Encomium for the USDA and the glory of the DC/Baltimore foodworld!

(Other than being a good word for freerice.com, encomium denotes a song of praise.)

Just in time for a perfect week of spring weather, I visited DC (my hometown) and Baltimore to walk up and down the Mall, visit the Department of Agriculture (USDA), talk to restaurants in love with transparency, take pictures of markets, and explore the food changes that have happened to my town in the past 7 years (since I left).

It was a dizzying week because the food world in the capital area has exploded. Farm to fork restaurants are sourcing from a myriad of new and vibrant farmers markets, rooftop gardens are supplying veggies to restaurants across the street — fed by compost from the very restaurants, and the USDA not only hosts a farmers market onsite — they shared the locations of all markets nationwide.

I began the week talking to Amanda Eamich, Director of New Media at the USDA. Eamich was able to highlight and share several of the tools the USDA has provided to help inform policy and the public. The Economic Research Service (ERS) section of the USDA has built two amazing online tools to help pinpoint food availability and broader “determinants of food choices and diet quality.” The Food Desert Locator shows all areas in the country that are more than 1 kilometer from a source of healthy food — you might be surprised at certain locations. The Food Environment Atlas enables you to view on a map a plethora of food choice determinants. Factors such as the 2008 sales tax from soda vending machines, the 2009 low-income preschool obesity rate, or the 2006 relative price ratio of green-leafy veggies to starchy veggies each jostle for your attention in this captivating tool.

Not only is Eamich working with those two tools, she works with the blog. That is right, the USDA has a blog. And what a blog it is. As the tagline says: “United States Department of Agriculture: Reaching Out, Every Day in Every Way.” There are updates about the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign, the People’s Garden expansion to overseas, Chef’s Move to Schools, ‘Know your Farmer, Know your Food’, and even what Smokey Bear has been up to. I walked away feeling our government has truly a vertiginous collection of disparate programs and initiatives all designed to provide access and education around healthier food in “every way.”

The next four days were a whirlwind of visiting restaurants in DC and Baltimore. Chef Rob Weland of Poste Moderne Brasserie showed me his courtyard garden in the Hotel Monaco — where you are literally eating next to a tomato plant growing in a pot. Chef Spike Gjerd of Woodberry Kitchen gave me a tour of his kitchens, including the sausage aging room (all butchered and made in house, naturally) and the wall of in house preserves (the last of the 2000 pounds of tomatoes from 2010 and the first jars of 2011 ramps in evidence). Chef Winston Blick of Clementine spoke of providing compost to Hamilton Crop Circle - a rooftop garden across the street - that, in turn, returns vegetables to his customers. I met with Nic Jammet, one of the founders of Sweetgreen, a sustainable build your own salad/yogurt phenomena that has rocketed to ten locations in the last 3 ½ years. I look forward to attending their Sweetlife Festival next May.

When not gawking at menus I was able to visit two farmers markets in the middle of town — and I mean in the middle of town. One is 3 blocks from the Mall and the other is 3 blocks from the White House — producer only, crowded, and diverse (orchids, wood fired pizza, and the first strawberries of the season - glorious). Thank you FRESHFARM for your great work creating pedestrian villages in downtown DC.

My last day started with a meeting with Debra Tropp and her team of committed farmers market devotees in the Farmers Market and Direct Marketing Research Division of the USDA. Food Tech Connect recently posted a great article describing the need and uses for the Farmers Market Directory in a conversation with Tropp. As a former farmers’ market manager, I remember last year feeling honored and vindicated to fill out the survey to populate the directory. I was doing something important when the government asked me the number of people who came to the market or whether we accepted Bridge Cards — my little stretch of pavement 18 weeks of the year became part of something large and meaningful.

Little did I know my 15 minutes filling out the survey would be transformed into a resource available to the world. The information in the Farmers Market Directory is what first populated Real Time Farms database of markets.

The cherry on my Sundae week was meeting with Gretchen Hoffman of the American Farmland Trust - the vanguard group who worked in the 1980s to create and implement conservation easements for farmland. A few years ago, Hoffman spearheaded the America's Favorite Farmers Market Contest, voting starts June 1st!

A week of good food, good company, and good learnings - what more could one want?

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!

(I would also like to appreciate Wendy Wasserman of the USDA, without her help and good sharings my week would have been very different.)

Who knew? I am a domestic terrorist for taking pictures of farms.

"Have you heard about the Slow Food campaign? They are urging supporters to send in pictures of farms to protest against the Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota bills that would make it illegal to take a picture or a video of a farm. They are calling it the farmarazzi campaign." Two weeks ago, I am sharing the news with a fellow breakfast diner at a noisy table at SELMA Breakfast Salon.

"I don't like to hear the word Nazi, that word upsets me."

Nazi, how did we get to Nazi? I am talking about a photo campaign to protest bills, not gassing trainloads of children and systemic fear mongering by the state.

"Oh no, you misheard, I don't like that word either," I slow down and raise my voice, "fffaaarrrmarazzi. Like paparazzi, but farm-a-razzi."

Two weeks later, Slow Food USA has collected more than 33,000 signatures for their campaign, 450 pictures of farms, the legislation has been "indefinitely postponed" in Florida, and Slow Food continues to collect pictures and signatures - urging supporters to contact legislatures.

I recently asked Jerusha Klemperer from Slow Food USA what prompted them to start the farmarazzi campaign in the first place. Klemperer shared, "We first noticed this legislation after it was covered on NPR, and then saw the coverage and concern grow... A well-managed farm should have nothing to hide. Slow Food has always been about connecting producers and consumers so that each can understand each other and build a relationship."

Prompted by Slow Food's campaign, and Klemperer's sentiments, I set about trying to understand more. I became curious as to where this legislation came from. I couldn't stop wondering why three states would all propose the same type of legislation, at the same time, with very similar words.

In the last decade, there seems to be a growing trend to represent animal activists as terrorists. The Ag-Gag bills, as described by Mark Bittman, are the latest addition to this trend. Let us explore the trend and the history that got us here.

In 2003, the FBI received their audit from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General that stated:

Consider transferring responsibility for investigating crimes committed by environmental, animal rights, and other domestic radical groups or individuals from the Counterterrorism Division to the Criminal Investigative Division, except where a domestic group or individual uses or seeks to use explosives or weapons of mass destruction to cause mass casualties.

Thank you, Will Potter of Green is the New Red, for bringing this to my attention. (You can read the full audit here.)

The recommendation states that in 2003 animal right "radical groups" are being investigated under the "Counterterrorism Division." In a March 2008 Fox News article entitled FBI: Eco-Terrorism Remains No. 1 Domestic Terror Threat, it is argued that "for years, officials have battled against members of shadowy groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and its brother-in-arms, the Animal Liberation Front. Law enforcement has made strides prosecuting cells."

Where is the line between domestic activism and terrorism? To the FBI it is a narrow (perhaps invisible) line. A May 2011 Wall Street Journal's opinion piece speaks to the seeming disparity of having an animal activist rub elbows with mass murderers in the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Terrorists" list. But the FBI is just following the legislative lead from Congress.

In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was passed to "provide the Department of Justice the necessary authority to apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals committing animal enterprise terror... for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The law specifically states that it shall not be construed "to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from prohibition by the First Amendment of the Constitution."

Words have power. The word "terror" is terrifying and our government seems happy to use it often.

Yet for someone working in an animal testing facility I can understand that it would be horrible to have your office bombed. It would be mind-numbingly awful to have insulting slogans painted on your car or home, a total invasion of your sense of security (read here about activities and arrest of 7 activists targeting one of the largest animal testing laboratories in the UK courtesy of The Guardian).

Is terrorism just "mass destruction"? What constitutes mass? More than 100 people in an office? 30 animal testing labs? 5 factory farms with 40,000 birds? This is a quagmire. Our latest addition to the "animal activist = terrorist" trend are the Ag-Gag Bills proposed in Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.

According to my lawyer friends, the argument in support of the Ag-Gag bills is this. I apply to work in a chicken farm. I take pictures or a video of animals being cruelly mistreated. I post the video on my website. Consumers are so disgusted by what they see that they stop purchasing eggs from that farm and someone breaks in to the facility to free the chickens.

Sharing the information I found gives others a reason to act. I am facilitating criminal activities even though it is not my intent. I have then committed "animal facility interference" (as defined by the Minnesota Ag-Gag Bill, House File No. 1369) and the loss of revenue and potential threat of theft is certainly "interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" according to AETA. The Iowa Ag-Gag Bill, Senate Fill No. 431 states this conspiracy relationship clearly:

A person who participates in a conspiracy to commit the offense of animal facility tampering, and who acts in furtherance of that commission, is guilty of the same offense as the person convicted of committing the offense on or in the animal facility.

In April 2010, the Humane Society posted a video they had created by going undercover at two chicken farms using the same methods I outlined above. It is a very disturbing video (here is the link if you want to see it) and it would be illegal under these proposed bills.

John Maday, managing editor the nation's oldest monthly livestock magazine Drovers, argued in February 2011 in response to the proposed Ag-Gag legislation that:

We need more transparency in agricultural production. In reality, the vast majority of livestock operations are well-managed, with owners and workers adhering to high standards of animal care. Consumers do want to know more about their food and where it comes from, and when they have a chance to see and experience modern livestock production first-hand, they typically come away with positive impressions.

For farmers and ranchers, the focus should not be on legislation or other means of concealing their production practices. Instead, they should engage the public with a policy of transparency.

Thank you Slow Food USA for bringing this to my attention and for your campaign. Thank you John Maday for your belief in "a policy of transparency" for our farms. Thank goodness I am not the only observer of this trend not sure we are heading in the right direction.

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!