a zero standard.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People just need to know, he says, that in the U.S., \"GMO-free\" means that something contains no more than 0.9 percent GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demand for non-GMO grain is growing. Lynn Clarkson has told farmers that he'll buy about 25 percent more non-GMO grain next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the company's modest offices beside the railroad tracks in the small town of Cerro Gordo, Wyatt Muse is fielding calls and emails. \"We have everything from the home survivalist wanting a 5-gallon bucket for their basement, up to people wanting a Panamax vessel to ship it into East Asia,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest query, sitting on Muse's desk, is from a snack food company in Europe. It wants non-GMO corn. \"We're going to send one container next week, and assuming they like the quality, we would probably be doing a 100 to 120 containers over the next few months,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the world of international grain trading, that's still pretty small. But there's a potential development that could transform this small niche market, Clarkson says: a surge in orders for animal feed. A few poultry and egg producers already are going GMO-free; if others do the same, the non-GMO wave could turn into a tsunami.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "FDA Found Drugs Used In Food Animals To Be 'High Risk'",
"title": "FDA Found Drugs Used In Food Animals To Be 'High Risk'",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 885px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/cattle-feedlot-5c2a010b566f66c5caebb980a3d4231c075996b1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/cattle-feedlot-5c2a010b566f66c5caebb980a3d4231c075996b1.jpg\" alt=\"Beef cattle in a barn on the Larson Farms feedlot in Maple Park, Ill. Photo: Daniel Acker/Landov\" width=\"885\" height=\"664\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77288\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beef cattle in a barn on the Larson Farms feedlot in Maple Park, Ill. Photo: Daniel Acker/Landov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Dan Charles and Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/28/267225093/fda-found-drugs-used-in-food-animals-to-be-high-risk\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/28/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to newly released documents, the Food and Drug Administration concluded years ago that many of the antibiotics farmers use on food animals are risky for human health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, acquired the documents through the Freedom of Information Act and published a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrdc.org/food/saving-antibiotics/files/antibiotic-feed-fda-documents-IB.pdf\">report\u003c/a> with the findings on Monday. The documents show that from 2001 to 2010, FDA scientists studied 30 different antibiotics that were approved decades ago, and called 18 of the drugs \"high risk\" because they could expose humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food supply. The NRDC says that since then, the FDA has ignored these findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"FDA continues to knowingly allow the use of drugs in animal feed that likely pose a 'high risk' to human health,\" Carmen Cordova, NRDC microbiologist and lead author of the report, said in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrdc.org/media/2014/140127a.asp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NRDCPressReleases+%28NRDC+Press+Releases%29\">statement\u003c/a>. \"That's a breach of their responsibility and the public trust.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers sometimes give chickens or pigs low doses of antibiotics to help them grow faster or prevent disease. Public health researchers say such non-therapeutic use \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/08/29/antibiotic-use-on-the-farm-are-we-flying-blind/\">can lead\u003c/a> to drug-resistant bacteria in the animals and those microbes can infect people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 30 drugs reviewed by the FDA would not have been approved for non-therapeutic use under current safety guidelines either because they carried a high risk to human health or because there wasn't enough information to determine the risk, the documents show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA now \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/12/12/drug-companies-accept-fda-plan-to-phase-out-some-animal-antibiotic-uses/\">is moving to phase out\u003c/a> the non-therapeutic use of drugs to make farm animals grow faster or use feed more efficiently. But critics say that's happening too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"NRDC's report reveals that millions of pounds of antibiotics are being fed to livestock without meeting FDA's modern, or even 40-year-old, safety standards,\" \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewhealth.org/experts/gail-hansen-85899367309\">Gail Hansen\u003c/a> with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming tells The Salt in an email. \"That underscores just how important it is that FDA gets its new policy right and holds companies to their commitment to comply with it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, the FDA defended its policy on animal antibiotics. \"The FDA is confident that its current strategy to protect the effectiveness of medically important antimicrobials, including penicillins and tetracyclines, is the most efficient and effective way to change the use of these products in animal agriculture,\" wrote spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Documents show that Food and Drug Administration scientists allowed 18 drugs to be sold to farmers despite a risk to human health. Critics say the agency now needs to get companies to commit to phasing out the drugs given to animals at low doses to make them grow faster.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77288\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 885px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/cattle-feedlot-5c2a010b566f66c5caebb980a3d4231c075996b1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/cattle-feedlot-5c2a010b566f66c5caebb980a3d4231c075996b1.jpg\" alt=\"Beef cattle in a barn on the Larson Farms feedlot in Maple Park, Ill. Photo: Daniel Acker/Landov\" width=\"885\" height=\"664\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77288\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Beef cattle in a barn on the Larson Farms feedlot in Maple Park, Ill. Photo: Daniel Acker/Landov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Dan Charles and Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/28/267225093/fda-found-drugs-used-in-food-animals-to-be-high-risk\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/28/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to newly released documents, the Food and Drug Administration concluded years ago that many of the antibiotics farmers use on food animals are risky for human health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, acquired the documents through the Freedom of Information Act and published a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrdc.org/food/saving-antibiotics/files/antibiotic-feed-fda-documents-IB.pdf\">report\u003c/a> with the findings on Monday. The documents show that from 2001 to 2010, FDA scientists studied 30 different antibiotics that were approved decades ago, and called 18 of the drugs \"high risk\" because they could expose humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food supply. The NRDC says that since then, the FDA has ignored these findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"FDA continues to knowingly allow the use of drugs in animal feed that likely pose a 'high risk' to human health,\" Carmen Cordova, NRDC microbiologist and lead author of the report, said in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrdc.org/media/2014/140127a.asp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NRDCPressReleases+%28NRDC+Press+Releases%29\">statement\u003c/a>. \"That's a breach of their responsibility and the public trust.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers sometimes give chickens or pigs low doses of antibiotics to help them grow faster or prevent disease. Public health researchers say such non-therapeutic use \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/08/29/antibiotic-use-on-the-farm-are-we-flying-blind/\">can lead\u003c/a> to drug-resistant bacteria in the animals and those microbes can infect people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 30 drugs reviewed by the FDA would not have been approved for non-therapeutic use under current safety guidelines either because they carried a high risk to human health or because there wasn't enough information to determine the risk, the documents show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FDA now \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/12/12/drug-companies-accept-fda-plan-to-phase-out-some-animal-antibiotic-uses/\">is moving to phase out\u003c/a> the non-therapeutic use of drugs to make farm animals grow faster or use feed more efficiently. But critics say that's happening too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"NRDC's report reveals that millions of pounds of antibiotics are being fed to livestock without meeting FDA's modern, or even 40-year-old, safety standards,\" \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewhealth.org/experts/gail-hansen-85899367309\">Gail Hansen\u003c/a> with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming tells The Salt in an email. \"That underscores just how important it is that FDA gets its new policy right and holds companies to their commitment to comply with it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, the FDA defended its policy on animal antibiotics. \"The FDA is confident that its current strategy to protect the effectiveness of medically important antimicrobials, including penicillins and tetracyclines, is the most efficient and effective way to change the use of these products in animal agriculture,\" wrote spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Soil, Weedkillers And GMOs: When Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story",
"title": "Soil, Weedkillers And GMOs: When Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77231\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/ap580422036986-14bf0fdec4c03f890d304d3ca71add37d15d8d9a.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/ap580422036986-14bf0fdec4c03f890d304d3ca71add37d15d8d9a-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"Farm statistics: usually illuminating ... occasionally misleading. Photo: Seth Perlman/AP\" width=\"1024\" height=\"767\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77231\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm statistics: usually illuminating ... occasionally misleading. Photo: Seth Perlman/AP\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/27/265687251/soil-weedkillers-and-gmos-when-numbers-don-t-tell-the-whole-story\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/27/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I love numbers. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I think a good bar graph can be worth a thousand pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three times in the past few days, I've come across statistics in reputable-looking publications that made me stop and say, \"Huh?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I did some investigating so you don't have to. And indeed, the numbers don't quite tell the story that they purport to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here goes: My skeptical inquiry into statistics on herbicide use, soil erosion, and the production of fruit and nut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, weedkillers (and GMOs). I was struck by this graph, which appeared in a \u003ca href=\"http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Superweeds.pdf\">report\u003c/a> issued by\u003ca href=\"http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/\"> Food and Water Watch\u003c/a>, an environmentalist group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77246\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph1.jpg\" alt=\"Herbicide use data from Food and Water Watch. Graph: Food and Water Watch\" width=\"624\" height=\"770\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77246\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use data from Food and Water Watch. Graph: Food and Water Watch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their report was published a while ago, but Tom Philpott re-used it recently in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/usda-prepares-greenlight-chemical-war-weeds\">post\u003c/a> for the web site of \u003cem>Mother Jones\u003c/em> magazine. The point of the chart is to show how increases in herbicide use on soybeans, corn, and cotton have gone hand-in-hand with the rise of genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant, versions of those crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That link seems logical, but still, farmers have been planting more corn and soybeans in recent years. How much of this soaring curve is simply because farmers have more acres to cover?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I dove into the USDA numbers, and discovered, first of all, that they're fragmentary. In recent years, the USDA didn't collect such numbers for all three crops in all years. The curve, in this case, is based on just two data points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter. I took the numbers that\u003cem> were\u003c/em> available and divided them by the number of acres planted. (I'm using a column chart to make clear for which years we have data.) Suddenly, the trend doesn't seem quite so dramatic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph2.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph2.png\" alt=\"Herbicide use on corn, soybeans and cotton — break it down per acre and it's not so dramatic. Graph: NPR using USDA data\" width=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77247\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use on corn, soybeans and cotton — break it down per acre and it's not so dramatic. Graph: NPR using USDA data\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And how do we know if herbicide-tolerant GMOs are driving this increase? What if it's something else entirely? For comparison, I decided to look at herbicide use in wheat, since no GMO wheat is being planted. Here's a graph of herbicide use in wheat, per acre, over the same period of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whoa. No GMOs here, and herbicide use went up at a faster rate. (In absolute amounts, farmers still use much less herbicide on wheat than on soybeans or corn.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77245\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph3.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph3.png\" alt=\"Herbicide use per acre on wheat has been going up a lot in recent years. Graph: NPR using USDA data\" width=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77245\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use per acre on wheat has been going up a lot in recent years. Graph: NPR using USDA data\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What could be driving this increase, if not herbicide-tolerant GMOs? I called a few wheat experts in Kansas and Oregon, who mentioned some possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, farmers are reducing their use of tillage to control weeds, in part of conserve their soil. Many are relying more on chemical weedkillers instead. Second, with grain prices high, farmers are more inclined to spend more money on anything that will boost yields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of these factors are probably influencing herbicide use in corn and soybeans, too. They may be more important than the popularity of GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing, though, is perfectly clear. The rise of glyphosate-tolerant GMOs did persuade farmers to use much more of that particular chemical. Some argue that a new generation of GMOs that are tolerant to other weedkillers will drive further increases in herbicide use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe they will. I'll wait for the numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next up, soil erosion. Here's are two maps that caught my attention. They're published in a report called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/technical/nra/nri/\">National Resources Inventory\u003c/a>, released last week by the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. (I should also tell you that the NRCS is one of my very favorite federal agencies; please don't hold this post against it.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map1-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"1982 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\" width=\"1024\" height=\"681\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77249\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1982 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The dramatic shrinkage of those red and orange botches along America's major rivers is terrific news. It shows that less topsoil is washing away today, compared to 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map2.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map2-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"2010 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77248\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2010 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Intrigued by this apparent good-news story, I called \u003ca href=\"http://www.ewg.org/node/280\">Craig Cox\u003c/a>, in the Iowa office of the Environmental Working Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cox already knew about this map. He wasn't happy about it. In his view, it obscures more than it reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Cox, the good news is old news. Practically all of the dramatic progress in fighting soil erosion occurred 15 years ago, between 1982 and 1997. At that time, \"we were on a really solid pathway to finally getting on top of this ancient enemy,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1997, however, progress has stalled, so the map paints an overly cheerful picture. (In fairness to NRCS, there is another, less prominent, graph in the report that does show this stagnation in anti-erosion efforts.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, there's a basic problem with these data, Cox says: \"They only capture one kind of erosion,\" called sheet and rill erosion. This is the erosion that happens evenly across a field, and can be predicted from the amount of rain, the field's slope, its soil type and whether it is bare or covered by grass. The NRCS data is based on such predictions, and the estimated improvements since 1982 happened mainly because farmers are tilling less, and protecting more of their land with vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, no models can predict when something more catastrophic will occur; when small rivulets of water combine into larger, fast-moving streams that cut deep ditches, or gullies, into a field. According to Cox, those gullies actually carry off more soil than the predictable kinds of erosion, and they were especially bad during the storms that hit the Midwest last spring and summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So my straightforward good-news story about soil erosion evaporated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there was a second surprising statistic buried deep inside that NRCS report, and I only noticed it because of a press release that the USDA put out. According to that release, the NRCS's National Resources Inventory detected \"a boom in land dedicated to growing fruits, nuts and flowers, increasing from 124,800 acres in 2007 to 273,800 in 2010.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wow! I looked at the numbers again. In fact, the boom was only in a category of production called \"cultivated\" fruit and nut production. Turns out, that's a tiny category, barely worth counting. It apparently refers to orchards in which there's also some tillage going on in order to grow a second crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Uncultivated\" fruit, nut, and flower production, by contrast, went from 4.7 million acres in 2007 to 4.4 million acres in 2010.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sorry. No boom. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Numbers don't lie, but they can sometimes tell a misleading story. Three times in the last week, we came across farm statistics that painted a picture not quite backed up by facts on the ground.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77231\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/ap580422036986-14bf0fdec4c03f890d304d3ca71add37d15d8d9a.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/ap580422036986-14bf0fdec4c03f890d304d3ca71add37d15d8d9a-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"Farm statistics: usually illuminating ... occasionally misleading. Photo: Seth Perlman/AP\" width=\"1024\" height=\"767\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77231\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farm statistics: usually illuminating ... occasionally misleading. Photo: Seth Perlman/AP\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/27/265687251/soil-weedkillers-and-gmos-when-numbers-don-t-tell-the-whole-story\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/27/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I love numbers. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I think a good bar graph can be worth a thousand pictures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three times in the past few days, I've come across statistics in reputable-looking publications that made me stop and say, \"Huh?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I did some investigating so you don't have to. And indeed, the numbers don't quite tell the story that they purport to tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here goes: My skeptical inquiry into statistics on herbicide use, soil erosion, and the production of fruit and nut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, weedkillers (and GMOs). I was struck by this graph, which appeared in a \u003ca href=\"http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Superweeds.pdf\">report\u003c/a> issued by\u003ca href=\"http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/\"> Food and Water Watch\u003c/a>, an environmentalist group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77246\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 624px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph1.jpg\" alt=\"Herbicide use data from Food and Water Watch. Graph: Food and Water Watch\" width=\"624\" height=\"770\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77246\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use data from Food and Water Watch. Graph: Food and Water Watch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their report was published a while ago, but Tom Philpott re-used it recently in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/usda-prepares-greenlight-chemical-war-weeds\">post\u003c/a> for the web site of \u003cem>Mother Jones\u003c/em> magazine. The point of the chart is to show how increases in herbicide use on soybeans, corn, and cotton have gone hand-in-hand with the rise of genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant, versions of those crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That link seems logical, but still, farmers have been planting more corn and soybeans in recent years. How much of this soaring curve is simply because farmers have more acres to cover?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I dove into the USDA numbers, and discovered, first of all, that they're fragmentary. In recent years, the USDA didn't collect such numbers for all three crops in all years. The curve, in this case, is based on just two data points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No matter. I took the numbers that\u003cem> were\u003c/em> available and divided them by the number of acres planted. (I'm using a column chart to make clear for which years we have data.) Suddenly, the trend doesn't seem quite so dramatic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph2.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph2.png\" alt=\"Herbicide use on corn, soybeans and cotton — break it down per acre and it's not so dramatic. Graph: NPR using USDA data\" width=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77247\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use on corn, soybeans and cotton — break it down per acre and it's not so dramatic. Graph: NPR using USDA data\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And how do we know if herbicide-tolerant GMOs are driving this increase? What if it's something else entirely? For comparison, I decided to look at herbicide use in wheat, since no GMO wheat is being planted. Here's a graph of herbicide use in wheat, per acre, over the same period of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whoa. No GMOs here, and herbicide use went up at a faster rate. (In absolute amounts, farmers still use much less herbicide on wheat than on soybeans or corn.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77245\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph3.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/graph3.png\" alt=\"Herbicide use per acre on wheat has been going up a lot in recent years. Graph: NPR using USDA data\" width=\"500\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77245\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herbicide use per acre on wheat has been going up a lot in recent years. Graph: NPR using USDA data\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What could be driving this increase, if not herbicide-tolerant GMOs? I called a few wheat experts in Kansas and Oregon, who mentioned some possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, farmers are reducing their use of tillage to control weeds, in part of conserve their soil. Many are relying more on chemical weedkillers instead. Second, with grain prices high, farmers are more inclined to spend more money on anything that will boost yields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of these factors are probably influencing herbicide use in corn and soybeans, too. They may be more important than the popularity of GMOs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing, though, is perfectly clear. The rise of glyphosate-tolerant GMOs did persuade farmers to use much more of that particular chemical. Some argue that a new generation of GMOs that are tolerant to other weedkillers will drive further increases in herbicide use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe they will. I'll wait for the numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next up, soil erosion. Here's are two maps that caught my attention. They're published in a report called the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/technical/nra/nri/\">National Resources Inventory\u003c/a>, released last week by the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. (I should also tell you that the NRCS is one of my very favorite federal agencies; please don't hold this post against it.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map1.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map1-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"1982 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\" width=\"1024\" height=\"681\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77249\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1982 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The dramatic shrinkage of those red and orange botches along America's major rivers is terrific news. It shows that less topsoil is washing away today, compared to 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_77248\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map2.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/map2-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"2010 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" class=\"size-large wp-image-77248\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2010 Estimated Sheet and Rill Erosion on Cropland Map: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture/NRCS\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Intrigued by this apparent good-news story, I called \u003ca href=\"http://www.ewg.org/node/280\">Craig Cox\u003c/a>, in the Iowa office of the Environmental Working Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cox already knew about this map. He wasn't happy about it. In his view, it obscures more than it reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Cox, the good news is old news. Practically all of the dramatic progress in fighting soil erosion occurred 15 years ago, between 1982 and 1997. At that time, \"we were on a really solid pathway to finally getting on top of this ancient enemy,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 1997, however, progress has stalled, so the map paints an overly cheerful picture. (In fairness to NRCS, there is another, less prominent, graph in the report that does show this stagnation in anti-erosion efforts.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, there's a basic problem with these data, Cox says: \"They only capture one kind of erosion,\" called sheet and rill erosion. This is the erosion that happens evenly across a field, and can be predicted from the amount of rain, the field's slope, its soil type and whether it is bare or covered by grass. The NRCS data is based on such predictions, and the estimated improvements since 1982 happened mainly because farmers are tilling less, and protecting more of their land with vegetation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, no models can predict when something more catastrophic will occur; when small rivulets of water combine into larger, fast-moving streams that cut deep ditches, or gullies, into a field. According to Cox, those gullies actually carry off more soil than the predictable kinds of erosion, and they were especially bad during the storms that hit the Midwest last spring and summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So my straightforward good-news story about soil erosion evaporated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there was a second surprising statistic buried deep inside that NRCS report, and I only noticed it because of a press release that the USDA put out. According to that release, the NRCS's National Resources Inventory detected \"a boom in land dedicated to growing fruits, nuts and flowers, increasing from 124,800 acres in 2007 to 273,800 in 2010.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wow! I looked at the numbers again. In fact, the boom was only in a category of production called \"cultivated\" fruit and nut production. Turns out, that's a tiny category, barely worth counting. It apparently refers to orchards in which there's also some tillage going on in order to grow a second crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Uncultivated\" fruit, nut, and flower production, by contrast, went from 4.7 million acres in 2007 to 4.4 million acres in 2010.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sorry. No boom. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Should Farmers Give John Deere And Monsanto Their Data?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/farmdata_wide-201becbe7dd71310bd6176b680c9f89e139222ac.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/farmdata_wide-201becbe7dd71310bd6176b680c9f89e139222ac-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Collecting farm data. Image: Adam Cole/NPR\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76948\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: Adam Cole/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/264577744/should-farmers-give-john-deere-and-monsanto-their-data\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/01/20140122_atc_should_farmers_give_john_deere_and_monsanto_their_data.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/264577744/should-farmers-give-john-deere-and-monsanto-their-data\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/22/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting this year, farmers across the Midwest can sign up for a service that lets big agribusiness collect data from their farms, minute by minute, as they plant and harvest their crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/fieldscripts.aspx\">Monsanto\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_INT/regional_home.page\">John Deere\u003c/a> are offering competing versions of this service. Both are promising to mine that data for tips that will put more money in farmers' pockets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a leading farm organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, is telling farmers to be cautious. These services, it says, could threaten farmers' privacy and give the big companies too much power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data in question come from detailed maps of farmers' fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jonathan Quinn, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a large farm in northeast Maryland, pulls out a thick binder, opens it up on his kitchen table, and shows me an example. The rectangular outline of one field is covered with multicolored curved shapes, like a weather map showing areas of different temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dark green areas, Quinn explains, are areas that produced higher yields. Light green and red areas produced less. \"And this gray area, that's just zero yield,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The amount of variation is astonishing. It happens because soil types vary, even within a single field. So does moisture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76949\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/fieldsripts-perscription_custom-4923e362bc6c61ab6f0f7f6c4fae5370bcd80fb8.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/fieldsripts-perscription_custom-4923e362bc6c61ab6f0f7f6c4fae5370bcd80fb8-290x251.jpg\" alt=\"Each box on this Monsanto FieldScripts map represents an 18-by-18-foot unit of field. The colors represent different planting rates. Image: Courtesy of Monsanto\" width=\"290\" height=\"251\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-76949\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Each box on this Monsanto FieldScripts map represents an 18-by-18-foot unit of field. The colors represent different planting rates. Image: Courtesy of Monsanto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Quinn pulls out the machine that collects the data for this map. It's a superaccurate GPS receiver — an oversize version of the kind you'd have in your car. At harvest time, it goes along in the combine, recording how much grain comes from every spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, at planting time, the receiver controls the planting machinery, placing seeds closer together where the soil is more fertile, or switching seed varieties to match conditions in different parts of the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, the planter is following a pre-programmed \"prescription\" for each part of the field. \"It's all done on software,\" Quinn explains. \"It's loaded onto a thumb drive; you stick the thumb drive into this [GPS display], and when you drive across the field, it automatically knows where it is because of the GPS.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until now, all this information about his planting and harvest stayed in Quinn's hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this year, he's taking the next technological step, participating in an experimental version of the data-sharing system that Monsanto is rolling out commercially in the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data will be transmitted directly from his tractor or combine into what computer people call \"the cloud,\" where it will land on Monsanto's computer servers. \"They're going to be able to see everything this [GPS] monitor does. So they're going to be able to look at my field all the time. They'll be able to look at my information, and they're going to just watch that field,\" Quinn says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monsanto thinks it can help farmers come up with the perfect prescription of seeds for their soil and weather because the company will have more data than any one farmer can collect or analyze. It will have more detailed soil maps and information from many other fields with similar soil conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76950\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/r4a029515_rrd-4-71b9d0f9346078abf1693c2d39440d734c388544.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/r4a029515_rrd-4-71b9d0f9346078abf1693c2d39440d734c388544-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Companies, like John Deere, that are collecting farmers' data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. Photo: Steve Dolan/Visual Services-East Moline\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-76950\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Companies, like John Deere, that are collecting farmers' data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. Photo: Steve Dolan/Visual Services-East Moline\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eventually, it will have field-by-field weather predictions from a high-tech venture called the Climate Corp., which Monsanto bought last year for $1 billion. (\u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/11/131111fa_fact_specter\">published\u003c/a> an interesting profile of the Climate Corp. last November.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've had people ask me, 'Why should Monsanto have all your information?' \" Quinn says. \"My theory is, if they have my information, and they're out there working with me, I'm hoping that they're going to bring me a better product. And them having my information doesn't bother me.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Deere, the big farm machinery company, is offering something similar in collaboration with other \u003ca href=\"http://www.pioneer.com/home/site/about/template.CONTENT/guid.0961DD8E-DA33-39A1-BE0C-5534326D35E2/\">big seed companies\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both companies are promoting this as a better version of what farmers do already. But the American Farm Bureau Federation is \u003ca href=\"http://ofbf.org/uploads/Proprietary_Information.pdf\">telling\u003c/a> its members: Be careful. This is different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Kay Thatcher, the farm bureau's senior director for congressional relations, says farmers should understand that when data move into the cloud, they can go anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance: Your local seed salesman might get the data, and he may also be a farmer — and thus your competitor, bidding against you for land that you both want to rent. \"All of a sudden he's got a whole lot of information about your capabilities,\" Thatcher says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or consider this: Companies that are collecting these data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. That's valuable information, Thatcher says. \"They could actually manipulate the market with it. They only have to know the information about what is actually happening with harvest minutes before somebody else knows it. I'm not saying they will,\" says Thatcher. \"Just a concern.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Monsanto and John Deere say that they'll share an individual farmer's data only with people whom that farmer wants to see the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In our mind, that data is just as important as a person's banking information,\" says Chris Batdorf, a manager with John Deere's Intelligent Solutions Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batdorf also says that his company won't use the overall, aggregated data — for instance, harvest totals from whole groups of farms — to play in commodity markets. \"John Deere will not do that,\" he says. \"We don't want to do anything with markets or forecasting with this data.\" A Monsanto spokesperson said the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many of the rules for how these data will be shared, and how they can be used, haven't been written yet. These data collection programs are just getting off the ground, and they're still evolving. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Farmers can now deliver data from their fields, minute by minute, to big agribusiness companies like Monsanto or John Deere. Those companies promise to use the data to help farmers make money. But some farmers worry that it could threaten their privacy and give the big companies too much power.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76948\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/farmdata_wide-201becbe7dd71310bd6176b680c9f89e139222ac.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/farmdata_wide-201becbe7dd71310bd6176b680c9f89e139222ac-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Collecting farm data. Image: Adam Cole/NPR\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76948\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: Adam Cole/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/264577744/should-farmers-give-john-deere-and-monsanto-their-data\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/264577744/should-farmers-give-john-deere-and-monsanto-their-data\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/22/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting this year, farmers across the Midwest can sign up for a service that lets big agribusiness collect data from their farms, minute by minute, as they plant and harvest their crops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/fieldscripts.aspx\">Monsanto\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/en_INT/regional_home.page\">John Deere\u003c/a> are offering competing versions of this service. Both are promising to mine that data for tips that will put more money in farmers' pockets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a leading farm organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, is telling farmers to be cautious. These services, it says, could threaten farmers' privacy and give the big companies too much power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data in question come from detailed maps of farmers' fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jonathan Quinn, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a large farm in northeast Maryland, pulls out a thick binder, opens it up on his kitchen table, and shows me an example. The rectangular outline of one field is covered with multicolored curved shapes, like a weather map showing areas of different temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dark green areas, Quinn explains, are areas that produced higher yields. Light green and red areas produced less. \"And this gray area, that's just zero yield,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The amount of variation is astonishing. It happens because soil types vary, even within a single field. So does moisture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76949\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/fieldsripts-perscription_custom-4923e362bc6c61ab6f0f7f6c4fae5370bcd80fb8.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/fieldsripts-perscription_custom-4923e362bc6c61ab6f0f7f6c4fae5370bcd80fb8-290x251.jpg\" alt=\"Each box on this Monsanto FieldScripts map represents an 18-by-18-foot unit of field. The colors represent different planting rates. Image: Courtesy of Monsanto\" width=\"290\" height=\"251\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-76949\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Each box on this Monsanto FieldScripts map represents an 18-by-18-foot unit of field. The colors represent different planting rates. Image: Courtesy of Monsanto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Quinn pulls out the machine that collects the data for this map. It's a superaccurate GPS receiver — an oversize version of the kind you'd have in your car. At harvest time, it goes along in the combine, recording how much grain comes from every spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, at planting time, the receiver controls the planting machinery, placing seeds closer together where the soil is more fertile, or switching seed varieties to match conditions in different parts of the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, the planter is following a pre-programmed \"prescription\" for each part of the field. \"It's all done on software,\" Quinn explains. \"It's loaded onto a thumb drive; you stick the thumb drive into this [GPS display], and when you drive across the field, it automatically knows where it is because of the GPS.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until now, all this information about his planting and harvest stayed in Quinn's hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this year, he's taking the next technological step, participating in an experimental version of the data-sharing system that Monsanto is rolling out commercially in the Midwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data will be transmitted directly from his tractor or combine into what computer people call \"the cloud,\" where it will land on Monsanto's computer servers. \"They're going to be able to see everything this [GPS] monitor does. So they're going to be able to look at my field all the time. They'll be able to look at my information, and they're going to just watch that field,\" Quinn says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monsanto thinks it can help farmers come up with the perfect prescription of seeds for their soil and weather because the company will have more data than any one farmer can collect or analyze. It will have more detailed soil maps and information from many other fields with similar soil conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76950\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/r4a029515_rrd-4-71b9d0f9346078abf1693c2d39440d734c388544.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/r4a029515_rrd-4-71b9d0f9346078abf1693c2d39440d734c388544-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Companies, like John Deere, that are collecting farmers' data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. Photo: Steve Dolan/Visual Services-East Moline\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-76950\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Companies, like John Deere, that are collecting farmers' data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. Photo: Steve Dolan/Visual Services-East Moline\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eventually, it will have field-by-field weather predictions from a high-tech venture called the Climate Corp., which Monsanto bought last year for $1 billion. (\u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/11/131111fa_fact_specter\">published\u003c/a> an interesting profile of the Climate Corp. last November.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've had people ask me, 'Why should Monsanto have all your information?' \" Quinn says. \"My theory is, if they have my information, and they're out there working with me, I'm hoping that they're going to bring me a better product. And them having my information doesn't bother me.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>John Deere, the big farm machinery company, is offering something similar in collaboration with other \u003ca href=\"http://www.pioneer.com/home/site/about/template.CONTENT/guid.0961DD8E-DA33-39A1-BE0C-5534326D35E2/\">big seed companies\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both companies are promoting this as a better version of what farmers do already. But the American Farm Bureau Federation is \u003ca href=\"http://ofbf.org/uploads/Proprietary_Information.pdf\">telling\u003c/a> its members: Be careful. This is different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mary Kay Thatcher, the farm bureau's senior director for congressional relations, says farmers should understand that when data move into the cloud, they can go anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For instance: Your local seed salesman might get the data, and he may also be a farmer — and thus your competitor, bidding against you for land that you both want to rent. \"All of a sudden he's got a whole lot of information about your capabilities,\" Thatcher says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or consider this: Companies that are collecting these data may be able to see how much grain is being harvested, minute by minute, from tens of thousands of fields. That's valuable information, Thatcher says. \"They could actually manipulate the market with it. They only have to know the information about what is actually happening with harvest minutes before somebody else knows it. I'm not saying they will,\" says Thatcher. \"Just a concern.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Monsanto and John Deere say that they'll share an individual farmer's data only with people whom that farmer wants to see the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In our mind, that data is just as important as a person's banking information,\" says Chris Batdorf, a manager with John Deere's Intelligent Solutions Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batdorf also says that his company won't use the overall, aggregated data — for instance, harvest totals from whole groups of farms — to play in commodity markets. \"John Deere will not do that,\" he says. \"We don't want to do anything with markets or forecasting with this data.\" A Monsanto spokesperson said the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many of the rules for how these data will be shared, and how they can be used, haven't been written yet. These data collection programs are just getting off the ground, and they're still evolving. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Whole Foods Bans Produce Grown With Sludge. But Who Wins?",
"title": "Whole Foods Bans Produce Grown With Sludge. But Who Wins?",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76896\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/wf_51950427_wide-327e60c65a4130217492b7586ccd1be9d85621e6.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/wf_51950427_wide-327e60c65a4130217492b7586ccd1be9d85621e6-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"A woman shops in the produce section at Whole Foods in New York City. The company recently announced it would prohibit produce farmed using biosolids in its stores. Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76896\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A woman shops in the produce section at Whole Foods in New York City. The company recently announced it would prohibit produce farmed using biosolids in its stores. Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/263370333/whole-foods-bans-produce-grown-with-sludge-but-who-wins\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/21/14) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you've ever shopped at Whole Foods, you've probably noticed that some of the foods it sells claim all kinds of health and environmental virtues. From its lengthy list of \u003ca href=\"http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/about-our-products/quality-standards/unacceptable-ingredients-food\">unacceptable ingredients for food\u003c/a> to its strict rules for how seafood is caught and meat is raised, the company sets a pretty high bar for what is permitted on its coveted shelves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Whole Foods is dictating what kind of fertilizer the farmers that grow its produce can use. Specifically, the company recently confirmed that the \u003ca href=\"http://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/news/produce-rating-release\">produce rating system\u003c/a> it's launching in September will prohibit produce farmed using sludge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sludge? This doesn't exactly sound like something you'd want near your food. Also known as biosolids, it's a type of fertilizer \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/07/182010827/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste\">made\u003c/a> from treated municipal waste and derived, in part, from poop. And though many farmers gladly accept sludge to enrich their soil, it's a product with a pretty big PR problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see, for several years now, a small group of activists has claimed that biosolids are toxic and full of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. They argue that when farmers use biosolids to nourish their soils, they're putting consumers at risk of getting sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But scientists who study sludge and waste experts say that this form of fertilizer actually delivers big environmental benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The de facto leader of the sludge opposition is \u003ca href=\"http://www.prwatch.org/users/4/john-stauber\">John Stauber\u003c/a>, author of the 1995 book \u003cem>Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, one of the three groups Stauber founded, the Center for Media and Democracy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/01/12359/whole-foods-agrees-stop-selling-produce-grown-sewage-sludge\">posted\u003c/a> an article cheering the Whole Foods decision and claiming credit for pressuring the company into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whole Foods spokeswoman Lindsay Robison tells The Salt that biosolids were banned in the name of transparency and being consistent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program, which doesn't allow the material on fields where any certified organic product is grown. But, she adds, the company's new biosolids ban won't actually impact any of the company's growers because, as far as the company knows, none of them use the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Rebekah Wilce of CMD, who wrote the article, Whole Foods' move is a victory for consumers. \"The assumption has been that biosolids are safe, but there's been very little scientific research on that,\" Wilce tells The Salt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually, as we \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/05/13/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste/\">reported\u003c/a> back in May, biosolids are heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and have been ever since the 1980s, when the agency cracked down on wastewater treatment facilities and what they could discharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the EPA developed the standards for biosolids, it identified the chemicals and metals that are the greatest risk to human health and the environment and set strict concentration limits on them. (As we recently \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/11/22/organic-farmers-bash-fda-restrictions-on-manure-use/\">reported\u003c/a>, the government has less strict standards for organic farmers who want to put untreated animal manure on their fields.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Wilce's group isn't happy with the standards for biosolids — she says they're insufficient. But when we asked for specific examples of facilities handing out biosolids with excessive amounts of dangerous chemicals or examples of people getting sick directly from them, Wilce did not supply us with any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.dcwater.com/about/management/peot.cfm\">Chris Peot\u003c/a>, director of resource recovery for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, argues that biosolids are actually a very safe material. His treatment plant has been turning the city's waste into biosolids since the 1990s, and giving them away to farmers in the mid-Atlantic to use as fertilizer. And he's confident that his bisolids don't pose a risk to anyone eating produce grown with them — because he's constantly testing them, per EPA rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our material is extremely clean, and the metals that are in there are at extremely low levels,\" Peot tells The Salt. \"There are trace amounts of flame retardants, but they're ubiquitous in the home now, where you're much more likely to be exposed to dangerous levels of them. Still, we need to be ever vigilant, and continue to look for new chemicals that might be risky, so we do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists and waste experts say there's actually a large net environmental benefit to farmers and gardeners recycling the material as a soil amendment. They say it returns valuable nutrients like nitrogen back to the land and keeps the sludge out of landfills and waterways. And even though the small group of activists has raised consumers' fears, scientists say that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that sludge is safe and useful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is a resource that's really undervalued,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/\">Sally Brown\u003c/a>, a soil scientist at the University of Washington who has been studying biosolids for over a decade. \"If you do the carbon accounting, you see that biosolids actually capture carbon, unlike synthetic fertilizer, which is what farmers would otherwise be using.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opposition to biosolids comes from the fact that people are still uncomfortable with any material made from human waste, even if it's been heavily processed and treated, Brown notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People have been taught that poop is dangerous and it makes you sick, and so they're suspicious of it,\" she says. \"And municipalities have done a terrible job of communicating what they do and what wastewater treatment really is.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So where does the Whole Foods ban come in?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Whole Foods,\" says Brown, \"made a business decision rather than a sustainability or environmentally based decision.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Whole Foods recently decided it would not buy produce from farmers who used treated sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, on their fields. But scientists say this is a mistake — the material is safe and benefits the environment in lots of different ways.",
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"description": "Whole Foods recently decided it would not buy produce from farmers who used treated sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, on their fields. But scientists say this is a mistake — the material is safe and benefits the environment in lots of different ways.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76896\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/wf_51950427_wide-327e60c65a4130217492b7586ccd1be9d85621e6.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/wf_51950427_wide-327e60c65a4130217492b7586ccd1be9d85621e6-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"A woman shops in the produce section at Whole Foods in New York City. The company recently announced it would prohibit produce farmed using biosolids in its stores. Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76896\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A woman shops in the produce section at Whole Foods in New York City. The company recently announced it would prohibit produce farmed using biosolids in its stores. Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/21/263370333/whole-foods-bans-produce-grown-with-sludge-but-who-wins\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/21/14) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you've ever shopped at Whole Foods, you've probably noticed that some of the foods it sells claim all kinds of health and environmental virtues. From its lengthy list of \u003ca href=\"http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/about-our-products/quality-standards/unacceptable-ingredients-food\">unacceptable ingredients for food\u003c/a> to its strict rules for how seafood is caught and meat is raised, the company sets a pretty high bar for what is permitted on its coveted shelves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Whole Foods is dictating what kind of fertilizer the farmers that grow its produce can use. Specifically, the company recently confirmed that the \u003ca href=\"http://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/news/produce-rating-release\">produce rating system\u003c/a> it's launching in September will prohibit produce farmed using sludge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sludge? This doesn't exactly sound like something you'd want near your food. Also known as biosolids, it's a type of fertilizer \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/07/182010827/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste\">made\u003c/a> from treated municipal waste and derived, in part, from poop. And though many farmers gladly accept sludge to enrich their soil, it's a product with a pretty big PR problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see, for several years now, a small group of activists has claimed that biosolids are toxic and full of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. They argue that when farmers use biosolids to nourish their soils, they're putting consumers at risk of getting sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But scientists who study sludge and waste experts say that this form of fertilizer actually delivers big environmental benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The de facto leader of the sludge opposition is \u003ca href=\"http://www.prwatch.org/users/4/john-stauber\">John Stauber\u003c/a>, author of the 1995 book \u003cem>Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, one of the three groups Stauber founded, the Center for Media and Democracy, \u003ca href=\"http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/01/12359/whole-foods-agrees-stop-selling-produce-grown-sewage-sludge\">posted\u003c/a> an article cheering the Whole Foods decision and claiming credit for pressuring the company into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whole Foods spokeswoman Lindsay Robison tells The Salt that biosolids were banned in the name of transparency and being consistent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program, which doesn't allow the material on fields where any certified organic product is grown. But, she adds, the company's new biosolids ban won't actually impact any of the company's growers because, as far as the company knows, none of them use the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Rebekah Wilce of CMD, who wrote the article, Whole Foods' move is a victory for consumers. \"The assumption has been that biosolids are safe, but there's been very little scientific research on that,\" Wilce tells The Salt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Actually, as we \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/05/13/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste/\">reported\u003c/a> back in May, biosolids are heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and have been ever since the 1980s, when the agency cracked down on wastewater treatment facilities and what they could discharge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the EPA developed the standards for biosolids, it identified the chemicals and metals that are the greatest risk to human health and the environment and set strict concentration limits on them. (As we recently \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2013/11/22/organic-farmers-bash-fda-restrictions-on-manure-use/\">reported\u003c/a>, the government has less strict standards for organic farmers who want to put untreated animal manure on their fields.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, Wilce's group isn't happy with the standards for biosolids — she says they're insufficient. But when we asked for specific examples of facilities handing out biosolids with excessive amounts of dangerous chemicals or examples of people getting sick directly from them, Wilce did not supply us with any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.dcwater.com/about/management/peot.cfm\">Chris Peot\u003c/a>, director of resource recovery for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, argues that biosolids are actually a very safe material. His treatment plant has been turning the city's waste into biosolids since the 1990s, and giving them away to farmers in the mid-Atlantic to use as fertilizer. And he's confident that his bisolids don't pose a risk to anyone eating produce grown with them — because he's constantly testing them, per EPA rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our material is extremely clean, and the metals that are in there are at extremely low levels,\" Peot tells The Salt. \"There are trace amounts of flame retardants, but they're ubiquitous in the home now, where you're much more likely to be exposed to dangerous levels of them. Still, we need to be ever vigilant, and continue to look for new chemicals that might be risky, so we do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists and waste experts say there's actually a large net environmental benefit to farmers and gardeners recycling the material as a soil amendment. They say it returns valuable nutrients like nitrogen back to the land and keeps the sludge out of landfills and waterways. And even though the small group of activists has raised consumers' fears, scientists say that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that sludge is safe and useful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is a resource that's really undervalued,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/\">Sally Brown\u003c/a>, a soil scientist at the University of Washington who has been studying biosolids for over a decade. \"If you do the carbon accounting, you see that biosolids actually capture carbon, unlike synthetic fertilizer, which is what farmers would otherwise be using.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The opposition to biosolids comes from the fact that people are still uncomfortable with any material made from human waste, even if it's been heavily processed and treated, Brown notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People have been taught that poop is dangerous and it makes you sick, and so they're suspicious of it,\" she says. \"And municipalities have done a terrible job of communicating what they do and what wastewater treatment really is.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So where does the Whole Foods ban come in?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Whole Foods,\" says Brown, \"made a business decision rather than a sustainability or environmentally based decision.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "California's Pot Farms Could Leave Salmon Runs Truly Smoked",
"title": "California's Pot Farms Could Leave Salmon Runs Truly Smoked",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/china-creek-mj-062-10-1d6539784c02d49c45b76f9115a37011044931cd.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/china-creek-mj-062-10-1d6539784c02d49c45b76f9115a37011044931cd-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"This dead juvenile coho salmon was found in a tributary of California's South Fork Eel River. About 20 large-scale marijuana farms are located upstream from the watershed pictured. All of them divert water from the stream. Photo: Courtesy Scott Bauer\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This dead juvenile coho salmon was found in a tributary of California's South Fork Eel River. About 20 large-scale marijuana farms are located upstream from the watershed pictured. All of them divert water from the stream. Photo: Courtesy Scott Bauer\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Alastair Bland, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260788863/californias-pot-farms-could-leave-salmon-runs-truly-smoked\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/13/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many users and advocates of marijuana, the boom in the West Coast growing industry may be all good and groovy. But in California, critics say the recent explosion of the marijuana industry along the state's North Coast — a region called the \"emerald triangle\" — could put a permanent buzz kill on struggling salmon populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem? According to critics, marijuana plantations guzzle enormous amounts of water while also spilling pesticides, fertilizers and stream-clogging sediments into waterways, including the Eel and the Klamath rivers, that have historically produced large numbers of Chinook salmon and related species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole North Coast is being affected by these pot growers,\" says Dave Bitts, a Humboldt County commercial fisherman and the president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pcffa.org/\">Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have nothing against people growing dope,\" he says, \"but if you do, we want you to grow your crop in a way that doesn't screw up fish habitat. There is no salmon-bearing watershed at this point that we can afford to sacrifice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growers of marijuana often withdraw water directly from small streams and use up to 6 gallons per day per plant during the summer growing season, says Scott Bauer, a fisheries biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When you have 20,000 or 30,000 plants in a watershed, that is a lot of water,\" Bauer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But marijuana growers are undeservedly taking the blame for a problem that is caused by all residents of the North Coast, argues Kristin Nevedal, a founding chairperson with the \u003ca href=\"ttp://www.emeraldgrowers.org/about/community/\">Emerald Growers Association\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's just so easy to point a finger at cannabis growers because it's a federally prohibited substance,\" she tells The Salt. \"The truth is, if you flush a toilet in the hills, you're a part of the problem.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Bauer, 24 tributaries of the Eel River — in which once-enormous spawning runs of Chinook salmon have nearly vanished — went completely dry in the summer of 2013. Each, Bauer says, was being used to irrigate pot farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, Bauer expects to see poor returns of Chinook and Coho salmon, as well as steelhead, in several years. While 2013 saw record-low precipitation in California, drought, Bauer says, is only part of the problem, and he still blames marijuana farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taking water from a stream isn't necessarily illegal, though it does usually require applying with the state for permission. Many farmers go this route, Bauer says. But of the estimated 4,000 pot growers in Humboldt County alone, \"maybe a couple have applied for\" water use permits, Bauer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marijuana plantations along the North Coast are proliferating. Bauer, who has closely studied Google Earth images of the area, estimates that acreage under pot cultivation doubled from 2009 to 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76395\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/potfarm_custom-8547de2d3289834e6497459ba024a6bcab84d937.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/potfarm_custom-8547de2d3289834e6497459ba024a6bcab84d937-1024x391.jpg\" alt=\"Left: A North Coast marijuana grow site in 2010, with nothing but a little white roofed structure. Right: The same site in 2012. Photo: Google Earth\" width=\"1024\" height=\"391\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76395\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A North Coast marijuana grow site in 2010, with nothing but a little white roofed structure. Right: The same site in 2012. Photo: Google Earth\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stormer Feiler, a scientist with California's North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, confirms the same: \"It's like the gold rush,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California's Chinook salmon fishery was canceled or shortened three years in a row beginning in 2008. This occurred following record-low spawning returns in the Sacramento River, one of the largest salmon-producing watersheds on the West Coast. The crash was blamed partly on agricultural overuse of the river's water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the \u003ca href=\"http://goldengatesalmonassociation.com/about-ggsa/\">Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/a>, a group based in San Francisco, has been advocating for more fish-friendly use of the river's water —especially limits on how much water can be pumped into farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, marijuana farms have emerged as an issue of increasing concern, says the association's executive director, John McManus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's not just the water they're taking out of the streams but the chemicals and nutrients they're putting into the water,\" McManus says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fertilizers that drain into rivers can cause floating carpets of algae to grow in the water. When these mats begin to decay, the breakdown process steals oxygen from the water, suffocating fish. Bauer has discovered pools full of dead adult Chinook salmon — fish full of eggs, he says, that had not yet spawned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As many as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/srnf/specialplaces/recarea/?recid=11551&actid=43%20\">half-million Chinook salmon\u003c/a> once spawned in the Eel River each year. By the 1950s, the fish were almost gone. Since then, the population has slightly rebounded, and several thousand Chinook now return to the Eel annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Greacen, the executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://eelriver.org/\">Friends of the Eel River\u003c/a>, warns that, unless pot growers are more closely regulated, some of California's North Coast salmon runs could be looking at extinction. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Marijuana cultivation is booming along the state's North Coast. But these plantations, critics say, guzzle enormous amounts of water while also spilling pesticides and fertilizers into waterways that are important sources of the West Coast's salmon species.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76394\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/china-creek-mj-062-10-1d6539784c02d49c45b76f9115a37011044931cd.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/china-creek-mj-062-10-1d6539784c02d49c45b76f9115a37011044931cd-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"This dead juvenile coho salmon was found in a tributary of California's South Fork Eel River. About 20 large-scale marijuana farms are located upstream from the watershed pictured. All of them divert water from the stream. Photo: Courtesy Scott Bauer\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76394\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This dead juvenile coho salmon was found in a tributary of California's South Fork Eel River. About 20 large-scale marijuana farms are located upstream from the watershed pictured. All of them divert water from the stream. Photo: Courtesy Scott Bauer\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Post by Alastair Bland, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260788863/californias-pot-farms-could-leave-salmon-runs-truly-smoked\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/13/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many users and advocates of marijuana, the boom in the West Coast growing industry may be all good and groovy. But in California, critics say the recent explosion of the marijuana industry along the state's North Coast — a region called the \"emerald triangle\" — could put a permanent buzz kill on struggling salmon populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The problem? According to critics, marijuana plantations guzzle enormous amounts of water while also spilling pesticides, fertilizers and stream-clogging sediments into waterways, including the Eel and the Klamath rivers, that have historically produced large numbers of Chinook salmon and related species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole North Coast is being affected by these pot growers,\" says Dave Bitts, a Humboldt County commercial fisherman and the president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pcffa.org/\">Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have nothing against people growing dope,\" he says, \"but if you do, we want you to grow your crop in a way that doesn't screw up fish habitat. There is no salmon-bearing watershed at this point that we can afford to sacrifice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growers of marijuana often withdraw water directly from small streams and use up to 6 gallons per day per plant during the summer growing season, says Scott Bauer, a fisheries biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When you have 20,000 or 30,000 plants in a watershed, that is a lot of water,\" Bauer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But marijuana growers are undeservedly taking the blame for a problem that is caused by all residents of the North Coast, argues Kristin Nevedal, a founding chairperson with the \u003ca href=\"ttp://www.emeraldgrowers.org/about/community/\">Emerald Growers Association\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's just so easy to point a finger at cannabis growers because it's a federally prohibited substance,\" she tells The Salt. \"The truth is, if you flush a toilet in the hills, you're a part of the problem.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Bauer, 24 tributaries of the Eel River — in which once-enormous spawning runs of Chinook salmon have nearly vanished — went completely dry in the summer of 2013. Each, Bauer says, was being used to irrigate pot farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, Bauer expects to see poor returns of Chinook and Coho salmon, as well as steelhead, in several years. While 2013 saw record-low precipitation in California, drought, Bauer says, is only part of the problem, and he still blames marijuana farmers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taking water from a stream isn't necessarily illegal, though it does usually require applying with the state for permission. Many farmers go this route, Bauer says. But of the estimated 4,000 pot growers in Humboldt County alone, \"maybe a couple have applied for\" water use permits, Bauer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marijuana plantations along the North Coast are proliferating. Bauer, who has closely studied Google Earth images of the area, estimates that acreage under pot cultivation doubled from 2009 to 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76395\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/potfarm_custom-8547de2d3289834e6497459ba024a6bcab84d937.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/potfarm_custom-8547de2d3289834e6497459ba024a6bcab84d937-1024x391.jpg\" alt=\"Left: A North Coast marijuana grow site in 2010, with nothing but a little white roofed structure. Right: The same site in 2012. Photo: Google Earth\" width=\"1024\" height=\"391\" class=\"size-large wp-image-76395\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: A North Coast marijuana grow site in 2010, with nothing but a little white roofed structure. Right: The same site in 2012. Photo: Google Earth\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stormer Feiler, a scientist with California's North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, confirms the same: \"It's like the gold rush,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California's Chinook salmon fishery was canceled or shortened three years in a row beginning in 2008. This occurred following record-low spawning returns in the Sacramento River, one of the largest salmon-producing watersheds on the West Coast. The crash was blamed partly on agricultural overuse of the river's water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the \u003ca href=\"http://goldengatesalmonassociation.com/about-ggsa/\">Golden Gate Salmon Association\u003c/a>, a group based in San Francisco, has been advocating for more fish-friendly use of the river's water —especially limits on how much water can be pumped into farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, marijuana farms have emerged as an issue of increasing concern, says the association's executive director, John McManus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's not just the water they're taking out of the streams but the chemicals and nutrients they're putting into the water,\" McManus says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fertilizers that drain into rivers can cause floating carpets of algae to grow in the water. When these mats begin to decay, the breakdown process steals oxygen from the water, suffocating fish. Bauer has discovered pools full of dead adult Chinook salmon — fish full of eggs, he says, that had not yet spawned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As many as a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/srnf/specialplaces/recarea/?recid=11551&actid=43%20\">half-million Chinook salmon\u003c/a> once spawned in the Eel River each year. By the 1950s, the fish were almost gone. Since then, the population has slightly rebounded, and several thousand Chinook now return to the Eel annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scott Greacen, the executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://eelriver.org/\">Friends of the Eel River\u003c/a>, warns that, unless pot growers are more closely regulated, some of California's North Coast salmon runs could be looking at extinction. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "This GMO Apple Won't Brown. Will That Sour The Fruit's Image?",
"title": "This GMO Apple Won't Brown. Will That Sour The Fruit's Image?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_76212\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/3306-2-84c22cdc79fc9e599fd91bfc7fe997c45619cb0b-e1389221903818.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/01/3306-2-84c22cdc79fc9e599fd91bfc7fe997c45619cb0b-e1389221903818.jpg\" alt=\"Soon after being sliced, a conventional Granny Smith apple (left) starts to brown, while a newly developed GM Granny Smith stays fresher looking. Photo courtesy of Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"size-full wp-image-76212\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Soon after being sliced, a conventional Granny Smith apple (left) starts to brown, while a newly developed GM Granny Smith stays fresher looking. Photo courtesy of Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260782518/this-gmo-apple-wont-brown-will-that-sour-the-fruits-image\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/01/20140108_atc_gmo_apple.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260782518/this-gmo-apple-wont-brown-will-that-sour-the-fruits-image\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/8/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you (or your children) turn up your nose at brown apple slices, would you prefer fresh-looking ones that have been genetically engineered?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neal Carter, president of \u003ca href=\"http://www.okspecialtyfruits.com/\">Okanagan Specialty Fruits\u003c/a>, in British Columbia, Canada, certainly hopes so. His company has created the new, non-browning, \u003ca href=\"http://www.arcticapples.com/\">\"Arctic\" apples\u003c/a>, and he's hoping for big orders from despairing parents and food service companies alike. Food service companies, he says, would no longer have to treat their sliced apples with antioxidant chemicals like calcium ascorbate to keep them looking fresh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost savings \"can be huge,\" he says. \"Right now, to make fresh-cut apple slices and put them in the bag, 35 or 40 percent of the cost is the antioxident treatment. So you could make a fresh-cut apple slice 30 percent cheaper.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new apples are waiting for approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But they face opposition — including from apple producers who worry that this new product will taint the apple's wholesome, all-natural image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our concern is marketing,\" says Christian Schlect, president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nwhort.org/\">Northwest Horticultural Council\u003c/a>, which represents apple growers in the major apple-producing areas of the Pacific Northwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlect sees a risk that consumers who are viscerally opposed to genetic engineering will avoid apples entirely, and the industry will have to spend precious time and money keeping GMO apples separate from their conventional cousins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The non-browning trait was created by inserting extra copies of genes that the apple already possessed. These genes normally create an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, which is responsible for the chemical reaction that causes browning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet when extra copies of the gene are added, the apple reacts by shutting down all of them, stopping production of the enzyme and preventing the browning reaction. (Like any apple, these apples eventually will go brown from normal rotting. It's the immediate \"enzymatic browning\" that's blocked.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okanagan Specialty Fruits licensed this technique from the Australian research institute where it was first discovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, there are non-browning versions of Golden Delicious and Granny Smith apples. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed Okanagan Specialty Fruits to produce them in test plots covering a few acres in the states of New York and Washington. Carter says his company now is working to put the trait in Fuji and Gala apples, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USDA has studied the apple and released a \u003ca href=\"http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2012-0025-1937\">preliminary conclusion\u003c/a> that Arctic apples are pretty much as harmless as conventional ones. That assessment is now open for public comment, and thousands of people have taken advantage of the opportunity — most of them fiercely opposed to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if the USDA approved the apples within a few months, as Carter hopes, it would take several years before commercial quantities of non-browning apples could show up in grocery stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okanagan Specialty Fruits does not plan to grow large quantities of apples itself. It will license its variety to commercial growers, charging them a one-time fee of $1,500 per acre of trees. Carter says this is comparable to the license fees that growers currently pay for the right to produce patented varieties such as Gala or Fuji.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter is convinced that most consumers will be curious to try the apple. The company conducted focus groups in four U.S. cities, from San Francisco to Raleigh, N.C. The company showed consumers the apple, explained that it was genetically engineered, and asked them, \"Would you buy it?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Typically, it's about 80-20,\" says Carter. \"80 percent say, 'Fantastic, bring it on.' And 20 percent say, 'Hmm. I don't think I like genetic engineering.' But they all eat it. Even if they were a nay-sayer that was never going to eat any GM fruit, they will eat a slice. It's not like we have to ask them to eat a slice. They will ask if they can eat a slice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter thinks it may be more difficult convincing grocery stores to stock the new apple. Even if only a minority of their customers are viscerally opposed to it, grocery stores are risk-averse, and don't want to drive away any business at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A small Canadian company has created a genetically engineered apple that doesn't go brown when you slice it. It's waiting for approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But some apple producers are worried that this new product will taint the apple's wholesome, all-natural image.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/143160021/daniel-charles\">Dan Charles\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260782518/this-gmo-apple-wont-brown-will-that-sour-the-fruits-image\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (1/8/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you (or your children) turn up your nose at brown apple slices, would you prefer fresh-looking ones that have been genetically engineered?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neal Carter, president of \u003ca href=\"http://www.okspecialtyfruits.com/\">Okanagan Specialty Fruits\u003c/a>, in British Columbia, Canada, certainly hopes so. His company has created the new, non-browning, \u003ca href=\"http://www.arcticapples.com/\">\"Arctic\" apples\u003c/a>, and he's hoping for big orders from despairing parents and food service companies alike. Food service companies, he says, would no longer have to treat their sliced apples with antioxidant chemicals like calcium ascorbate to keep them looking fresh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost savings \"can be huge,\" he says. \"Right now, to make fresh-cut apple slices and put them in the bag, 35 or 40 percent of the cost is the antioxident treatment. So you could make a fresh-cut apple slice 30 percent cheaper.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new apples are waiting for approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But they face opposition — including from apple producers who worry that this new product will taint the apple's wholesome, all-natural image.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our concern is marketing,\" says Christian Schlect, president of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nwhort.org/\">Northwest Horticultural Council\u003c/a>, which represents apple growers in the major apple-producing areas of the Pacific Northwest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schlect sees a risk that consumers who are viscerally opposed to genetic engineering will avoid apples entirely, and the industry will have to spend precious time and money keeping GMO apples separate from their conventional cousins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The non-browning trait was created by inserting extra copies of genes that the apple already possessed. These genes normally create an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, which is responsible for the chemical reaction that causes browning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet when extra copies of the gene are added, the apple reacts by shutting down all of them, stopping production of the enzyme and preventing the browning reaction. (Like any apple, these apples eventually will go brown from normal rotting. It's the immediate \"enzymatic browning\" that's blocked.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okanagan Specialty Fruits licensed this technique from the Australian research institute where it was first discovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, there are non-browning versions of Golden Delicious and Granny Smith apples. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed Okanagan Specialty Fruits to produce them in test plots covering a few acres in the states of New York and Washington. Carter says his company now is working to put the trait in Fuji and Gala apples, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The USDA has studied the apple and released a \u003ca href=\"http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2012-0025-1937\">preliminary conclusion\u003c/a> that Arctic apples are pretty much as harmless as conventional ones. That assessment is now open for public comment, and thousands of people have taken advantage of the opportunity — most of them fiercely opposed to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if the USDA approved the apples within a few months, as Carter hopes, it would take several years before commercial quantities of non-browning apples could show up in grocery stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okanagan Specialty Fruits does not plan to grow large quantities of apples itself. It will license its variety to commercial growers, charging them a one-time fee of $1,500 per acre of trees. Carter says this is comparable to the license fees that growers currently pay for the right to produce patented varieties such as Gala or Fuji.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter is convinced that most consumers will be curious to try the apple. The company conducted focus groups in four U.S. cities, from San Francisco to Raleigh, N.C. The company showed consumers the apple, explained that it was genetically engineered, and asked them, \"Would you buy it?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Typically, it's about 80-20,\" says Carter. \"80 percent say, 'Fantastic, bring it on.' And 20 percent say, 'Hmm. I don't think I like genetic engineering.' But they all eat it. Even if they were a nay-sayer that was never going to eat any GM fruit, they will eat a slice. It's not like we have to ask them to eat a slice. They will ask if they can eat a slice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carter thinks it may be more difficult convincing grocery stores to stock the new apple. Even if only a minority of their customers are viscerally opposed to it, grocery stores are risk-averse, and don't want to drive away any business at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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},
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"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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