Who's Driving the Tractor? A look at the US Government's Power Players with respect to Food

I'm launching a new project. I'll be taking a look at who is in power in our government with respect to food. After watching The Future of Food last night I was both intrigued and disturbed by the deep connections most of our government's people in power have with large agribusiness companies. My findings will appear as a series on this blog. My hope is to help bring to light some of the egregious conflicts of interest as well as identify potential allies in our collective fight to protect our food supply! More to come soon!

The global organic food and beverages market is expected to grow from $57.2 billion in 2010 to $104.5 billion in 2015 at an estimated CAGR of 12.8%.

Worlwide sales of orgnaic foods and beverages - from all categories - will increase in next 5 years.

Demand for organic food and beverages is increasing in conventional food supply stores because of development of private labels and increasing interest of large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, and Safeway to sell organic products. The organic food and beverages market is also expected to benefit from subsidies, financial aids, and R&D programs conducted by different government and non-government organizations such as FiBL (Switzerland), APEDA (India) and USDA (U.S.) to support conventional farmers to switch to organic farming.

Two things caught my eye. First, the verification that the orgnaic food movement is more than just a flashy trend. It is an economic vote on a global scale that is changing the way farmers produce food and how governments promote agricultural production worlwide.

The second thing that caught my eye was the assumption at the end of the paragraph - that the USDA would continue programs to support conventional farmers converting to organic. In light of recent proposed budget cuts in the 2011 federal budget to programs in the USDA that support organic farming as well as the recent deregulation of several GMO crops, will these predictions materialize? Will our US farmers be able to keep pace with the growing global demand, especially those in Europe and Asia, for organically produced food? At a time when Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack claims to be putting the foot on the gas to grow and promote our agricultural products in the global market place (see remarks made at the Agricultural Outlook Forum 2011) are the USDA's own policies placing an obstacle in the threshold?

We are going to continue to strike down barriers, continue to work hard in international forums to make sure that we support a science-based effort. So we're not going to take the foot off the gas in terms of trade and exports. We're going to focus on making sure that there's a greater acceptance and appreciation of some of the science that will allow not just American farmers to be more productive but the world's farmers to be more productive. There has to be an embracing in all parts of the globe of the opportunities that science presents to increase productivity worldwide.  - Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack

In the recent decision in favor of deregulating GMO alfalpha, for example, Vilsack weighed in against scientific evidence demonstrating inevitable cross-contamination of GMO alfalpha with non-GMO, putting at risk one of the key crops for all of organic animal and dairy production in the US. Or is this a red flag that sustainable and organic food production is not seen as "science-based", a signal to large agribusiness that we will be moving increasingly down the road of genetic modification and chemical treatment of our food system in the name of feeding the world?

For full report on economic trends go to MarketsandMarkets: Global Organic Food And Beverages Market Worth $ 104.50 Billion By 2015

Will We Be Able to Feed The World?

The 9 billion-people question - The world’s population will grow from almost 7 billion now to over 9 billion in 2050. John Parker asks if there will be enough food to go round

New in-depth report by the Economist exploring food production.

At the start of 2011 the food industry is in crisis. World food prices have risen above the peak they reached in early 2008 (see chart 2). That was a time when hundreds of millions of people fell into poverty, food riots were shaking governments in dozens of developing countries, exporters were banning grain sales abroad and “land grabs” carried out by rich grain-importing nations in poor agricultural ones were raising awkward questions about how best to help the poor.

This time, too, there have been export bans, food riots, panic buying and emergency price controls, just as in 2007-08. Fears that drought might ruin the current wheat crop in China, the world’s largest, are sending shock waves through world markets. Discontent over rising bread prices has played a part in the popular uprisings throughout the Middle East. There are differences between the periods, but the fact that agriculture has experienced two big price spikes in under four years suggests that something serious is rattling the world’s food chain.