The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.

12/18: Lake County News Chronicle. Ramping Down the Toxins We Eat

12/17: Minnesota Independent. Two Minnesota Groups Concerned About Vilsack as Ag Secretary

12/17: Bloomberg. Agriculture Secretary Pick Vilsack to Face Farm Bill, Ethanol

12/16: The Nation. Obama's Food and Farm Appointment.

12/16: Ashville Citizen-Times. Ramping Down the Toxins We Eat

12/10: Agence France Presse. WTO Wants Doha for Christmas

12/09: MinnPost. Project Aims to Help African Immigrants in Rural Minnesota

12/06. Fergus Falls Daily Journal. Blue Cross Foundation Commissions McDougall to Create Leadership Award

12/04. Twin Cities Daily Planet. Reaching Out to African Immigrants in Rural Minnesota

12/04. WCCO Radio. Making School Lunch Healthier

12/03. MShale. Agency Reaches Out to African Farmers in Rural Minnesota

12/03. Star Tribune. Our Hungry Planet: A Time of Want

11/24: SUNS. Commodity Market Speculation Played Major Role in Food Crisis

11/23: Minnesota Daily. U Researchers Try to Make Fuel from Sludge

11/22: Times-Herald. Concepts of Community, Farming Formed in Newnan

New Secretary of Agriculture Face's Big Challenge

President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack must quickly shift the agency's focus toward stabilizing volatile agriculture commodity prices, improving market competition, supporting sustainable farming systems and encouraging the production of healthier food.

"As Iowa's Governor, Vilsack has shown a fairly conventional perspective on agriculture, particularly related to biotechnology and the siting of factory farms that seems to indicate a status quo approach," said IATP President Jim Harkness. "But these are unconventional times, and with his charge to implement the national vision for agriculture of President-elect Obama, he has an opportunity to address the concerns of farmers big and small, organic and conventional - and consumers, as well as environmental challenges facing the country."

You can read more of IATP's response to the Vilsack announcement in our press release. Prior to the announcement, IATP's Jim Harkness, along with others like Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Marion Nestle, Bill McKibben, Wes Jackson and Alice Waters, signed a letter to President-elect Obama calling for a Secretary of Agriculture who will play a role in "revitalizing our rural economies, protecting our nation's food supply and our environment, improving human health and well-being, rescuing the independent family farmer, and creating a sustainable renewable energy future." Over 55,000 people signed on to the letter.

Healthy Toys for the Holidays

To help parents as the holiday season approaches, the environmental health coalition Healthy Toys released their second annual consumer guide of toxic chemicals in toys. Researchers tested over 1,500 toys for lead, cadmium, arsenic, chlorine and other harmful chemicals. One in three of the toys tested contained "medium" or "high" levels of chemicals of concern.

Earlier this year, Congress restricted lead and toxic phthalates in toys beginning in early 2009. "While these reforms are a step in the right direction, they do not go nearly far enough," said IATP Senior Policy Analyst and Healthy Legacy Co-Director Kathleen Schuler. "When it comes to protecting the health of our children, we shouldn't take any chances."

Healthy Legacy is working in Minnesota for the phase out of phthalates and other known toxic chemicals in common consumer products.

Update: IATP Board on Obama and U.S. Relations with the World

In November, IATP's international board members spoke to a packed house about how the new Obama administration could positively re-engage with the world. We recently posted short video commentaries from the evening by IATP Board Chair Dr. Arie van den Brand, former member of the Dutch parliament and President of Biologica; Dr. Candido Grzybowski of the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), Brazil; Mika Iba of the National Coalition for Safe Food and the Environment, Japan; Dr. Joseph Rocher of the European Network of Food and Agriculture NGOs (RONGEAD), France; and Stephen Shrybman, international trade lawyer, Canada. View the short commentaries and the larger program at IATP's homepage.

Global Climate Talks Advance

Climate change and agriculture are inextricably linked. Climate change has already caused a negative impact on food production and hunger in many parts of the world because of increasingly severe weather patterns. The Food and Agriculture Organization warns that an increase in average global temperatures of just two to four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels could reduce crop yields by 15-35 percent in Africa and western Asia, and by 25-35 percent in the Middle East. Current industrial agricultural practices also exacerbate climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that agriculture contributes 13.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite the clear links between agriculture and climate change, agriculture is not currently on the agenda of global climate talks to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol. In December 2008, countries met in Poznan, Poland to set the agenda for the expected conclusion of global climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. To help make the connection between climate change and agriculture, IATP has pulled together two new literature reviews. "A Changing Climate for Food and Agriculture" looks at the latest research on the interaction between climate and agriculture, trade, global food security and climate-friendly food production. "Local Foods and Climate Change" examines the science on how different food systems and production methods affect climate change. IATP's Anne Laure Constantin traveled to Poznan, Poland for the United Nations Climate Change Conference and blogged on the latest developments.

NAFTA's Challenge

During the 2008 election, President-elect Barack Obama promised to re-negotiate some sections of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In a new article appearing in the Peace Journal, IATP's Dennis Olson makes the case for renegotiating NAFTA under a food sovereignty lens. Olson writes, "To understand NAFTA's effect on all three countries, one need only look at the mobilizations in the streets of Mexico over job losses in the countryside and growing food insecurity; the ghost towns in the rural areas of the U.S. and Canada, where fewer farmers are left to till the land; the hundreds of thousands of people crossing the Mexican-U.S. border every year because they cannot support themselves at home; and the growing number of food safety scandals and food price hikes."

Olson writes that a renegotiation of NAFTA in support of food sovereignty would include: rules to protect the livelihoods of family farmers and to promote domestic food systems; a ban on export dumping; a promotion of supply and inventory management mechanisms; strong antitrust regulation; and substantial public investment toward small-scale farming. Read the full article.

A Rights-based Approach to Global Crises

The combination of financial, food, energy and climate crises requires a new approach based on human rights, argues the international Social Watch coalition in its 2008 report. IATP's Alexandra Spieldoch co-authored the U.S. chapter of the report, which covers 59 countries. The report shows how the pervasiveness of extreme poverty and gender inequity is intimately linked to the immediate effects of the current triple crisis and to longer term structural issues ingrained in the global financial architecture. The report documents the widespread, haphazard implementation of policies promoting economic liberalization and deregulation that have provoked the curtailment of peoples' economic and social rights around the globe.

In November, IATP, the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and the FoodFirst International Action Network hosted civil society groups from around the world in Geneva to explore the effect of trade and investment on the human right to food. You can read four papers related to the meeting and listen to audio recordings of presentations at our Global Food Challenge site.

Global Food Safety Monitor

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has identified food safety as one of the top issues of urgent priority for the Obama administration. In the latest issue of the Global Food Safety Monitor, IATP's Steve Suppan covers the big food safety stories affecting the world, including World Trade Organization efforts to assess private standards set by big food retailers, low morale at Europe's top food safety authority, the latest on the melamine tragedy, meat contamination in Canada and blocked imports from Mexico. Subscribe to the Global Food Safety Monitor.

10 Steps to Tackling the Toxic Table

"Rising prices and food recalls have exposed the myriad challenges facing our global food system," writes IATP's David Wallinga, M.D. in a new commentary. "Signs of an emerging crisis: melamine in baby formula and candies; a rise in obesity and diet-related diseases; air and water pollution from factory farms; and the record-sized 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico, caused in large part by natural gas-derived corn fertilizers flowing from the Mississippi. And we are likely heading for more changes because our industrialized food system relies on costly and polluting fossil fuels, used intensively in the form of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers as well as for transporting food around the world."

Despite these challenges, Dr. Wallinga gives us 10 steps we can all take to steer our global food system in a healthier direction. Find out what you can do!

Expanding Local Foods in Minnesota

IATP has received a grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation to promote healthier eating and to help improve the health of Minnesotans. IATP will work with the University of Minnesota Local Foods Commission to build a conceptual framework, shared vision, and multi-sector blueprint for long-term development of a local and regional food system. IATP will also partner with the Minnesota School Nutrition Association to expand the use of local food in school cafeterias across the state, and will work with corner stores to expand the availability of fresh produce in underserved neighborhoods. Lastly, IATP will plan for the adoption of urban agriculture strategies in Minneapolis that enable communities to grow and consume food produced in their own neighborhoods.

"There is a growing recognition of the link between what we eat and our health," says JoAnne Berkenkamp, Director of IATP's Local Foods program. "There is a lot of energy and demand out there for fresh, healthy and locally grown foods. Now we need to take the next big step by making healthier food more accessible to everyone in our community."

Hospitals Supporting Local, Sustainable Food Production

Dr. Preston Maring, founder of Kaiser Permanente's first on-site farmers market, made time on a recent trip to the Midwest to speak to a packed audience of hospital representatives, public health advocates, food service contractors, and government employees on the importance of hospitals supporting local and sustainable food production. The event, billed as "Good Food, Good Medicine-The Kaiser Permanente Story" was hosted by Allina Hospitals and Clinics and Health Care Without Harm, and organized by IATP staffer Marie Kulick.

Dr. Maring is Associate Physician-in-Chief of Kaiser Permanente's Oakland Medical Center. Kaiser Permanente is the largest HMO in the U.S., with outpatient facilities in nine states and the District of Columbia, and 30 medical centers located in California, Oregon and Hawaii. Kaiser has started more than 25 farmers markets at its facilities nationwide, piloted a program to link employees with community-supported agriculture farms, and started purchasing and serving local produce from family farms on patient trays at all 19 facilities in northern California. For more on Dr. Maring's work (including recipes he's developed to give patients and staff ideas for how to prepare seasonal farmers market items), visit his Web site. Learn more about Health Care Without Harm's Healthy Food in Health Care project at their Web site.

IATP's David Wallinga Awarded Prestigious National Fellowship

IATP is proud to announce that Food and Health Program Director David Wallinga, M.D. has been named a Distinguished Fellow by the William T. Grant Foundation, which aims to improve the lives of America's children. The fellowship gives already influential practitioners and policymakers the opportunity to work and be mentored in research settings with the long-term goal of bridging the gap between high quality research, policy and practice.

Dr. Wallinga will be collaborating with Dr. Mary Story of the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. Dr. Story is a world-renowned authority on healthy eating and obesity prevention in children, and director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Healthy Eating Research Program. "We need the best science informing the best policies," said Wallinga. "As we look to rebuild the nation's food system so that it can keep America and its children healthy, this project will allow us to get to know the nation's top researchers and their cutting edge work." More details are at the William T. Grant Foundation Web site.

IATP Leading Food and Society Policy Fellows

The Food and Society Policy Fellows program provides communications support and policy training to leaders who are building sustainable, equitable and healthy food systems. The program was jointly launched in 2001 by the Jefferson Institute and IATP, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. On December 1, the program's home shifted to IATP, as the Jefferson Institute returned to its core mission of agriculture education and crop diversification. The Fellows program has been supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Fair Food Foundation and the Woodcock Foundation.

The program is designed to help sustainable food experts use mass media channels to inform and shape the public agenda. Fellows come from many disciplines: chefs, farmers, nutritionists, journalists, activists, public health professionals, fishers, policy experts and academics. Together, they work to affect local, regional and national policy through strategic communication efforts. The first fellowship class started in September 2001. Classes have ranged in size from 8 to 12 fellows, with a total of 63 selected fellows over the last seven years.

IATP's Mark Muller took over as Director of the Fellows program and is excited about its future. "We have some of the nation's top leaders on food, agriculture, public health and social justice as part of this program," said Muller. "In recent years sustainable food systems have emerged as an important and growing component of the food sector. The Fellows are building on this momentum and promoting a fresher, healthier, more sustainable and more equitable food system than what currently exists."

Peace Coffee Reports from Peru and Ethiopia

IATP's 100 percent fair trade and organic coffee company, Peace Coffee, has been on the road the last few months meeting with coffee growers around the world. Last month, Head Roaster Keith Tomlinson reported on his trip from Peru, where he met with Cenfrocafe and Cepicafe farmer cooperatives. You can read more about his experience here. Next month, Peace Coffee's director Lee Wallace will report on her meeting with Ethiopian coffee farmers. You can get the latest on Peace Coffee at their web site.

Become a Fan of IATP on Facebook

Now you can keep up with IATP on Facebook! Visit our page, become a fan and stay on top of the latest IATP happenings.

What's New on IATP's Think Forward Blog

IATP staff have been blogging on the global climate meeting in Poland, commodity speculation and food safety at IATP's Think Forward blog. You can subscribe to Think Forward through RSS and get your regular dose of IATP.

Radio Sustain on Climate Justice, Sustainable Agriculture and Financial Markets

In the latest issue of IATP's Radio Sustain podcast, hear from Dr. Cecilia Martinez on the intersection of social justice, climate and energy issues, Mark Muller on how price volatility undermines sustainable agriculture and Dr. Steve Suppan on how speculation has contributed to the global food crisis.

You can subscribe to Radio Sustain through RSS or iTunes.

Support IATP and Make a Difference in the World Today!

IATP works hard to keep family farmers on their land, to ensure the safety of our food supply and to preserve biodiversity and the environment for future generations. We cannot do this work without you. Please join us in our work of advocating for fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Click here to make a donation. If you have additional questions about supporting IATP, please contact Kate Hoff at 612-870-3404 or khoff@iatp.org or Anne Walters at 612-870-3408 or awalters@iatp.org. Thank you!

IATP News is an occasional publication reporting on recent events and activities at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). It is sent to board members, supporters, partners and friends. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
Jim Harkness, President
2105 First Avenue South Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404 USA
Tel. 1 (612) 870-0453 Fax. 1 (612) 870-4846
Email: iatp@iatp.org Web: iatp.org